The MxU Podcast

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Unknown
Well, we're here at Heart and Soul Church, Knoxville, Tennessee, man. Yeah. Little hometown doing those watching. Yeah. You may see Spencer and I sitting in a different location other than the studio. We thought. Spencer, I think it was your idea. It was my idea. Yeah. Let's go, let's go. Let's take this show on the road. Let's introduce some churches.

00:00:53:16 - 00:01:19:20
Unknown
Hang out in churches. What was your. What's your heart? Here's the tension. Here's the tension. Dillon and I could sit in a room for years and talk about the same thing over and over again. And still say nothing and still say nothing. No, I mean, it's just I think we want this podcast to be ultimately helpful. And yeah, I think the way that people learn is by, I think, a way that people like to learn, I should say, in this community, is by others who are in their same shoes.

00:01:19:22 - 00:01:41:10
Unknown
And so, yeah, Dillon, I have a ton of church experience. Dillon runs event ready and weekend ready and are on MQ, but like, we're not full time vocational worship pastors and we're still involved in a local church. So yeah, a lot of what we're going to be doing in the season ahead is going to churches and talking with folks like y'all and just talking about what you're up against in the ministry.

00:01:41:13 - 00:01:49:22
Unknown
No real agenda in the conversation. I think people get a little bit spooked about that at times. So like, what do you want to talk about? Or like I love anything Ministry.

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Unknown
All right. Why don't you guys introduce yourselves so people can know a little bit more about you, who you are and why you're here, why you know each other. Yeah. So on and so forth. Go first. AJ, AJ go first. Yeah. Well, man. My name is AJ. AJ Rucker born and raised in Knoxville.

00:02:07:16 - 00:02:27:17
Unknown
Know this guy Dillon took me under his wing a few years ago over at another local church in Knoxville. But I'm here at heart and soul. Just a volunteer serving under this guy right here, Tristan Hayes, our worship pastor. But man, I've been connected to church ever since I could breathe. I was a kid where, bro, like, I'm like, hey, mama, I'm sick.

00:02:27:18 - 00:02:32:21
Unknown
She like, no, you're not. Get up. You going to church? So, it's been my life, man.

00:02:32:23 - 00:02:51:17
Unknown
But now we're at Heart and soul church. Come on baby man. Yeah, I'm Tristan Hayes. I'm the worship pastor here at Heart and Soul Church. I met Dillon actually a couple years ago. That. Yeah, bro. Dillon rolled through heart and soul a couple of years ago when we were still portable. It was the worst couple months.

00:02:51:18 - 00:03:05:14
Unknown
He was like, I don't want to go to church. Yeah. It was it was the worst in his life. He knows it was like, oh, road cases. Yeah, I'm out, I'm out. None of that, none of that. But Dillon was awesome, man. Dillon Dillon actually took a ton of time with me, which I never told you. Thank you for.

00:03:05:16 - 00:03:22:16
Unknown
So thank you for that. Man. Took a ton of time with me. One on one, actually. A really funny story how that all came, bro. Like, just taught me. Taught me a bunch. Like, really taught me a bunch. And like, took everything we did in our worship production department to the next level, which, you know, for, for a portable church, starting out was a big jump.

00:03:22:17 - 00:03:41:20
Unknown
So so he's awesome. And then AJ, a little over a year ago, him and his wife Jacqueline started coming to heart and soul and just just being here consistently. And yeah got him serving beginning of the year this year. You know. So AJ is like high capacity volunteer with a great heart. That's what we say. Well literally the best.

00:03:41:21 - 00:03:55:11
Unknown
Yes literally. But normally normally you sometimes that's listen AJ is not a high capacity volunteer. The great heart AJ just has a great heart. Yeah I love that. And then that great heart comes high capacity volume I love that I love

00:03:55:13 - 00:04:14:09
Unknown
Yeah. Tell us about the team here. Like what? What? Most people don't know what an average Sunday looks like at heart and soul. What are the like the positions you've got, the various people that are serving on Sunday, how large a team you've got and just given some like firmer graphics to better understand who you guys are.

00:04:14:11 - 00:04:38:21
Unknown
Do you want front and back? Like from when you walk in the door? Just like worship and tech. Love that. So yeah, worship, worship and production. We have a director, five camera operators, video director. Yep. Video directors, five camera operators. We have someone on purpose center, someone on lights. Our audio is actually a lot more expensive than most people probably have for a church our size.

00:04:38:21 - 00:04:55:17
Unknown
So we have a front of house, a back of house monitors engineer, and usually our front of house has an A2 and a systems engineer. Oh wow. So like a bunch of people doing audio on a Sunday morning, which is. Yeah, we'll get into that in a second. What about broadcast? Do you have anybody mixing broadcast or. We don't have anybody mixing broadcasts.

00:04:55:18 - 00:05:14:23
Unknown
It comes straight from the board right now. But you are. But you are streaming. Yeah, yeah. How many of those are volunteers? How many of those are staff? Great question. Every single one is a volunteer. So all all camera operators director for an entire front of house. All of them are our volunteer.

00:05:15:01 - 00:05:19:17
Unknown
Yeah. And then for for worship obviously we've got, you know, drummer, electric guitar.

00:05:19:17 - 00:05:48:17
Unknown
Bass. Banjo. Banjo. Yes. Ukulele. No. No. Drummer. Electric car. Bass. Piano. Okay. And then usually we'll have like 4 to 5 vocalists, depending on the Sunday depending on who's available and hasn't locked out. Yeah. And we'll schedule 4 to 5 vocalists. And usually one of those vocalists will play acoustic. Okay. Volunteer versus staff on that. Pretty much everybody is volunteer.

00:05:48:19 - 00:06:09:12
Unknown
We do have a couple of like full time staff members that play instruments and sing. So like I obviously play acoustic and sing. My wife sings and she's on staff here. Cara, who does all of our outreach and like our, our parties, which are small groups and everything like that. She plays the piano and sings. Okay, so she'll she'll be some people double dipping.

00:06:09:13 - 00:06:21:14
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Makes sense. So. But other than that, everyone is everyone's volunteer. Even AJ, even even me bro bro love it. It's incredible and absolute professional. Absolutely. Still willing to volunteer. Oh

00:06:21:16 - 00:06:26:20
Unknown
Okay, so how many volunteers total on the team.

00:06:26:22 - 00:06:36:16
Unknown
Great question. If I had the ballpark were probably sitting somewhere around.

00:06:36:18 - 00:07:04:00
Unknown
8080 total church. How big is the church for? For worship production. Awesome. How big is the church? I think our sixth freak average is like 809 people right now. Yeah, and I think it's important for people to understand the story of heart and soul before we even like hearing how many volunteers you have is cool. But knowing the story of how you even ended up in this building, like the the amount of sleep that was probably lost on this team because of what happened.

00:07:04:01 - 00:07:25:05
Unknown
Oh yeah, and how you guys could have allowed that to tank. You take your momentum, tank your attendance, but you guys put it in gear. And I remember watching Instagram videos of this place and I was like, they're starting church when like two weeks and there's no walls. There's no walls. Yeah. And Austin's like, yeah, come follow me this way.

00:07:25:05 - 00:07:43:12
Unknown
And he takes us into another room. There's no walls. And he's just laughing because he's like, dude, what's have church here in two weeks? Yeah, yeah. Do you know the story? Okay, so we need to dive into this. Yeah. Because I know, I know we talked a little bit earlier and and so I know a little bit, but yeah, I let's let's back up a little bit.

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Unknown
You guys were meeting in high school. Middle school, Bearden High School in high school. So take us back. Give us a timeline. When that was how long you were meeting in that school. So we can kind of understand the backstory before we get into what took place. Yeah. So we were at Bearden High School. We launched in 2020.

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Unknown
So September of 2020, we were in there. It's great time to launch, dude. Really awesome time to watch middle of Covid. Pastor Austin and Sarah started meeting with people February of 2020. And if y'all don't remember March, everything shut down. Yeah. And they were actually like, Pastor Austin was debating pushing back the launch of the church. A lot of people did that to like 2021.

00:08:20:04 - 00:08:36:16
Unknown
And Sarah looked at him one day. This is my favorite story to tell. Sarah looked at him one day and said, awesome. People are dying and going to hell like they need the gospel. So either either we're planting this church now or we're not. And he was like, yes, ma'am. You're right. Let's do it. And so we launched in 2020.

00:08:36:17 - 00:08:51:20
Unknown
We were set up and tear down like fully set up and tear down and drape kids scuba walls, all the things. You have any experience in that at all? Yes. So I did and did not. My wife didn't, but I helped plant another church here locally called City Hills Church.

00:08:51:22 - 00:09:06:09
Unknown
And so we were load in, load out fully set up, tear down for four years. So for four years September 2024 rolls around. We had our birthday Sunday on on the 20th, which was great.

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Unknown
Like how often does that happen? The Sunday rolls around. It's actually on the day. So we had our fourth birthday on the 20th. It was incredible. Most people we've ever had, like including Easter of that year, like most people ever, and we were like on just this high, like cloud nine, like, let's go. There's momentum. Pastor Austin was going out of town that weekend.

00:09:25:05 - 00:09:50:02
Unknown
Him and Sarah were like, going on the first vacation they'd been on in like four years. And they get out of town. Pastor Austin gets an email at 730 Monday morning. Hey, Bearden is Bearden High School is no longer going to host you as a church. Next week will be your last week, like on vacation, man. Just instant like panic.

00:09:50:02 - 00:10:02:13
Unknown
And luckily, I mean Pastor Awesome is incredible. Guy was able to get like on the phone with them and talk, and we were able to serve out the rest of our contract, which was through March of 2025.

00:10:02:17 - 00:10:07:15
Unknown
whole staff at that point just went into like search mode for building.

00:10:07:15 - 00:10:30:10
Unknown
We probably called like a thousand venues like wow, portable permanent didn't matter. Like we were looking for spaces. And like anybody who's in the church world knows like one, you have to find a space that has enough people or enough space for the people, which at the time, like it wasn't like we were running 50 people and could just, you know, go somewhere.

00:10:30:12 - 00:10:49:13
Unknown
Like, I think at the time we were running like 300 people, which like for a portable church was like we felt like was a decent amount. Yeah. And and so like, we had to find the right space that also had enough parking, which was a big issue at every venue. What were finances like? Did you guys have much money to be able to get to a space?

00:10:49:13 - 00:10:53:14
Unknown
We had some decent savings, I think. I think just like

00:10:53:16 - 00:11:01:01
Unknown
so you were like you were planning to somewhere like we were we were planning like there was an expectation. Eventually we were like we were going to need some money to get a space.

00:11:01:01 - 00:11:20:09
Unknown
Now, we didn't expect it to go down like it did. Yeah, but we had some finances. And so we like I said, we called just everyone on staff making calls like a thousand places. We went into a couple spaces, a couple that just like just didn't work. Yeah. And then we finally got here and we were like, man,

00:11:20:10 - 00:11:32:02
Unknown
Pastor Austin's like what? Like this is not ideal, but it was all we had. And so he was like, man, like, if this is all we have, like, we're just going to believe that this is what the Lord is placing in our lap, and we're going to do all we can with it.

00:11:32:02 - 00:11:58:06
Unknown
And so we signed the contract on this building in at the end of the end of December 2024. We started construction like beginning to middle of January 2025, and we moved in. Our first service was April 20th of 2025. It's pretty insane. You guys basically built a church in three months. Yeah. Do you remember in 20th was what did you say?

00:11:58:07 - 00:12:11:11
Unknown
Do you remember what April 20th was that year? Not ideal, as I'll tell you what it was. It was Easter. It was Easter. Oh, first, first service in the new building. Yeah. On Easter was not ideal.

00:12:11:14 - 00:12:31:10
Unknown
Okay, so let's talk about the process of building a church in three months. So how. I don't know Tristan. Like how technical you are. Like what kind of help. Did you have in getting a rig functional in this room? Like, how much were you able to use from the portable church setup

00:12:31:10 - 00:12:33:15
Unknown
we did a lot of it ourselves with volunteer work.

00:12:33:15 - 00:12:55:14
Unknown
So, like the stage, we had a couple we had a couple people who are volunteers at the church who were like in construction and like in residential and commercial instruction and construction. Yeah. And so we had a couple of guys like the stage we built with a bunch of volunteers. So like, yeah, the we had the construction company, the original construction company came in.

00:12:55:15 - 00:13:14:06
Unknown
They did all of the like metal framing. Yeah. So they did that. And then like all of the wood, all of everything else, like we, we did with volunteers, which was crazy. We did use we did use an integration company. They were able to come in and we used I mean, we had to build out this whole space.

00:13:14:06 - 00:13:32:08
Unknown
There were walls up everywhere. So all of the savings that we did have was going towards making sure we had walls up, you know what I mean? It's like we didn't really have money to put towards technology, towards technology. The money we did have to put towards technology honestly went to house lights because we needed we didn't have house lights, we needed house lights, face lighting.

00:13:32:08 - 00:13:36:04
Unknown
We didn't have that. We needed that. And then and then chairs.

00:13:36:06 - 00:13:39:08
Unknown
we basically reused everything we had.

00:13:39:10 - 00:14:00:03
Unknown
But we had we had an integration company come in and be able to help us like rig it all up. They do. They were like super accommodating. Just be honest. Like we we were in the middle of construction. We've like not painted in there yet. And they're like, this is not ideal for us to be putting lights up when it has not because we're using dry fall, you know, to paint the ceiling.

00:14:00:03 - 00:14:04:18
Unknown
So it's like if you've never used rifle, it is actively falling down

00:14:04:18 - 00:14:14:22
Unknown
they came in and they were like this is not ideal. But here's what we'll do for you. Like we'll come in, we'll, we'll literally pull like trash bags and we'll cover everything. So like the drywall is not get on anything.

00:14:14:22 - 00:14:41:19
Unknown
So they literally came in, installed everything, covered everything came back, uncovered it, hooked everything up. You guys did flooring. So we pulled up all the flooring. Okay. It was carpeted completely. And the glue, did it have glue? It was awesome. It was awesome. Yeah. So we pulled up all the carpet in the entire space. So we had 19,000ft², like 19,800ft² and pulled up all the carpet everywhere.

00:14:41:20 - 00:15:01:10
Unknown
Wow. Polished the concrete. So that was good. We gotta we got a good deal in the company that was able to do that locally. Cool. Polish all the concrete. So we kept the concrete look, which was good. What else did we build? We hung the LED wall ourselves. So we got like the engineering letter that was like, you know, here's your weight limit.

00:15:01:10 - 00:15:17:18
Unknown
Here's where you can. Glad you said that, because I was automatically thinking we were about to get right. Stand there. The comment section was about to come for us there. So no no, no. So we we we did get we did do our due diligence on making sure like it can be hung here. This is this is the weight limit.

00:15:17:18 - 00:15:34:20
Unknown
This is how you need to hang out. All of those things might have to take. And you didn't even really have a rigor in here to rig it up. We didn't even really have AI then. So you really had to use your brain. Yeah, I mean, we we did it. We got a company like the architecture firm that did the, the drawings on here did that.

00:15:34:21 - 00:15:59:12
Unknown
They signed off on that. The other another really cool story I like through your whole process of starting this building. So I'm sure I just knowing you guys and Pastor Austin, I mean, they are just not only excited to have that launch weekend that Sunday, but just done like, oh, we're just ready to start. This has been such a process since I got the phone call in on vacation to be where we're at.

00:15:59:17 - 00:16:24:11
Unknown
They're about to open up doors for Sunday morning, and the fire is doing a walk through. Tell us what happens. Yeah, the fire marshal situation. So we were going to have service April 13th. Like we were going to do it. We were going to launch. We were ready following our fire. Marshal comes in on the 11th. So the Friday before and like we knew it was cutting it close, but we were like like we're buttoned up.

00:16:24:11 - 00:16:49:03
Unknown
We got everything done. Fire marshal comes in, he's doing all of his checks. The last thing they have to check is the emergency lighting. The painters when the head came in, had taped over the lighting and just a little bitty light, a little bit of emergency lighting and forgot to take the tape off. Oh, man. So there's no when they turn the emergency lighting on, especially in the auditorium where it's dark, there's it's like not coming through.

00:16:49:05 - 00:17:07:21
Unknown
Well, the fire marshal fails us. As he's leaving, Pastor Austin realizes, oh, it's like it's nothing faulty with the lights. There's just tape on. It takes the tape off and is like, can I come show you? And the guy literally says, I'm sorry, like, I've already I've already failed you and I've already signed off on it. Like I can come again next week.

00:17:07:23 - 00:17:27:22
Unknown
Wow. One, two little pieces of blue painter's tape. Yeah. And so kept us from having service on the 13th, which pushed our launch date to Easter, which is like, again, if you're in the church world. Not ideal. Yeah, but but, you know, it all worked out. I'm sure there was a lot of hype on that Easter though, bro.

00:17:27:22 - 00:17:45:14
Unknown
It was. It was awesome. Were you here then? No you weren't. No. We had we moved back like ten days later. Okay, okay. Gotcha. It was awesome. Let me tell y'all some of the things that didn't go great. Oh. Let's go. So something that didn't go great is Easter. No LED screen. I saw that I watched your live stream and saw the screen.

00:17:45:14 - 00:18:05:15
Unknown
I didn't want to bring it up like it didn't just didn't work. Couple thing. Yep. So. So there's a couple things I'll mention a couple things, and then I'll mention the reasons why. So first was LED screen didn't work. Internal issues with some of the panels like oh I can't imagine it worked like the day before, but then like stop working or like you were troubleshooting all week.

00:18:05:15 - 00:18:20:11
Unknown
Could not get it troubleshooting all week, troubleshooting for two weeks. So we were on the phone with like with I think our panels are Nova. They were Nova star panels. So we were on the phone with Nova Star, like one of their texts, trying to get it figured out for two weeks. Because remember we were going to watch on the 13th.

00:18:20:13 - 00:18:35:16
Unknown
Yeah. So we were trying to get it figured out that week before, like the eighth, the eighth through the 13th, trying to get to figure out couldn't couldn't get it figured out that coming week. So on Wednesday, we finally sent a panel to them to try to get it figured out, and we were hoping they were going to have it figured out and done before Sunday.

00:18:35:17 - 00:18:58:17
Unknown
They did not. They had it figured out Monday after. After what was it? It sucks some. When we had hooked it up in here, we had changed the configuration of it and something had like something internally. I don't want to blame Pastor Austin because he's incredible through that time, but all I'm saying is he was the one who was doing this.

00:18:58:18 - 00:19:02:17
Unknown
Hey, senior pastor, wiring up an LED wall. Hey, I got to meet this guy. What a goat.

00:19:02:17 - 00:19:14:21
Unknown
But they got it. They got it figured out like the next week. But, I mean, we were we like, we had to pull out. I would rather be his fault than anyone else's. Had to say that. Hey, man, let's just say that. But we had like, we pulled out like a TV to put lyrics on it.

00:19:14:22 - 00:19:29:20
Unknown
Set it like middle front, middle of the stage, Easter Sunday, Easter Sunday. God, yeah, bro, I just got. Yeah. You would have failed the beacon. Ready eval so quickly. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, it was all true. All over.

00:19:29:22 - 00:19:54:21
Unknown
Hey, I want to take a quick break and tell you about MQ. MQ is the one platform that you need to run your worship and tech ministry. We do it through helping you train your volunteers with thousands of training videos and automated pathways. We help you plan your weekend services with team messaging, task management, and automated scheduling. And then lastly, we help you actually run and execute Sunday with dashboards that connect all the tools that you currently use into one place.

00:19:54:21 - 00:19:58:07
Unknown
If you want to learn more about it, you can head to get. Now back to the show.

00:19:58:08 - 00:20:03:21
Unknown
that, you know, we just we just had to figure it out. And then some of our lighting on the original plans.

00:20:04:01 - 00:20:17:05
Unknown
I don't know how this happened, but the architecture firm had the HVAC back one, like set of trusses. So, like, there's the trusting and it was in between one set and they had that on paper. It was back one.

00:20:17:06 - 00:20:22:06
Unknown
And so the integration company had the lighting where the HVAC ended up being.

00:20:22:10 - 00:20:41:07
Unknown
first week was really rough. Wow. Really? And of course some of that is like camera settings not adjusted from Bearden yet, like some of those sort of things. But like it was we had I think we had like 23 degree lenses or something like that. And like we're up to like, like a 60 degree lens or something.

00:20:41:07 - 00:21:04:21
Unknown
So it's a lot wider. But that first week like that was solo spots in the room. So it was it was like beams. It was brutal. So that was that was rough. I mean obviously sound the first week you're in there with like it's not it's a tough room with the low ceiling. And so just getting that far back there to the getting coverage of the back row and imagine is a challenge.

00:21:04:21 - 00:21:27:03
Unknown
So yeah, we we didn't have any delays either like halfway halfway through the room. So and again this was all stuff the integration company was very upfront with us about. They were like, we yes, we can do your speaker layout. Like I said, we didn't do any new speakers. We pulled everything from from the portable set up. So they were like, you are either going to blow people out of the water.

00:21:27:04 - 00:21:43:00
Unknown
Yeah. In your front rose to get the the DV level, like the experience that you want in the back rows, or you're going to sacrifice those back roads to not blow people out of the water. Yeah, yeah. So of course, naturally we blew everyone out of the water. Yeah. Of course we should not have done that. No, it was it was rough.

00:21:43:01 - 00:22:03:06
Unknown
It was rough. So we, we couple months in were able to get some delays installed and like the room is a lot more even now. You know, audio is a lot better from when we first started. But I mean first started was rough. So yeah those were, those were those three things were were rough. Yeah. You know, people are always talking about how their environments are not ideal.

00:22:03:08 - 00:22:20:00
Unknown
And like, well, you don't know like our church we struggle with this. I'm like bro, every church. Yeah. Every single church has something that is not ideal about their setup 100%. It's like, oh, we have low ceilings and so it can't sound good. It's like bro, I mean, most churches have two low ceilings

00:22:20:00 - 00:22:30:01
Unknown
But you guys got scrappy I like it. Yeah. Really like the scrappy I mean bro there's some churches who take years to do what you guys pulled off in three months.

00:22:30:02 - 00:22:31:03
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah.

00:22:31:05 - 00:22:43:23
Unknown
some of that scrappy in setup and teardown, I think helped us with with that situation because just we were in a figure it out mode LED screen don't work man. Let's let's go get us a 70 inch TV as like as big as we can get.

00:22:44:00 - 00:22:46:23
Unknown
And yeah, make it work for a week, you know?

00:22:47:00 - 00:23:01:18
Unknown
I mean, and the big thing is when you're going through something that stressful, man, you just gotta have fun along the way. Yeah. I mean, that's that's literally one of our values here is we are a party. And let me tell you, we were a party at 3 a.m. when we were here for weeks on end.

00:23:01:22 - 00:23:28:14
Unknown
And, you know, and I want to just highlight that because that is a reflection on your leadership 100, because unfortunately, there's a lot of churches out there that can't be put in situations like this. But their leadership, their pastor, their executive pastor or their board, their elders, whatever is still putting that pressure on them. Yeah. And it's like, guys, we're here till 3 a.m. working our butts off trying to make this happen.

00:23:28:14 - 00:23:46:07
Unknown
And all you care about is walking in and seeing a TV flicker. Do we're just trying to get house lights to work. Yeah. So that's a reflection on your guys's shift that, hey, we're all in this together. We're going to have fun. And and there's obviously still expectations that come with that. You know, there's not. Just because you have fun doesn't mean there's lax expectations.

00:23:46:08 - 00:24:08:03
Unknown
No. But yeah, but if there was no fun and it was all like you said that I mean, it would have just. It would have worn everyone out. Well, yeah, I lost a lot of people 100%. Yeah, yeah, there's, I think churches, some, some struggle to figure this out. Like, we can take our faith seriously. We can take the word of God seriously, but we can take ourselves not so seriously.

00:24:08:04 - 00:24:08:11
Unknown
Yeah,

00:24:08:11 - 00:24:27:10
Unknown
mission. The mission we're on is serious. Like, we we but we don't need to take ourselves so serious. And we talk about this in production all the time and we get in trouble maybe at times because we're like, hey, what we do in production is super important for advancing the gospel and ultimately the kingdom of God.

00:24:27:14 - 00:24:37:06
Unknown
But let's just get down to earth for a second and recognize that, like, we don't need to take ourselves so seriously. If I say that, you know,

00:24:37:08 - 00:24:38:22
Unknown
it's you just you gotta do it.

00:24:38:22 - 00:24:54:06
Unknown
The smile on your face sometimes it sucks, man. It really does. And a lot of people listen to this, like, there it is. That's what we need to hear. We want to hear that it sucks. We see you. We hear you. We know it does. But you gotta do it. The smile on your face. That's right. Because if you fall in love with it, it's.

00:24:54:07 - 00:25:09:10
Unknown
You got no. You got no future. I mean, you got to do something because you love it. Yeah. And although production in churches sometimes can suck, you gotta put a smile on your face and do it because you love it. Especially if you're okay. You're a worship pastor. Yeah. If you're a vocational ministry, you're a worship pastor. And yeah, you know your way.

00:25:09:10 - 00:25:27:09
Unknown
You have to understand. You have to know a little bit about all aspects of the ministry. But a lot of worship pastors out there like, bro. I don't want to deal with sound treatment. Who cares? I don't deal with that. I don't want to deal with like plugging cables in and trying to troubleshoot this LED wall. Like, screw that, I'm over that.

00:25:27:11 - 00:25:41:14
Unknown
I need I need budget for some guy to come and solve all those problems for me. I don't want to dive in. It's like, no, bro, you're a part of a 300% church plant. It's you. Yeah. Dive in. I'll tell you what. I was done with that. After those two things, I'll tell you that, like I was done.

00:25:41:19 - 00:25:59:09
Unknown
Like, bro, I want to build. I want to build tracks and work on arrangements. I can just plug in the wall. I'm coming in trying to have a smile on my face, but I'm like, I gotta talk to the I gotta talk to Cody again today. I was on the phone with him for eight hours yesterday. I'm not to be able to vote for eight hours again today on WhatsApp.

00:25:59:10 - 00:26:22:17
Unknown
Like what? What is happening? Yeah. What's up? Hey. Okay. AJ Rucker. Hey, I think hearing some of his story could really help some of our listeners. Your story outside of heart and soul and your story inside of heart and soul, I think both matter. I think your long road in ministry has not been a ten out of ten for you.

00:26:22:18 - 00:26:45:12
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. And I think, I think just like you don't gotta tell your whole life story, but I think 5 or 7 minutes of your journey of leave names out, obviously, I know, I know, I know no name names, name all the names for know that we might want to throw some names out now, but we were just your process of, like, us working together, building that dream team.

00:26:45:17 - 00:27:02:12
Unknown
Start calling you to a different city in town. Yeah, ultimately. Then six hours away. And then how he, you know, the whole I think is there's someone listeners podcast that is either going through that journey or is about to go to the journey. Yeah. What what what are some words of encouragement you give and but first give us some context.

00:27:02:14 - 00:27:08:19
Unknown
People don't even know that you you're. Yeah. Give the people that know AJ no agent from church gear but they don't know how you got church gear,

00:27:08:21 - 00:27:26:18
Unknown
the last five. Well, I mean, six years now, it's been it's been a journey. But me and deal worked together a lot of a lot of you guys know this, but for everybody listening, we work together at a church locally and like, for two years, bro, like, it was a dream.

00:27:26:22 - 00:27:56:00
Unknown
Like the stuff we were accomplishing. Like the way people were getting changed, the way the church was growing. And then something just changed. We implemented something that really flipped the entire culture of the church. It was, you know, it always say this like the pivotal moment there is when we had to we changed the value and we added a value that was like, we are fun and things were not fun, and that was never a valued.

00:27:56:01 - 00:28:17:11
Unknown
Yeah, it wasn't because we just were. It so like changed. Yeah. So you guys were like clipping along as a team. But everything was working. Leadership above you for whatever reason made some changes. Yeah. That ultimately trickle down and made some massive changes for the way your team ran. Yeah. And I think that the intention I think was great.

00:28:17:11 - 00:28:44:13
Unknown
The execution was very poor. Yeah. Because I mean like man like I mean this y'all are so authentic. I mean like bro, like if we didn't hit a specific new numeric goal, we didn't get raises. And some of the goals we would carry did not directly affect anything we did for work. Like anything like we're talking campus wide goals that like I can't affect or like a campus.

00:28:44:13 - 00:29:08:11
Unknown
That was another place I can't really affect it. Yeah. So what happened was the environment became very competitive. And we're all just tooth and neck fighting to get a place. Ultimately, it led to a lot of people transitioning, and I think our worship squadron was really the close, like probably the close, most close knit squad on the entire church in that season.

00:29:08:11 - 00:29:16:07
Unknown
And we had to stick together to really make it work.

00:29:16:10 - 00:29:25:11
Unknown
I think like I said, like our worship production, our worship and production staff at that in that season was really the only thing that kind of kept us there.

00:29:25:13 - 00:29:33:20
Unknown
I tell people all the time they're like, well, what what was the what was the change? One of our really close friends transitioned and moved to another church locally.

00:29:33:20 - 00:29:52:19
Unknown
That wasn't the change. I really do think that when the pandemic happened, it's 2020 and we all became disconnected. Now what was so tight is still tight at a distance. We would still do staff meetings, but it was on zoom.

00:29:53:00 - 00:30:18:09
Unknown
you know, we become disconnected. We're not any whatever. And so in that season though, I mean this is, you know, from say January 2020 to June, like we were really close with a pastor at the church he felt led to go plant a church. It's always been about the who for me. I had no idea what we were really getting into at that time, but I felt like it honestly felt like my way out of chaos.

00:30:18:11 - 00:30:37:09
Unknown
And at that time where you kind of like, man, I don't know, like working in ministry is my thing anymore. Never. It was never that. It was always like, I know what I'm supposed to do. It was it was to be within the church somehow. You know, staff is obviously what I wanted. But knowing that you're going to plant a church, that's not what you're.

00:30:37:10 - 00:31:02:14
Unknown
You know what I mean? In hopes of. Right. But so I think the change that ultimately began to trickle down at that church, my wife and I, we left, in June of 2020. And then did you leave well or not? Well, you couldn't leave. Well from there, okay. That's fair. Like it was. It was a fear based culture.

00:31:02:15 - 00:31:20:12
Unknown
Okay. So like how I would have wanted to transition was to tell, say hey to my my boss. Hey, you know, this is what I'm feeling three months before we left, right? Like, hey, this is where I'm at. I think God's confirmed this. And I knew then like, this is what we were doing, but if I did that, I wouldn't.

00:31:20:13 - 00:31:42:08
Unknown
I would have been, hey, you can just leave. Like it would just. They just cut me then. So I'm three months without anything, right. Middle of the pandemic world shut down. Yeah. So what you had to do was when you knew that, you knew you had two weeks. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Yeah, actually, I 100% believe you. And you say that because I've seen that happen couple of times.

00:31:42:10 - 00:31:58:05
Unknown
So I happen to me. Yeah. Yeah. And so like what I say. So all of that to say, I think when we transitioned it gave people on our team like, wow, I can do it too. And it wasn't like, that's what we were like, yeah, leave get up out there. Like, that's not what we were trying to do.

00:31:58:05 - 00:32:20:14
Unknown
But I think when people saw like, dang, they really did it, it made it made the team that was still so, like scared of what? Like what could be. People started to feel like, man, I can too. And then like, you know, you start to see more heavy hitters leave and people on our team. And then ultimately now I don't know anybody there except one like maybe 1 or 2 people on worship ministry.

00:32:20:14 - 00:32:46:11
Unknown
And so but all of that led us to Memphis. We went to Memphis, Tennessee to help a church there locally. Still love the pastor through and through. We don't talk really at all long situation that happened there. But, I think that, you know, it was that season for me was the best season of my marriage and my worst season of ministry because I was disconnected from ministry.

00:32:46:11 - 00:32:51:21
Unknown
But I was so connected with my wife because we moved to a place where we didn't know anybody.

00:32:51:23 - 00:33:11:12
Unknown
so we moved to Memphis June of 2020. The church is supposed to launch, the next September of 2021. So we got we got a whole year and some change to build this team. I mean, God was really ham was in that they gave they gave this pastor a building going to renovate the building like, no.

00:33:11:13 - 00:33:28:23
Unknown
How did you find this church, by the way? He left. He left the guy that left the plant left our church we were at. Yeah. He was going with him to plant the church. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, the. We moved in June. Pastor of the church was supposed to move in September of 2020.

00:33:29:00 - 00:33:57:11
Unknown
Well, October rolls around, November rolls around. Now, he has a lot going on in his life. So, like, hear me like, don't hear what I'm not saying. But if you're going to plant a church, I feel like it doesn't really. You got to get to the where you're going, right? It's July of 2021. The pastor is still not in the city that the church launches in, and he's already relocated his family for.

00:33:57:11 - 00:34:19:17
Unknown
I've been there a year. That's great. I've been in there. I've been there a year. Crazy. So working side jobs, trying to pay bills to like, I'm working and I'm working at Keller Williams as a director of agent services. I'm not a real estate agent, but I'm helping them get to the real estate license just to plant this thing, like just to help this church get off the ground.

00:34:19:19 - 00:34:37:02
Unknown
Yeah, bro, we could spend. So. No. Yes, bro. Yes, I know, but but you got. You knew this guy. Knew this guy loved this dude. No. Like Paul's, but, like, is this a guy that was this when you were like, who went with you? And. Yes. Okay. Because I'm just because my answer is no. No one was already went with you.

00:34:37:03 - 00:34:59:00
Unknown
No one was there. Okay, I was there. I and so I think obviously there's a lot going on in that season for this pastor. It really was a lot going on. But still all of that that was going on could have happened after the move. Yeah. So it's July 2021. There's a whole lot of stuff I'm not going to talk about that happens.

00:34:59:00 - 00:35:18:15
Unknown
But there was just a lot of disconnect, unmet expectations that I had no idea where placed on me, basically based ultimately, what he expected of me was to build his church while he wasn't there. And because I didn't do that, I wasn't a go getter, I was lazy. I'm not doing these things. I'm he doesn't even live in the city.

00:35:18:16 - 00:35:37:21
Unknown
He doesn't live there. You understand that? Yeah, I understand, but but but when he. So he would visit the city though like in this time we're living there. He would visit the city though, right. And he would visit. Not even call me. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, bro. Like, there's a reason why I want you to share your story.

00:35:37:21 - 00:36:05:11
Unknown
So now take us to the middle Tennessee. So, the beautiful thing about Memphis was, July 20th, July 2021. I ended up telling that pastor. Hey, man, I just don't I don't think I don't think this is going to work. My wife and I have been trying to get pregnant for six months leading up to July. So I tell him this early July, August, my wife is pregnant, so I've I've been in a so that happens.

00:36:05:11 - 00:36:23:17
Unknown
She gets pregnant where we're happy. In that season obviously now I'm like, I have no pastor, I have no church. We have no idea what we're doing in Memphis, Tennessee at this point. So I have a friend who calls me. He's like, hey, bro, we're about to launch a church up here in Nashville. We don't have an MD.

00:36:23:18 - 00:36:34:00
Unknown
Can you, like, just come up here for a couple of these, these secret services and just play? And I'm like, cool. Yeah. Like free. I ain't getting paid for it. I'm just like, yeah, bro. Like I just need some community at this

00:36:34:02 - 00:36:49:14
Unknown
ultimately we go up there, we're serving, we're doing a couple of things. October 2021. We're still living in Memphis. God told me, hey man, it's time. Like, let's go. And also my wife's pregnant at this time. So we're like, dang, nobody's going to drive six hours to Memphis to like, help us or see us.

00:36:49:14 - 00:36:53:13
Unknown
October 2021. You know, I'm still going back and forth to Nashville from Memphis.

00:36:53:14 - 00:37:13:00
Unknown
We feel the call like, hey, let's go, it's time to go. And so we moved January of 2022, and before I even moved into this church, the pastor was like, man, like, I just see something different in you. We having a lot of shake up, like, man, would you be our worship director? I'm like, I don't know, I don't even I'm not living there yet.

00:37:13:01 - 00:37:29:02
Unknown
And he's like, man, I just I've seen the way you've led these people. I mean, why not? I know right? He's like, you know, I mean, technically, yeah. Yeah. He's not living there. He's like, I've seen the way you've led our team from afar. Even like in a just a row. Like, I think it's time for you to take the next step.

00:37:29:02 - 00:37:50:21
Unknown
I'd love for you to think about it, prey on it. So ultimately I said yeah. And so again, volunteer didn't take a dollar. And so we moved in January and everything's great. This church launched in August of 2021. So we move in January. So it's only five months old at this time. So we moved man. It's still to this day like and I love this house.

00:37:50:21 - 00:38:11:19
Unknown
We're sitting there right now. I love heart and soul. But that was a special place. It was the most diverse group of individuals. I'm talking like you want to talk about. Like what? Heaven looks like it was that church, bro. I mean, we had Latinos. We had, black people, white people, purple. I mean, it was it was beautiful.

00:38:12:00 - 00:38:38:23
Unknown
And, church plant, I mean, portable. Portable. Yeah. Portable church. We also, you know, had a the here's this will tell you a lot about the pastor of this church and kind of where I'm leading us to, we budgeted $150,000 for our launch budget solely for production. Whoa.

00:38:39:01 - 00:38:53:23
Unknown
That is crazy. Hold on. Yep, yep. Wait wait wait. So he really cared about excellence? Like he wanted to launch strong. He wanted it to be out front, production out front, worship out front. And it was.

00:38:53:23 - 00:39:15:10
Unknown
forward. The church is great, man, but it's not growing. There was a lot of things internally that our pastor was not willing to change. I think our church, because of what it looked like and where he wanted to plant it. It was not the same place. So imagine planting a multicultural church in Farragut.

00:39:15:11 - 00:39:35:20
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Probably not. It's not going to really work for those listening. Farragut's very takes a lot of dominant. That would take a lot of busses. Traditional city. Yes. And so mind you, the pastor of the church is white like. But what what but what we built was just it was so multicultural. It was everything you could imagine.

00:39:35:20 - 00:39:57:06
Unknown
And so I mean, like we're playing, we're playing, you know, elevation, worship, see a victory. But it's got a gospel flair to it because our worship leader that's ripping the song is just like full blown gospel. Right. And, you know, we've got an MD who's played on the road with different guys in the work. So like, it's just it's different.

00:39:57:06 - 00:40:15:15
Unknown
It was a completely different vibe. But then we would still, you know, then you play, you know, what a beautiful name or something. And you're like, oh, you know, our, our, our lightly skinned people was like, oh, I'm here. Yes. What a beautiful name. They might even put a hand up. That's not to name. That's oceans nice and beautiful, but for sure.

00:40:15:19 - 00:40:45:04
Unknown
So fast forward church is just not growing. And we were in a school that said about 900, we might have had 80 people in it with a 30 by 20 LED wall. The best Martin in Shave fixtures $150,000 on launch on on worship and production. Yeah, yeah, we had a a insane line array rig a dab I mean like bro it it was it was too much and we're.

00:40:45:05 - 00:41:00:12
Unknown
Oh, and we're portable. We're portable dude. So the the school was gracious. They let us hide our LED wall appearance. We got to hide our LED wall behind their curtains so that when church happened we could open up and it was already there. But everything else we had to load in lighting, drum, everything.

00:41:00:14 - 00:41:10:04
Unknown
long story short, let's fast forward to 2024. Church isn't growing. We've now moved locations. We only moved locations once, but we moved to a small office complex.

00:41:10:04 - 00:41:29:23
Unknown
I think our worship center space was just, Actually the entire building we were in was the size of this lobby. Okay. So, you know, you moved from a 900 space things, and then, like, one thing that happened was like, pastor started just selling stuff. We're like, bro, what are you doing? Like, why do why don't where did my snare go?

00:41:30:00 - 00:41:52:08
Unknown
Like, like like why is the left hang boxes in the right thing and spots just like random. Just like randomly, bro. Like one day he just starts selling stuff. That's the title. Where did my dad. No, we got, like, we got six titles on this episode. It's all start selling stuff and giving stuff away. Crazy story. This is crazy.

00:41:52:08 - 00:42:14:16
Unknown
I know what you're about to say. We're at a storage unit. One day he tells us, hey, a bunch of pastors from Knoxville and around are coming to. I did not see this episode going here. This is crazy. I'm sorry. Welcome to my life, bro. I'm telling you, I've. I've went through some things the last five years, but he tells our league team, he's like, hey, you know, can can a couple of y'all come to this storage unit, come to our storage unit?

00:42:14:17 - 00:42:32:01
Unknown
We got some churches coming to pick some things up. And I'm thinking like, you know, we downsized. So of course we did not need all of these things. Pastor Austin from Heart and Soul is one of the pastors. I didn't speak to him. He didn't speak to me. But we were there together and it was just super ironic to me.

00:42:32:02 - 00:42:51:12
Unknown
Like at that time I wasn't thinking about it. But we realized once I once we moved here, I was like, bro, you were there that day that y'all like that you needed kids stuff and you came. You were there too. We went and got the two boxes. That's crazy. So like, wow. So the connection, like we see the tire on the way home, by the way.

00:42:51:13 - 00:43:16:09
Unknown
Wow. The seed was planted, right? Yeah. For me to be in this season where I'm at now without me even knowing it. So 2024 rolls around the churches three years old. Trove Heights is what it was called. It's it's no longer existing. So we're grinding. And there I was in like a complete like I was worship director. But pastor would travel a lot.

00:43:16:13 - 00:43:38:09
Unknown
He had some, some speaking things. So when he wasn't there, like I was a one, right? I was preaching those, those Sundays I wouldn't leave, I would preach those Sundays and things like that. And there was one specific week where things just felt weird. I, I was called on a Tuesday, hey bro, I'm going to be out of town next week and on Sunday, can you preach Sunday?

00:43:38:10 - 00:44:10:16
Unknown
I'm thinking like, okay, whatever. Like this is what we do. Yeah. Well, that seven week, seven day trip turned into like ten days, so I'm like, this is just weird. In that same season, my wife and I were trying to get pregnant again with our second. Nothing was working, bro. I mean, like, everything is stressed out. We tried for, you know, eight or so months and I'm like, man, maybe, maybe it's just time to like to make a transition and just go back home.

00:44:10:16 - 00:44:27:01
Unknown
Knoxville is home for for us. And so luckily or ironically, also a season that a lot of churches do is 21 days of prayer fasting. Well, that was coming up for us. So I was like, man, I'm gonna take it. Take it serious because I just need to know, like, is it time for us to bounce or not?

00:44:27:02 - 00:44:47:05
Unknown
So mind you, so when I preached, it was July 7th, 21 days of prayers, first week of August. So weeks go by. Pastors back. Nothing's nothing's weird. It just felt like, man, you were gone for a long time for for what it felt like for no reason. Don't know where he went. He went to Houston, Texas. Okay. And he has family there.

00:44:47:05 - 00:45:09:20
Unknown
But also the church that he left was there. Okay. They just had a bunch of shakeup at that church. Okay. And new pastor. So it's like whatever, 21 days of prayer rolls around. We take it pretty serious. And God tells us like, hey, man, like for no reason. Like we loved being there and wanted to stay there, but it was like, hey, it's time for you to go back to Knoxville.

00:45:09:20 - 00:45:22:14
Unknown
And I didn't want to. I mean, everybody asked me, like, you love being back home. No, I really didn't like the all of last year because we just moved back may of 2025. I did not want to be here, but I knew that it was where I was supposed to be.

00:45:22:16 - 00:45:35:02
Unknown
long story short, they closed the doors of the church. And, you know, shocking to us because we had told him in August that we were leaving.

00:45:35:07 - 00:45:54:16
Unknown
And I'll never forget one thing that the his his wife said to me, look me right my eyes and it let me know everything I needed to know about their decision. And it's kind of the thing that pained me for the next 18 months was another thing that I was carrying that I didn't know that I was carrying.

00:45:54:16 - 00:46:03:11
Unknown
She looks at me and she's like, you know, that this church wouldn't have been anything without you and your wife.

00:46:03:13 - 00:46:31:01
Unknown
And I was just like, so y'all are leaving because God told us to leave, not because we wanted to, but because of obedience. But you saw that, you know, maybe who you were putting all your time into, or whatever it may be, was making a transition. So y'all had to bounce to. And so so those that hung on to that story, which I hope people hung on to it.

00:46:31:02 - 00:46:55:04
Unknown
Yeah, 99% of people more than likely your second story. That's their final straw. They're leaving ministry. They're leaving the day to day serving staff and internships. So most people time a lot of people leaving the faith. They're leaving their faith. Their families are falling apart. And yet all these years later, you're still rooted, grounded. You still certified fully.

00:46:55:04 - 00:47:17:05
Unknown
You're an incredible worship leader, a great production guy, stage manager for us. My client specifically asked for you by name. If you're not at a show, where is this guy at? Why? Why do you stay through and fight all this? Yeah, man, because you so many people have let you down. I'm doing it with quotations like they've let you down, they've got you to move, they've got you to sacrifice.

00:47:17:05 - 00:47:40:23
Unknown
And yet all those stories have have not great endings. Why are you sitting in a lobby of a church talking to us on a on a podcast right now? Man, it's really simple. It's I've never placed my hope or faith in a man. You know, I've never placed my hope or faith in a man. I've only placed it in the man, and that's Jesus.

00:47:40:23 - 00:48:06:09
Unknown
And it took a lot in me. I've grown a lot the last five years through pain, through transition, through people leaving that you never thought would leave. You know, I think that's the scary part. The scary part about ministry is the people you do it with. Like you need to cherish it as long as you can because ultimately, like things change and it sucks.

00:48:06:09 - 00:48:31:02
Unknown
Sometimes it doesn't. You know, sometimes you get to stick together for 20, 30, 40 years. But I think a lot of times it does change. And through it all, man, I think my obedience to what he spoke to me, he's always honored it. And so I can't. I find it hard to leave the faith or walk away after seeing what obedience can bring.

00:48:31:02 - 00:49:00:01
Unknown
And so that's really why. Incredible love that. I can't think of a better way to cap off that whole I have so many questions and I'm going to I'm going to ask them off off episode. I, I want to know where the DMV got sold to. I want to know everything went crazy. But guys, thank you so much for joining us and like taking the time to do this and investing in thank you for the greater church.

00:49:00:01 - 00:49:24:01
Unknown
Really like this. There's so many people listening or just like, yes, I can relate, I can relate, I can relate, which is why we're here, because we want to help bring people into. Yeah, this encouragement honestly to to know, okay, I'm not the only one who had pastor sell my snare drum. So you know, and I think but the only one who's led screen.

00:49:24:02 - 00:49:44:16
Unknown
Yes. Yeah. Yes. As you work. But yeah. You guys, the real deal. Appreciate you. And yeah, this has been killer. I don't I don't have anything else to say. Yeah, well, thank you guys for having us. Yeah, it's an honor. Certainly. Thanks for joining us on the MSU podcast. We will see you next time.