#384: No Paycheck, No Plan-Just Faith: How Losing It All Ignited JR's God-Given Purpose

Kevin Lowe: That has been made possible for JR, and I believe it can be made possible for you as well.

Kevin Lowe: And if you are ready to take on this new chapter in your life, to listen to God's plans, But maybe you would love to harness a little bit of that new AI technology that's out in the world.

Kevin Lowe: Well, my friend, I created a guide specific for you.

Kevin Lowe: It's for beginners to AI, helping you to not be scared of it, but instead to realize how you can harness it for your own personal growth and development goals.

Kevin Lowe: It's super easy. It's a free ebook that you can download right now.

Kevin Lowe: A link is at the top of today's show notes. You can also head on over to the website where you can also find a link to download today's free resource called the AI Advantage.

Kevin Lowe: And with that, my friend, I'm, of course, your host, Kevin Lowe.

Kevin Lowe: And this is episode 384 of Grit, Grace and Inspiration.

<Theme Song: I Got Grit, Grace, & Inspiration on My Mind!>

Kevin Lowe: What's going on? And welcome back to another amazing interview here on Great Grace and Inspiration.

Kevin Lowe: Today, I have the pleasure of being in the studio with JR.

Kevin Lowe: JR, welcome to the podcast.

JR: Hey, Kevin. I've been looking forward to our conversation. This is going to be fun. So yes, thank you for the invitation.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, man. Well, I'm excited to dive into your story. I'm excited to understand the wild world of following God's plans, which I always say are rarely what we have planned. But in the end, his plans are always the best.

Kevin Lowe: And so I would love to start, though, if we go back in time, because before really getting into the whole Brushfire Ministries, your story really starts with you creating a software company back in the 80s.

Kevin Lowe: Would you mind kind of diving into that a bit?

JR: Well, I found myself in programming in 1979 when I landed a job as a software trainer and they asked if I wanted to learn how to program.

JR: And I had a natural proclivity towards it.

JR: I picked it up very quick and excelled at it. And I left that company, went to another one for a short period of time.

JR: Then ultimately it was in the last company I worked for.

JR: And the owner was a psychopath. I mean, he was just a nutcase.

JR: And even though he had created a good product and had assembled a really talented team, his personality and his inability to be able to be grateful for what he had received from other people and to be able to build a cohesive team really caused the whole company to fall apart eventually.

JR: And so I left and called a employee that had already left before me, or I was in the process of leaving, I should say, And he said, well, why don't you come over and see what I was doing?

JR: And he was working on a new replacement product from the ground up, a whole new concept.

JR: It had a number of advances in it. And because I was at the end of my patience with my prior employer, I said, you know what?

JR: All the hours that I would have normally worked over 40 for my other employer, I'll start just working for you for free and helping you out.

JR: So I started showing up there after hours during the week and on Saturdays and just kind of, you know, putting in the legwork to get his product to where it needed to be to be released.

JR: And one Saturday he goes, you know, we could really make a business of this.

JR: And I go, Philip, dude, you're single. I got a wife. I got three kids. I got a mortgage.

JR: You know, if you're going to do this, you have to be all in.

JR: I can't just do this on a lark.

JR: Anyway, about a month later on a Saturday, he reached his hand out to me and he says, if you want to do this as a business, I'm all in. And I was like, okay, now what?

JR: So I then had to say, all right, well, if we're going to do this, the very first thing is developing software doesn't pay any bills.

JR: So I'm going to have to go to all my current clients with my current employer and go, hey, I'm leaving and I would love for you to come with me and I'll charge you the same rate that I'm charging you, that you're being charged now.

JR: And every one of my customers, Kevin, went with me.

JR: Oh, wow. Every, every single one of them. It was such a relief.

JR: So once that happened, I gave notice after I had the verbal agreement with the clients.

JR: And over a short period of time, like about a year and a half, every employee I had hired and trained at that prior employer, ran into the boss, ran into the, this guy's crazy thing that I had been protecting him from.

JR: And I simply replied, well, why don't you come over and see what we're doing?

JR: And within a year and a half, I had 90% of the staff and 90% of the client base.

JR: Yeah, it was a God thing. And we continue to work really hard hours, 16 hour days for six days a week, Philip and I, to release the product.

JR: And the very first version of Assist, was released in December of 1989, two years later.

JR: At one point, we were able to add some other programmers to the project, but all the core development work, all the templates and so forth were developed by either Philip or myself.

JR: And yeah, that's how it all started.

JR: And with that client base, with that software product being released in 89, we started selling that, converting some of those older clients to the new product because they were not Y2K compliant.

JR: And that business is still going.

JR: We are still servicing clients in both Canada and the United States.

JR: And we are in the process of trying to wind down that business.

JR: But our clients love the software and it's that good that they don't want to leave it. So it's been a difficult transition.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. Out of curiosity, what kind of like industry type of companies are that we're using this software?

JR: We developed wholesale distribution manufacturing accounting software.

JR: So basically anybody that has an inventory that resells it to a retailer or direct to market or manufactures things and then sells those.

JR: So, for instance, one of our largest clients was a toy importer out of Miami, and they bought toys, designed toys, assembled toys, and then sold them to Walmart or places like SeaWorld, just all kinds of various outlets where you would have a gift store or a toy department.

JR: And that's the sort of client that we had. We also did a lot of work in the aerospace industry, providing nuts and bolts and fasteners and tracking that inventory.

Kevin Lowe: Okay. Okay. Fascinating. Very, very interesting. Okay.

Kevin Lowe: So that business, you said, launched in what year?

JR: We started the development or established the corporation in 1987.

JR: And in 89 is when we actually released the first version of the software.

JR: But 87 is when the company was formed.

Kevin Lowe: Okay. Okay. Interesting. Because I know that in 2014, I believe was the year.

Kevin Lowe: So we're fast forwarding quite a while later.

Kevin Lowe: You kind of had I'm going to say a big moment happened when you had to get involved in the stuff that you know the the well the bad side of being the business owner where you have to deal you know sometimes firing employees and whatnot and so talk to me about that situation.

JR: So the company at that point was was really fairly stable we had a ongoing list of new clients and we were really kind of managing well with a relatively small group of employees.

JR: And one of my employees had a problem. I don't want to go into the details just for privacy sake. And I had to let them go.

JR: When I let them go, I realized within about six months that they had damaged the relationship of our two largest clients.

JR: And by the end of 2015, we had lost about two-thirds of our revenue and I knew that it was no longer sustainable.

JR: Even in the beginning of 2016, when I cut all expenses, I realized it wasn't enough.

JR: So I personally had to stop taking a paycheck as of January 2016.

JR: And I did that because I didn't want to leave the rest of my employees in the lurch without being able to provide for their families.

JR: And I didn't want to leave our clients in the lurch because if all of a sudden we went out of business and they had nobody to support them, their businesses would come to a halt because we controlled everything about getting their products in the door and out the door.

JR: So it was a difficult decision, but that's what I decided to do.

JR: And because I knew I was winding down the business, I also knew that I couldn't sell the software because I can't sell the software to a new client for, you know, 80, 100, 250 thousand dollars and not know if I was going to be in business in six months.

JR: And you kind of know if you're not going to be in business when you're not getting a paycheck.

JR: That kind of is a big clue that something isn't going well in the finance part of it. So by me not taking a paycheck, I was able to keep the business going and pay bills and meet our financial obligations.

JR: But it basically cleared my entire schedule for 2016.

JR: No software development, no sales and marketing, no sales presentation, no new installations.

JR: All that was going on. and it was a very hard year for me personally because for men, our identity is really tied to what we do.

JR: And when a man loses that, they lose who they are in this world.

JR: They lose their sense of self-worth, their concept of being productive and useful.

JR: It's a huge part of a man's identity when they lose their job.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely.

Kevin Lowe: I mean, how were you able to make it in your home life, not taking a paycheck?

Kevin Lowe: Were you guys, had you had enough money set aside that you guys were able to survive?

Kevin Lowe: Because I mean, not taking a paycheck in, you know, in support of the company sounds great, but I'm like, how were you making it?

JR: So we did have a number of very successful years and I was never really into big material things.

JR: So we didn't go out and, you know, waste a lot of that money.

JR: We put a lot of it into savings and we had virtually no debt personally.

JR: So we had used the money wisely to make things worse.

JR: The stock market was not good to me. So probably about half of that money got lost through the financial downturn in 2007 and 2008 and a couple others.

JR: But we still had a substantial amount of savings to be able to do that.

JR: But it got also provided, there were some, at the end of each year, there's money left over in the business due to certain contractual agreements that we have.

JR: So towards the end of the year, I would get, you know, maybe half a dozen or so paychecks.

JR: Going nine months without a paycheck, and then January would come around in 2017, and the whole process would start over again with, all right, you're going nine months without any money coming in at all.

JR: And that's sort of the way that worked. Guy also had a couple surprise bonuses that showed up every once in a while that was like, okay, I didn't see that coming.

JR: So it was like, all right, I got you back. But we had to cut back on trips and all kinds of discretionary spending really got curtailed.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. Now, during this time period, I mean, what are you thinking personally as far as the future?

Kevin Lowe: I mean, are you are you at all thinking that there's a way to rebuild this business or are you thinking of an exit plan at this point?

JR: The business itself, I had reinvented it by that time. So we're 2016.

JR: So we're nearly 30 years at that point.

JR: And I had reinvented it three times, and it had sucked all the joy and drive and ambition out of me.

JR: And I knew that I couldn't rebuild that business as it was again.

JR: Now, I had really unique talents in the fact that a business owner, but I also understood how to implement software and how to help guide people in choosing software.

JR: So I thought a logical approach would be for me to go out and do consulting work and help other businesses find software and help them with the implementation.

JR: But I got to tell you, man, I might have had a bust nose because God slammed that door so hard in my face.

JR: It was not going to happen. He was like, no, you're not doing that.

JR: As unique and as hard to find as my skill set was, there were no opportunities for me to cash in on that. So I thought, okay, this is weird.

JR: So that's not going to happen. And so I just started, I don't know, flashing around, trying to figure out some way of bringing in money.

JR: At some point it was like, all right, this isn't working.

JR: I'm not, there are no doors being opened to me. And that's kind of, again, that was unusual with my walk with the Lord, because he's always provided.

JR: It led me to a point where I was sitting in a chair just one day, really frustrated because you start doing the self-analysis.

JR: Okay, did I deserve this?

JR: Did I do this to myself? And so you go through that and I go, no, I treated my employees with respect.

JR: I gave this guy every last opportunity to come through.

JR: I did all these things. I treated my clients, and we have a great product.

JR: I don't deserve this. This is not because of the consequence of my sin. I couldn't see that.

JR: So then it was like, all right, God, you're behind this.

JR: And I remember one day just being frustrated and saying out loud, I know you're behind this. What do you want?

JR: And that was probably the beginning of the process of him saying, all right, now that I got your attention and you're no longer thrashing around trying to figure out how to save yourself, pay attention to what I'm telling you.

JR: Pay attention to the people that I am sending to you, what they're saying, and say yes when I tell you to say yes.

JR: And that was the implied message.

JR: He didn't actually say any of that. I had to kind of figure that on my own.

JR: But at the end of 2016, a acquaintance reached out to me and says, you know, hey, I've got this personality assessment training stuff that I do, and I think you'll be really good at it.

JR: Now, he's charged a lot of money for this training.

JR: So it was, you know, there was no altruism in his offer.

JR: It was, I'm going to make a lot of money off of you attending this class.

JR: So, you know, that was his motivation.

JR: And I initially said no, because again, I had cut all expenses.

JR: I was, you know, and this made no sense to me because I didn't see how it connected to my valuable experience and skillset.

JR: And it just made sense. So I told him, no, And then later that day, I felt this tug, do it.

JR: I go, it makes no sense, do it, okay?

JR: And so I signed up, I negotiated a better price and had my wife do it with me so I had somebody that I could kind of bounce ideas across.

JR: And it was within a week or two that I was convinced that these were the most intuitive assessments and had accurately described me and my wife in a way that was easily understood by a layman because I don't have a psychology background at all.

JR: And I'm going, these are powerful. And so I continue with that training and just like I did with programming where it was like this was natural and I could just automatically just run into it.

JR: That's the way the assessment training was. It was like, oh, this is for you. You get this.

JR: And so I went through the training through three different series of sessions, and it was that that ultimately led me to starting the ministry.

Kevin Lowe: Interesting, so talk to me more about this assessment.

Kevin Lowe: Because I guess I'm trying to understand, I mean, is it one of those like where you're just answering questions like, you know, is that all it is? As simple as that?

JR: Well, it is and it's not. Okay. So there are an unending number of assessments that are out there, but there's a very small sliver of assessments that are known as psychometric assessments.

JR: Psychometric assessments are ones that figure out how you are wired internally.

JR: And that wiring is consistent with the rest of your life.

JR: So for instance, if you are a 18-year-old and you like to take risks, it kind of excites you and interests you, you'll still be taking risks at 68 and even at 88.

JR: The difference is that the risks that you'll take at 18 or 28, maybe physical, maybe at 68 you've learned not to do that, but you'll still take risks emotionally.

JR: You'll take risks business-wise. You'll take risk financially.

JR: And so these things are ingrained in you.

JR: And there's a very small sliver of assessments that are out there that have this accreditation and requires third-party testing and to be able to get that certification.

JR: Ones that others have heard of would be like DISC or Myers-Briggs or GALP Strengths.

JR: Those are all psychometric assessments.

JR: The YMI assessments have also gone through them. The difference between our assessments and everybody else's, and I didn't know this at the time in 2016 and 17th.

JR: Is that our assessments were developed by born-again believers.

JR: They were used in the corporate world, always intended to be used in the church.

JR: The church said no, not interested, and so it was used primarily in private practice for consultation.

JR: The other difference is that our assessments do not put you in a box.

JR: They do not say that you are sanguine or melancholy or some kind of weird personality definition.

JR: The way our assessments work is this. We measure a very specific aspect of who you are.

JR: Like in a group effort, what do you like to do? Or what is your most impactful tool that you have? Or how does your mind work?

JR: Or what really interests you? What are your natural abilities?

JR: What are your values? And then, of course, we've also include, and these are not psychometric, but we also have a five-fold ministry, the gifts from Jesus, spiritual gifts from Jesus.

JR: And we also have a spiritual gifts assessments, which are the gifts of the Father.

JR: We also include those as part of our assessment.

JR: And what happens is in a three-hour coaching session at the end of our program, a person will go through that and we individually analyze every one of those, aspects of who they are. So what motivates them?

JR: What's the big way of impacting the world? all the different ways that their mind works and their interests, abilities, and values.

JR: We pull all that together and we holistically assemble a fingerprint of who you are as God created you to be.

JR: And from that, we then produce a purpose statement that says, this is what God created you to do.

JR: There's no expiration date on that. So if you learn this at 25, God bless you.

JR: If you have to be hardheaded and wait till you're 60 like I was, you know, God still has a plan for you.

JR: All these things are a natural byproduct of going through this process.

JR: And they all create a unique purpose statement that says, this is what God wants to do through you.

JR: This is how God has created you to serve other people.

Kevin Lowe: Fascinating. Way more cool than what I was thinking.

JR: This is not about your love languages or, you know, it's a lot more.

JR: More involved, and it is unique.

JR: It is uniquely you. As unique as you are, as your DNA is, we believe that this purpose that's in you, these interest, abilities, and values are actually ingrained in your DNA.

JR: When God breathed you into existence, this is part of what he did in that creation process.

JR: So that's why saying that somebody is, you know, one of these 16 different personality types or, you know, you're one of these nine different personality types or whatever. That's just baloney.

JR: It's insulting to God because his creativity is infinite.

JR: He doesn't reproduce himself. Just like every snowflake is different, every one of God's children is different.

JR: And so when we can help them figure out where they fit in the body of Christ, that is our job, is to help them figure that out so that they can start to be used by God and experience that relationship that God wants to have with all of his children.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely.

Kevin Lowe: So I'm curious, JR, what, I mean, when you finished this and you got your results, I mean, what were those results to then end up setting you on this path, getting you to where you are today?

Kevin Lowe: I mean, because, I mean, I'm like, there had to be something truly profound.

Kevin Lowe: I mean, was it totally out of the blue? Like, were you really shocked at it?

Kevin Lowe: And then, you know, was it, again, just trusting in God to go that direction?

JR: There's a thing about our spirits, especially for believers that have the Holy Spirit bound to our personal spirits.

JR: Believe it or not, your spirit does know what God wants to do through you and will confirm it and nudge you in that direction.

JR: So the process actually went this way. It was being taught from a counselor's perspective how to help people in relationship.

JR: It had been used in the corporate world for many decades to help put the best people in the right spots and to learn how to motivate their staff and to deal with, you know, people that are having blocks in their development and so forth.

JR: And it was proven and vetted to be a very effective tool.

JR: And the person that was teaching this, they were a Christian, but they were not teaching it from a Christian perspective.

JR: And in fact, they had a real edge to the church whenever they talked about the church.

JR: So they definitely weren't interested in working with the church in this area.

JR: But I'm going through this and I'm putting together these pieces.

JR: I'm going, no, this is for the church.

JR: This was intended for the church.

JR: How I knew that, simply my spirit saying that.

JR: So as I said, a byproduct of our program is to create a purpose statement.

JR: So in spring of 2017, I'm looking at my purpose statement and my purpose statement reads this way.

JR: I must strategically lead a gifted team to embrace the power of their God-given design for long-term positive results.

JR: There's three aspects to that. I must strategically lead.

JR: Well, Kevin, I've been a leader since I was 18.

JR: I joined a group and then somehow I wind up leading it.

JR: It happens to me. I start a business and my partner three years later says, I want you to buy me out. I want to go off and do something else.

JR: You know, it's just, that's just how my life has been. So, okay, that part I got.

JR: Embrace the power of the God-given design. All right, well, I've got these assessments which tell you how God created you and wired you.

JR: Okay, that makes sense. And building a team.

JR: And the last thing is for long-term positive results. So I'm thinking about this going, okay, this is for the church.

JR: You were created to bring it to the church.

JR: You're supposed to help people embrace their God-given design for long-term positive results, which is good fruit.

JR: That's what God's good fruit is, is long-term positive results.

JR: And we're like, all right, well, these assessments are agnostic.

JR: There's nothing Christianese in them.

JR: And I go, all right, well, you got to bring it to the church.

JR: What are you going to do about it?

JR: I go, I guess I'm going to write the curriculum so that I can bring this assessment to the church and help people discover their purpose, their God-given purpose.

JR: And as soon as I came to that mental agreement that, all right, this is what I'm going to do, God then spoke to me and said, and you're going to call Brush Fires Ministry.

JR: And Kevin, I got to tell you, I know that I'm the very first person that spoke those words out in public.

JR: I know it was in my head that that title was conceived, but in all modesty, I cannot claim responsibility for the naming of the ministry.

JR: God said, this is what you're going to call it. And I thought, first of all, cool name.

JR: Cool name, God. Yeah, I get that. And then it was later on as people were asking me about the name, because I had already gone on to the, all right, now I've got to write the curriculum, which eventually became our first book.

JR: It was, oh, I'm teaching people how to pursue their God-given purpose.

JR: And then they go out and live out that God-given purpose, creating fires in the lives of the people that they touch, who then go out and create fires in lives of who they touch, brush fires. It made sense to me.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah.

JR: Anyhow, so I'm thinking, all right.

JR: I never wrote a book before, never wrote church curriculum before for certain.

JR: I mean, again, I come from the corporate world and I was attending church and was in certain leadership positions in church, but I didn't go to college to become a pastor.

JR: So over the prior 20 years, I had written various articles, articles that all of a sudden something would strike me, like the concept of joy and the difference between that and happiness and why I was not experiencing it.

JR: So I did a deep dive and I wrote an article about that and put it on social media.

JR: And prior to that, I'd written poetry and different other thoughts.

JR: In 2004, I wrote an article or a message that I gave at a men's retreat called, What is Your Purpose?

JR: And I did all these various things and read various devotions that I would go, oh, that's really interesting. I want to hold on to that for some unknown reason.

JR: So I would take a photocopy of, you know, a daily devotion out of Our Daily Bread or My Journey with Christ or all these various things.

JR: And I said, you know, I'm going to grab that folder.

JR: So I went downstairs and grabbed that folder of these articles and poems and short stories and messages and plays.

JR: And I started reading them and I started putting them in piles.

JR: Oh, that's identity. Oh, that's purpose.

JR: Oh, that's service.

JR: Oh, that's worship and praise. I'd been writing the curriculum for Brushfires for nearly 20 years and didn't even know it.

Kevin Lowe: Wow.

JR: So the hurdle of me saying I got to write this curriculum was immediately overcome because God had been writing it through me in all these private messages and devotions I read or wrote and, It was like, there it was. And all I needed to do was weave it together for the final product that we wound up presenting in February of 2018 when we did our first eight-week session.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. How was that first session? I mean, you had to be a nervous wreck, I would imagine.

JR: I want to say this because I'm hoping that there's some church leaders that are listening to your broadcast. I got to say that there were some church leaders that really discouraged me.

JR: One in particular, and I'm not going to name names, but went out their way to delay, discourage, and so forth.

JR: Now, there were other church leaders that said, oh, dude, yeah, you need to do this.

JR: But, you know, you don't need that many negative voices in your life to really get you off track.

JR: In fact, I think there's a quotient where you need 10 positive comments and observations on you or your life to overcome one seriously negative one.

JR: It's really that way. We will focus and obsess over that one negative comment that somebody said and ignore the 10 positive ones that other ones are saying around you.

JR: And I was really struggling with this because it was a four- To do that. So it took me a while. I had a fight to actually get that going.

JR: And I did. And it was my wife and I who, my wife helped me in the presentation as far as the administrative side of things.

JR: And we had, I think, six people. Three of them were from one family.

JR: Two of them were from another family.

JR: And there was a couple other individuals. And they heard about it through there might have been one announcement at church, and we didn't get much church support at all.

JR: Most of it, I think, came through social media. I did Facebook postings and created an event and did that sort of thing. It went extremely well.

JR: The people that were at that very first event are still friends today.

JR: They are people that I've impacted their life. I helped change their lives.

JR: The one young man that was in there was working as a cashier at a car wash, went through his design discovery meeting, said, you know, hey, you've got a real calling and proclivity to finances and understanding numbers.

JR: Have you ever thought about maybe going into accounting or some kind of finance training?

JR: Six months later, he enrolled in college, took those courses, and now he is a finance advisor for Vanguard in Dallas, Texas.

Kevin Lowe: Wow.

JR: So another lady that was in there, I love her because about halfway through, she ghosted us, just stopped showing up.

JR: You know, I'm thinking, okay, well, who did I offend this time?

JR: And I'm contacting her and she's not returning a call.

JR: And a year later, she walks into the next workshop with her husband. I'm going, okay.

JR: And she won't mind me sharing this story because she's done it publicly.

JR: I go, Izzy, what happened to you?

JR: And she goes, well, I was doing the assessments and I disagreed with what they said I was.

JR: I completely said, that's not me. That's not who I am.

JR: I'm large and I'm in charge and that's who I am. But it was haunting her.

JR: So at some point down, you know, a few months later, she brought it to her husband, Peter, and she goes, see, this is what these assessments say I am.

JR: And Peter's looking at that and he goes, that's you?

JR: That's you, that's you, and so they sheepishly attended the next class, or the next session of eight classes and completed it and graduated and went through the purpose statement together.

JR: And changed her life. She went from being the president of their company to taking training to become a therapeutic tattoo artist.

JR: And if you don't know what that is, join the group, because I didn't know what that was, until I asked her, I go, what is that?

JR: Well, women that go through mastectomies are left scarred and are left not looking like they did before. And we use tattoos to restore their image of what they look like.

JR: We also help people that have done self-harm by cutting themselves.

JR: And we help minimize the evidence of them trying to commit suicide or whatever it is that they were doing.

JR: And she goes, you know, JR, it's exactly what I was created to do.

JR: Because while they're in my tattoo or in my chair for hours, I just pray over them. I introduced them to Jesus.

JR: She sits there and she ministers to all the people that are in her chair as they're going through the service.

JR: So yeah, that's just one of many stories of the people that we've touched.

JR: And that was from the very first day, the very first class that that stuff happened.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, I think that's what I think is so amazing about that story in particular is the fact I think it highlights the power of something like this training and the fact that we're too close to our own selves.

Kevin Lowe: We're too stuck in the mess of it to understand, you know, who we are and what we are. Yeah.

Kevin Lowe: And I mean, it's why kind of like that situation. I mean, our family members can describe us better than we can describe ourselves, you know?

JR: Yeah. It's that combination of the negative thought. We call them intrusive thoughts that are going through your head that overemphasizes a criticism or a setback. It overemphasizes it.

JR: Focuses your attention on the problem and not the problem solver.

JR: So we, we obsess over this criticism or this setback and we don't take it to God. We don't go, God, what was that about?

JR: You know, like that day in 2016, when, when I did that self-analysis, I'm going, okay, I didn't bring this on myself. I did not cause the destruction of this company. That was not my doing.

JR: God could have easily have intervened and prevented this from happening.

JR: He allowed this to happen. Okay, God, what do you want?

JR: It's that process where we get our minds off of our problems onto the problem solver that allows us to start to grow and to move into the next season of our lives.

JR: And God brings these things, allows these things to happen as terrible as they might be so that he can get our attention and say, now you're doing what I created you to do.

JR: And you and I are going to work very closely together going forward.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. Wow, so very powerful, JR.

Kevin Lowe: This is really amazing. So I'm curious, after that first class that you go through, what happens after that as far as the program itself?

Kevin Lowe: Did you find where you need to make any adjustments and then even just growing this into something more?

JR: So I think the next class doubled in size or nearly doubled in size because of word of mouth and so forth.

JR: We eventually started doing workshops as large as 50 live ones.

JR: And a number of our graduates came and assisted us and worked alongside of us, volunteered in different ways. and I was encouraged to do a video series.

JR: Prior to that, I was encouraged by one of my business friends to establish it as a 501c3.

JR: So I believe we did that at the end of 2021.

JR: We became a 501c3. Didn't have anybody lining up to give us donations.

JR: There have been a handful that have come in.

JR: But then this push of saying, all right, the workshop is as solid as it can be.

JR: We now need to bring this to video so that we can stop being regional and stop requiring people to show up in person and allow them to be able to do this online.

JR: And so a couple of the business people came up and they financed the video production and we hired a director, video editor, and did the filming or the shooting of the video on our property in.

JR: The end of 2023. We got the financing at the beginning of 2023, got the video shot in 2023, did the video editing and production in 2024, and then developed the LMS software.

JR: LMS stands for learning management software. It's unique software that is designed to host video training sessions and tests and various documents to train people how to do things.

JR: And we purchased that software or at least that software and developed that site at the end of 2024.

JR: And at the beginning of this year, we launched the program nationwide or actually throughout all of North America so that people can do the assessments online, they can watch the videos online.

JR: They can do the design discovery meetings online and basically do the entire program.

JR: And since then, we've been helping people in Pennsylvania, Florida.

JR: Oklahoma, and various places throughout North America to be able to start to walk into their purpose.

JR: We still are really limited by the founders lack of marketing and messaging I'm a very good programmer I can close the deal I can develop software I can organize I can lead people but marketing and sales market development that is not my gifting that is a different person.

JR: And I trust that God is going to bring that person to us at some point who says, oh, I can play the role to help get this regional ministry to become a international ministry.

JR: Because that's the prophetic words that I've received from various people is that this is going to be huge.

JR: When people come up to you and go, this is going to be bigger than love languages, and love languages is worldwide.

JR: This is going to be bigger than that. it's like, okay.

JR: And it's the unique sense that we are bringing the truth of psychometric assessments developed by born-again believers into the church to invigorate God's children, to become who he created them to be, to prepare them for the harvest that God has coming.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah.

JR: That was a lot. That was a lot. So I'll just let that sit in.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, no, I mean, I'm still just like, I'm just blown away at this, the whole thing.

Kevin Lowe: And especially when you've just told us about taking it online.

Kevin Lowe: In my brain, as you're talking, I'm just thinking about the possibilities of where this could go.

Kevin Lowe: And because what I'm wondering is, is even though it's online and somebody can do it on their own, is it still able to be done through at a church, like in a group setting?

Kevin Lowe: Is that something that you guys like work with people on?

JR: I thank you for that question because, so there have been different milestones, different plateau areas that our ministry has gone through.

JR: Obviously, the very first one, getting it started and then getting it to a point where it's really perfected, getting it to where it is right now, where the introductory workshop materials are available for any lay person that wants to discover what their purpose is and find out how to minister properly based upon their design.

JR: The next step is for me to be able to duplicate what we do, what I personally do, into the lives of church leaders, the elders, the pastors, the deacons, the team leaders, the forge group leaders, and teach them how to lead and raise up God's children in the way that they should go based upon how he created them.

JR: So that's the next plateau is, first of all, partnering with church leaders so that I can train them in design.

JR: We are, after I get this next book, which I mentioned before we went on there, after I get that book done, the next project is what we're referring to as a discipleship framework, where it combines the best of discipleship techniques and foundational items that every believer needs to have.

JR: But we are marrying it with the training that we provide for designs.

JR: The movie The Forge was a great movie, and I was immediately inspired to partner with groups like that, because here you have a senior, mature male Christian pouring into the life of a young Christian.

JR: Now, a young Christian, you can be 58 and be a young Christian, so I just want to be clear this is not chronological.

JR: You can be very immature, and starting to establish that foundation so that God can start to work through them.

JR: Well, the unique thing that we bring into this, where we can sit down there with that forged leader or small group leader, we can say, Mark was set aside to be a counselor.

JR: Start to encourage him to take the classes so that he can get a degree or some kind of certification in counseling.

JR: Mary was set aside to be a leader of women and children.

JR: Start giving her opportunities to be able to do that.

JR: Start teaching her what it's like to be accountable to the people that she is shepherding.

JR: This person was designed to influence others.

JR: Start giving them a platform where they can start to speak, be it a podcast, be it a teaching opportunity, be it a speaking opportunity from the pulpit.

JR: Start to train them up in the way that they should go.

JR: Current church leaders are so overwhelmed with the amount of personal trauma that's going on.

JR: And the sad thing is that the people that they could share that burden with are quite likely sitting in their congregation.

JR: But because they're so focused in on the problem, they are not looking at the solution to the problem, which is develop your people to be who God created them to be so that that burden is no longer yours to carry, but you can start to shift it to other people that that you've invested your life into.

JR: I mean, how many churches are out there where if all of a sudden their pastor had a heart attack, which is happening more and more frequently nowadays.

JR: Would be completely lost because you've got one recognizable leader.

JR: That leader's very first job, if they don't know this, is to make their job replaceable so that the church can move on to the very next day if all of a sudden they were out for an extended illness.

JR: That the church and the flock does not suffer, does not scatter, does not get harmed.

JR: Every church leader should be looking to duplicate themselves into the next generation so that they have a long and deep bench.

JR: And that's also, by the way, if you want to grow your church and do church plants, you should be doing that anyway.

JR: You know, there's a church that we were working with that has this theory, and I think it's a good one, that a pastor can only manage about 200 people.

JR: So if you were, you know, 5,000 member church, senior pastor, do you really know the names of all 5,000 of your flock? Do you know what's going on in their life?

JR: Do you know if their marriages are safe or are about to fall apart?

JR: You need to have enough pastors so that every one of your flock is being cared for, because there's no way you personally can manage a flock of that size.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Wow. So amazing.

Kevin Lowe: And you are so right in the fact of everything you've just said about what this can do to a church as a whole.

Kevin Lowe: And I've never really thought of it in the way that you just explained it about the pastor and about this idea of spreading it out, of using this as a mechanism to not only help people, but to help the church as a whole, I think is, again, just another amazing benefit of this entire program.

JR: Two things that you said there. The very first, the last one I'll deal with first.

JR: I've got a pastor right now that I'm working with that, you know, I mean, he's a young man. He's in his late 30s.

JR: Tremendous amount of energy. But this guy is burning the candle at both ends.

JR: And they are interested in implementing our discipleship program.

JR: And he is so burdened by torn marriages and deaths, you know, fentanyl deaths and all these things.

JR: I mean, you know, you tell me I got two funerals to attend on Saturday.

JR: He's got marriages that are falling apart. He's just absolutely overwhelmed.

JR: And because they are so reactionary to the problems, because it's so overwhelming, that they can't really look at the solutions.

JR: The other thing that you mentioned at the beginning of that statement was, you never thought of it. That's our biggest challenge, Kevin.

JR: We are so cutting edge. We are so at the tip of the spear of the solution for what God has for His church, that most of the churches don't even consider what we're offering because it's too new.

JR: It's too different. It's too whatever.

JR: And I got to ask the leaders if they're listening, what do you got to lose?

JR: If your leadership group is so overwhelmed, if you're aging out, if all your leaders are in their late 60s and 70s and so forth, where is the next generation of leaders?

JR: How are you making a difference in the 25-year-old young father out there?

JR: How are you impacting them?

JR: Are you leading your flock based upon your agenda or what God was?

JR: What does God want to do?

JR: In fact, here, picture this visual. Let's say that you got a church of 200 men.

JR: And every Sunday, those 200 men come into the church, and metaphorically speaking, they are walking in with two-by-fours and drywall and nails and roofing materials.

JR: And you took inventory of their giftings represented by those attributes, two by fours and roofings.

JR: What do you think God is trying to tell you, leader, that he wants you to do with the men in his church? He wants you to build houses.

JR: That's what he wants you to do. So use a program like ours.

JR: Get a scouting report on all of your people to figure out where their giftings are, and then begin to align your ministry agenda with the people that God has given you.

JR: If he's handing you two-by-fours and nails, your job is not to rebuild a transmission. It's to build a house.

Kevin Lowe: Yes. Yes. So simple.

JR: Well, yeah.

JR: That's the challenge. And that's why I'm doing podcasts like this, you know, three and five times a week is to get the message out there because we need ambassadors.

JR: We need champions out there that say, you know what, I'm going to, first of all, go through this program and vet it because if I'm going to champion something, I want to make sure it's right.

JR: And then second of all, I'm going to bring it to my church leadership.

JR: And if they don't want to do it, then I'm going to take it to my small group, and our small group will do it as a test study, and then we'll bring it to the leadership.

JR: But I want to see how this can impact the people that are part of my community, that are part of my church.

JR: And that's what we need. We need people that will catch this vision that say, wow, that makes sense.

JR: Why don't we try that? Why don't we try to focus on the solution and not the symptoms of the problem?

JR: Let's focus on the solution to the actual problem.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. So for the person who is listening, who is interested, where do we send them to learn more?

JR: At brushfire.com. That will tell you all about our ministry.

JR: There's a testimonies page.

JR: Please look at that because we're quite proud of the pastors that we've worked with and the graduates that have gone through our program.

JR: There's also letters of recommendation from pastors.

JR: There's a crisis pregnancy center that we worked with last year and other churches.

JR: But start there. If you register as a user, you will get two books for free.

JR: One of them is one that I wrote called Spiritual Warfare Scriptures Guide.

JR: And it is, if you're going to start doing what God asked you to do, created you to do, without you knowing it or not, you are now actively involved in spiritual warfare.

JR: This is a collection of scriptures that are very useful in helping you to deal with the attacks of the enemy. So that's for free.

JR: Also, you can do one of our assessments. We always make our spiritual gifts assessment free.

JR: It's not a psychometric assessment. It's not part of the YMI assessments themselves, but it is part of what we make available. And so you can do that one for free.

JR: Those are the gifts of the Father as in the Book of Romans.

JR: Sign up for our premium package that is the psychometric assessments.

JR: It includes all 11 assessments. It includes the workbook.

JR: It includes the eight session series, which is about 130 hours of training that we include as part of that package, as well as a three-hour coaching session where we will develop your own unique purpose statement.

JR: I just did two this Saturday prior to this, and both of them were powerful, and both of them were unique, and both of them are releasing people into their ministry.

JR: And so I would encourage people to do that first, test this out, go through the premium package, get your purpose statement, and then please, please, please have your small group do it.

JR: Have your church leaders vet the program, let them know what it meant to you.

JR: And you can start that journey by registering for free at brushfires-digital.com.

Kevin Lowe: Amazing. And I will be positive that the web address that you've just given isn't the show notes for anybody interested.

Kevin Lowe: So that's easy access. You can also just find today's episode on the website, gritgraceinspiration.com.

Kevin Lowe: And that will have the link so that you can be sure you have easy access to what I'm considering a pretty darn amazing resource.

Kevin Lowe: I'm really excited about this, JR. And I can't help but be thinking of people who I want to tell about this, who I know are involved in the churches.

Kevin Lowe: And because I think it's really powerful.

JR: Thank you for that. Maybe you and I will meet face to face one day.

JR: Kevin, I know that you live in the area that I attended school in before moving to California.

JR: So who knows, maybe you and I will have an opportunity to minister at your own church or just be able to see one another. But the thing is, the way the program is set up right now, it's accessible for all people.

JR: They can go ahead and nothing is a surprise to God.

JR: So the fact that you might wait like I did until you're 57, 58, 59 years old to be able to start this journey, that's okay.

JR: God's already laid the groundwork like he did for the curriculum, for the ministry in your life. and you'll know it and you'll recognize it and your spirit will confirm it.

JR: And there is nothing, no physical limitation, no relational limitation, no spiritual limitation that will prevent you from accomplishing what God wants to do through you.

JR: Remember what Romans 8, 28 says.

JR: For those who love God, for those who are called according to his purposes, God causes all things to work together for good.

JR: If you love God, that's the only qualifier. Are you actively wanting him to live his life out through you and to be obedient to his call?

JR: That's his agenda. Then it's going to work out.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. JR, man, is it a pleasure getting to meet you today to get to hear about Brushfire Ministries. I am really excited about this.

Kevin Lowe: I'm really excited for the world to get to hear this today.

Kevin Lowe: And so, man, thank you in the most sincere way possible for being here.

JR: Oh, it's quite welcome. And if any of your listeners do reach out to me, let me know that you heard about me through Kevin's podcast.

JR: I would love to be able to let him know of the good work that was accomplished through his obedience to God's calling by having this podcast and reaching his audience.

JR: So simply in the comments section or whatever, shoot me out of words, say, hey, Kevin sent me and I'm here because of him.

JR: That would bless me and Kevin both. So thank you.

Kevin Lowe: Oh man, absolutely. Well, for you listening today, I hope you've got some amazing takeaways.

Kevin Lowe: Hopefully you're fired up just as much as I am. Please be sure to go check out the website for Brushfire Ministries so you can learn more, get involved in this amazing resource that I think can be an absolute life changer in your life and hopefully in others' lives as well that you know through the church and elsewhere.

Kevin Lowe: Until next time, my friend, I'm Kevin Lowe with Grit, Grace, and Inspiration. Get out there and enjoy this beautiful day.

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