Everyone has experienced dark and troubling times. But because we are Christians, we have Jesus Christ to rely on to make it through those rough times. I attended a Presbyterian church as a child but stopped when I left home at 18 years old. I was married for 25 years - a seemingly happy marriage - with a wonderful and intelligent wife and beautiful daughter. I was working as an agricultural land manager and had a great salary. But in the midst of this happy life, I began experiencing a series of illnesses - it started with body pains, headaches, sleeplessness, and I became very ill. This lasted nearly 10 years.

Then in 2010 my wife left me, I was fired from my job, and I became homeless and was living in my car. And then curious things began happening. One day wandering around on the beach I found a page of biblical scripture lying on the sand. And then a little later I found a Christian message of hope printed on a little card.

About this time, I was parked at the beach when a homeless friend of mine introduced me to a Christian surfer. He told me about a church called the Harbor Church and invited me to go with him the next day. I felt really down and out, it was the lowest point of my life - having to seek help at a church. This church had a homeless food program. They served breakfast and lunch 5 days a week to several hundred homeless people in the city where I was living in California. The homeless program also had a daily bible study group and a prayer group that I joined on that very first day.

And so began my slow road to recovery through the power and glory of Jesus Christ. After the first week I became a volunteer in the homeless program. I started out by mopping the floors in the dining hall and cleaning the bathrooms. Gradually I moved into the kitchen where I helped the cook and the other volunteers prepare the two daily meals, frying pancakes for up to a 100 guests, preparing fruit and vegetable salads for lunch, serving the meals and then cleaning up all the dishes.

One day during our prayer hour a small group of the disabled guests came in with their care giver to join us. The care giver, an Hispanic woman, sat outside our little circle of prayer. I was leading the prayers that day and at the end of the prayer time I asked if anyone wanted us to pray for healing for them. When I asked the care giver if she needed prayer said she had been experiencing back pains. So, we all laid hands on her and prayed for the pain to go away. A few days later this same group came back into prayer and the care giver said, “I don’t know what happened but after you prayed for me the pain went away and hasn’t come back.”

I stayed with the program for 2 1/2 years and completely recovered my health. At the end of my time at the homeless ministry I began going on short term mission trips to Mexico. Looking back, I could see God’s hand in all this, guiding me to where he wanted me to go. He turned the worst situation in my life into the greatest blessing. He renewed my faith and gave me a calling to serve the Aboriginal people of Australia and that’s why I’m here now.

https://aucd.academia.edu/RichardHandley

Welcome to 12-minute convos with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation. His truth spoken in one moment

became an evergreen seed for our generation today. The power of a conversation is eternal.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Good day, Dr. David E. Jones. Oh, a Jones in the house, a Jones speaking with a Jones.

Wow, hey, how are you doing today? It's awesome to be here and it's a special

time to be talking to another Jones from another place in the world. This is cool.

Well, one of my goal is to put the DR in front of my name as well. So thanks for the inspiration

for doing that, especially just before the conversation started, you were mentioning

you went back and I was telling you, I'm going back at this point, right? So what's that been

like? I've always looked at like, instead of changing and going to do something entirely

different, right? So I would say that's like going wide. I've always had this thought of go deep,

you know, I come from a pro hockey background and I realized that, you know, to get better at

something, you have to put the repetition behind it and just kind of instinctively knew if I want

to get better at something, it's not changing professions, it's understanding the profession

deeper. And so that's where I decided, you know what, I want to understand behavior.

And so, you know, in 2013, I went back to school and I said, you know, I want to understand. So I

got a master's in counseling sports psychology. And then, you know, I just said, I'm just going

to keep going. And so I did. So it's been, you know, I just got my doctorate in December of 25.

So congrats again. Yeah. How has that affected your family life?

It's much better now because I have lots of time. I want to say lots of time, I have more time

than I did before, because literally go to, you know, go to work, come home, read,

write, discussion board, read, write. I mean, every day, just grind, get up early,

you know, depending on the class. And I was one of those people that just, you know, like I was

there really to understand and learn. So I read everything. You know, I did the homework twice.

There were a lot of times where I was a crazy person, actually read the syllabus and I'm like,

OK, and I bought the books. And a lot of times the syllabus and the books didn't match up. I'm like,

like we got to figure out what book am I? Oh, sorry, we need to update the link. You know,

that kind of stuff that happened a lot because I was actually reading and trying to understand.

And so the grade really didn't matter to me. You know, I ended up with a 4.0,

but the grade didn't matter to me. It was really like, what can I get out of this class?

And in some classes, Angel, we're just like, this is dumb. Like I've been through this so

many times, but I always ask God like, all right, God, why am I here? Like there's got to be

something I can learn from this, right? Whether it's my writing, writing style, my grammar,

my APA formatting, or just spiritually, like I need to understand this topic deeper.

And I just always kind of looked at it as. There's always a learning opportunity.

Hmm. So when did the transition occur for you to actually activate that, that modus operandi

of, Hey, this is how I'm going to actively learn as opposed to what I imagine was not the same

application years ago. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think, you know, I, I had a mentor early on

that gave me this analogy. And I, and I think I just, in the back of my brain, I don't know

if I thought about it consciously, probably more subconsciously, but he said, like,

you got to look at your life like a tomato, you know, either you're growing or you're dying,

you know, like, you know, there's no in between. It ain't just going to sit there. It's either

growing or dying. And I just always kind of said, you know, I want to be in a growth mode.

I want to learn. I want to grow. I want to change. And I think it with, with kind of the background

of, you know, having a Christian background and God is my source. I look at that as, you know,

there are infinite opportunities. There's never one solution. You know, I think fear, you know,

lately I've been on this research after I got my doctorate on, you know, the toxic motivators

that hold us back. And there are four big ones, fear, lust, anger, pride. And so I look at that

and go, okay, if I'm not in fear, what am I? I got, I'm in faith. You know, they can't coexist

fear and faith, you know, so you're either one or the other. And so I would just kind of look at

that as that's kind of my backdrop of if I'm in fear, then the room is really small and there's

only one door open. Right. But if I'm in faith, man, God's economy is awesome. It's an abundance.

There's lots of doors. There's lots of options. You know the person I'm talking to now may not

have that solution, but I'm going to go on and see if there is a different solution, you know?

And so, yeah, I've just always been exploratory that way. And my wife kind of, and my kids are

like, you can't sit still, can you? I'm like, no, I can't. I'm not going to. I'm not going to.

When you think about the work we do as Christians on the earth, is there a parallel

thought process that's saying, all right, life after death looks like possibly X, Y, Z? Or is it

simply focusing on, hey, I'm here on earth right now and I'm doing what I'm doing. Yeah, that's what

it is, man. Like, there's so many things that are out of our control. But I think through my

studying, I realized on the psychology side of things, if I say something to you that's offensive,

right, and you react to it, that's on you, right? So like, I can say something and how you react to it

is on you. So you can react to it positively or you can be inquisitive about why would you say

something like that, you know, tell me more. Or you can be angry. You can be upset. So that first

thought, first reaction is typically not a good one. So we have to have a second thought,

right, second reaction to what somebody says. And I feel like the world is, as a Christian, the world

is aimed or built around an algorithm to get us to buy stuff and to get us to do things and

manipulate us. And so the more we look around about how we're supposed to act, you know, I think right

now in the US, like, it's very much polarized between Democrat and Republican. You know, and

long ago, I had a pastor, I asked a pastor, I said, you know, are you Republican or Democrat?

And he said, you know, one's just a faster train to hell. They're both going in the same place.

You know, we gotta stop looking around.

Good political answer though, right? For a pastor, yeah.

So we gotta stop looking around at the world and start looking to the Word of God

and look to Jesus for answers. And I think that's kind of what we can control and how

we're influenced and how we're, how we're glorifying Him with our talents and abilities,

even when we're in a valley, because life is about peaks and valleys, right?

100%. Well, I'm seeing you wearing a t-shirt here on my prep screen,

and there's M is good. Is that M for manipulation?

So the original name was Marketing Ministries, and in 2013, we rebranded to M is good.

Wow, you went all out. Wow. That's boldness, right? In the marketplace. Wow. Or is it that

in North Carolina, it's an okay thing that you're putting marketing and ministries in the same line?

I had the same thing when God gave me that name. I'm like, this is the dumbest name ever, man.

What in the world is happening? And so, yeah, I just did the research and it was available.

And so, you know, today we're one of the largest Christian ad agencies in the world.

I agree with you, though. Marketing and ministries, two common names slammed together.

And, you know, it's interesting you bring that up, Angel, because early on, I had many churches say,

marketing and Christianity, what? Get away. Like, we would never market. And then when I,

that really pushed me and I looked at, you know, what Jesus did in terms of communicating

the gospel, when he did, when he communicated, you know, he was advertising himself. You know,

when you talk to somebody and you talk about what happened in the miracles and the disciples and what

they did, what Jesus did, that's a form of marketing and advertising. They're talking

about the miracles and wonders that this, that this son of God did.

I'll throw in there the negative psychology too. Don't tell anyone what I did for you.

Right, right, right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, that's, that's awesome.

It's amazing. So tell me about the agency for those listening,

let them understand the professional side of you.

Um, you know, it's been 25 years. Um, I feel like, you know, as a leader of this agency,

like we have something very special, you know, our vertical is Jesus. We do represent clients

from all around the world. We do do two things really well. We, uh, we understand messaging

really well and we understand KPI management, which stands for key performance indicators

from the impressions of the click to the conversion metric, whether it's sign up,

donate, attend an event. Like we understand the digital space very, very well.

Feel like it's been successful. And this is the honest truth, man. Like early on I was,

I was a pro hockey player. So I feel like I messed up enough and was just dumb enough to stick around

trust God in the process. And now, you know, we, we've done a lot of different things in different

ways and failed a lot and succeeded a lot, you know, and more failure than, than success in a

lot of ways. But, you know, today we're buzzing, you know, today it's, it's pretty awesome to,

to be around men and women of God that are, that are chasing the idea of how to communicate the

gospel of Jesus in their own kind of way. Uh, my last son, his name is Angel David Jones.

When I saw the David E. Jones, you know, I was like, Oh, this has to be a great conversation.

Yeah. But he has a similar type personality, uh, that you're giving me, you know, like this

coolness yet he's so driven. All right. Uh, for the person that's listening, who may have been,

uh, in a similar situation like you, where you, I mean, it's from hockey to being the marketing guy,

what would you say to them in terms of what they're hearing from God as what they should do

with their lives? I would say like, man, follow your heart and what you feel like God's calling

you to do and be smart about it, you know, in terms of finding a mentor, a Christian mentor

that you can bump ideas against, read the word of God and stay in faith. Hey, Dr. David E. Jones,

folks. Hey, links are in the show notes. This was a pleasure, one I treasure. Thank you for being

on What Is Inspired. Thanks for welcoming us.