Episode: 299: Listen to how a friendship started with the movie "Tommy Boy"

In this episode, Rusty is joined by Chad Moore, the Lead Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church in Arizona. Listen to how a friendship started with the movie "Tommy Boy". Chad goes on to explain the process in which his messages are created, and how he will use everything around him to craft his messages. Finally learn how he helped grow his church to what we see today. 

Chad Moore is Lead Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church in Gilbert, AZ., one of the largest and fastest growing churches in America.  With over 20 years of pastoral experience, Chad is passionate about serving his congregation. Chad enjoys fly fishing, hiking, long dinners with his wife and riding motorcycles. He also serves churches and business leaders as a Leadership Coach and Consultant. 

You can follow Chad at @pastorchadmoore on Instagram and listen to teaching at sunvalleycc.com or at The Loving God Loving People Podcast. 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/loving-god-loving-people/id1528220158

Chad is also the host of The Cigar Preacher, a YouTube show about cigars, life and what matters most. You can find episodes at cigarpreacher.com.

Creators & Guests

Host

Rusty George

Follower of Jesus, husband of lorrie, father of lindsey and sidney, pastor of Crossroads Christian Church

What is Simple Faith With Rusty George?

Rusty George is the Lead Pastor at Crossroads Christian Church in Grand Prairie. Under his dedicated leadership, Crossroads Christian Church aspires to flourish as a vibrant community committed to guiding individuals in their journey to discover and follow the path of Jesus.

Beyond leading Crossroads Church, Rusty is a global speaker, leader and teacher focusing on making real life simple. Rusty has also written several books and can be heard weekly on his podcast, Leading Simple with Rusty George.

Aside from being a loyal Chiefs, Royals, and Lakers fan, Rusty is first and foremost committed to his family. Rusty has been married to his wife, Lorrie, for over twenty-five years, and they have two daughters, Lindsey and Sidney. As a family, they enjoy walking the dogs, playing board games together, and watching HGTV while Rusty watches ESPN on his iPad.

Hey, I want to thank Courage to Lead for sponsoring this month's podcast. Courage to Lead is led by a friend of mine and my personal coach, a guy by the name of Sean Lovejoy. He has been a real estate developer, a church planner, mega church pastor. And now the CEO of a fast growing coaching and consulting organization.
Sean's been a guest on the podcast and I've gotten to know he and several of his coaches that help pastors and business leaders all across the country. And recently I was invited to join their team to be one of their coaches. Listen, I've just learned this over time. You can only get so far on your own know how and own intellect, wisdom.
experience and smarts. You need someone that can coach you and help you see the things that you cannot see. And Sean has done that for me and their coaches have done that for countless leaders and pastors. And now I'd like to do that for you as well. So if you'd like to inquire about either me being your [00:01:00] coach or receiving a coach, contact me at PastorRustyGeorge.
com and you can click the link there to find out more information. If you'd like to just go to Courage to Lead to find out more about what They do, you can go to courage to lead. com, a great world class coaching organization, helping you build a killer team and grow your organization. I'm so excited to be a part of their organization and I would love to meet you there.
Thank you to Courage to Lead for all that you do for leaders and all that you've done for me.
Following Jesus isn't always easy, but it's not complicated. Join us each week as we work to make faith simple. This is Simple Faith.
Hey, welcome to Simple Faith. My name is Rusty George. I am grateful for our sponsor. Courage to lead. And if you missed last week's episode and you're a [00:02:00] pastor that wants to get better, make sure you check it out as we talk about what courage to lead does and how they can help you in just becoming a better leader, a better pastor, and even a better person.
So today we get to hear from a friend of mine that's a pastor of a church in Arizona. And this church has just exploded and grow. That's one of the fastest growing and largest churches in the country. They run over 10, 000 people every single weekend across six different campuses. And this particular pastor is more than just a great communicator.
He's also a good friend, a great guy by the name of Chad Moore. Who's been instrumental in my life is our guest today on the show. And he is also known by another name and he has a little YouTube show called the cigar preacher. Is that possible? Can a guy do that? Can a pastor do that? Well, we talk all about that.
We talk about what discipleship means. We talk about how we often make it really a lot more complicated than it needs to be. And I think you're really going to love this edition of Simple Faith. So here's my conversation with Chad Moore. [00:03:00] Chad Moore, thank you for joining the show. It's just an honor to have you with us.
Now I've known you for probably I don't know, 10, 12 years, um, but our listeners do not. So for them, for our listeners, tell us a little bit about yourself. It's an honor to be here, Rusty. And uh, you know what, before I say something about me, I'm going to say something about you. I get to talk to a lot of pastors.
I love you. You're the real deal. And I'm going to tell your listeners this, when I met Rusty, we were trying to pray. And he kept making my cell phone go off with fat guy in a little coat from Tommy boy. And that's when our friendship began. Do you remember that? I'm totally taken over here. I totally forgot about that.
Yeah. Cause that was your ringtone. Wasn't it? Yeah, and I thought I had my phone off and you turned it back on And and right here in this serious moment is when it's going off With tommy boy, and so that's when I that's when I said I got a bromance with this with this rusty guy [00:04:00] That's funny. Thank you.
Appreciate it Thanks for having me. I'm the pastor of Sun Valley Community Church, and we have six campuses in the East Valley of Phoenix. I'll be here 20 years this summer, married to my wife Katrina for 22 years, and then we have a 21 year old son and a 15 year old son. Now, I love this part of your story, and I think it's good for our listeners to hear.
When I first met you, you told me, Yeah, we've been married. I don't know how many years it was at the time, 11 years and four of them have been good or whatever the number was. And I thought, I really appreciate your honesty there, but you, you and your wife have walked through different challenges, you know, for our listeners that are in.
You know, kind of a tough spot in their marriage right now. Were there a couple things that helped you kind of, you know, make things better? Yeah, well, without all the gory details, I mean, we were married for a couple of years. We were separated for nine months because of some [00:05:00] things that happened. And during that nine months, both of us just had this moment where maybe God can do a miracle here.
And so we decided to both work on it, and it always takes two people, uh, for the miracle to happen. It takes two surrendered hearts. And God did do a miracle, I mean, um, He didn't do it instantly. Miracles are hard work. But both of us come from, I'm from Texas, my wife's from Scotland, so you got two very different worlds colliding.
Uh, we both come from broken homes, and statistics are like 80 percent of children of divorce will divorce themselves. And so the stats were against us, but we both, um, Realized that if we worked on it together, you know, maybe God could do something special. And he did. And both of us learned a whole lot about following Jesus.
You know, there's, there's religion and there's the rules. But then we realized just relationally, when you follow [00:06:00] Jesus, that actually plays out in all of your relationships. And that's actually how he evaluates us. All the fruit he evaluates is, is relational. And, uh, first off our relationship with him and then our relationship with others, and probably.
Uh, the litmus test of how you're doing and following Jesus relationally and that spilling out into the lives of other people is your marriage. And so we learned a ton. God's done a miracle. That was, uh, 18 years ago now. And, uh, she's my best friend. It's her birthday today, actually, at this recording. Oh.
And, uh, our boys are doing great. And, uh, yeah, God did a miracle, and it was hard work. Wow. Yeah, I love the way that you phrase that, because it does take our participation as well. We'd love for God just to, uh, wave the magic wand and fix everything. That's, that's so good. Okay, so when you Yeah, what's your statement?
You know, God do it, and He says, I do it, I'll do it if. Yeah. Yeah. Right? There's that big if that you talk about right in the [00:07:00] middle, if you'll trust me, follow me, do what I say. So, yeah. Yeah. And of course, Mark Batterson comes up with something much better than that and says, God waits to do the super till we do the natural.
I'm like, Oh, of course. That's just brilliant. Well, he's just showing off. I know. He, he really is. Okay. When you and I first met. You, we were in this, uh, what you were talking about, we were in this group of pastors. That's always a weird dynamic. And for people that have not been in that world, you think, Oh, that would be just a wonderful group of guys that just love God, love each other.
But you know, we're men, so there's a little bit of comparison and you know, how big's your church? How big's my church? All that kind of stuff. Yeah. But I, I don't have a problem saying that when you summed up the four things Jesus tells us to do in these four statements, I thought that. That, that's brilliant.
Would you tell our listeners what those four things are? Yeah, so when you watch the way that Jesus made disciples and when we talk about it in our church, and actually my church doesn't know this, uh, just our staff [00:08:00] knows that this is what we're doing. Uh, and then our staff gets the, our staff gets that leadership and then our, our church gets the result of us trying to lead in this way.
Uh, but there were four parts to what he did. And um, it's come and see, and then follow me and then be with me. And remain in me. And I actually learned that somewhere. Some. Point in my journey, you know how you have those things rusty and then you look back and you're like, where did I get that? I may have made them rhyme But I I learned those four things somewhere else.
I love that and I love that It's funny you mentioned rhyming because that is kind of one of your gifts. You should have been a songwriter because you make Great statements, catchy that become portable for people. So they remember them and you always have a great line. You say afterwards, we know it's true because it rhymes.
I've stolen that used it and made it my own and got a good cheap laugh out of it. Um, is this, is that something that just comes natural for you or in your years of teaching? Have you thought, I [00:09:00] gotta be better at the takeaway line because there's so much content people are getting. I don't know if they're remembering anything.
So in all honesty, most of those one liners, happen while I'm preaching and I'll say it because I'm an extrovert in that way. I think out loud, I'm an introvert in the way I recharge, but an extrovert in the way I think. So sometimes I'm just preaching away and I'll say it and it comes out and it's a rhyme or it's a good phrase.
And then my brain just goes, remember that, you know, and I kind of grab it out in the air and put it in my pocket. Um, I don't sit down in front of my computer and try to rhyme it. It just kind of flows out. Now I tell my church, I try not to rhyme, but I do it all the time. Oh, that's good. Isn't that bad?
That is really good. But it's just true. It just, it just happens. When it comes to preparing your message, I'm always fascinated to ask pastors this. Are you a guy that's like six months out, a year out? Are you writing the message week of? Is it all done in [00:10:00] one day or you kind of a quilter, you know, where you kind of put little pieces together throughout several weeks or how do you write a message?
What's that look like for you? So anytime somebody says, how long did you spend on that sermon? I love that. Today I'll say 51 years because that's how old I am. Took me 51 years to be able to do that. That's good. Um, content with our team here because we, you know, multiple locations content with our team is usually about six months out.
Uh, big rocks. And then about six, seven weeks out, I'll have paragraphs, just content wise, and then there's creative elements to that, that we work together on as a team. And then, um, usually about week of is when I'm sitting down to really work on it. But, you know, Rusty, you're thinking about it all the time.
Um, and you're, you know, you're talking about one liners. So I'll give you a little. A little story just in the realm of thinking about it all the time. I was preaching and we were in Proverbs and, you know, [00:11:00] Proverbs is the principle of the path. And, um, he talks about different paths all the way through.
And so I'm preaching and I say, you know, the journey into darkness. Is a path, not a light switch. And I let that hang there. And then I say the line again, the journey into darkness is a path, not a light switch. And then I keep going. Well, afterwards, our teaching pastor, he's about 10 years younger than I am.
He comes backstage and he was like, dude, that line was amazing. You know, how did you come up with that? And I looked at him, and this is the truth. I say, well, I was watching, uh, Smallville the other day, and Lex Luthor said that. The journey into darkness is a path, not a light switch. And soon as I heard it, watching Smallville with my wife, I'm like, that's proverbs right there.
So, you know, I just put it in my phone. So I'm working on sermons all the time. Wow. But there's that pattern of six months, six weeks, week of, okay. So do you do that? You have these things that you hear and you're like, that's what I'm looking for. Completely. Yeah. And, and they, [00:12:00] they stick in your brain, they come out at the oddest times and you think, you know, I wish I could say I wrote that down and I weave it into a message.
Uh, but that's, uh, That's fantastic. Lex Luthor from Smallville, which by the way, shameless plug, he's been to our church. I know that guy. He's a great guy. Oh, really? Yeah, I'll let him know that he's helped you preach a message. Yeah, maybe more than one. I probably used more than one of his lines. Okay, so I want to go back to your four statements about Jesus.
We took a little sidetrack there because I'm always curious how people write messages. You know these, your staff knows these, but you program around them. When I ask you about discipleship, which has always been the thing that every church is trying to figure out, but, you know, Jesus didn't have a, you know, baseball diagram or even eight books you have to read, but rather this model of these four statements.
How do you guys use those to How do you program out or [00:13:00] build disciples, and how do you keep from it just turning into classes that you take or books that you read or things you check off but it becomes a lifestyle? Yeah, so that's, those four things are principally what I talk to my staff about. So, so come and see for instance is the woman at the well in John 4, come and see a man that told me everything about me.
And then the town comes out, Jesus spends a couple of days with them, and most of the town puts their faith in, in Jesus. And so we put come and see and follow me together because Jesus would always move it from come and see to follow me. Um, if you, John 6, look where he feeds the 5, 000, which was a lot more than 5, 000 because they just counted the men.
If you watch that, it's come and see, he does the miracle, he feeds them. And then the next morning, he's on the other side of the lake. They all wake up, oh, we're hungry. Where's Jesus? They all wind up going on to the other side of the lake and then he pushes the envelope 'cause they want breakfast. And that's, he changes the topic of [00:14:00] conversation and says, I'm the bread of life, you know?
And then you get to end of that really long chapter, John chapter six, and it says, many no longer followed him, but Jesus always moved from felt need. Come and see. To real need follow me and so the way we talk about it at Sun Valley is that's that's what we do on the weekends. That's that's preaching. So it's really message and mission.
So come and see his message. That's context, style, the way that we do things. We want to do series that you feel good inviting a friend to because it's come and see but in the context of all of that, there's going to be always follow me moments. And so the best preaching can do, in my opinion, in the realm of discipleship is those first two.
It's come and see, follow me. And of course, it's, uh, see Jesus in a way you've never seen him. And, and good preachers help people do that. But there's always application. What does it mean to obey Jesus with what he's told us here, what he's modeled us here, what he's, what he's, [00:15:00] what he's teaching here. So that's come and see and follow me.
And so what I tell, um, our teaching pastors, uh, the people that are up front on a stage, all of our weekend team, that's, that's our job for making disciples in the context of our organization. We do come and see, follow me. And so we're, we're looking at things through that lens. And then our campus pastors.
And our campus staff, they do be with me and remain in me. So be with me as relationship, remain in me as responsibility. And so, uh, if you said it in a crass way, my job is to get everybody here and, and help them have a good experience. And then our campus pastor and their teams, their job is to keep everybody that comes here.
And you do that through relationship and responsibility. Um, you connect somebody with, with a, with a friend. Uh, they're more likely to come back, you know, the following week because eventually they get tired of hearing me speak and then they know Rusty preaches out in California. I can just listen to him online.
He's a little better than [00:16:00] Chad. I mean, there's all that going on in the real world. And so preaching can get them, but it won't keep them. But when they get plugged in relationally in the life of the church now, now we're applying next level. Uh, what was talked about on the weekend, uh, in our real lives, and then you give somebody responsibility.
Now they're serving, uh, that one, two punch of relationship and responsibility is really sticky. So I get them to church and then our campus pastors and teams help people become part of the life of the church. And so relationship responsibility, and that can even be as simple as, um, so my wife and I do alpha groups.
Are you familiar with alpha? These are people that, uh, are investigating faith or open to investigating faith. Well, The very first alpha, we give everybody something they're supposed to bring for dinner the next week. All we're doing is giving them a responsibility. So if I say, Hey Rusty, next week, you know, we're having Mexican, you bring the chips.
If you don't show up, we don't have any chips, right? So that's [00:17:00] just a simple responsibility that we gave you. But relationship responsibility is what makes people come back and stick and really begin to grow, uh, in a real way in their faith. And so, uh, what I do in the weekend team, we do come and see and follow me.
And then, uh, all of our other staff. Plug people into the life of the church, which is be with me and remain in me. Okay, now I know that you would never do this, so I'm not going to ask you to. You and I both have served at churches, been around churches that are usually missing some element of that, and it could be as simple as they do the weekends bad or they do the weekdays bad, but what's the piece that you often see missing in churches that you think, boy, if you could just Crack that code, or if you could just do that one thing, it would change the trajectory of your church.
What are you seeing that is the most obvious right now? The biggest frustration that I have in [00:18:00] talking with other pastors about discipleship is the majority of those conversations leave out follow me. It's It's about education. Yeah. It's, it's very rarely about actual obedience. So, one of these things that, one of the things that I, that I'll say, and I think I got this from, from Larry Osborne out at North Coast in California, you know Larry, is discipleship is as simple as your next step of obedience.
And so we've made discipleship theological education when Jesus made it obedience. Um, and so everybody wants to evaluate, you know, what's the system. Jesus evaluates the fruit. So as you well know, and part of this kind of comes out of my wife and I's story that I mentioned earlier, you know, both of us had theological education.
Um, I mean, I went to Bible college. My [00:19:00] wife was a 4. 0 graduate, only woman to win the Greek award at Dallas Christian College, right? I mean, we, we had the education. Uh, what we did not have in a real way on a daily basis in our everyday lives was application. You know, dying to self, serving others, those kinds of things.
And so sometimes I'm on a panel and I always feel like such an idiot, right? They'll have all these seminary guys, you know, professors, and then there's me and I'm like, what am I doing here? Um, but I always try to bring it back around to, you know, what does it mean to follow Jesus and are we teaching our people to follow Jesus?
Um, because at the end of the day, uh, obedience is, is what discipleship's about. And so I think if you did information without application, you wasted everybody's time. It might have been entertaining or edutaining, right, to make up a word, uh, it, it, but it wasn't transformational. You know, information plus application.
That's what equals transformation. And that always plays [00:20:00] out relationally. Hey, let me interrupt this podcast and just remind you about courage to lead. com, a great organization that is helping leaders build killer teams. And I'm happy to announce that I am now part of their organization, helping pastors and business leaders.
If you'd like to learn more about me being your coach or. Finding a different coach, just check it out at my website, PastorRustyGeorge. com for more information. All right. Back to the show. You know, for anybody who's writing messages on a weekly basis, it's easy to get into a rut of what the follow me is.
Yeah. Sometimes it just becomes, Hey, come down front or say yes to Jesus or get baptized or start tithing. Um, do you find that as you're crafting your message, the follow me? Is really specific to the text or it's kind of the same based upon the come and see type of people that are showing up Or do you just kind of let you know, the series dictate that we're going to go after volunteerism this this Month or this series or we're going to go after [00:21:00] um You know prayer or something like that How do you come up with or how do you decide upon what the follow me is going to be at that particular message?
Yeah, I think most passages of scripture have a follow me in it. There's some step of obedience in there. Now sometimes it's think differently. Sometimes the application is you're thinking incorrectly, right? You've heard it said, but I say, Jesus wants you to see it differently. So then when you're preparing the message, you have to say, okay, Jesus is saying, see it differently, but then what are the ramifications of that and, and how do, how do I know if I'm really seeing it differently?
Right? And so sometimes the application is that simple. Uh, think differently than you've been thinking. Uh, sometimes, uh, it is a specific step. Um, but usually that's in the realm of giving and serving. And so just topically, contextually, you just, you just give examples of [00:22:00] steps, uh, with whatever the passage of scripture.
of scripture is. It's not as difficult, I think, as we make it. Um, and obviously sometimes it's, like you said, giving. Sometimes it's specific serving. There's opportunities to do that in the church. Um, what, what I tend to do is, um, speak out of my own life a lot. Uh, meaning my own weaknesses when I say is, um, you know, if I'll speak out of my weakness, I'll never run out of material, right?
Because there's no end to that. And so if you talk about things in the context of what you're learning or what you're applying, a lot of times that's the application piece, uh, but you're presenting it in the realm of modeling. That's so good. So you're talking about, I used to do it this way, that was stupid.
So I just started to do it Jesus's way, and then this is what happened, and I want to encourage you to do the same. Mm, that's really good. Uh, what's a series that you've done lately that you really enjoyed teaching through? Right now, um, and I'll do this about every three to four years, we're doing a big movement.
Another church [00:23:00] in Southern California, Mariners, does something called Rooted, which is seven rhythms of the Christian life. They got it from a church in Africa. And so we called them and said, Hey, we need, you know, 10, 000 Rooted books. And they were gracious with us. I'm actually doing it as a movement. Um, preaching on it on the weekends and then, uh, we gave everybody a book.
We didn't make them pay for it. And so right now we're doing rooted groups. They started last night. Um, but I'm doing kind of a church wide movement thing. Cause we were just out of place. You know, we're a few years coming out of COVID. A bunch of people are kind of back. There's a bunch of new people. So we wanted to do something as sticky as we possibly could make sure that our people had foundational, um, discipleship principles.
And so right now we're doing rooted across the board and the sermons on the weekend are just the memory verse for that week Yeah, so that's that's what we're doing right now It is interesting that post covid [00:24:00] a lot of us have kind of gone back to all right Let's get back to the basics and we go back with you know Right now we're doing the story walking through the bible in 31 weeks Um, and you guys have picked up rooted which I love.
What are you noticing about? Yeah. Are you seeing that, I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, tip the scale, so I'll just let you answer. What's, what's different now? Well, you know, coming out of COVID, all the quote unquote experts, you know, everything's changed now. Everything's changed. And I, I don't know.
Can be a contrarian and I just had in my mind. No, it hasn't. What worked before is going to continue to work. Um, we're just all, you know, a couple of years behind where we would have been because COVID kind of shook us up a little bit. Now we need to be excellent online. We need to realize that's just part of, you know, modern culture, at least in America, but people are going to be engaged with you even when they're not in the room.
And so we need to do that one to [00:25:00] that one to punch. But I think, um, yeah. I think what COVID did Rusty is, um, it, it, it sifted the whole thing, you know, when you, when you sift something, you shake that pan and then the, the bad stuff goes out and the good stuff stays. I think a lot of churches got sifted. I think a lot of us as pastors got sifted.
And I think part of that sifting was, you know, um, people that we thought were really committed weren't. We thought they were really committed to Jesus, but no, they're More committed to their political ideology and if you're not way over where they are whether right or left and they're out So I think there was a sifting but but I think now, you know three in three three and a half years post It's it's a new day.
I my guess is dude about a third of our church turned over During COVID we have tons of new [00:26:00] people around here Um, we're, we're, we're at a place where we're more than what we were pre COVID. Uh, but I just, I just see a lot of momentum. I see a lot of people, uh, really want to know who Jesus is. Um, you know, I, I'm seeing really great things.
really great things happen. Um, I, I will tell you, I will tell you this, something I'm seeing all over the place in my own life. And then in the lives of, of other guys that have a more of a Bible church background like mine, there seems to be a move of the Holy Spirit. that is special right now. Um, and it seems to be happening everywhere.
Um, and, and my folks, my church is experiencing some of that. Some of that is my leadership and the way God's teaching me and changing me. But there's some special things happening just in the realm of the Holy Spirit. But I, I think post COVID, you know, What worked pre COVID will work right now. Uh, we just gotta wrap our [00:27:00] minds around, uh, that one two punch of online and in the room.
People don't separate that in their brains, you know. If you're a customer at this store, you're a customer there online or in the room. And so people think about that church wise. So we just need to make sure we're providing that holistic opportunity for them to continue and to engage with us. Hmm. Yes, a hybrid church model.
I love it. Um, okay. So I want to ask you about this. Um, and it is a unique way to, uh, um, I guess, communicate, connect with people. And I'd love to hear kind of what the genesis was behind this and why you started to do it, because I know you well enough to know that it was outreach oriented. Uh, but the, the whole idea is something that you started called Cigar Preacher.
Uh, where you have a YouTube channel, uh, where you're the cigar preacher. And, uh, I won't tell more about it. I'll let you do it, but give us kind of the why behind it and, and what it is. Yeah, so it's, it's Cigar Preacher, Cigar's Life [00:28:00] and What Matters Most. So far we've produced five episodes and yeah, like you said, you can look those up on YouTube.
What they came out of is about ten years ago, I made friends with a guy in my church and we started hanging out and we liked a lot of the same things and he said, would you ever smoke a cigar with me? And so I said, well, yeah, probably I'm, I did that in college a little bit, you know, me and my buddies sitting around talking about theology and, uh, we thought we would be like Charles Spurgeon and, uh, have our cigar.
And so we got these cheap Swisher Sweets things at the convenience store and at the Southern Baptist school at my apartment, we would, you know, sit on the. deck of my apartment and talk Armenianism and Calvinism over a swisher sweet, right? Because we thought we were Charles Spurgeon. Um, so he said, you know, would you ever have a smoke?
Would you ever have a cigar with me? And so I said, yeah, I'll do that. And he was new to church. And um, [00:29:00] so we built a friendship and it got to where every Friday he was kind of my mentor. And so I'm like a one cigar a week guy, maybe one or two. So not over the top. You know, no addiction, but good conversations around that.
And then when I started going to cigar shops, I'm like, man, men talk here from different backgrounds, uh, different races of people. Uh, there's something about this that causes men to have conversation. And so, uh, for several years, that was my outreach, frankly, uh, because all the people I work with know Jesus.
You know, you wonder some days, but for the most part, I think they do. Um, and so that was an opportunity to kind of, for lack of a better way to say it, be in the world, but not of it. Um, you know, so I was around a lot of sinners, um, but I would not overindulge or, um, you know, I spoke a little differently than the rest of those guys did.
They knew I was a little different, uh, but likable and I never told him I was a pastor unless I absolutely had to, [00:30:00] uh, because once you tell somebody, you know, this rusty, once you tell somebody you're a pastor, it changes the conversation. They immediately count how many bombs they said. You know, in the past five minutes, so just through the years, built friendships, um, I'm kind of the unofficial chaplain among different groups of men that don't go to, you know, my church.
I've also had friends meet Jesus through that, baptized them. So, um, my buddy and I, this guy, we, we went to New Orleans because our wives were on a medical mission trip to Haiti. And so we were like, well, we both like Cajun food. Let's go to New Orleans for a couple of days. Any cajun food and have a cigar or two so we wind up in the cigar shop in new orleans just off the french quarter a bunch of old guys sitting around in leather chairs you can picture that in your mind young guy comes in and they just immediately start razzling him he's about to get married and they're like worst decision of your life old ball and chain what do we got to do to talk you out of it and it was kind of funny at first.[00:31:00]
But then it, but then it crossed over and you could tell the kid was outnumbered outgunned and didn't know what to say and started to be awkward, you know, in the room, he was frustrated, uh, they were hurting his feelings a little bit. He looks over at me, he doesn't know me from Adam says, what do you think?
And so I lean back with a cigar in my hand and I say, well, at that time, I've been married for 18 years. My wife's my best friend. I said, uh, we've had some challenges in our marriage, but it will be what you make it. And so make good decisions and it'll be like the greatest thing in your life. And I said, but don't let a bunch of old guys who are all going to bed by themselves tonight talk you out of something great, you know, and then all of a sudden all the, Oh, you know, and we're all picking on each other, whatever.
But it turned into this beautiful conversation about marriage, um, where to the best of my ability. I represented the [00:32:00] gospel. And so we're walking back to, uh, the VRBO, my, my buddy and I, and I just said, man, I would have loved to have that on film. Like just the raw conversation between a bunch of dudes where I got to bring the principles of Jesus into that conversation and watch them see the brilliance of it.
Right. Cause they're, Oh, I never thought about that. Oh man, we probably should have did that. Oh, you know. Um. And so out of that, this idea was, was born and then frankly, I was afraid to do it cause it's, you know, it's different, right? Can I get away with it? So I talked to my board. They already knew that I had, you know, a cigar on occasion.
They were all for it instantly cause we're an outsider focused church. We, we try to see a lot of people meet Jesus. And so I had a couple of my guys on staff push me and, and so we, we did five episodes, put them out on YouTube. I think the first episode, we've not marketed it. We've not really done anything with it.
I just [00:33:00] kind of told my people we were doing it. First episode's like at 40, 000 views, something like that. The gospel's very clear in that episode. For anybody that's listening, wants to watch it, the first guest is Mark. Uh, and just, just watch that. That 28 minutes, and I think Jesus will move in your life if you do that, you'll at least hear a phenomenal testimony.
But the idea was just to take the gospel into places that people might not normally be open to it. And the biggest benefit, so far, I have plans for it too, but the biggest benefit so far is it's an easy invite for men in my church. To just say, Hey, my pastor, you know, does this and, um, it's, it's easy to say, watch this and you'll get to know who my pastor is.
And so we've had a lot of, it's primarily men. We've had a lot of men come to church as, as a result. You know, this is such an overflow of who you are and who your church is. And that is anything short of sin to connect people to Christ. What are some things that you have seen? Maybe people in your church [00:34:00] or other churches do in order to help people connect to Jesus besides just Invite them to church.
This seems to be I think you and I have talked about the spiritual continuum from negative 5 to positive 5 Yeah, I think you're the first one that ever told me about it And then you know a negative 5 a negative 4 kind of person that's not really yet ready for Jesus What are you seeing out there that people or churches are doing that's a little bit out of the box, but is actually working?
Yeah. Well, here's the principle, right? I'm gonna rhyme, Rusty, so here it comes. I'm ready. If, if you really want to make an impact, I mean, you're not just talking about it. You're not just in general agreement with Jesus, right? But you really want to impact people's lives. If you want to make an impact, you've got to have contact.
It, it is that simple. And so lost people are not the enemy, they're the mission. So the question is, right, how do we be in the world, but, but not of it. And this was an [00:35:00] opportunity, uh, on my end, you know, to do something kind of out of the box, a little bit risky. People always say, is that why your voice is raspy?
You know, cause you haven't, I'm like, no, I've had this voice since I was 12 years old, right? There's no addiction here or anything like that. Um, and people that don't understand. Cigars, they're, they're the most concerned, but, um, it actually helps me find favor with a lot of people and I've seen guys at other churches, you know, they'll, they'll, I ride motorcycles too.
So I know a guy who's a pastor and the only reason he has a Harley is because he can do these Harley rides. with a bunch of people that, that don't know Jesus. Uh, there's moms in our church that do mom clubs in their neighborhoods. And literally they sit in a circle in their driveway here in Arizona.
You, you do a fire pit in the middle in the winter and they sit out there and talk. And it's like a once a month gathering. There's just all kinds of things like that. And one of the reasons I wanted to do cigar preacher is I wanted to give some guys permission that we're thinking about something a little risky.
Um, you know, to, to [00:36:00] go first and just see, just see how it works. I'm working on a five year plan now, but we've gone through year one. The biggest question on year one is, can I get away with this? Uh, and then the number two, the people that don't know Jesus like it, um, and, and does it have an effect? And, and it does.
And, and we've seen, uh, people meet Jesus. We've seen people get sober, uh, cause, cause that first episode is, is about sobriety. Um, and it's just been a beautiful. A beautiful thing, but yeah, if you want to, if you want to make an impact, you got to have contact. I love that. Well, Chad, uh, this has been helpful, I think for all of our listeners, but especially me.
It's man. I just, I love the visionary, uh, ideas that you have. I love the rhymes, uh, but, uh, more importantly, um, And our listeners don't know this, but you and your ministry have had a huge impact on my family because of the impact you had on my sister. And I'm forever grateful for that. Um, she and her family are big fans of Sun Valley and, uh, uh, you really [00:37:00] helped them out a lot in some very difficult times.
So. Uh, friend to friend, I say thank you, pastor to pastor, uh, I am encouraged by you, and uh, for everybody listening, check out Cigar Preacher on YouTube, and uh, you know, let us know what you think. I think you'll really, uh, you'll really find it fascinating, and it's just great stuff, and it's really, really well done, too.
Um, you definitely put some, uh, some good work into that. It's not just an iPhone and a, you know, in a, in a dingy lit basement smoking cigars. It's a, it's well put together. So, so great job, my friend. Listen, thank you for being on the show. Thank you for, uh, for everything and, uh, praying big things for you at Sun Valley.
Thank you, Rusty. Right back at you. Honored to be part of it. Thanks for the privilege. Well, I hope Chad pushed you a little bit, certainly pushed me, made me think differently about some things. Hopefully that'll be helpful for you. And next week we'll be back with brand new content. I cannot wait to bring that to you.
And if this has been helpful to you, please leave us a review, [00:38:00] uh, rate us on wherever you get your podcasts, share it with a friend. We will talk to you next week and as always, keep it simple.