What if true impact isn’t measured by what you build, but by the lives you touch—inside and outside the walls of the church? In this episode of Seek Go Create, Tim Winders sits down with “impact architect” Mike Thakur, whose journey includes rebuilding a viral burned-down mansion, leading nine-figure businesses, and reimagining entrepreneurship as a mission field for faith. They dive deep into the future of business, ministry, and community—and why God may be moving beyond the pulpit. If you’ve ever questioned where faith and business truly meet, or wondered how success and purpose can coexist, this conversation will challenge and inspire you. Don’t miss it!

“The church isn’t a building, a business, or an organization. The church is a community of believers living out their faith together.” - Mike Thakur

Access all show and episode resources HERE

About Our Guest:

Mike Thakur is an accomplished entrepreneur, impact architect, and thought leader in purpose-driven business. Born and raised in England, Mike has led nine-figure tech sales teams, served in CEO roles providing high-level security for billionaires, and founded WorkLodge, Houston’s oldest coworking brand. He went viral for restoring a burned-down mansion in Nashville, and now leads the Kingdom Impact Exchange - or KIX. With bold energy and a vision for Kingdom impact, Mike brings both business acumen and a deep passion for supporting entrepreneurs in making a meaningful difference.

Reasons to Listen:

1. Discover why Mike Thakur, a highly accomplished entrepreneur and "impact architect," bought and restored a burned-down Nashville mansion—and how the story unexpectedly went viral worldwide.
2. Explore bold ideas on how faith-driven business leaders can reshape community and impact, including Mike’s perspective on business, church, and the future of Kingdom entrepreneurship.
3. Get practical, real-life insights into building purpose-driven ventures, overcoming setbacks (like starting over from food stamps), and why success isn't just about money or titles but meaningful impact.

Episode Resources & Action Steps:

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

1. LetsGoKix.com (KIX – Kingdom Impact Exchange): Mike Thakur’s initiative to build community among entrepreneurs and business leaders committed to Kingdom impact. You can learn more or get involved by visiting LetsGoKix.com.
2. The Mike Thakur Podcast: Hosted by Mike Thakur, this show explores faith, business, and impact. It’s a resource for ongoing insights if you enjoyed his perspective on Seek Go Create.
3. Mike Drop Book: Either purchase on Amazon, or Mike offered to send the ebook version for free if you reach out via email.

Action Steps for Listeners:

1. Connect With Kingdom Impact Exchange (KIX): Visit LetsGoKix.com to find out about meetups in Franklin, TN, and other cities or to inquire about hosting a KIX gathering in your own city. There’s also an option to join online until you can meet in person.
2. Evaluate and Rethink Your Definition of Success: Reflect on how you’re currently measuring success in your business or leadership role. Consider shifting the focus from just financial outcomes to the impact you’re making—on others, your community, and for the Kingdom.
3. Find or Build Community With Like-Minded Entrepreneurs: Take steps to engage with other faith-driven business leaders, whether through KIX, local gatherings, or online communities. Building relationships and sharing mission-driven goals can amplify your impact and prevent feeling isolated in your entrepreneurial journey.

Key Lessons:

5 Key Lessons from the Episode with Mike Thakur

1. Redefining Church and Community: Mike challenges the traditional view of church as a building or organization, emphasizing instead the New Testament model of church as a vibrant, lived-out community of believers. True church happens in everyday life, not just in structured religious settings.
2. Business as a Kingdom Calling: Successful entrepreneurship and business leadership can be just as much a calling as traditional ministry roles. Marketplace leaders have unique opportunities to use their businesses for tangible Kingdom impact, fostering community, funding missions, and meeting practical needs around the world.
3. Embracing Risks and Unconventional Paths: Mike’s story of buying and rebuilding a burned-down mansion is a testament to embracing nudges, stepping outside comfort zones, and following God’s lead—even when it seems illogical. Sometimes, unconventional decisions open unexpected doors for influence and adventure.
4. The Power of Authentic Community for Entrepreneurs: Entrepreneurs, though often left to navigate alone, deeply crave meaningful community and connection. Mike’s Kingdom Impact Exchange is designed to provide a space for business-minded believers to encourage one another, work together on impactful projects, and pursue growth in both faith and enterprise.
5. Success is Defined by Impact, Not Accolades: Ultimately, Mike defines success by the positive impact made on others—at home, in business, and in the broader world. Lifting people up, meeting real needs, and living authentically for God are the true markers of a meaningful life and career, rather than simply financial growth or personal recognition.

Episode Highlights:

00:00 Introduction: Redefining the Church

00:36 Meet Mike Thacker: The Impact Architect

00:52 Mike's Viral Mansion Story

02:32 The Move to Nashville

13:21 Kingdom Impact Exchange

21:34 The Role of Business in Faith

28:55 Exploring New Models of Community Living

29:14 The Vision of a Modern Utopia

29:23 Lessons from the First Century Church

30:07 Creating a Tension for Growth

31:52 The Role of Entrepreneurs in Kingdom Business

33:24 Challenges of Leadership and Scaling

34:59 Building Community and Avoiding the Spotlight

37:05 Defining Success and Impact

47:53 The Importance of Action and Responsibility

54:03 Connecting and Growing Together

Resources for Leaders from Tim Winders & SGC:

🎙 Unlock Leadership Excellence with Tim

• Transform your leadership and align your career with your deepest values. Schedule your Free Discovery Call now to explore how you can reach new heights in personal and professional growth. Limited slots available each month – Book your session today!

📚 Redefine Your Success with "Coach: A Story of Success Redefined"

• Challenge your perceptions and embark on a journey toward true fulfillment. Dive into transformative insights with "Coach: A Story of Success Redefined." This book will help you rethink what success means and how to achieve it on your terms. Don't miss out on this essential read—order your copy today!

Thank you for listening to Seek Go Create!

Our podcast is dedicated to empowering Christian leaders, entrepreneurs, and individuals looking to redefine success in their personal and professional lives. Through in-depth interviews, personal anecdotes, and expert advice, we offer valuable insights and actionable strategies for achieving your goals and living a life of purpose and fulfillment.

If you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, we encourage you to subscribe to or follow Seek Go Create on your favorite podcast platform, including Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode and can stay up-to-date on the latest insights and strategies for success.

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Mentioned in this episode:

A Final Challenge: Redefine Success with Coach

Before you sign off, here’s a powerful invitation from Tim: If you’ve been inspired by the stories on Seek Go Create, take the next step with his novel, Coach: A Story of Success Redefined. It’s a transformative journey that invites leaders to rethink success and align their lives with faith, purpose, and peace. Get your copy today at TimWinders.com.

Get More Info About Coach

Leaders: The Fiction Book You Didn’t Know You Needed

This one’s for the leaders. If your shelf is full of strategy and productivity books, Tim Winders invites you to try something different. Coach: A Story of Success Redefined is leadership fiction that will challenge your thinking and stir your soul. Follow Cooper Travis on a journey that blends ambition with deeper purpose. Grab your copy today at TimWinders.com and discover a new way to lead.

Get More Info About Coach

What if God is moving out of the pulpit?

I'm

not saying that we shouldn't have a pulpit at all,

and, you know, on the four walls of the church building, but,

but the church isn't a building.

The church isn't a business.

The church isn't an organization.

The church is a community of believers

living out

their faith walk together.

That's, that's the New Testament Church.

What if

success

isn't measured by what you build, but by the impact you make?

Today's

guest, Mike Thacker calls himself an impact

architect,

born and raised in England.

He's led nine figure tech sales served

in COO level roles with the Secret Service

for

billionaires and founded Work Lodge.

Houston's

oldest co-working brand.

He went

viral for

restoring a burn down mansion in Nashville, and now leads the Hope Economy,

a

nonprofit helping

entrepreneurs do business God's way.

Mike brings bold energy, kingdom vision, and a contagious passion

for purpose-driven business

to

everything he does.

Mike

Thacker, welcome

back

Mr.

Tim.

Good to be back, buddy.

You know,

I was checking, I couldn't remember how long it's been

Oh, it's been a minute on the show, but it's gotta be three or four years.

do you remember what you were up

to

in 2021?

I was living in Houston, Texas.

Not in Tennessee.

does

it seem like

a long time ago?

It seems like a very long time ago, Tim.

Yeah,

I think I just started podcasting.

I think I started late 2020.

So I was a newbie at this.

You know, you were the, you were the maestro.

no

man, I just knew.

I've only been doing it a couple years

and

in 2021 everybody was doing it.

Yeah.

Everybody had a

podcast.

You're right.

You're right

in, In some ways, 2021 seems like yesterday in some ways,

it seems like decades ago.

Yeah.

How about you?

Yes, I'm on the decades track.

I don't even know how much I remember

of 2020 and 2021, other than it was, it was tough.

Yeah.

bunch going on with business, but, I did something right before I jumped on here.

I went and watched a video clip,

of

some crazy guy who,

bought a burn down mansion,

violated

just about every rule that people in real estate, have and know about.

And, but yet it looked like it was a lot fund.

So, tell,

let's, let's just start off with that and then we'll kind of veer

around and see where we go, what the heck was going on with that.

You know, it's a funny thing, right?

So obviously

I'm not from the US

as you can tell from my English accent, but we've lived here for

20 ish years and it's all been in Houston, Texas,

with the exception of three months when Linda and I, my

wife, were kids at college.

We spent the summer

with, a program called Teen Challenge in Nashville, Tennessee.

And

Teen Challenge, for those of you that don't know, is a

substance rehabilitation program.

It's a one year residential program.

They have centers all over the us, incredibly high success rates,

and we absolutely loved it.

We had such a blast.

They had this London Double Decker bus.

We used to go out to the projects and the Red Light district

and stuff and do evangelism.

it was great.

And they wanted us to come back when we graduated and we wanted to come back and

we tried to get visas and everything and

it just didn't work out

and we couldn't

get 'em.

And

so, you know, we eventually, a few years later, we came to Houston

and we've been there ever since.

And so

I

started to make

jokes and comments a few years ago to Linda, do we really wanna live in

Houston for the rest of our lives?

Like

we've never really tried anywhere else.

The kids are getting older,

so they start getting married.

I'm

thinking, I'm never gonna get you to move anywhere because then

grand babies are gonna be involved.

And so

it was kind of tongue in cheek,

comments

And then a friend of mine was having an event in Nashville.

First time we'd been back since 1996, right?

And this is 2022.

And so we went back and so we were there for a few days and I said, well, hey

babe,

Nashville

seems okay.

You know,

I did not know.

I did not know it was the place everybody wants to live.

Alright?

So I'm not one of those people.

and so we went for a couple more trips.

We prayed about it,

kind of

peaceful

about it.

And so finally we said, okay,

we're

gonna book a trip with the kids.

We're gonna go check out the areas properly, maybe go look some houses.

And so we were flying on Thursday and on Wednesday morning

I get an email from Linda,

And she says, Hey.

this house just came on the market, what do you think?

And it's a picture of the house on fire, literally on fire with

the flames coming out the roof.

And I'm reading the description.

It says, you know, burn,

burn down mansion might be able to reuse the foundation.

it's $1.5 million.

So I

forwarded it to my realtor.

I said, Hey Sam,

why don't you just add this to the list?

It might be fun to go check it

out.

So we fly in Thursday morning, we go look at some houses.

They're all terrible.

And we're sat in the Airbnb Thursday night and my son, well actually no,

I'm gonna tell the story properly.

So we look at some houses Thursday, one of the houses we

look at is $2 million, right?

There's literally holes in the wall, like

people have punched holes in the wall and kicked in like bedroom

doors kicked in off their frames And

stuff.

And I said to the realtor,

I'm so confused right now.

Like, is

this really the level of houses?

Are they that expensive here?

Because

I I may not be leaving Texas if that's the case.

And he said to me,

oh, this is like one of those houses you see on Zillow gone wild.

Like this is not what it's really like, you know,

in South Nashville.

And I said, what's Zillow gone wild?

And he said, oh, it's this website where all the crazy houses go.

You know, you should go check it out.

So we're in the Airbnb on Thursday night and my son walks in the room

with his phone and he says, dad,

isn't

this the house we're going looking at tomorrow?

And I look at it and sure enough, this suckers hit.

Zillow gone wild on Thursday afternoon, it's got some ridiculous amount

of views in like two hours, I mean hundreds of thousands of views.

And I thought to myself,

this is

not, this is not what I need to happen right now.

Like, I'm thinking we're gonna go in there and buy this thing for a hundred grand.

Now the whole world's looking at it.

by the time

I get my phone out and email the realtor and I say, Sam.

We probably want to go look at this house first tomorrow

and not at the end of the day.

'cause it seems to be picking up steam online.

Friday morning we drive out there, it's 10 30 in the

morning.

We

get there and the owner of the house is standing there.

His wife's the agent.

He's the guy selling

it.

apparently someone else is gonna come view it at the same time,

which is even worse for me.

Thankfully they didn't show

up.

So

we start walking around and looking at it

and he starts telling us, this sucker's gone viral overnight.

He's already turned four offers down.

There's a guy flying in from outta state

that day to come look at it.

And I'm just thinking,

this is not, this is not at all what I was hoping for.

And so now the price is going up

and

I'm thinking it, it should be going down so it's going terribly wrong.

So I stood down the driveway with the kids and I said, look,

if we think we might wanna move to Nashville, we don't really

have any reason to be here.

It'd be fun to have something to do.

While we settle in, like, do we want to go for this or not?

'cause if we leave,

this

sucker's gonna be gone.

And I, I'm telling you, I've got it on camera.

They all stood there and agreed that it would be a fun project

to do much to their dismay.

I went back and negotiated with the seller and we came to an agreement and we

shook hands right there on the driveway.

And we signed that contract like an hour later.

and that's how

we bought the van down mansion.

And four weeks later we were living in Franklin, Tennessee.

Franklinton, Tennessee.

So

here's kinda where it connected with me.

I saw somewhere

the

viral nature of the

mansion

on Fire for sale.

Right.

which is

a pretty darn great tactic

for

getting people's attention.

Yeah, it worked right?

You

I don't know if they got what they wanted or whatever, but

they definitely generated buzz

And

then.

Something

happened just a little

while after that,

I see where this guy named Mike,

and I'm going, wait, that's my buddy Mike,

that guy.

And I'm sitting here

in my mind going, okay, let me tell you what ran through my mind, and you could,

you could shoot me down or whatever.

I'm going, okay,

this is a promotional

thing.

It's a promotional stunt.

he's

gonna share what happens on YouTube, which you did.

Which is very entertaining and all that,

looking for an adventure.

There's something else going on.

This is my skepticism and cynicism.

There's something else

going

on.

You and I talked a couple times along the way.

But,

was

it

totally

flippant

or

did you have a strategy?

no strategy.

We just felt like.

it could go back together again.

Humpty Dumpty style,

so, Yeah.

But you did record

it and you shared it.

And so there was a little bit of a, we'll

say promotion or whatever along the way.

How did that work out?

Was that just for fun?

was there any

sound like there wasn't strategy, but

I mean, come

on.

man.

Give me something Mike.

Yeah.

So here's what happened right?

we signed the contract on

Friday night.

It's already on the news.

Like it is on the Nashville News.

'cause this suckers under contract in two days.

it only listed

Tuesday night at 5:00 PM

next thing

I know,

I'm

getting phone calls and emails from news crews like all over the world,

like literally all over the world.

I spent

10 days

all day, every day doing interviews

with TV stations.

And

media outlets and who knows what.

I think it was like 53 interviews.

because it was getting so much interest, we'd kind of done a

little bit of filming just for us.

Like, 'cause we were looking around this house, we don't

wanna forget how bad it was.

And we went home.

And so we thought, well, if people are interested, we'll just log it and

we'll stick it on YouTube and see, if anybody wants to come along for the ride.

And I have friends from England who I haven't spoken to for

years,

literally reaching out like,

is

this you

by buying this house?

I mean, it was in the British newspapers,

you know, this Manchester lad's buying a burned down house.

So people kind of got excited about it.

So yeah, so we've logged it through the journey and then, you know, at the end

we did a longer video, we like before and afters and that kind of stuff.

And

it did okay.

I think we got, I don't know, one half million views or something like that.

I mean, nothing crazy, but here's where it gets really funny, right?

I'm thinking,

I'm gonna be a YouTube star.

We're gonna get tons of views.

I'm gonna get a load of money off YouTube, it's gonna help me pay for

the house, which is not what happened.

I made like a thousand bucks.

So a few months ago, this channel reaches out and says, Hey,

we saw the house video looks cool.

Can we take the footage?

And, you know, we'll recut our own version of it.

And I'm like,

is this a scam or is this real?

You know, so I go, look at their channel.

They got 17 million subscribers.

So I'm

thinking, okay, like, yeah, you can do that.

You know,

they offered to pay me a couple dollars, literally nothing.

But it's fine.

so these guys put together a video and they only took the

footage we had on YouTube, so they got no extra footage at all.

We didn't give 'em anything else.

And their video is at 15 million views in like a month.

And mines.

One.

apparently somebody enjoyed watching it just not on my channel.

So I think, I think quantum tech good for you.

You did a great job

and and you all did awesome out of it.

but little old Mikey needs to leads to fine tune his YouTube editing skills

Yeah.

So end of

the day,

you

still in the house.

Do you sell it?

Mm, I know.

We we're living there, dude.

It's awesome.

Yeah, absolutely.

Love it.

I'll happily sell it if somebody wants to buy it.

I'm working on another project, but, we are still living there for now.

Yeah.

yeah.

So, so still a good move.

Here's the big question,

Linda.

Cool with it still.

She

loves it.

She is a happy camper.

Yeah, we started the business in Houston.

I'm in Houston right now.

My two older kids are here with me working and she's like, yeah,

I ain't going back to Houston.

You know, you can travel, but I'm staying right here.

So she's there with my youngest.

Yeah.

youngest.

Yeah.

Yeah.

pretty, pretty part of the country up there.

So having gotten all that behind you now, what's big in your life now, man?

What's going on?

What's like on Mike's radar?

So, you

know, it's really funny.

We went there with no idea why,

except for a

nudge,

what I call a nudge.

That seems to be how, when we make big decisions, it seems like we get nudges.

And that's just for me and Linda.

And so we went there with nothing but a nudge.

No idea what we were gonna do, no idea why we were there.

And, you know, it's been,

it was slow.

I think I underestimated

how hard it would be to move states.

It was

harder for us to move from Texas to Tennessee than it was to

move from England to America,

if that gives you some context.

but now we've been there for two and a half years

now I'm starting to get a grasp of what's going on.

So, Franklin's an interesting place and there seems to be an

incredibly high concentration.

of

really amazing people that love Jesus.

And that's

not to say that there aren't amazing people that love Jesus in

other places, but I think because it's a bit of a smaller town, the

concentration's a little higher.

We've made such good friends, in this two, two and a half years, probably

more friends than I made in Houston in

nearly

20.

And, I'm working on something we call Kingdom Impact Exchange, which is really

a subcategory of the hope economy.

And it's all around this idea of

motivating, supporting,

and

helping build up

people who are building companies, entrepreneurs, business leaders,

and

helping develop them and grow them in a way where they recognize

the

company exists first for Kingdom.

And that sounds cute, and people say this,

but not so many people actually put their money where their mouth is.

I think the business is God's and I get a paycheck.

The business isn't mine and God gets my leftovers and that's not just

about money, it's about everything.

It's about

understanding that

the staff on my team,

the

partners, the vendors, the clients, everything in my sphere of business,

I'm challenged to sit back and say, okay, God's got some good works for me to do.

What if I could use all of this sphere to figure out what those good works might be?

Because I think those good works are more than just write a check to someone else.

I mean, I can do that too,

but there's probably something I can use my skillset for, my capabilities for

maybe 'cause I'm an entrepreneur and I'll build a few things.

Maybe I can do it a little bit better.

Maybe I can do it more efficiently or, more effectively.

I think God is

calling

marketplace leaders, business owners, entrepreneurs to take

all of

them

and

give it all to him and apply it all to him in the marketplace.

I think that's where the future movie is coming.

I Don't think

it's organized religion.

We're out there in the world seven days a week just like Paul

was when he was building tents.

And so my goal is to spur people on and encourage 'em to do that.

And then from there

we'll create what we call impact pods

within

our community.

so right now these are in person real life meetups.

We started in Franklin a few weeks ago.

We've already got three more cities that are signing up

and we're

probably gonna have more coming soon.

But the real goal is as we grow that community, is to be able to curate

opportunities and say, okay, hey,

who's got a heart for building schools in Africa?

'cause

I've got one right here that needs to get built and we need

four or five smart people to come help figure out how to do that.

Or maybe it's clean water or

practical needs, tangible needs, you know, Matthew 25, that kind of stuff.

I

think we can do this together.

I think we can really build a beautiful community

where it's mission first and none of us need to worry about money

'cause we're all being taken care of by the businesses that we run.

Yeah, I

think.

something happens.

I was thinking about it, I was reading

Paul,

the Apostle Paul recently,

and I was just thinking about the position that he was in,

not

taking money.

he

was pretty clear about that along the way.

You know, the only

financial

discussion that he had along the way was

when he

was raising money for a

gift to take back to Jerusalem.

Yeah.

we don't know the exact motives, but we know that he was attempting to

restore a

breach maybe between, two communities there.

But

he never

Received a

dime, as best we can tell for

what

he

did that continues to permeate.

And

I

actually think, Mike, that it can mess with people.

It does.

had this discussion before, and I don't,

you

know, we have listeners that are full-time.

Ministry

people.

I mean,

and, I don't mean to bash, but

something

happens.

When all of a sudden you're told to show up and do this, go to the

hospital, take a microphone and say a few words, read a few scriptures,

and we're gonna pay you x amount of money

to do that.

I mean, I just saying it sounds odd.

And

so I, you know me, I mean, you and I are cut from the same

Yeah.

It's like business

is kind of what we lead with.

and ministry is foundational, but

what are you seeing now, I'm sure we talked about this four

years ago also, because it's the conversation that comes up a lot.

But what are you seeing now

in

ministry post COVID post,

all that's gone on?

You know, we're in, we're deep into

a term of Trump that spills over into a lot of things.

And this, that's not a political statement, it's just a mood.

that we're in here, In the United States.

What are you seeing?

I

think

a very,

a

very,

strong moment in history

was, was Charlie Kirk being shot.

And

I, I didn't realize Charlie Kirk was a Christian.

I'd seen a couple of clips, I think, and they were political type

things, guy at a college campus or whatever, and I just ignored him.

And the more that I've learned about him since and the more that I've watched,

you know, mark Driscoll made a tweet a couple weeks ago and it

said something to the effect of

the

Holy Spirit moved outta the pulpit

and everybody got

upset about it.

But I kind of think he's right.

when you look at someone like that and what they were able to do for

the Kingdom, for Jesus, the way he was able to talk about his faith

publicly outside the

walls of the church.

I

think it's really been an eye-opener for a lot of Christians

to sit back and say, well, hang on a second, I function outside the church.

Like, I could be that bold.

I, can talk about my faith, you know, wherever I am, whatever I'm

doing.

And

I hope we don't lose that

because I think

There's

real momentum

there that could grow.

But I also think

it's a very vivid kind of picture for us.

What if God is moving out of the pulpit?

I'm

not saying that we shouldn't have a pulpit at all,

and, you know, on the four walls of the church building, but,

but the church isn't a building.

The church isn't a business.

The church isn't an organization.

The church is a community of believers

living out

their faith walk together.

That's, that's the New Testament Church.

So we're gonna be really clear when we talk about church,

what, what are we talking about?

If we can touch the world through business,

through sustainable impact, through self-sustaining projects,

and we're around people all the time,

then it

seems to me that

the people we

wanna raise up are the business leaders.

And I see a real hunger there.

I see a real desire there.

as I've talked to young entrepreneurs and not so young entrepreneurs,

but especially young entrepreneurs

who are trying to figure this out,

the voices that they are listening to

are the same voices that everybody else is listening to.

And I'm not knocking Alex or Mosey, I'm not knocking Andy Elliot or any

of these other guys who have got, you know, tons of content going out there.

But I, I know enough about God to know

he doesn't tend to stick to formulas and he doesn't tend to

move in everybody's life the same.

So if

all they're hearing

is follow this funnel, follow this thing, sell to many from a

stage, do this coaching program.

You know, make it 9 97 and 1997 and whatever else, and they're

just following the same blueprint everybody else is following,

It seems more likely than not that they're gonna fail.

And that means there's space for a different way to look at this.

That means there's space for more voices to come around them.

Some older folks maybe like me and you, and, others, help

'em realize, no, actually

this is how we lean into God.

This is how we press in.

These are some basic, fundamental business things, but each one of us has

to find our own path and our own journey.

For me, it included a burned down mansion.

How is that a smart business decision?

But it was an incredibly good decision in so many ways.

and ultimately it will be financially as well when we sell it, you know?

but I would never have seen that coming.

And no guru, no coach,

no professional would've said, Mike,

here's the

way you're gonna, you want to go forward and move states.

Here's how you build a YouTube presence.

buy something crazy.

I mean, maybe they would've, but nobody did.

you know, I think for me, what I'm seeing is a lot of hungry entrepreneurs

that love Jesus don't know what to do with that, don't know what it

should look like, and the voices, the hearing aren't the best voices.

that's the problem I'm trying to tackle.

And I think other people are too.

are too.

Yeah.

And the big

challenge that I think many of us see is that

oftentimes

they think the only way that they can serve the Lord

is to

go into that full-time role.

Over the course of your career, and I think your career was even

originally full-time ministry.

And

then at some point there's a break or a movement or nudge or whatever

you wanna call it that goes into

business and you go, huh, you know what?

I still love the Lord.

I'm still talking to

people about Jesus and other things.

But

I'm making a couple dollars, I'm putting food on the table,

and,

I don't have the frustrations That

sometimes go with,

know, trying to pay mortgages while you're talking about Jesus and having

a building and stuff like that.

I think that's cool.

And then

there's the other direction.

Some people go where they operate in business for so long,

they

get saved or their faith grows

and

for some reason they believe they have to leave that and go into full-time

time.

And here's the deal,

everybody's got their own journey.

So I'm not gonna sit here and say there's a right and a

Right.

but I

think what you and I have a heart for, and this is what I'm hearing you say, is that

find

out what your path is.

And embrace it and get the resources, the tools, the community

that can help you get there.

And

if it means going into some full-time role, you know, what?

Do it

Or

build something

big

or.

go buy a burned down house.

Darn it.

I could tell you, I would've tried to talk you out of that.

I would have,

you know, I hear your heart, Tim, and, and I totally get it,

you know, but I disagree a little bit where I,

where I have a hard time.

I see the modern day entrepreneur, like an Old Testament king,

right?

The king is how the country was blessed.

The king had the resources, the king had the people, the king had the finances,

the king had the ideas

and

was supported by a priest.

And a prophet.

And I know the New Testament's different now 'cause it's

priesthood of all believers.

We can talk to God directly, he can talk to us directly, but we also

have these other roles as well.

And I'm okay with that.

But

I think my nuance, you know, for you would be,

I cannot fathom any reason

why somebody who is successful as a business person or an entrepreneur.

would leave that and stop that.

to

go and work

full-time in a ministry role in organized religion in the four walls of

a church, I, see only downside for Jesus

unnecessary

financial pressure to the kingdom.

Why would we take money out of the kingdom when we can be

generating our own and putting money

in

that that means more to help people, right?

Those, you know, Matthew 25,

it haunts me.

I don't understand

how you have verses that say,

if I

believe in my heart and I confess with my marriage that Jesus

Christ is Lord, I'll be saved.

And then you've got Jesus saying,

yeah,

but

you

didn't come and visit me in prison and you didn't gimme something to drink

and you didn't gimme something to eat.

You're not coming in.

I, I didn't think we were saved by works, but apparently there is an expectation

that we do something practical with our faith when we are saved.

anything that we do that creates some.

An

extraction event of Kingdom resources instead of an input of Kingdom

resources makes no sense to me at

all.

You

can, you can change the world as a business guy.

You can create really good jobs.

You can pour into your staff, you can lead them God in a godly

way, your example can save them,

not to mention how you do business with your clients and everything else.

why would you leave that to go and be a professional?

I don't even know that

there were that many professionals in the New Testament.

Like,

I just don't know.

And I realize it's a little bit, risky

to talk like this.

Well, the

unfortunate thing, Mike, is

I wonder as I drive around and I see all these buildings

that

are

up and I just,

I

wonder why they're there.

the thing that I wrestle

with,

And I'll mention this, and you

and I can have a little chat about this.

I

want

to believe

that

there is some good going on in what we call that traditional church.

setting.

Yeah.

I

want to believe that there's somebody there that they're getting what

they need, and they're also digging personally in the word, they're not

just sitting there taking whatever's coming from the pulpit, and that's their

faith

journey.

though, I don't see a lot of

examples that give me comfort there, but I can't just,

and I'm getting closer and closer.

I mean, I will tell people often,

that my wife and I and others, we would have what we call an

eccle gathering.

I believe this is one right here.

I believe you and I, there'll be things that you'll say

that later I'll think about.

and it'll

cause me to study something and maybe I'll say something that'll

do the same for you and We'll,

you

know, this is iron sharpening iron in many way.

And We're let, we're letting people listen in on it.

Yeah.

And I just have to believe that that is a big piece of the kingdom of God

that's continuing to expand and grow.

And,

that there is a

king, neither one of us are claiming to be the king,

but

we are servants in that kingdom.

And right now that kingdom for you is Houston and

Nashville.

And, the location for me happens to be mostly Atlanta.

And also there's an RV parked in Southern Arizona that I

hope to get to as the weather gets cooler.

you

know, it's not geographic specific.

You've learned that There's different places you can go.

I don't think it's job specific, role specific, individual specific.

I am open to really seeing.

some cool

stuff.

Go

on.

And I'm with you.

I believe

that

some cool stuff can come out of

what we call

business people,

but that's what the

disciples looked like.

they were a

kingdom

impact exchange, weren't they?

Yeah.

Mean

that's

what we see here.

So if somebody's listening in, Mike,

and

someone might be getting agitated with this conversation,

what would you say to 'em?

What would you say to 'em if we like, hold on a second, man.

Did they just say

they're

not excited about church, but that's the church?

I

think,

I would say remember

there's a big C church and a small C church.

There's

organized religion, the business of church, the organizations.

And I think what we have made in the west,

we have made church like a business, right?

we run it with a C-suite, and all the way down it functions like

a business and an organization.

I

don't believe that's the model

of the New Testament at all.

That's not to say God can't work through those things 'cause he's smart

enough to work through everything,

but just because God moves doesn't mean he approves.

and that goes for all of

us.

You know, I can be praying with somebody and I can feel like

God's given me a word for them.

That doesn't mean he's, he's happy with everything in Mike's life.

It doesn't mean I'm suddenly a superstar Christian.

It just means he's gracious enough to

somehow cover all that and still, and still be able to

move in that moment through me.

And so I think I'd keep that perspective

My heart is saying

there's even more for us to live.

As believers, there's a better way for us to do this life.

There's a better way for us to live in community.

And it

involves

more proximity,

it

involves more

time commitment.

It involves more living with other people.

that's why we're doing

Kix communities in real life.

That's why other people are doing house church and trying different

models to see if they can do it better.

I'm working on a different project that's top secret.

No one knows, but I'm trying to figure out

how to literally live life seven days a week

with a

group of other people

centered

around Jesus.

And it's very rough around the edges.

it's a huge deal.

It's gonna take a whole lot of money to build,

but if we can figure out how to execute and do it,

it's gonna be

utopia

for me

Well,

Well, they

They did it in the first century.

And

most of the letters, the epistles and all went to groups that were doing that.

the

Positive

of it is that they were living together, they were sharing things.

They were nurturing each other, helping each other.

The

challenge is that first century

they were renegades.

they

were saying that Jesus Lord, not Caesar is Lord.

Which

means that they were,

risking

quite a bit and then they were also leaving the synagogue, which

they were risking things, there.

so they had

two

groups that were attacking them.

That's why we need to read

the

New Testament in context and understand that That was going on.

So

I

do

wonder, and then maybe you've thought through this, how you can create that

tension

to

make it to where.

You

almost, now,

we, you

know what, we may be getting closer to this than we think.

Maybe

that, Maybe

that, mansion

you've redone could be the spot where a bunch of people

have to come, you know, maybe

mad

maxing it or something like that.

I don't know.

Maybe the next one

it's gonna be a little bit better for that.

So that's not it.

I'm working on it.

Yeah.

So I mean, I've, 'cause I've put some thought into it too.

You know, I've actually looked at your business model of, you know,

like work lodge and coworking, and

I told you this before, startup communities and, even coffee shops,

they've

kind of got that Hangout, vibe,

nurture, love on each other.

You know, do your own thing, but be around people.

there may be some other things, but I mean,

I

see that as being more church than some of the church.

That we know, right?

Yeah.

I mean, a coffee shop

is essentially a community hub,

right.

Like, typically you go there

to meet friends, to meet other people,

have

a business meeting.

I

mean,

it's

more community seven days a week than most places out there right now.

Yeah.

And

there's

coffee.

Yeah.

And hot chocolate

if you don't drink coffee.

So when

somebody bumps into you and they ask you what you do right

now, what do you tell 'em?

You

know, I've wrestled with this a lot.

I used to joke that, you know, I was trying to be unemployed and then my wife

said, I probably shouldn't say that.

so now I say I talk, I, I talk and I write about

kingdom

business.

that's where my focus is.

That's where my heart is.

I'm dumb enough to think if we can get a few entrepreneurs

that love Jesus, love business

to think about impact and be willing to invest their time and their

energy and a little bit of capital,

I

think we can still grow and change the world.

I don't

think it'll take that many people.

Yeah.

and entrepreneurs are people that get things done, really?

Church planters.

you know, early first century disciples, they were entrepreneurs.

one tough thing about entrepreneurs

many

times they are loners.

Many times they are.

If it

is to be, it's up to me.

I'm gonna do it on my own.

how are

you coordinating that?

what's your plan there?

What are you

thinking?

So

my experience from conversations

is that

I have yet to meet an entrepreneur that wants to be alone.

They are alone a lot of the time, but none of them want to be alone.

they can't find their tribe,

they can't find other people.

And that's what I'm trying to give them and build.

And so then the thing that holds them together is the mission.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

Yeah,

it's, it's proximity,

it's community,

it's life.

I mean, obviously there's some structure to these things, but

we're not, we're not trying to be as structured anything.

I'm trying to bring people together to make more friends to

do life together, centered around

the two tenets of business and faith.

And then, yes, the mission is the driver.

'cause now we're going and getting up to mischief together.

and now we're gonna go tell some fun stories about how we managed to pull

this crazy idea off in Guatemala in six months or whatever it is.

You know, like to me that's, that's, that's the journey,

that's the fun of Christianity.

So how do you do this?

I'm thinking about all the

potential challenges that one can have with this.

One

challenge that occurs within a lot of organization, and we

can go back to church, is that

there is a dynamic person,

usually a male.

Um, I've

always wondered how females would

act in

these situations.

It's usually a male

and they start building something,

and

males aren't typically ones that just like to maintain, they like to scale.

And when things start scaling, especially if there's some charisma there and all

that, it begins becoming about them.

Whether they want it to or not.

There could be a, a bike or a Tim that you know, can, can speak

well, hold a microphone, share some things, get on YouTube, whatever,

and

then all of a sudden it becomes about them.

And we also

have seen, you mentioned Mark Driscoll earlier,

We've

seen

what can happen when all of a sudden a leader can, it

can

consume all that.

How

do

we, how does Tim, how does Mike, how does other leaders that are listening in, I

don't wanna say prevent that, that I don't think that's what we do, but how do we.

Stay grounded.

How do we

not

let it get to our heads?

How do we not make it about

us?

And I'm, I'm, I'm okay with a little bit of spotlight.

That's not the big deal, but I,

I know that can be quite the drug

also so

Fascinating question, Tim.

No, no, no.

There's so many layers to this.

So

yeah.

on

on

a,

on a simplified level,

raising

community up

and

not superstars

helps

limit that.

Let's take an impact pod.

It's never gonna be one person, it's gonna be four or five.

So you

can go brag that you built a children's home out in, in Africa, but you

didn't, there was five of you that did.

So I

think there's, I think there's some, some safety there.

Just at a very simplistic level as far as.

The challenge for me,

right?

Or,

Or, the leader or whoever it is.

you know,

I used to work with very successful people, right?

I was chief operating officer at the security, company for, for billionaires.

most of our clients were billionaires.

Occasionally we would have somebody who might be worth

a hundred ish or more million.

usually folks below that level didn't need the kind of help that

we had and really couldn't afford the services that we offered.

I mean, that respectfully,

What was interesting, 'cause you, we all know the story, right?

Money's a magnifier.

The

clients

in

the hundreds of millions

were

the ones

that wanted spotlight.

The clients that were worth billions

couldn't care less.

I, tell that, anecdote to say,

One of

the reasons I think

entrepreneurs

and successful entrepreneurs are the best people

to go and do things for kingdom.

And again, I'm gonna ruffle a few feathers here.

If I'm already successful

and I

don't need anything,

I

don't really care.

Like

I can retire today

and

never do a thing for the rest of my life.

And I'll be okay.

I'll be, I'll probably be more than okay actually.

I,

was kind of wanting to do it and it's taken me a year plus

to get kicks off the ground.

' cause I really didn't wanna do it.

I don't need drama.

I don't want drama.

I don't want to be busy.

I

kind of want to just stay home and hang out with Linda

And

that sounds terrible, but

it's where I am.

Hu humanly speaking.

so for me, as I try and self-analyze,

not saying I'm perfect, I'm not gonna say I'm, I'm never gonna get strong.

I don't, I don't really want the spotlight.

I don't wanna be in the spotlight.

I'm trying to raise everybody else up.

So they go do some cool stuff

and then I'll go home at night and I'll just feel good about

myself for helping them go do it.

And then I didn't have to travel 'cause I hate traveling.

the really successful folks don't need anything else 'cause

they've already achieved And

won.

And I think that's the problem we've got where

in

organized religion,

you've got people, and again, hear my heart on this,

they aren't really that successful.

They're trying to build their brand.

They're trying to build their name, they're trying to build

everything else because they haven't built all that for themselves.

So they're doing it in the wrapper of Jesus.

And that's where the temptation comes.

And when everything's coming at you and it's being handed to you,

it's a

very different place to be.

And I think the reality is

maybe there aren't that many people that can handle that elevation.

And that's why we get everybody falling over and failing and screwing up and

doing everything else that they're doing.

'cause they set themselves up on a pedestal to lead something like,

like

their Jesus on Earth now.

Right?

I'm the top of the food chain and everything.

It's like, that's not how it works.

Even in the New Testament, it was team leadership.

It was

pastor,

elder is is the same Greek word.

It was a plurality.

The

pastor wasn't the pastor.

The

New Testament church was led by a plurality of elders.

It was multiple people.

Maybe there was a first among equals, but there were multiples.

let's just go build stuff together and then we don't have a superstar.

somebody might say, well, Kix is your thing and you know,

you're the founder or whatever.

And it's like, yeah, okay great.

But it's not really my thing.

It's, It's, their thing.

cause it's all about them.

It's all about that community.

I genuinely want to make friends.

I have a friend of mine who's a strategist.

We spent literally like

eight months

building out

this whole thing,

the way that the world would build it out, programs and cohorts and this and

that, and here's how we're gonna monetize and here's how we're gonna do this.

And I

got to the end of it and I said, you know,

this looks really good on paper.

This just isn't what I want to

do.

Like,

I dunno what I wanna do, but it's not

that.

And so I stopped and I, and I burned three or four months

and I couldn't shake the fact that I felt like God wanted me to do something.

And so I sat down, I said, okay,

I'm just gonna go sit at a coffee shop, let a few folks

know that I'm gonna be there

and we're just gonna go hang out.

I'm

gonna, I'm gonna not talk about money for as long as humanly possible, not

gonna care about monetizing anything.

I get that I'm gonna have to pay for a few things.

I can handle that for right now.

If it gets outta hand, we'll figure something out.

I can tell you this and I don't know if this is gonna work or not, right?

So you can come back at me in a few years if it did, and you

can remind me this, but.

anybody that gets involved

with kicks and helping me, any future facilitators,

leaders, whatever you want to call 'em,

anybody on the

team,

if

they're focused on how they're gonna get something out of this, they

won't be around on the team for long.

'cause this isn't about what I can get out of it.

So somebody joked to

me, when I was talking about this and, asked the question,

but

Mike, like, you know, how are you gonna get paid?

What's in it for you?

And I said, dude, I already got paid

Jesus has

blessed me so incredibly through life.

I don't need him to give me more through doing something for kingdom and mission.

if anything comes in at all,

it goes back into mission and Kingdom.

I don't

want to touch it.

I don't want anything.

I don't wanna go near it

on a monetary level.

I

think that goes the same for praise and recognition and everything else.

I've wrestled with this a

lot

and that's just not what we're trying to build and I don't think

anybody should be trying to build it.

And I think that's why we have so many problems

in the kingdom and in church particularly.

'cause they are trying to build their own isolated

worlds.

How, like you said, how many buildings do we need?

we all can't share, we all can't figure out

how to build maybe one big one instead of five small ones that are all next

door to each other on the same street.

That just makes no sense at all.

Like if I was God writing the checks, I would never do it that way.

No business person would do it that way.

But

there's no strategy 'cause there's no cohesiveness.

'cause there's no unity.

cause we're all off doing our own things.

And so I'm just trying to figure out if I can pull off something different.

I, I'm always, this is the way I say it.

When we used to visit, as we traveled all over the world, we.

went,

Australia, New Zealand, all over the place.

I would always walk in churches and I'm, and I would

pretty

quickly

be

able to know if they were building their kingdom or they were

contributing to

the kingdom.

just another way of saying what you just said there.

And, and usually it had something to do with somebody who was

standing up on stage in the pulpit.

And you could, after a while, you could start to smell

if

they're the deal or something else is the deal.

And

you

know, I'll, I'll use some words that I heard

that

you may not have exactly used, but you know, you're

striving for something, you're

working,

you're chasing after something,

versus

just

letting

things come to you, abiding, you know, words.

Words that we know.

And

so, one thing I'm curious about, because I've asked myself this question often.

I'm now, in

my sixties

and

I wonder because my

mindset is similar.

I

mean, I'm working on projects now and

I

don't wanna say I don't care that, I don't like saying that,

but I actually sort of don't.

I, I'm,

I

do care about the results, but what I care more about is my actions

that I can take on a daily basis

and

what's nourishing my soul and what might be nourishing someone else's.

That's what,

that's

how I measure.

But

my

question is,

is

some of this

mindset,

is it a

byproduct

of age?

Both of

us are not 20 something anymore.

We

just hired a 20 something year old

and

earlier today he was in my office

telling

me,

we've

got to think big, We've gotta go big.

We've gotta scale, we've gotta go big.

And I'm kind of just looking at him going.

Maybe

I said, you know, but there's always a bigger picture.

Maybe we, I mean, and we're, we're on a pretty

fast

growth

path

with our company.

But how much does it a byproduct of maybe age maturity?

We could throw that word in.

And

maybe one other thing that some people sometimes are uncomfortable talking about,

and

that is,

the balance in your checking account.

You

mentioned that you've been blessed and that you could retire.

And someone might be listening in going, yeah, Mike, you can.

Yeah.

I am sitting here with two kids and I'm trying to squeeze nickels,

and I can't think that way.

I, I could argue with that, but I'm gonna let you address that

because I do think that's something that goes through people's minds.

Like, yeah, Mike

can just be at rest in peace and

have fun with stuff, but,

okay,

so age maturity.

and

Bank balance, Ta, talk to me about those and how they impact your mindset.

Yeah, no, I mean, I think you're nailing it.

I think you're exactly right.

Age is

definitely some of

it.

You know, when we're 20 we think we can do it.

Everything.

You know,

we get to

50 and 60 and realize it really isn't really about me anymore.

Never was, you know, we just thought it was when we were younger.

bank balance.

Yeah, it makes a difference.

I'm not gonna say it doesn't, but

I was

on food stamps 15 years ago, so

what do you want me to say?

You know,

some

people are five talent people.

Some people are two talent people.

Some people are one.

Talent people.

I get that.

But if you're living paycheck to paycheck,

God's not

speaking to you

to

go build a school in Africa.

Like you're

in a different phase in life.

You're at a different stage in whatever's going on and your walk

with God's gonna be different.

And I don't know what, I don't know where that's gonna go.

I don't know if it's ever gonna go past that.

May maybe you'll always have a job

and that's, and that's what you're do.

And if so, that's okay.

Like

if

that's the plan that God had for you,

you,

can do so much for the kingdom, right where you're at.

This isn't about

this role being better than this role or anything else

there, there, are a ton of people far more successful than me, far

further ahead, far smarter, far wiser, probably better placed to go and start

something like kicks, if I'm honest.

I

don't know why they haven't.

I'm just trying to figure out my little place where I am.

I think all those things apply

whichever level you find yourself at.

and our job as believers is to figure out how to just make the most of where we are,

understand where

God's taking us.

Pay attention to what he's saying to us, and lean into it.

You know, I think I'm a one talent guy.

Like genuinely, I couldn't build Microsoft.

I couldn't build Apple.

Like I wouldn't know what to do with a hundred thousand employees

and that kind of revenue.

I don't know that I could learn enough to know what to do with.

I'm

okay with that.

I wish I wasn't, I wish I was a little bit smarter, but

I've learned to live with it and just figure out what I can

do and keep moving forward.

But, I mean,

what do you think, Tim?

Like, do you think there's something else beyond those or,

or,

I, you brought something up that I'll we'll bring up and then we will.

there's a couple things we'll talk about before we jump off.

You mentioned 12 years ago you were on food stamps, I

think is what I heard you say.

13 years

ago I was homeless and bankrupt.

I'm, I,

I don't, I can't remember if I've asked you the story about

being

on food stamps.

what it basically says is I think I like the Tyson quote says, you

know, you find out what someone's made of when they're punched in

the nose, when they get started.

I

do wonder at times, and I'm not making a doctrine out of this.

I do wonder at times

if

we have to be humbled, whatever

that means,

It might mean different things for different people.

You know, it could be that some people could, have

seven

figures in their bank account instead of eight, and they're humbled.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

for me,

it was loading up a few things in a Honda van with 300,000 miles and, my wife of,

20

something years and telling our kids there's no home to come to and

hitting

the

road

12 years later,

we've got more money in the bank, more financial resources and things

I mean, you know, it's kinda, but I don't

care that, I don't know how to describe that and that that

doesn't sound super spiritual.