Podcasts about North Point

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We're talking with Aaron Stanski, founder and CEO of Risepointe, a firm that partners with churches across the country to design and build facilities that amplify ministry impact. With more than 15 years of experience in church architecture, project management, and ministry leadership, Aaron and his team help churches navigate complex building challenges while staying focused on mission. Is your church facing growing pains—crowded lobbies, full parking lots, or overwhelmed kids' spaces—but unsure how to move forward? Aaron shares practical insights on how to approach facility planning strategically, align vision with budget, and avoid the costly mistakes that can slow down momentum. Overcoming the overwhelm. // When churches consider expansion or renovation, leaders often feel paralyzed by the process. Questions about cost, zoning, design, and disruption quickly pile up. Too often, churches jump straight to hiring an architect before defining their real needs. Instead, churches should first clarify what's working, what's broken, and what's next before anyone draws plans. Start with scope and budget. // The two guardrails of every successful project are scope (what you're building) and budget (what you can spend). Aaron warns that skipping this step often leads to beautiful drawings that churches can't afford. Risepointe begins with a Needs Analysis, an on-site deep dive into the church's DNA, culture, and challenges. The team listens to staff, studies how people use the building, and identifies bottlenecks—whether it's the children's hallway, lobby congestion, or limited parking. Only then do they define the right-size project and realistic cost range. The power of early engagement. // Most churches wait too long to start planning. Zoning approvals, fundraising, and construction all take longer than expected, especially in urban areas. Waiting too long forces rushed design work, unclear budgets, and lost ministry opportunities. You don't have to build everything at once. Start with a plan that captures the next few wins—like improving your lobby or kids' check-in—while preparing for long-term growth. Knowing when it's time. // Aaron says early warning signs include maxing out your primary service, overflowing kids' spaces, and parking lots at capacity. Many pastors misjudge space needs because they see the auditorium every Sunday but rarely experience the parking or early childhood chaos firsthand. Evaluating your entire Sunday experience—entry to exit—reveals where capacity problems really begin. Aligning buildings with ministry models. // Every church facility reflects a ministry philosophy—but those philosophies evolve. Where there used to be 40-year ministry cycles, now they are closer to 10 to 20. Churches shaped by the seeker-sensitive movement, for example, are now adapting to relational, community-driven models. Spaces that once emphasized rows and stages now need more environments for conversations, mentoring, and connection. A free resource for leaders. // To help churches begin the conversation, Aaron's team created a free guide called “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build.” The resource walks through key questions every church should answer before launching a building project—from clarifying vision and budget to preparing for change. You can download it and schedule a free consultation at risepointe.com/unseminary. To learn more about Risepointe's work helping churches align facilities with mission, visit risepointe.com/unseminary or follow Risepointe on Instagram for inspiration and project stories. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it's time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it! Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am so glad that you have decided to tune in. You know, across the country, we keep hearing about churches that are growing and we’re seeing swelling attendance and that’s good. Some of that is like a platinum problem though. It generates other issues that we have to think about. And so what what I did was pull on a friend of mine, Aaron Stanski, he’s the founder and CEO of Risepointe. He’s got 15 plus years of church design, leadership and project management and experience. Rich Birch — If you don’t know Risepointe, where have you been? You’re living under a rock. They’re church architects and designers. They have years of experience working with churches like yours, schools and nonprofits, and they offer a wide range wide variety of services, including architecture, interior design, graphic design, branding, and so much more. Aaron is, I like Aaron not just because he actually has got incredible skills. His team’s got incredible skills, but he really actually wants to help churches like you. And so Aaron, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I’m glad to be here, Rich. Rich Birch — It’s going to be good. Give give people, you’ve been on a couple of times… Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Rich Birch — …and but give us again, for folks that haven’t heard, the Aaron Stanski, you know, a couple bullet points. Aaron Stanski — Sure. Rich Birch — What did I miss? What do you want to fill in the picture? Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, ah you know the quick story is grew up in ministry. My dad was a pastor growing up, planted a we planted a church in Boston when I was a kid. Went to school for engineering, worked for Harley Davidson Motorcycles, did big projects, project management and stuff for them for a while. And then felt called to ministry. Aaron Stanski — So left Harley Davidson, was on staff with Cru for a couple years doing college ministry before I jumped on staff at a fast growing multi-site church here in Chicago. So loved that, loved being part of that ministry team. And then, of course, we went through a big building project. So got to roll up my sleeves on the on the church staff side of things and hire architects and engineers and AV consultants and really kind of combine my my engineering mind and my ministry heart. And so absolutely love that process. And so, yeah, I’ve been helping churches now for the last 15, 16 years. It’s been an absolute blast. Rich Birch — So good. Well, the the kind of person I want to have in mind today, and so friends, if if you’re listening in, if this sounds a little bit like you, you’re going to want to pay close attention. So I’m thinking about that church, you know, the leader that looks around, they maybe have got, maybe they got two services. Rich Birch — They’re looking around and they’re seeing, ooh, they feel like maybe their growth ah is starting to create some pinch points. Maybe it’s in kids. Maybe it’s in adults. Maybe it’s their lobby. It’s they look around and they’re like, man, I just I feel like our facility might be holding us back a little bit. um And because I do bump into this in churches all the time. Aaron Stanski — Sure. Rich Birch — And there’s like, there can be like a certain amount of anxiety and fear around, gosh, when do I, what do I do? So when you talk to pastors, what do you know notice as one of the kind of most common point of confusion when it comes to starting or pulling the trigger, moving on with a building project, expansion project, try to improve things. Where are we getting this wrong? Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, I think ah like one, the whole process itself can just be completely overwhelming. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — Like immediately you’re confronted with, ah oh my goodness, like what’s the right solution? What is the, ah what is the town or the, you know, the jurisdiction going to allow us to do? What is this all going to cost? Where are we going to do church in the meantime if we’re having to fix this building or add on to it? Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Aaron Stanski — I mean, immediately all of these questions start to kind of well up and it can become ah really overwhelming for a lot of churches. Rich Birch — So good. So when when we step back, is there any one of those that you think in particular is like a piece of the puzzle that is the most kind of mysterious or is the most um confusing as as you that you bump into regularly with leaders? Aaron Stanski — I mean, I think the most confusing is probably like, what’s the right solution? Rich Birch — Okay. Yep. Aaron Stanski — A lot of times it’s a combination of like, you know, we feel like we’re out of space, so we have to add on. But if we do that, we’re going to have to modify what we already have. And what we have is old, or there’s some maintenance on it that we haven’t gotten around to. And like, what can we do in this space? And so actually the the right solution is is probably one of the most difficult things to kind of imagine for a lot of pastors. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — And, you know, then right behind that is like. What’s it going to cost? Right. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — I mean, you know, for the last four or five years, we’ve seen a lot of inflation. We’ve seen a lot of different things happening, like with pricing and stuff. And so what used to be a pretty easy calculation for us as churches now, it feels like it’s a lot foggier as far as like what what things are just going to cost. Rich Birch — Yeah. So I’ve heard church leaders at this this juncture, they start thinking like, okay, like we got to get an architect. Get me the architect, the the person that designed this building 25 years ago. Where are they? Are they still in business? And, you know, we start going down that road. I’m not even really sure what an architect does. Like, I obviously, you you draw things. But, like, help us understand what what is the piece of the puzzle that, like, an architect brings to the table. Aaron Stanski — Right. Rich Birch — And I know that’s, like, a subset of what you guys do. Pretend that I’m, like, super dumb because it’s probably not actually worry about pretending too much there. Explain what that is. What is that service? And is that actually what we need at this juncture? Is that the first question? Like, get the architect. Come in here. Explain that whole thing. Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, well, I think we have to be careful. Sometimes hiring an architect is like picking up a hammer, right? And for a lot of architects who were, you know, traditionally trained and might have like one sort of, you know, viewpoint of the world. Like their job is to come in and draw something new um that’s going to sort of solve your problem. The challenge with that is a lot of times that architect is just looking for ah one type of solution, ah which is build you something new, add something on. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — And they’re looking at it very narrowly through the lens of what the solution is going to be. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Aaron Stanski — And a lot of times they’re not, you know, kind of able to kind of step back and take a look at strategically and say, okay, before we start drawing plans and blueprints and some of those sorts of things, let’s really talk about like what’s going really well at your church and how are we going to amplify what you’re already doing well? How are we going to add some, you know, some pieces around it? And then of course, how are we going to fix some of the big, you know, some of the bigger problems? Aaron Stanski — So an architect technically, right? I mean, it’s a licensed professional. Their job is to lead your organization through the process from the very beginning all the way through the stages of design. Their job is to make sure that the solution is aligned with your with who you are as an organization and your budget. And they’re supposed to help all the way through construction, making sure that it gets built the way that it was designed and and that it gets you know all the questions get answered and that it’s ultimately safe. Aaron Stanski — So that’s what an architect does. I think the I think the thing that we miss a little bit on the front end is in order for the architect to start, we really need kind of need to know what the scope of the work is and the budget first. Rich Birch — So good. Okay. Okay. Good. Aaron Stanski — If we don’t put those two guardrails on the left and the right-hand side, we’re really missing out. The left-hand side should be scope. The right-hand side should be budget. And we should nail those down before we get going into designing. Rich Birch — Okay. I want to unpack that because I know, I actually texted you recently. Friends, getting you behind the scenes a little bit. I had a friend of mine, they had done exactly what we talked about here. They were like, we went and hired an architect to help with this thing. And they came back with a ginormous number um that was like, I would say a factor, you know, three or four times what I thought. And what do I know? I don’t know anything. Rich Birch — And I actually think it was these guardrails where they went off off on it. They didn’t start with scope and budget. They started with, hey, here’s a problem, architect – solve it for us. And they came back with this, you know, very incredible initial drawing and all that. Rich Birch — Talk us through how do we nail down scope and budget from the beginning? Talk us through what does that look like? Aaron Stanski — Yeah, so I would say, ah you know, you want to find a ministry partner who’s going to come in and really kind of help ah flesh out some of those pieces, really understand what’s working well, what’s not working well, what’s missing, where do we have to clarify what it is that we’re doing in order so to sort of establish that. And and there’s ah there’s a lot of great partners out there who can help you do that. But you’re really looking for someone in the building/design/construction space who has experience who has a lot of experience, honestly, with churches and understands what it means to, you know, serve people who’ve been part of your church for 20, 30 years and keep them on mission and disciple them up, as well as welcoming people who are walking into your doors for the very first time. Aaron Stanski — So at Risepointe, we walk through a process called The Needs Analysis, where we get on site with, you know, a church for an entire day and understand their DNA and really understand what’s working and not working and stuff. And we start with that so that we can sketch out some ideas and some concepts and stuff around what is the what is the scope of work that’s going to solve the problem or fix the lid or add the seats that we need? And what’s the budget that we feel like God’s calling us to spend as a church in order to go do that? And we want to start with that before we jump into full architecture. Rich Birch — Okay, so sidebar question. Is it possible for someone to help us at this early kind of scoping phase without doing some sort of on-site? Like, can I just call an architect and say, hey, here’s the problem. I need to add a thousand seats. How much is that going to cost? And then they go away and come back with a number. Or, or you know, are is there, yeah, can they do that? Talk us through that. Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, you can. I mean, you can call up Risepointe and I’ll get on the phone with you. The, and, but there’s going to be a range, right? Rich Birch — Okay. Aaron Stanski — And I can say like, Hey, here’s the last 10 churches that we’ve done a thousand seat auditoriums at… Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — …and here’s kind of the range and stuff. The problem with shortcutting to that is you miss a lot of things, right? Each jurisdiction is different, like how the civil engineering works, the parking requirements and stuff. Rich Birch — Right. Good. Yep. Aaron Stanski — And those really affect the budget. And so we want to understand those first. And the second thing is, I mean, every church that we work with is and incredibly unique in the people that they’re reaching, and the values that those people have and whether they’re de-churched or unchurched and and who they’re running into and and stuff. And so really kind of understanding that context is so important um before we jump into, you know, sort of solution. Aaron Stanski — But yeah, I mean, since we work with churches all over the country, I mean, if someone called me up, I could probably, I could probably put my thumb in the air and give them a ah swag on what that might cost. Rich Birch — Yeah. And I would, you know, it’s funny because I’ve, I’ve recommended people have asked me those kinds of questions and I always actually say exactly what, you know, where you led, which is like, you should call my friend Aaron and, but, but what you should do, get on the, do the like free call or whatever, get on the book a time. But I said, you really should do this Needs Analysis thing. Cause the project that you’re facing is always much larger than you think. Rich Birch — And I would rather people take time, invest the resources upfront and time, frankly, to slow down and say let’s actually understand the question we’re asking before we jump to answers, right? Like what because because we could get this thing wrong and actually that gets to this whole idea of how early is too early. My experience has been people wait too long before they engage with someone like you. They they get into like their third service, fourth service. They’re like, oh gosh, people aren’t going to the fifth service. Maybe we have to figure out how to get more space. Talk us about, you know, what mistakes do we make when we wait too long without engaging with someone like you? Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, I’d say, you know, the thing to keep in mind is that you’re, if you’re the average church that reaches out to Risepointe, you’re somewhere between two and a half and three years away from having any sort of new space. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Okay. Aaron Stanski — And that’s on the short end. We have churches who are bringing new space online five years after they’ve reached out to us because they’re, they live in downtown areas… Rich Birch — Wow. Aaron Stanski — …very challenging jurisdictions and some things like that. Rich Birch — Yep. Aaron Stanski — And so when we’re thinking about when is the right time, I think, yeah, earlier is definitely better. But we have to be careful ah that we’re strategically spending dollars even on the front end, you know, so that we, you know, we’re getting out of it what we need. Aaron Stanski — As leaders, what questions are we asking that we need answers for in order to determine is it the right time to move forward with a building project? Is it a right time to launch a campus or go multi-site or some things like that? Aaron Stanski — If you wait too long, typically what happens is either we’re we’re rushing through the design process to kind of hit the capital campaign stuff and there’s budget misalignment. All of a sudden we thought it might be this, but now this is the actual budget for what it’s going to work. Aaron Stanski — And I think when that happens, there starts to be some vision confusion. You know, we’re looking at solutions that we kind of rushed through and it doesn’t feel like we really thought all of those things through. And so I think that’s another one. Aaron Stanski — And then I just think, you know, there’s there’s some missed ministry opportunities if if we kind of wait too long. I think a lot of times when we’re planning out, here’s the multiple phases of how we develop this campus and expand it. You know, we miss out on opportunities to go get some smaller things done sooner… Rich Birch — That’s good. Aaron Stanski — …capture momentum, you you know, fix the welcome center, like invest some dollars in something we know we’re not going to tear down, make it better for guests in a couple months. And we miss out on those things if we don’t have a bigger, more strategic plan. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Yeah, kind of a step back and say, hey, how does this fit into where everything that’s going on? Rich Birch — What would be kind of double clicking on that? What would be some indicators internally that would say, hey, um you know, these things are happening. I should really reach out to Risepointe. What would be some of the things that you would see as telltale signs that it’s now a time to to kind of take this step? Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, I think if we’re, you know, if we’re really pushing towards our, those max numbers at our primary service, I think that’s a, that’s definitely an early indicator. Aaron Stanski — A lot of churches just kind of reach out and say, Hey, okay, here’s, here’s kind of where we’re at. Here’s where the math is at. Like, can you look at this like from a, like how much kids area should we have? How much lobby space should we have? And we can run some quick math for them and say, Hey, you don’t have any other lids. You’re looking good. You, you probably have a few more years of growth in you. Aaron Stanski — So that would be one. You know i think if ah you know we’re starting to talk about ah adding a third or fourth service, it’s probably a little bit too late, but we should probably get on it sooner than later. Aaron Stanski — And then, you know, one of the, one of the other things too, is just kind of paying attention. It’s easy for us on Sundays to stand on the stage and look out and get a pretty good sense of, are there enough seats? Is there space for me here? And like, we look out and we see some empty chairs. Aaron Stanski — Keep in mind that when you’re coming in from the back of the auditorium, it’s a lot harder to see some of those empty chairs. Rich Birch — That’s good. Aaron Stanski — And so what is the percentage? But the other thing is the things that we’re not seeing when more when we’re on stage on Sunday is we’re not seeing the parking lot. We’re not seeing the early childhood wing that’s basically a it’s a it’s a disaster back there. There’s kids running around like crazy. Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Aaron Stanski — And so even if we’re ah even if we have enough seats, like or we’re not at the 80 or 90 percent capacity to our primary service. We need to be looking out at some of these other areas and making sure that there’s not a lid somewhere else. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. In fact, I literally just last weekend said that to a church. I was, you know, I was doing a weekend visit where I was on site and all that stuff. And, and it, to me, it felt like the building, the parking, and the kids, and the main auditorium, they, or the adult auditorium, they just didn’t match. It was like they, the three were out of alignment. And I think they had enough kids, but you know, I don’t know. There was, it’s interesting how that can happen. And you know the lead pastor typically is seeing um only the adult room and not you know not anything else. Rich Birch — Early on, you know there’s my experience has been and projects that have been a part of that I would rather spend money as personally as a leader. I’m not saying, friends, if you’re listening in, that you need to necessarily do this. Rich Birch — I would rather spend money on the front end with a designer like you. Because because the joke I’ve made is it’s a lot cheaper to move walls on drawings than it is in in the real world. And I’ve that comes from pain of building stuff… Aaron Stanski — It’s true. Yeah. Rich Birch — …of building stuff, and then being literally I opened up a new facility and then stood there with a kids ministry person. And the kids ministry person was like, oh, I didn’t think it was going to look like this. I was like, oh my goodness, what what are you talking about? Aaron Stanski — Shoot. Rich Birch — Like, we just opened this new facility. Talk us through, like, what’s an investment on the front end to reach out to someone like you? Aaron Stanski — Sure. Rich Birch — How do you help churches see that hiring someone like you can actually save us resources in the long haul? Talk us through that. Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, starting out at the beginning and getting really clear about where we’re going and how we’re going to get there, it really helps us, you know, cart and like make sure we don’t overbuild or underbuild. Rich Birch — That’s good. Aaron Stanski — It makes sure that like compared to all the other churches that we’re working with all over the country, that we’re in alignment with where the square footage is at and it’s aligned with how you do ministry locally, how you use these spaces seven days a week. Aaron Stanski — And so it’s it’s really making sure that we’re not overbuilding or underbuilding anywhere because that’s ah you know that’s a huge that’s a huge miss if we do that. And that’s probably one of the biggest cost savings. Aaron Stanski — The other thing is you know during you know during sort of that season of vision and master planning and when we’re talking to our folks about what God’s doing at the church and we’re telling stories of life change, like we’re really kind of laying out a vision for what God is calling us to do as a ministry. And people just naturally have questions around like, like, how is this going to help? And and how is this actually going to help us reach my lost coworker, my lost neighbor? Rich Birch — That’s good. Aaron Stanski — And, and so I think, you know, spending the time to do that, really translating sort of the mission and vision into physical space needs and producing some of those renderings that accompany that story. I mean, that’s just a really critical part. Rich Birch — Okay, so let’s double click on that. That’s that I feel like I have been caught in this situation where I get I get like, it’s the hammer and nail thing you you say. Like, I’m I’m pretty sure I know what the solution is. Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Rich Birch — Like, let’s go do this. And I like that what you’re saying is like, hey, we need to take a step back and like actually think through how does this fit in our vision and how’s that all? How do you actually do that? How do you help a leadership team discern what the problem is that they’re really needing to solve, or should be solving, rather than just let’s build a bigger box. Or, I know! We just need 25 new parking spots. Like how do we not jump too quickly to that? What’s that look like? Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, it looks like, you know, spending time. Rich Birch — Good. And and, really getting to know them and what makes them unique. Like we have a fantastic set of tools that we use at Risepointe to like really talk about, you know, let’s talk about, uh, outside the walls, right? Like who, who are we called to reach? And, and what does it mean to do ministry in this place that God has uniquely put your church in the geographic area? Rich Birch — That’s good. Aaron Stanski — And let’s talk about the tension between this side of town and that side of town. And let’s, you know, let’s wrestle with, you know, some of those issues. And then let’s, and then let’s talk about like, like, man, who are we as a church on our best day? And what does it feel like when we’re like living up to our full potential? Aaron Stanski — And then we even get into some of the things around like, man, what are what are some of the strategic drivers? What’s driving more people hearing about Jesus? What’s working really well? What do you see as opportunities or things that where if you had the right leader or finances that you’d be able to you know, accomplish even more of your mission. Aaron Stanski — And so by starting there and then starting to work down towards, okay, where is your facility aligned with that with that exercise and where is it misaligned? Okay, let’s unpack that a little bit. And then without getting into ah the solution yet, I want to meet like individually with each you know ministry leader… Rich Birch — That’s good. Aaron Stanski — …talk about what how check-in works and all of those things. Rich Birch — That’s good. Aaron Stanski — And so it’s really sort of this almost like a 360 review of what’s happening between the mission and vision God’s given us, and how are our facilities helping or hindering that mission and vision. Aaron Stanski — And then it just comes down to budget. And so, okay, here are the possible solutions. Here’s what roughly what some of those things are going to cost. And then it’s going to the, going to God in prayer and saying, okay, what are you calling us to do? What are based on these options and trying to figure it out? Rich Birch — I want I want to come back to the budget question in a second. But I’ve I think I probably have stole this off you. I have said to multiple church leaders that like our buildings were built, there was like a philosophical underpinning of the the buildings that we were built with. There was a ministry model that they were built on. Aaron Stanski — Sure. Yeah. Rich Birch — And then there’s been a lag between when we made those decisions, we’ve we built them. Now we’ve been using them for X number of years. And our ministry model may no longer be the same as the building, or probably isn’t actually the same as when the building was built. Rich Birch — What’s your sense on how long that lag time is kind of between the, they they you know, we built something. If we built something more than 10 years ago, you know we probably want to readdress or look at our facilities afresh and say does this actually meet the needs of… Aaron Stanski — Sure. Rich Birch — Because I feel like so many of us are in like the the cramped shoes that just don’t quite fit they work but they don’t quite fitWhat do you think that lag time is? Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, the lag time is getting shorter and shorter. Rich Birch — Okay. Aaron Stanski — It used to be, you know, it probably used to be 40 or 50 years… Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — …you know, without major ministry model shifts and stuff. Obviously, you know, Willow Creek, North Point, you know, coming onto of the scene in the in the late 90s and stuff really shifted. We have churches all the way up into the 2000s, even into the 2010s that sort of copied the model of the Willow Creeks and some of those things. And I think we’re seeing, you know, we’re seeing the model shifting a lot faster now. Rich Birch — Interesting. Aaron Stanski — I’d say, you know, you know, we’re probably in a faster 10 to 20 year cycle, something like that. But I think we’re coming out of the, you know, the, you know, that model of Willow Creek and North Point and stuff. And we’re, we’re moving into a new season. And it’s kind of exciting for us. Rich Birch — Yeah. Aaron Stanski — I mean, we get to, we get to sit on the front edge of all of that. Churches like in fantastic places, being creative, reaching, you know, people for Christ. And so it’s just interesting to kind of observe some of those things and, um and observe what’s working really well and, and where it we can improve, you know? Rich Birch — Yeah. You’re baiting me. What are those things that you’ve seen that have shifted? There’s got to be, or is that the magic? We got to call Aaron to find out. Aaron Stanski — No, you don’t have to call Aaron. No, I mean, the thing, I mean, like, you know, I heard someone share this with me recently, right? I mean, every Netflix account homepage is different for every person, all billion subscribers or whatever that they have. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — They’re individually tailored to to those individuals. And I know that because when I had a bunch of seventh grade boys spend the night at my house, like my algorithm got so messed up on my Netflix account last weekend. Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Aaron Stanski — But I think there is a shift away from you know some of the bigger, more institutional types of look and feel and trying to get down to, okay, how are we engaging one-on-one with people who are walking in and where they’re at. Rich Birch — That’s good. Aaron Stanski — How do we, you know, instead of preach a sermon at them, how do we hear their story? And what does it look like for us to hear their story in in various places, whether that’s a welcome center, whether that’s, ah you know, side by side in the pew, whether that’s in sort of a first steps class. And so there’s a shift on that side of things… Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, that’s interesting. Aaron Stanski — …just like as we look at the next generation and how we engage and reach the next generation. Rich Birch — Okay, I want to loop back on the money question. So for folks that don’t know, a part of what I do is actually help churches with that. And don’t really talk about it publicly, but I do. And, you know, there is this interesting tension that churches often come to this. It’s like we think we’re different than our ourselves. Rich Birch — And that if I was going to go build a new house, I would have to start with, well, how much income do I have? And like, what can the, you know, what can the, you know, what what would the what would the bank give me from a mortgage point of view? Like I start with reality around my finances. But so many churches start with, let’s build this giant thing. And it’s totally disconnected from the from what we could actually afford to either raise or carry long-term. Rich Birch — How much variance can a church bring to a design? Like if they upfront are defining, Hey, like we can afford probably 5 million. I know I’ve got $35 million dollars in dreams or maybe not. That’s, that’s too crazy. I got $15 million dollars in dreams. Is it possible for me to, to actually get that into a tighter box? Help us understand how do we do that? How do we on the front end be realistic with our finances as we’re doing this design thing? Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, I think we have to with open hands, we have to hold out the, you know, the dreams, the vision, you know, the stuff that God’s given us. And we have to prayerfully sort of go through that exercise and say, okay, ah but how much risk do I want to introduce into the organization, like via debt? Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — What what is God actually calling us to do with those things? And we have to be creative in how we and and how we get across the finish line. I think when I when I hear sometimes a senior pastor sharing with me his $35 million dollars vision, Rich… Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes. Aaron Stanski — …what I immediately try to do is say, okay, talk to me about what it is about that $35 million dollar thing that’s resonating with you. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. That’s good. Aaron Stanski — And so even though he’s describing something that’s $35 million, dollars and as an architect, I might get really excited about drawing $35 million dollars worth of stuff. Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Stanski — If he actually can’t afford it and can’t raise it, he’s actually not going to go do it. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — So I need to go back to that vision and say, okay, what are the pieces in there that are from God, that are ah that are aligned with the mission that his church has and stuff? And I need to contextualize that. And then as an architect, as a designer, I have to turn around and say, okay, with my guardrails in place of budget and scope, how do I express those things… Rich Birch — That’s good. Aaron Stanski — …in the $5 million dollars that God has entrusted our church with? And so there’s going to be a lot of difficult decisions along the way. We’re going to have to prioritize some things. And some other things might have to go on the back burner. But that’s the process that we want to help churches walk through um to to get them to that point where they’re walking into a space for the first time and going, oh, man, this feels like us. Like this is this is who God wants us to be in our community. And I’m so excited about doing ministry in this new space. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. So it’s it’s not, from what I hear you saying, it’s not unreasonable on the front end to be like, hey, we should actually bring, like, be clear on this is this is what we think we can actually raise. This is that what we think we can carry. We think we could do a project of X, whatever. And that needs to be early on in the discussion rather than we’re disappointed on the back end. Oh my goodness, we got this this big number and we don’t know what to do with it. Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I like to be doing it simultaneously. I like to be doing the Needs Analysis and working through, okay, here’s the eight different project options. You can relocate and spend $35 million. You can add on. You can you can do this. All right, here’s your here’s your four options, $10, $8, $6, $4 million dollars And at the same time, I like to encourage churches to like, okay, go talk to someone like yourself… Rich Birch — Yep. Aaron Stanski — …and say, okay, what do we think we could raise if we did a capital campaign? How much debt do we currently have? How do our elders feel about us you know borrowing some money if it if it makes a bigger impact on the project? Because if we can bring those two things together and pray through it and get clarity from God about what he’s asking us to do, then I can go ah help draw buildings and blueprints and things like that. Rich, you can help them raise some money and they and we can you know we can go through that process. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah, it’s great. And you know, my experience has been every one of those steps, friends, is, it’s a lot of work. It’s, it’s like a, it’s a faith ah stretching experience. There are late, late nights staring at the ceiling, but every one of those I’ve been a part of, literally 100% of them have been transformative in the life of the church. You know, when they, when you look back, you’re like, wow, that was an inflection point. I am so glad we went through that. It wasn’t this like we did that and I was like, man, that wasn’t such so good in the end. It was really was amazing. Rich Birch — Well, there’s a resource that you’ve provided. It’s called 10 Things to Get ah Right Before You Build. Talk to us about this resource and then and then where can where can we want to make sure people get this. Tell us tell us a little bit about this. Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, like with, you know, church, hundreds of churches calling us, you know, every year, asking a lot of the questions that we’ve talked about today. Like we tried to distill down what are the most common things the churches are like, okay, pause real quick. I got to go do something real fast before we decide that we can sort of move forward. And so some of these things are what happens like while you’re talking to Risepointe and some of these things might be before. But I think it’s just kind of a helpful reminder and ah a thoughtful list to kind of work through. Aaron Stanski — And so if that’s helpful at all, or if that’s interesting at all, um you can just go to risepointe.com/unseminary. And a little ah little landing page will pop up there. There’s two things you can do on that page. The first one is to just give us your name and your email there and sign up and get that 10 things to download. Aaron Stanski — I also threw another button on there this morning in case you’re like, hey, that sounds great, but I’ve got I’ve got a specific question I have about our building. Or like, I actually really need to talk to you guys about what our options are. And so I put another button down there at the bottom. If you want to schedule a call with myself or one of our architects, we’d love to hop on the phone with you. No charge for that. 30 minutes. Just kind of talk through where you’re at, what some of your questions are and see if we might be able to help. So ah once again, that’s risepointe.com/unseminary. And you can get all that, all that stuff right there. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. That’s risepointe.com/unseminary. And friends, I’ve had multiple friends in ministry who have engaged with with Aaron across the entire spectrum. The like free 30 minute thing all the way up through, you know, the kind of full deal, help get a whole project out the door. And and just so happy with the work that Risepointe does. And just has been transformative for their churches. So you get a hearty endorsement from me. You really should do that. Again, that’s just risepointe.com/unseminary. You can pick this up. It is a helpful little PDF, and the schedule call is a great thing. Rich Birch — Well, Aaron, I appreciate you being here today. Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Rich Birch — If people want to track with you guys or if they’re anywhere else online, obviously risepointe.com. We want to send them to anywhere else online. We want to we want to send them to. Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, you can always, uh, you know, follow us on the Insta or whatever you want to do there. Rich Birch — Nice. Love it. Aaron Stanski — If you’re into like, you know, cool pictures of like steel being erected, ah or, uh, kids ministry stuff or pictures and stuff, we’re trying to share a little bit more info there. But yeah, I mean, or just our website and, uh, yeah, stay connected. Rich Birch — That’s so good. Thanks for being here and have a good day, buddy. Aaron Stanski — All right, you too. Bye.

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We're talking with Tensley Almand, President and CEO of Atlanta Mission, the largest and longest-running provider of services for people experiencing homelessness in the Atlanta metro area. Founded in 1938 as a soup kitchen during the Great Depression, Atlanta Mission now operates four campuses, serving over 800 men, women, and children nightly through programs that provide housing, recovery support, and Christ-centered transformation. How do you lead through complexity while staying true to your calling? Tensley shares leadership lessons from his transition from church ministry to leading a $20 million nonprofit—insights that apply to every pastor or church leader navigating growth, complexity, or change. Moving beyond shelter to transformation. // While many think of Atlanta Mission as only an emergency shelter, over 60% of its beds are dedicated to long-term transformational programs that address root causes of homelessness. The yearlong program includes counseling, trauma recovery, life skills, and vocational training. Clients complete a four-week “Next Steps” program focused on relational, emotional, and workplace health. The results are remarkable: 70% of graduates maintain stable housing and employment a year later. Learning to lead by listening. // When Tensley stepped into his CEO role, he faced the challenge of succeeding a leader who had guided the organization from crisis to stability. Rather than arriving as the expert, Tensley began as what he calls the “Chief Question Officer.” He met with every employee to ask four key questions: What's right? What's wrong? What's missing? What's confusing? The responses revealed a clear need for strategic focus. Building clarity and focus. // Using that input, Tensley led a yearlong process to create a strategic roadmap—a seven-year plan that defines the organization's mission, values, and measurable outcomes. When there's clarity in an organization, saying ‘no' becomes easy and saying ‘yes' becomes difficult. The new strategy gave Atlanta Mission a unified framework for decision-making, with every initiative measured against the same mission. Measuring what matters. // Data fuels care. In order to better track client progress, the team at Atlanta Mission built dashboards, measuring not only how many people they serve but how lives are changing. When graduation rates dipped from 70% to 45%, they discovered the cause wasn't program failure but economic change. That same approach can transform church leadership. Churches measure nickels and noses, but what if we measured progression—how many first-time guests become group members, or how many volunteers grow into leaders? Partnership through presence. // Atlanta Mission thrives through partnerships with churches across the city. Tensley explains that relational poverty—people lacking healthy connections—is as debilitating as material poverty. Rather than only focusing on “do for” service projects, he encourages churches to create “be with” opportunities: hosting birthday parties, sharing meals, or building relationships with families at Atlanta Mission. Encouragement for leaders. // Reflecting on his own journey, Tensley reminds church leaders who feel stretched or uncertain that often you’ll overestimate what you can accomplish in 90 days, but underestimate what you can do in a year or two. Take time to listen, build unity, and stay faithful in the process. Over time, that faithfulness becomes transformation—both in the people you lead and in yourself. To learn more about Atlanta Mission, visit atlantamission.org or email to connect or schedule a visit. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am so glad that you have decided to tune in. We’ve got a real honored to have an incredible guest on today’s episode. We’ve got Tensley Almand with us. He is the president and CEO of Atlanta Mission. Rich Birch — Now, if you don’t know Atlanta Mission, I’m not sure where you’ve been. You really should know. This organization was founded in 1938 as a soup kitchen to feed men who were displaced by the Great Depression. And they just keep chugging along. They do incredible work. They now serve Metro Atlanta’s largest homeless population and bring hope in the face of homelessness, poverty, and addiction. Rich Birch — Prior to serving at Atlanta Mission, he was in vocational ministry for 20 plus years, the last 12 of those, as we were just saying in the pre-call. He said, felt like he had the the best job in the world, was a lead pastor at Decatur City Church, one of the eight Atlanta City, Atlanta area campuses of North Point Ministries. Tensley, welcome. So glad you’re here. Tensley Almand — Man, so good to be here. Thanks so much for having me. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation. Rich Birch — No, this is going to be good. I’m excited. Why don’t you kind of fill in the picture? Tell us a little bit more of your background and tell us a bit more about Atlanta Mission, that kind of thing. Just help set the table. Tensley Almand — Yeah, so I’m a native Atlantan. I grew up here, born and raised just north of the city. Yeah. Only child. Parents still live north of the city in the same town that I grew up in. Rich Birch — Nice. Tensley Almand — My wife and I, we have four kids. We have been married now, just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary… Rich Birch — Congratulations. That’s great. Tensley Almand — …which makes me feel old, but it’s it’s it’s all good. So four kids, three boys, little girl, they’re all just amazing, doing great things and in their worlds. We live over in city of Decatur. So ah for those that don’t know, just kind of just right outside of downtown Atlanta. So we feel like we’re living in the heart of the city. Rich Birch — Cool. Tensley Almand — Like you said, I spent 20 plus years on the church side of ministry, which you had told younger me that that was going to be my future, I probably would have laughed at you. Grew up in a family that church just frankly, wasn’t that important to us. My mom gets mad if I say I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, um, which, you know, looking back, I think is really true. I just grew up in a home that we didn’t feel like the church was for us. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so, um, after, you know, meeting Jesus in college, giving my life to him, which is a whole nother really cool story, started down the path towards ministry. And eventually several years into that kind of looked up and thought, I don’t know what I’m doing. Like I’m working at these churches that I don’t even want to attend. Tensley Almand — Like remember this very pivotal meeting in my life where our pastor asked us, he’s like, if I didn’t pay you to go to church here, is this the church you would attend? Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — And every one of us said no. Rich Birch — Oh, gosh. Oh, my goodness. Tensley Almand — And they were all okay with it. Rich Birch — Oh, no. Tensley Almand — And I just like something broke in me. Rich Birch — Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah. Tensley Almand — And I remember going home and I told my wife, I was like, I can’t do this anymore. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so I started the process of just trying to find a job. But the problem is I’ve genuinely felt called by God to ministry. And so God used that to, to lead us down the path of starting Decatur City Church. And, um, our whole dream was just to create a church that people who didn’t like church would love to attend. Tensley Almand — And so, which is really cool. Again, it’s probably a whole other episode, but really cool because we got to do that in one of the most unchurched cities in Atlanta. 70% of the people who live in Decatur ah don’t go to a church. And Decatur, for those who don’t know, small little town right outside of a big city. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — But literally, there’s over 600 churches in that town. So we used to say all the time, nobody wakes up on Sunday wondering where a church is. They just wake up wondering if church is for them. Rich Birch — Right, right. Tensley Almand — And so that’s, that’s the thing we tried to solve. Right. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so did that for 12 years, thought I would do that with my whole life. Just an amazing season. And then God called me out of there to Atlanta Mission. And so for those who don’t know, and we can get into that story here if you want to, but, for those who don’t know, Atlanta mission, like you said, it’s the largest and longest running provider of services… Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — …for men, women, and children experiencing homelessness in our city. So for perspective, what that means is on any given night, we’ll have about 800 men, women, or children who are staying with us. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. That’s a significant operation. That’s, that’s incredible. Tensley Almand — It’s a significant operation. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — It represents that in our city, that represents about 35 to 40% of all the shelter beds in Atlanta. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Tensley Almand — So that’s, it’s a, it’s pretty remarkable opportunity that we do that across three campuses in downtown Atlanta. Rich Birch — Okay. Tensley Almand — One for men, two for women and children. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — And then we have this really cool drug and alcohol addiction facility out near Athens, which is about an hour outside of town, on 550 acre farm that is just beautiful ah for men who are in recovery from addiction. Rich Birch — Wow. Oh my goodness. Huh. Tensley Almand — So yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s, that’s incredible. i’m I’m glad you started with the kind of community size that you’re you’re serving. That’s, that’s amazing. Give me a sense of the operation from like a, you know, total number of staff, other kinds of metrics. Like I’m just trying to, I know, you know, you’re not a kind of person that’s going to brag about that kind of stuff, but just trying to help people kind of place, because this is a significant operation, friends. Atlanta Mission is it’s a world-class organization doing great work and honored to have you on this the show. But people might not be ah kind of aware of the the scale of it. Give us a bit more sense of that. Tensley Almand — Yeah, no, it’s a, it’s a good question. I appreciate you asking. Cause yeah, I definitely don’t, I don’t want to, I don’t like going there, but… Rich Birch — Yes. And it’s even just, it’s a funny thing to, it’s a funny thing to even like, it’s like, well, we’re really good. It’s like, it’s like, well, yeah, it’s a tough thing you’re doing. So it’s like, man, it’s a weird thing to kind of try to but get ah your arms around. How, how do we talk about this? Yeah. Tensley Almand — Yeah. So let me kind of give you scope and then let me talk a little bit about what we’re doing. So scope is ah we’re we’re about a $20 million dollars a year organization. Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. Tensley Almand — And so just like every church out there, that means, you know, we start July as the start of our fiscal year and we start at zero… Rich Birch — Yep. Tensley Almand — …and then we go and raise $20 million dollars… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …to meet the need of our expenses. And we do that through mainly private and and corporate donations. And so… Rich Birch — Yep. Tensley Almand — …we’re almost a hundred percent privately funded this year. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Tensley Almand — We, we, we took our very first government grant. Rich Birch — Huh. Tensley Almand — But I mean, it’s a $250,000 grant, which is not insignificant, but on the scope of 20 million. So that kind of gives everybody an idea. So you’re talking about, uh, you know, thousands of donors who come alongside of us to partner with us, which is just amazing. Rich Birch — Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Tensley Almand — We serve about 800 men, women, and children, like I said, Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — And we have right at about 180 staff… Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — …who are who are either you know full-time equivalents basically here with us. And that’s across four different campuses. So we’re essentially like a multi-site operation. So I’m sitting here at my office today, which is basically our mission support center. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — So your accounting, HR, development team, all of your infrastructure, and we support the work that’s happening all over our city. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And then we also have three thrift stores across Northeast Georgia that’s included in that head count. Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — And so a little bit of that 20 million that I was telling you about that that revenue comes from sales as well. And so, so yeah, it’s pretty broad organization. And then what we do, a lot of people think about you know Atlanta Mission, especially here in our city, and they just think emergency shelter. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — Certainly what we do. But of those 800 beds, roughly only 40% of those go towards emergency shelter. And so if you… Rich Birch — Oh, really? OK. Tensley Almand — Yeah. And so if you show up at our door and you just need safety, security, stability, um, you’re just trying to like get off the street… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …we have a program called Find Hope… Rich Birch — Yep. Tensley Almand — …and it’s a 30-day program. You can stay with us rent free 30 days. You know, bed meals, showers, really, really, really, really low expectation on those clients. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — It’s just like, hey, we’re here to meet your needs. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Tensley Almand — The other 60% of our beds go towards what we call our transformational model… Rich Birch — Okay. Tensley Almand — …where we provide complete wraparound services. It’s about a year long program. Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — You show up and we’re going to try to help you get healthy relationally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, vocationally. We’ve got counselors, we’ve got advocates, we’ve got social workers. You have a whole team… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …that works with you, walks with you for a year… Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — …depending on really your core traumas, what’s caused your homelessness. And our main goal, our mission is to transform through Christ the lives of those who are experiencing homelessness, poverty, and addiction. Tensley Almand — And so what we want to do, what that means to us is over the course of that year, Um, we want to give you the tools to identify your traumas, understand those traumas and ultimately break the cycles so that you don’t ever have to come back to our doors again. We we tell our clients, we love you, but we don’t ever want to see you again. Like this is just like, like, how do we… Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. This was a phase of your life, hopefully, right? Tensley Almand — Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s the goal. Tensley Almand — How do we end that for you? And so our program goes through all the counseling, all the services, and it wraps up in a vocational training program we call Next Steps that… Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing. Tensley Almand — …that gives our clients the soft skills they need to not just get a job. Because here’s here’s what’s really cool. You you would get this. Our clients are really good at getting jobs. But like so many people out there, we’re terrible at keeping a job. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Right. Yes. Tensley Almand — Like people don’t know the skills needed to like keep a job. Like how do you manage conflict? Rich Birch — Right, right. Tensley Almand — What do you do with that boss who’s just overbearing? How do you have normal workplace conversations? Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — And so we have a ah four week training program that gives our clients those skills. And what we’re finding is that for the clients who go all the way through our program, 70% of those who graduate our program, they still have a house or a living situation a year later. Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — And they are maintaining that job a year later. Rich Birch — Wow. That’s incredible. Tensley Almand — And so it’s just been a remarkable, remarkable journey. And so we’ve got some transitional housing in there… Rich Birch — Yep. Tensley Almand — …where you graduate our program, you stay with us, we help you save up and and we help you find an apartment. And then when you’re ready financially and you’re you’re stable, we help you move into that that apartment. Tensley Almand — And what’s really cool, probably one of my favorite things is for alumni is that year after you graduate, you get a retention coach with us and they walk with you. And they just help you navigate life because, man, when you’ve stayed somewhere for a year and then you kind of come back in and you’re like, oooh, the pressures of the world are on me. That first year is so tough. Rich Birch — So hard. Yeah. Tensley Almand — Yeah. Yeah. Rich Birch — Well, that’s cool. I appreciate you sharing that. and And yeah, even church leaders that are listening in, um man, ah there whether if you’re in the Atlanta area, you definitely should reach out to Atlanta Mission. Rich Birch — But even in your neighborhood, like there are, this is why you shouldn’t be trying to invent this yourself as a church. There are these are incredibly complex issues that you know when I heard all of the the different things you’re doing to surround people, try to help them, um that’s that’s inspiring. That’s amazing. Rich Birch — Well, I’d love to pivot and talk about kind of your experience as you’ve transitioned in, like some try to extract some leadership lessons. It’s been said that one of the first things that leaders do is define reality or gain clarity for their for their organization. Rich Birch — When you first started early on in your role, what were you listening for or look for that told you, maybe there’s some areas here that just aren’t very clear? What did you see as you were, you know, we got to bring some more clarity in the organization? Were there things you kind of saw that that made you think, oh, we maybe this is some areas we need to gain some better clarity as an organization? Tensley Almand — Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think, you know, every leadership transition is different. One of the advantages I had is that what my predecessor was leaving me was so much different than what he inherited. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — And so he inherited an organization that was in crisis. He handed me an organization that was thriving. But, that organization really was, and he was, and it’s it’s all kind of wrapped up in our story, is that it was time for him to retire. It was time for him to move on. And so the whole organization was asking what’s next. And so that’s, that’s one advantage I had is that there was this collective, like, well, like what what is next for us? That was helpful. Tensley Almand — The other advantage I had, and I did not think this was an advantage. But, you know, I, I came out of church ministry. I didn’t know how to lead a nonprofit. I didn’t know anything about homelessness. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — Tensley Almand — I didn’t know much about social services. And so, yeah I truly believe God called me into this, but I couldn’t come in like an expert. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so I literally was forced to, my I tell people my door said CEO, but I think I was really the chief question officer. I mean, my my first year… Rich Birch — Help me understand. Help me understand. Tensley Almand — …was, yeah, asking questions. I can I can vividly remember our clinical director coming into my office and saying, hey, we’ve got this massive clinical decision that we need to make and there’s this and this and this. And you know and then like trying to leave that way. What do you think we should do? And I’m like… you’re the clinical director. Like, what do what do you mean? Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — But that was again, and this is and he would say this if he was sitting here, my predecessor had an organization that was in crisis. And so every decision had to center on him. And I needed to come in and teach our team how to have a decentralized leadership. How like, hey, look you’re the clinical director I’m going to support you, I’m to remove obstacles for you. But if I have to make clinical decisions, we’re we’ve got a really big problem because I’m not qualified to make that decision. Tensley Almand — And so um really pushing leadership down… Rich Birch — yeah Tensley Almand — …asking a lot of questions, understanding what we do. And so that was that was a huge advantage that that i think a lot of people probably, they can like I did, they they think about the things that are stacked against them. To me, it’s like you don’t know anything about the space. That’s a big obstacle. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — Well, maybe lean into those obstacles because it’s a really good way to to get underneath the hood. And so it forced me to ask questions, forced me to listen. And then what I did is I I truly went on a just a listening tour. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — I set up a meeting, I think, with every employee of our organization. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Tensley Almand — And I asked everybody what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s missing and what’s confusing. Rich Birch — Huh. Tensley Almand — And I still have that notebook. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — I mean, my assistant like cataloged answers for days. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And what was so cool to me was that without having the same language, almost everybody in the organization identified the same rights, wrongs, missings and confusions. And so I was able to then take that and really come back to our senior team and say, hey, what should we do about this? Like we all… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — We all agree this is a problem. like What should we do do? And I think a colleague of mine, I remember walking into his office and he had this drawing on his board. I’m like, what is what is that? He’s like, well, is how I feel about our organization. I remember it was ah it was a circle. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — And all the arrows were pointed in every direction around the circle. And he’s like, that’s us. Like, we’ve got the right idea… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …but everybody’s pulling in a hundred directions to try to figure out how to do that idea. Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — and I said, man, we need to take that circle and get all those arrows on one side. Cause if we can collectively pull… and that just kind of became our quest. And so we took all those answers and, you know, basically the the big thing was, um you know, and I don’t know where I learned this, but I feel like when there’s clarity in an organization, ‘no’ is really easy and ‘yes’ is is really difficult. It’s like really easy to say no. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — And what I found at Atlanta Mission was we were just saying yes to everything. And the reason we were saying yes to everything is because there was no strategy, there was no clarity. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — And so we took that first year and a half, wrote our strategic plan, identified who we want to be and why we want to be that. And then what would it look like to be that organization? And so we just kind of built it backwards. And that’s the journey we’ve been on now for the last four years since I’ve been here. Rich Birch — Wow. That’s, ah yeah, that’s incredible. I love that that feeling. In fact, i I took over a nonprofit ah kids camp and much smaller scale than what you’re running. But I remember those early days where there yeah people are looking at you and and and there is this sense of like, okay, so like you got to tell us where we’re going. What is the thing we’re doing next? Like and it’s easy to like… the easy thing is, let’s try this. Let’s try that. Let’s do a bunch of different things. And that can lead to that pulling, those hundred different, you know, it’s lots of activity, but it’s not focused. Tensley Almand — Yeah. Rich Birch — And trying to get everybody on a kind of a shared page of or shared picture of what the future looks like, man, that’s great through this, this process of kind of we’re going to do a strategic plan over a year. What, what would you, what would you say to a leader that is feeling the pressure of like, Hey, I want to define the future now, as opposed to that feels like a step back. We’re going to year and a half and define this stuff. What would you say to a leader? Why should we slow down? Talk us through why that, how that benefited now that you’re on the other side of all that. Tensley Almand — Yeah, I think the first thing I would say is it’s it’s totally worth it. I mean, it it was hard. It was challenging. It it does feel like a step back. But I don’t know how to step forward without without clarity, you know. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And that’s, you said at the beginning, I got to ah got to be one of the campus pastors at North Point Community Church for years. I can remember Andy always saying, The beauty of North Point wasn’t that we got to start with a blank page, just that we started on the same page. Rich Birch — That’s good Tensley Almand — And I just think that like that, that is always set with me. And so when I when I started here, I realized like, hey, I don’t I don’t get the luxury of a blank page. I mean, this organization has been around since 1938. You know, when I when I started Decatur City, it was so easy because I just told everybody what we were doing and why we were doing it and there was nothing else we were doing. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so it was just like… But here it’s like, OK, if I can’t get to a blank page, the best thing I can do is we’ve got to get on the same page… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …or else we’re just we’re going to spin our tires. And, and you know, I think I’ll I’ll this story probably sums it up and maybe somebody can relate to this. I have a monthly breakfast with our board chair and our vice chair. And the very first breakfast I went to in this role, it was my predecessor’s last breakfast and my first. And so we’re all so it’s him, it’s me and it’s a board chair a vice chair, all of which have been around this organization 3x the amount of time I had at that point, I had been there like three days. Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Couple weeks. Tensley Almand — And and we got this email the night before the breakfast, and it was from a developer. And they were offering $14 million dollars for the piece of property that my office sits on, which is a widely underused piece of property… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …that we’ve always kind of wrestled with, like, what do we do with this thing? Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — $14 million dollars. Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — That’s almost our entire year’s budget. Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — And I remember showing up to this breakfast with this LOI and I asked the question, should we take it or should we not? Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And nobody could answer my question. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Tensley Almand — Nobody knew if it was a good idea to take $14 million dollars or to walk away from $14 million dollars Rich Birch — And if that group doesn’t know, nobody else in the organization is going to know, right? Tensley Almand — And that’s exactly what I said. I was like, if you don’t know, and I don’t know… Rich Birch — Yeah. Yes, exactly. Tensley Almand — …nobody knows. Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes. Tensley Almand — And so I started with that small group and I said, hey, would you give me the freedom to to take however long it takes for us to make sure we can answer that question? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Tensley Almand — And so in our first board meeting, I raised my hand and I just said, hey guys, I know I’m new, I know I just started. But I shared the story and I said, hey, we have to be able to answer questions like this. Or we’re never going to get anywhere. We may do a lot of good things, but we are going to have no idea if we did the best thing. Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s good. That’s good. So kind of double clicking on that, continuing to kind of focus in on this. You know, there are churches, organizations that will do the strat plan or roll. We go away for the big retreat. We come up with the new value statements. It’s got great strategy on paper. But it doesn’t end up translating into practice. What are you doing at the mission to try to make sure that we’re going from that wasn’t just a great document that’s like in a nice book somewhere, but it’s actually rolling out. Maybe give us some examples of that. And what are those kind of rhythms, cadences, all that? How how are you making that happen? Tensley Almand — Yeah, it’s wish I could really tell you we’re crushing it in this area. It’s this is a new habit for us. Rich Birch — Sure. Sure. Good. Tensley Almand — And so we’re I’m four years in. We just finished our first full fiscal year under our new strategy. And so I can tell you what we’ve learned. Rich Birch — Hey, that’s good. Yeah, good. Tensley Almand — One, once you get it built you have to start small. We, I wish I could remember the exact number, I think as a senior team we committed and told our board we were going to do 392 new initiatives or something in year one, you know. Rich Birch — Wow. Right. Tensley Almand — And this is a seven-year plan… Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — …we’re like we got almost for it and I think we got 100 through of the 392. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And we celebrated like crazy at the end of the year because it was like, that’s 100 things that were all in alignment that we’d never done before. We learned so much. So, start small. Tensley Almand — The other thing is we built our plan. And I was I was very intentional about this because of what you just said. I did not want another notebook that was going to sit on my shelf. And so our strategic plan is really a strategic roadmap. And what I have told our board, what I’ve told our staff is I want an organization that knows how to think. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — And our our plan is really a roadmap for how we should think. It’s not overly prescriptive in necessarily what that means. Because it’s it’s designed to take us all the way through 2030. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — Well, I have no idea what’s going to happen between now and 2030. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Tensley Almand — But I do know that if what we said we want to accomplish, we’re accomplishing, however that looks, by 2030, we’re on the right track. And so that would be the other thing is just like, I would build, I wouldn’t make it so prescriptive that it tells you like, Hey, next week you’re doing this. And the week after… It needs to teach the organization how to think, how to act so that the person who’s brand new on the front line, if I’m not in the room, they don’t need to spend any time going like what, what would Tensley want me to do? They just, this is who we are as an organization. It’s how we think. Tensley Almand — And then we at a senior level and then we pushed it all the way down to our organization. We built a meeting cadence around it. Rich Birch — Nice. Tensley Almand — And so we have our senior team meets once a week. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — That’s my six direct reports and plus my admin. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — And we, one, so we do that on Tuesday morning, one, the first Tuesday of the month is a strategy meeting. We talk all about the strategic plan. That’s like a, how how are you doing and your department doing towards what you said you were gonna do? Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — And we have a dashboard to measure that against. And then the next Tuesday is an operations meeting. And it’s just like, hey, what are what are we working on? We can’t live at 50,000 feet all the time. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — Let’s get down to 1,000 feet or whatever it is. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — And so we have that operations cadence. And then the third meeting is kind of like a catch-all, like, hey, what you know what needs to happen? And then our last meeting of the month is a monthly ministry review with the entire, not just my direct reports, but all the managers that sit under my direct reports. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s cool. Tensley Almand — And they lead that meeting. I listen in that meeting. And I get to hear what’s happening at every campus, what’s going on. And I get to hear how people are implementing or not implementing the strategy. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And then the very next meeting, if you’re keeping up, is then our strategy meeting. Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — So then I’m like, hey… Rich Birch — Here’s some stuff I heard. Tensley Almand — …tell me more about this. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Tensley Almand — Or I didn’t hear like, Hey, I thought we were working on this. Why is that not happening? And so we have dashboards. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Tensley Almand — We’ve never had those before. We have data that we can follow. We have metrics we’ve identified as a, as a team, our wins. And so it’s like, Hey, how are we tracking towards those wins and just have created a layer of accountability that didn’t exist probably three years ago. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Let’s talk a little bit more about the data thing. I’ve, or data thing. We, I’ve, I’ve said with younger leaders, you know, spreadsheets are the language of leadership. Like you’re going to have to get used to this stuff. This is just… Tensley Almand — Yep. Rich Birch — …this is how we care for people at scale is, is that is what it looks like. So data can either inspire or intimidate. How do you track outcomes? How do you, how do you how have you seen, you know, data over this last year actually change behavior and move things, improve care, better outcomes, all that kind of stuff. Talk us through what, cause you know, what we measure can get, can, you know, steer us in the wrong direction or steer us in the right direction. Help, help us think through that. As we’re thinking about what numbers should we pay attention to? Tensley Almand — Yeah. So again, when I started, that was a big question I had. So if you were to look at our numbers, you would see that we serve, you know, let’s, these are rough, but right at about 3000 people a year come through our doors. Rich Birch — Okay. Tensley Almand — Right. Which is huge. Rich Birch — Yep. Tensley Almand — You’re like, man, that’s amazing. Well, then I, as I walk you through that, by the time you get to the end of our vocational training a year later, we may graduate like 400. And then 70% of those 400 are still doing well the the next year. And so, you know, on paper, you’re like, man, is that good? Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Tensley Almand — Like that, that there’s a lot of attrition there. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — Like should, is, is, are we fail… And that was, again, when I started, that was a question nobody could answer for me is, Hey, is that good? Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so even backing up before we built our strategy, our senior team spent so much time defining our outcomes. And we had all of these statements, you know, but it was like we want somebody to be healthy vocationally. Tensley Almand — It’s like, okay, what does that mean? Crickets in the room. Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — Wait, if you don’t know what it means and I don’t know what it means, does the person who’s leading that program know what it means? Better question: does the person who’s receiving our services know if they’ve actually achieved help in that area? Tensley Almand — And so we went through, defined all of those terms so that there was a clear outcome to it… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …so that we could then measure it. And then we built both a one-page dashboard that our senior team could look at at a high level. So I could I can open this dashboard on any Monday morning. It’s just in Tableau, so nothing super you know exciting. Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. Tensley Almand — And I can just see, i can see progression through our program. I can see healthy exits. We’ve defined what are healthy exits. I can see, ah you know, are people getting stuck? That was a big thing we were we were learning is like, people are just getting stuck in our program and we’re committing to somebody. You’re going to be at this phase of the program 30 days. Well, then they spend 60 days. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And what we were finding. We were, so this, this probably long winded way of saying this, but what we, we didn’t know what was happening or why it was happening and it felt good. But you know, you’re like, I don’t know. Tensley Almand — And so what we were finding is it’s like, Hey, so that’s an example. Like, somebody gets stuck in our program. We promised them 30. It takes 60. All of a sudden, we were able to track that, hey, there’s a certain amount of fallout rate at this stage of the program. Why is that happening? Oh, people are stuck. They’ve been here too long. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — We got to fix that. And so it it enabled us to know what needed to be fixed and and not fixed. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Tensley Almand — And probably the the best real-time example of that is just recently. So I keep telling you the 70% number of graduates are successful. That’s kind of our historical data. Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. Tensley Almand — Well, this year, that number fell for the first time ever. It’s gotten better every year. Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — This year it fell and it fell like dramatically. And this is one of those I don’t like to talk about it because it doesn’t look good. Rich Birch — Interesting. Yes. Tensley Almand — I mean, like it fell down to almost like 45, 50 percent. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Tensley Almand — You’re like, what’s happening? Rich Birch — Almost inverse. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Tensley Almand — Exactly. And so at first, you’re like, our program is no good. We got rewrite our program. Well, thankfully, we had been tracking all of the kind of whys and we understood what was happening in people’s lives. And what we have found out is no, like the economy shifted. You can’t get a job in 30 to 60 days anymore. Rich Birch — Interesting. Tensley Almand — And so a gate in our program is when you graduate, you have 60 days to get a job. If you don’t get a job, you can’t move into our transitional housing because if we just allow you to stay, beds back up and then more people can’t get in. Tensley Almand — Well, our clients then would stop taking our advice and stop waiting for a good job. And at day like 50, they would just go get that job that doesn’t pay well. Rich Birch — Ohhh. Tensley Almand — And they knew it wasn’t going to be a career builder job. It was just going to keep them sheltered. Rich Birch — Right, right. Tensley Almand — And so it was our our like metrics were actually driving a behavior we didn’t like. Rich Birch — That’s interesting. Tensley Almand — And so we’re in the process now of like, hey, we’ve got to change this. The length of time it takes to get a job now takes longer. and Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — The job market’s more you know fierce right now. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so we don’t want nothing against these types of jobs. We don’t necessarily want our client leaving to go get a job at McDonald’s Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — But for them, leaving it to go get a job at McDonald’s versus not having a place to stay, I’ll take the McDonald’s job… Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Tensley Almand — …even though I know I’m only going to be there three months. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Tensley Almand — And so it was throwing off all of our numbers and it’s because we were incorrectly driving a behavior that we don’t want to drive. So. Rich Birch — Wow. That’s cool. That’s a great, very vivid example. And there’s lots of that in the church world. I know you I know you know that. There was a church I was doing some work with last year, large church, 10,000-person church. And they were we were talking one of the numbers I obsess with my clients over is documented first-time guests, the actual number of people that come every single weekend. And I was convinced that this church was just was missing a whole bunch of first time guests. And so they were telling me about how great their, their, their assimilation numbers were. They were like, Oh, this is so great. And I was like, I just don’t believe it. I’m like, because, because if you are not capturing the number of, of documented first time guests, then yeah and you’re comparing against half of what you probably actually have coming into your church, then then every number be below that, all your integration stuff looks twice as good as it actually is. Tensley Almand — Yeah. Rich Birch — And you know that that happens in lots of places across our numbers. We’ve got to get real clear and benchmark against other people. Tensley Almand — If I could go back and if I could go back, no, no, it’s just, like I’ve often thought like, what would I do different if I was a church leader now? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s a good question. Tensley Almand — And I would I would measure so much differently. Rich Birch — Yeah, interesting. Tensley Almand — You know, historically we’ve measured nickels and noses, right? Like how much money’s coming in and how many people are sitting in the pews. But it’s like, those are important. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — I wouldn’t stop measuring them, but I would pay attention to like this. I would try to find a way to measure progression, you know. Rich Birch — Yes, 100%. Tensley Almand — It’s like to your point how many first-time guests are you having okay well then of those first-time guests how many of them are actually moving to your small groups. Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%. Tensley Almand — Of those who moved your small groups do any of them ever volunteer like and and really understand the behaviors you want. And then measure to those behaviors and i think especially in a world where just church attendance looks so much so much different, we could gauge health of our churches so much more effectively if we were Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true. I’d love to I’d love to kind of pivot for a few minutes in a slightly different direction. Tensley Almand — Okay. Rich Birch — So we have a lot of church leaders that are listening in and I’d love to understand how Atlanta Mission partners with churches. What does that look like? How do you work together? So specifically at Atlanta misha, and then what would you, Mission, and then what would you say to churches in general? Hey, um what advice would you give now that you’re on this side of the equation of actually partnering with an organization like Atlanta Mission? How can you be kind of the best partner? How do we what are what are people on your side of the table actually looking for from a church like ours? Because I’m sure there’s all kinds of stories of like, yeah, that didn’t work well. Talk us through what that looks like, partnerships specifically, and then kind of in general, how can we be better at that? Tensley Almand — Yeah, and partnership is one of our pillars of our strategic plan. I think I think for nonprofits, especially when you’re large and you’re self-funded, you can it’s easy to get siloed. And we we fell into that category, not just with outside partners that wanted to come in and help us, but also with other service providers across the the, you know, continuum of care in our city. is It’s just it’s easy to kind of put your head down and do your own thing. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so this is a huge emphasis for us, mainly because it’s really woven into the vision of our organization. Our organization is a community that’s united to end homelessness one person at a time. Well, I mean, it’s like partnership has to be built into that. Rich Birch — Right. Yes, baked into it. Yeah. Tensley Almand — So what who are we to then go get siloed? Like, that’s like, wow, you can’t even accomplish what you said you wanted to do. And so um we… I’ll back into this answer by telling you one of the things we’ve discovered at Atlanta Mission is that this isn’t this, you know, this isn’t novel, but, you know, material poverty, we all know is debilitating. Relational poverty is just as debilitating as material poverty. Rich Birch — That’s so true. Tensley Almand — And what we find with our clients is that almost 100 percent obviously are struggling with some version of material poverty, but they are just relationally broken and poor. They are void of healthy relationships. And so this is this is so much where partnership comes in, because we we literally have a metric that we track of how many healthy contacts does a client have in their phone before they graduate our program. And what we were finding is I mean we were their only healthy contact. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Tensley Almand — And it’s wait this is this is not good. And this is such a great place for churches to partner with us because we have so many opportunities that we just call we call them “be with” opportunities there’s like there’s “do for” service projects but there’s also “be with” service projects. And they’re just designed for you to establish healthy community with our clients, build relationships, throw a birthday party for somebody… Rich Birch — That’s so good. Right. Tensley Almand — …have a Christmas party at one of our shelters. Come, you know, we’re moving into the holiday season, you know, come and build gingerbread houses together with our kids who are staying with us and just create an hour in somebody’s life that’s normal. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And I feel like churches are better at this than anybody. Our corporate partners are fantastic at the “do for” projects. They can then come in and beautify our campuses in 30 minutes in a way that none of us can. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — You know, Home Depot comes in and it’s like, we’re going to transform your landscape. Great. This is awesome. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Tensley Almand — I love it. But a church can come in and just be authentic and be real and be with our clients. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — And you would be amazed at how different somebody’s life looks after just that hour. And so, and I think that’s a huge thing. And then what I would tell churches, I think even as a church leader, I I probably overlooked how vital we were to nonprofits. You just you know, you think it’s an hour, but you know, even the day of, you know, you wake up that morning and you’re like, they don’t really need me. Like, I don’t know. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — This is, am I not really going to make a difference? Yes, you are. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — You are going to make a huge difference. It is worth the hour. It is worth the drive. Tensley Almand — And we we tell people all the time, and I’ve seen this in my own life. The thing that happens at Atlanta Mission is there’s always two stories of transformation happening. There’s the story of transformation that’s happening in a client’s life. But God transforms my life every day. Rich Birch — That’s so true. Tensley Almand — And it’s that’s the part I didn’t expect, Rich, is that… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …my life is being changed as much as anybody else’s. And so I would, I would tell a church, Hey, our clients need you. But you need this as well. Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Tensley Almand — Like God’s going to do something in your life. Tensley Almand — And then the other is just, um I think, especially for really big churches, it’s easy to think like, I bet they need my expertise. It’s like, actually, that’s not like. We need your partnership. Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Tensley Almand — You know, we, we know how to do this. Come put wind in our sails. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, Tensley Almand — Come just serve, be a part of what we’re doing. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. That’s super helpful. Love love that. Well, just as we’re coming to land, any kind of final words or encouragement you’d you’d say to church leaders that are listening in today that are, you know, wrestling with maybe clarity or wrestling with some of the stuff we’ve talked about today? This has been a really fruitful conversation. Thank you for it. Tensley Almand — Yeah, I think the, you know, probably the biggest thing I would say, and I have to tell myself this all the time. I mean, I’m an entrepreneurial type A. I’m going to like, you know, go conquer the world in a day is that, you know, remind yourself, you know, more than likely what you can accomplish in 90 days is nowhere near what you think it is, you know. But what you can accomplish in a year or two years is probably way more than you ever imagined you could. Rich Birch — Right. So true Yeah, that’s good. Tensley Almand — And so just again, kind of back to the strategy thing, it takes time. It’s messy. You know, you’re going to feel like, is this worth it? It creates conflict on your team. It feels uncomfortable. We were, we were joking as a senior team the other day. There was, it was about a year where I just, every Tuesday morning, I thought I want to cancel this meeting because I just didn’t enjoy, like we were just, we were at conflict because we were… Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Tensley Almand — …hashing out who we are and why we exist and what are we going to do and why are we going to do it? Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — But now it’s my favorite hour of the week. Like, I just love it. And so, you know, I would say that… Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — …you know, and I think, yeah, I don’t know that I have anything, you know, much more. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — Yeah. Rich Birch — No, that’s good. Well, I really appreciate being on the show today. Where do we want to send people if they want to connect with you or with Atlanta Mission? Where are the best places for us to send people online? Tensley Almand — Probably the easiest place is just our website, atlantamission.org. You can find everything you want to about us. If you want to know more, you can email info@atlantamission.org. And that actually goes right to my assistant and we’ll get you connected to the right person. And you can, you know, next time you’re in town, you partner with us. You can help us. You can be happy to give you a tour, show you what we do. Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Tensley. Appreciate you being here today. Tensley Almand — Thanks.

John and Roman discuss and recap the Week 7 St. Louis area games of the week.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gateway-sports-venue-show--3605575/support.

After seeing a spike in her blood pressure and cholesterol levels, Sheletta tapped her friends at NorthPoint Health & Wellness for tips so she could learn to eat right so she could manage diabetes and heart disease on the latest episode of her podcast. To learn about NorthPoint's services, log on to northpointhealth.org.  

In this episode of Leaders in Living Rooms, Sean Morgan sits down with Joel Thomas, Lead Pastor at Buckhead Church and senior leader at North Point Ministries. Joel shares his unique journey into ministry, lessons from his time at North Point and Mission Community Church, and the leadership insights he's gained along the way. From the power of investing in young leaders, to discerning between turnaround and realignment, to navigating succession in a large church context, Joel offers wisdom for leaders at every stage. Welcome to Episode 141 of the Leaders in Living Rooms Podcast with Sean Morgan.

We are bringing back one of my fav guests for a repeat convo :) Sandra Stanley is a wife, mother, author, and the co founder of Northpoint Ministries (where MY church Buckhead Church is based out of!).In this episode we talk all things:Raising kids to develop their own faithBeing a model of faith for your childrenMaintaining a personal relationship with God when ministry is your job I pray this blesses you friend!

Today, we are joined by Clay Scroggins.Clay is the author of the best-selling books How to Lead When You're Not in Charge, How to Lead in a World of Distraction, and The Aspiring Leader's Guide to the Future. He holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech as well as a Master's degree and Doctorate with an emphasis in Online Church from Dallas Theological Seminary. For almost 20 years, Clay Scroggins served in many pastoral roles at North Point Ministries, a multisite church started in Alpharetta, Georgia led by Andy Stanley. Most recently, Clay served as the lead pastor of Buckhead Church, one of North Point's largest campuses. Clay is a sought after speaker (that's what he tells his parents) having worked with organizations ranging from the Dallas Cowboys or the staff at the White House all the way to Taco Bell or the Alabama Association of Tax Assessors. Clay lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife, Jenny, and their five children.In this second part of our conversation, we dive deeper into how positivity becomes a leadership superpower in today's overwhelmed workplace, the crucial difference between thinking critically and being critical, and practical strategies for rejecting passivity.Key topics include:How to shift from negativity and cynicism to ownership and hope in the workplaceThe difference between thinking critically and being critical, and how to stay solution-orientedWhy scheduling time to think is essential for leadersThe CPR method for rejecting passivity and taking meaningful actionHow to challenge up effectively without threatening your leadership, illustrated through the Chick-fil-A innovation storyWhy developing influence before authority makes you a better leaderClay's practical insights will help you lead effectively from wherever you stand in the organization.Clay's E-mail: clay.scroggins@gmail.com Clay's Website: https://www.clayscroggins.com/Clay's Book: https://www.amazon.com/How-Lead-When-Youre-Charge/dp/0310536960/ -Website and live online programs: http://ims-online.com Blog: https://blog.ims-online.com/ Podcast: https://ims-online.com/podcasts/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesgood/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesgood99 Chapters:(00:00) Introduction(01:10) Tool: Developing Positivity as a Leadership Superpower(03:55) Technique: Understanding How Your Energy Affects Others(06:15) Tip: Choosing to Be a Voice for Good in Challenging Times(08:25) Tool: Thinking Critically Without Being Critical(10:50) Technique: Using the LB-NT Method for Constructive Feedback(11:35) Tip: Creating Space to Think in an Execute-Heavy Culture(14:00) Tool: Recognizing When Your Best Ideas Come and Why(16:15) Technique: The CPR Method for Rejecting Passivity(18:45) Tip: Using the Magic Wand Question to Combat Passivity(21:25) Tool: Challenging Up Through the Chick-fil-A Innovation Story(25:25) Technique: The "As Now, So Then" Mindset for Leadership Development(27:35) Tip: Cultivating Influence Before Authority for Better Leadership(28:40) Conclusion#CharlesGood #ClayScroggins #TheGoodLeadershipPodcast #LeadWithoutAuthority #InfluentialLeadership #PositiveLeadership #CriticalThinking #RejectingPassivity #ChallengingUp #LeadershipInfluence #WorkplacePositivity #LeadershipMindset #PersonalLeadership #AuthenticLeadership #LeadershipWithoutTitle #OrganizationalLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #InfluenceOverAuthority #EmergingLeaders #LeadershipGrowth

Today, we are joined by Clay Scroggins.Clay is the author of the best-selling books How to Lead When You're Not in Charge, How to Lead in a World of Distraction, and The Aspiring Leader's Guide to the Future. He holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech as well as a Master's degree and Doctorate with an emphasis in Online Church from Dallas Theological Seminary. For almost 20 years, Clay Scroggins served in many pastoral roles at North Point Ministries, a multisite church started in Alpharetta, Georgia led by Andy Stanley. Most recently, Clay served as the lead pastor of Buckhead Church, one of North Point's largest campuses. Clay is a sought after speaker (that's what he tells his parents) having worked with organizations ranging from the Dallas Cowboys or the staff at the White House all the way to Taco Bell or the Alabama Association of Tax Assessors. Clay lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife, Jenny, and their five children.In this episode, we explore the revolutionary concept that leadership and authority aren't a package deal. Clay dismantles the myth that you must wait for a title or position to begin leading, instead revealing how waiting for empowerment actually trains passivity and undermines your potential. Key topics include:Why leadership and authority are not a package deal and how this myth limits potentialThe danger of waiting to be empowered and how it trains passivity in leadersWhy influence is more powerful than authority in the long run for effective leadershipThe importance of self-leadership as the foundation for influencing othersLearn from Clay Scroggins how to cultivate influence from wherever you sit in an organization. Clay Scroggins's website: https://www.clayscroggins.com/Clay Scroggins's Books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B01MXJ1O3Y -Website and live online programs: http://ims-online.comBlog: https://blog.ims-online.com/Podcast: https://ims-online.com/podcasts/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesgood/Twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesgood99Chapters:(00:00) Introduction(01:00) Tool: Understanding Why Leadership and Authority Aren't a Package Deal(03:30) Tip: The Danger of Waiting to Be Empowered(05:30) Technique: Cultivating Influence Over Authority for Long-Term Success(08:40) Tool: Building Stable Leadership Identity Through the Five P's(14:30) Tip: Understanding Purpose as the Foundation of Effective Leadership(15:00) Technique: Distinguishing Between Kibosh and Kavash Leadership Styles(18:00) Tool: The Importance of Self-Leadership Before Leading Others(20:05) Tip: Monitoring Your Heart and Behavior for Self-Awareness(23:00) Technique: Supporting Your Leader to Build Moral Authority(24:33) Conclusion #CharlesGood #ClayScroggins #TheGoodLeadershipPodcast #LeadWithoutAuthority #InfluentialLeadership #SelfLeadership #LeadershipIdentity #EmergingLeaders #LeadershipDevelopment #InfluenceOverAuthority #LeadershipMindset #PersonalLeadership #AuthenticLeadership #LeadershipWithoutTitle #OrganizationalLeadership #FollowershipSkills #LeadershipGrowth #PurposeDrivenLeadership #SelfAwareness #LeadershipInfluence

Steve Grzanich has the business news of the day with the Wintrust Business Minute. Arlington Height’s Northpoint Center has been acquired by a Texas investor. According to Crain’s, Encore Enterprises acquired a majority stake in the shopping center for $34 million. It’s located at the intersection of Rand Road and Arlington Heights Road. AmCap affiliates […]

Because coal is bulky, tricky, dusty and unsightly stuff, storing it between its arrival in Hong Kong and it getting used was always a problem. That's because as demand rose, so the amount of coal needed to be kept on hand increased accordingly: from around 3,000 tonnes in 1844 to more like 10,000 tons twenty years later and, forty years after that, 100,000 tons. That's a lot of real estate. Ad hoc solutions ruled the roost over the first twenty or so years – including that of the P&O Company that stored its coal afloat in a hulk (ship without masts or sailed), the ex-East Indiaman, the Fort William from the late 1840s until the late 1870s. Interestingly, that doesn't seem to have been the most usual solution. The Fort William is the only coal hulk ever mentioned. Most coal was stored on land, which provoked an expected NIMBY reaction. Efforts were always being made to get it out of sight…well, out of the gweilos' sight. The happy solution turned up in 1860 after the 2nd Opium War. The Kowloon Peninsula was empty of upmarket gweilos and out of their sight. Perfect. For the next eighty years it became the site of most of the largest coalyards both for commercial use and for the Royal Navy. Hong Kong Island didn't escape entirely, but the coalyards got shoved out to the edge, first in Wan Chai and then in the North Point/Taikoo area. After WW2 demand for coal for fuel disappeared in favour of oil, so coalyards dwindled to two large government owned and operated yards at Lai Chi Kok and the Taikoo end of North Point. That's until the 1970s oil shock, when suddenly Hong Kong's electricity generating stations decided coal was cheaper. That's how come in the last 50 years (c.1975-2025) Hong Kong has imported SEVEN TIMES more coal than it imported in its first century during the heyday of the steam ship. Happily for us all, the two power companies store what is at any one time about 250,000 tons of the stuff way out of sight on the west coast of Lamma Island and at Castle Peak beyond Tuen Mun.

Josh Klein teams up with  @CalibrateConversations  to analyze a recent youth leader training video that was leaked to the public from North Point church (Andy Stanley's Church). Josh and Brady analyze the training from the good to the bad to the horrific and everything in between. Support the ministry: freethinkingministries.com/donate Josh's article on Andy Stanley: https://freethinkingministries.com/the-curious-case-of-andy-stanley/

In this episode, Brady teams up with Josh Klein from  @FreethinkingMinistries to respond to a leaked LGBTQ+ youth leader training video from North Point Community Church — led by the influential Andy Stanley.We break down the language, theology, and cultural shifts revealed in the training and offer a biblical response rooted in truth and love. This is a critical conversation for anyone involved in youth ministry, Christian parenting, or church leadership.⏱️ Timestamps00:00 Intro02:05 Why this conversation matters10:59 Overview of North Point's LGBTQ+ training29:30 Discipleship vs. affirmation42:48 Gender dysphoria and youth identity52:29 Puberty blockers and medical harm1:05:15 The tragic consequences of “loving affirmation”1:15:01 What churches must do moving forward

Today in Current Events from a Christian Perspective:Apparently, Andy Stanley's church, Northpoint has a message for middle schoolers and small group leaders - use preferred pronouns and make sure you walk along with their gender transition. Is this for real?Meanwhile, Trump's spiritual advisor, Paula White wants you to have 7 spiritual blessings for Easter, all for the low, low price of $1000. Yikes.Oh and the newest remake of the Narnia series will have Aslan, the lion, aka Jesus Christ, portrayed by Meryl Streep. All this and more today on ChurchPublic..---At Church Public we create compelling content to equip you to follow Jesus and engage in the public square including Current Events from a Christian Perspective.Thanks for watching! Thanks for listening!Support the Channel on Substackhttps://substack.com/@churchpublicListen on Apple Podcastshttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/church-public/id1520119356Listen on Spotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/show/3cWx1g4WfSOVs8MX05cSvH?si=8ajf5wFVSjakXiYS7HkmhgListen on GooglePodcastshttps://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMTc2MjU0LnJzcw?sa=X&ved=0CAYQrrcFahcKEwiI_4eugrbwAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAgFind Me:www.churchpublic.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChurchPublic/Twitter: https://twitter.com/churchpublicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/churchpublic/Support:on PAYPALwww.churchpublic.com/supportToday is a great day to start your own podcast. Whether you're looking for a new marketing channel, have a message you want to share with the world, or just think it would be fun to have your own talk show...podcasting is an easy, inexpensive, and fun way to expand your reach online.Following the link in the show notes let's Buzzsprout know we sent you, gets you a $20 Amazon gift card if you sign up for a paid plan, and helps support our show.https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1132064Support the show

The website and X account protestia.com got ahold of a training video from Andy Stanley's hugely influential North Point Church on how middle school leaders should respond to trans-identifying kids and their families. The video features Britt Kitchen, the middle school ministry director at North Point, effectively encouraging leaders to affirm trans identities (I say effectively because he doesn't explicitly say that, but it's the implication of all he's presenting). In this episode, I play and respond to 6 brief clips from the video. It's a tragic case study of how unbiblical ideas are being pushed from within the church.Watch the original 6-minute video the clips are pulled from here: https://x.com/Protestia/status/1905574394732118425

What if tomorrow's church hinges on how we show up for the next generation today? Matt, Northpoint's Student Ministry Director, shares powerful stories and practical insights on how fun, belonging, and empowerment can transform their faith forever and how you may have a key role to play as well. Whether you're a parent, a leader, or just curious, you can be FOR the next generation too.

**Discussion begins at 5:00**Gabby Petito was born and raised in Blue Point, New York and was the oldest of 7 children in a blended family.  While attending Bayport Blue Point High School, she met Brian Laundrie.  After graduating in 2017, they reconnected and began dating in 2019.  Eventually, they decided to move to Northpoint, Fl to live with Brian's parents.  In 2020 they got engaged, and Gabby purchased a Ford Transit Connect - which the couple converted into a sleeper van.  On July 2, 2021 they set off from New York on a 4 month roadtrip through national parks.  Gabby was hoping to take off as a content creator, and was vlogging the journey on her YouTube and Instagram accounts about #vanlife.  On August 12, 2021 police responded to a 911 call in Moab, Utah. The caller had reported seeing a man attacking a girl in a van driving by.  The couple was separated and the police felt that Brian was the victim and no charges were pressed.  They sent him to a domestic abuse hotel for the night, and she stayed in the van. The couple then proceeded on their trip. On August 25 Gabby made a final post to Instagram and then stopped responding to texts or phone calls.  On September 11, Gabby's mother filed a missing persons report in Suffolk County, NY.  When police went to the Laundries as part of a wellness check, they learned that Brian had returned home in Gabby's van, without her.  But the Laundries had already hired an attorney and refused to cooperate with the police investigation.  The investigation let them to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, where Gabby's phone was last used.  On September 19, 3 weeks after the investigation had begun, her body was found in the park.  After the discovery of her body, a search warrant was issued on the Laundrie home, and it is then that we learn Brian Laundrie had disappeared days prior, last seen going on a hike.  A month later, on October 20, Brian Laundrie's parents discover his body in Carlton Reserve, a nature preserve near their home.  With him, they find a backpack that contains a journal with a partial confession – Brian claimed that he had killed Gabby, but only because she had a freak accident and was suffering and asked him to put her out of his misery.  The coroner eventually ruled Brian Laundrie's cause of death to be suicide by GSW.  However, a number of inconsistencies in the crime scene, and his parent's unwillingness to assist in the search for Gabby Petito, have led many online to speculate that Brian Laundrie is not actually dead, and that his parents helped him fake his death to cover it up.Send us a textSupport the showTheme song by INDA

Atlanta Braves Pitcher Grant Holmes joined The Locker Room from Spring Training in North Point and talked about adding a new pitch to his arsenal, his offseason routine, the starting pitching staff and much more including of course his hairSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Keith Weinhold and Caeli Ridge discuss the benefits of a type of loan that combines mortgage and banking features. This loan allows deposits to reduce principal first, every deposit acts like a payment, minimizing interest accrual. And can be used for cash-out refinancing, providing flexibility and potential tax benefits.  Hear about the importance and the difference between open-ended and closed-ended loans. If you pay down the loan balance over time, you can have a spread that allows you to access that equity without having to requalify or pay additional closing costs. Resources: Explore the loan simulator at RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/542 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching:GREmarketplace.com/Coach Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai    Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold a discussion about the future mortgage rate direction. Then there's a property loan type where you don't have to make any monthly payments, and if you do make a payment, it all goes toward principal, and nothing is lost to interest. It can save you lots in interest expense over the life of the loan today on get rich education.   since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads in 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com   Corey Coates  1:13   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  1:29   Welcome to GRE from flaccid County, Oregon to Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you are back in for another wealth building week here at get rich education, just another shaved mammal with the microphone here, I have a real estate analogy for you. Growing up, my dad told me, whatever you do, do it well. And that was broad guidance for life. I like things that are easy to remember. Our simple home in Appalachian Pennsylvania was headed with a wood fired stove, so we couldn't just turn a dial and feeding the stove with those logs took time and work. It was a family effort. Dad split the firewood. My chore was to regularly move firewood from the wood pile into the home, and then Mom or Dad would start the fire and constantly tend to it and get it up to the right temperature. But you know, when that fire finally roared, it felt like it could have heated five homes. And this is like buying an income producing rental property. You can't just point and click to make income reliably appear. It takes time, and even some of this admin type of work before you feel hot returned the spark that can ignite the fire means first putting your financial house in order. Those are things like getting pre approved for a mortgage loan, and then they're stacking the firewood, which means finding a deal, making an offer, booking a property inspection, scheduling an appraisal, perhaps signing a property management agreement if you're not self managing, and then, of course, placing a tenant. But see when that investment property fire roars after a year or two that can create enough returns for five retail investors, just like our roaring wood fire could have heated five homes, even though you're only one investor getting like 5x returns, and by now, you probably felt, after a year or two of owning it, the profitable warmth of the five ways you're paid that you know so well. Those five ways are leverage, appreciation, cash flow. Tenant made principal pay down a tax benefit basket and the quiet, whispering fire of inflation, profiting on your loan, but you can't get over leveraged, meaning that you can't make the payments, or else you burn the whole house down. This means embracing the right level of debt rather than avoiding debt altogether. So yeah, you know, if you want to be in the top 1% or maybe even top 5% Do you know what that means? It means being misunderstood by the masses. And when you do this right, it's not about getting rich quick, but it's about building wealth. For sure, feel the fire and whatever you do, do it well, just like my dad told me, and oh, by the way, today, my parents still live in that same. House, but they now just turn a dial for heat.    Well, you know, there's been a lot of real estate and financial news lately, just this constant feed of news. And I really need to tell you something about that. I am not a news reporter. If some news just broke an hour ago. A lot of times people are only overreacting to something like that. So here at GRE I infuse the news longer term into our content of the show, because some of it is just too big to ignore. But often let it settle down for a little while and filter out what it really means to you as an investor. I mean, being an educational platform rather than a news platform is what it's about. So I want to make sure you understand the relationships rather than just reporting the news. I mean, for example, what tariffs can do to home prices and rents and inflation. I mean, that really impacts you and your real estate long term. Rather than just doing something like reporting that the tariff on this nation that looked like it was going to be 25% is now only going to be 10% or something like that, that really doesn't affect you so much. So now that you know more about what to expect here, which are the stories that really affect you as an investor? The last inflation report did come in at a hot 3% that startled economists that it was that high. And what that does is that makes bond yields rise, because bond investors need a real return net of inflation, and in turn, that soon makes mortgage rates rise, and also it makes Jerome Powell be in no rush to cut his Fed funds rate after this hot inflation report, either. And here's another long term relationship that can help you learn the Fed's dual mandate is, what do you know? What it is, the two things I've mentioned it to you before, the Fed's dual mandate is maximum employment and stable prices. That right there is inherently volatile, because when employment is maximized, well then employers, they have to compete with higher wages in order to attract workers, and that makes prices go up, destabilizing the prices will stable. Prices is the second part of the dual mandate. So that's why it always seems like there's this lightning rod attention on Jay Powell in the Fed. It is because the dual mandate is inherently volatile. Now, you know what I think about predicting mortgage rates. I don't like to do it because it's an almost impossible task, like the myth of Sisyphus, that Greek myth about rolling a boulder up a hill wells, Fargo says mortgage rates will go down to just six and a half percent by the end of this year, so not much of a drop. And also by the end of next year, almost two years from now, they'll still be just six and a half percent. And other C rates rising from here. So there is broad consensus that there's zero reason to think that artificially low rates are going to return anytime in the near term, perhaps even in the intermediate term, coming up on a future episode of the show here and soon, how to use AI in real estate investing today, let's talk about mortgages and a special loan type.   Today, we are back with the national leader in providing Americans with income property loans. She runs the operation at Ridge lending group. She's been doing this 25 years she's an investor herself. It is their CEO and president, Caeli Ridge,   Caeli Ridge  9:06   Keith, thank you for having me.    Keith Weinhold  9:08   There does seem to be one US president. That makes a lot of news lately, but Caeli is still the most noteworthy mortgage type of President, I suppose. And just like GRE Ridge focuses on education and Caeli mortgage rates. It's the topic that everyone wants to talk about. I don't predict mortgage rates, but I know that you'll Talk That Talk a little. And previously, many expected Jerome Powell and the Fed to drop the rate four times this year, then two and now more and more expect zero rate cuts at all this year, even opening the door for rate increases if inflation persists. So tell us about the propensities of this year's mortgage rate direction.    Caeli Ridge  9:51   I think that I agree with a lot of the volume out there related to interest rates kind of stay in the course. I don't think we're going to see too much of a decline. There's. Certainly, Keith, we talk about this at nauseum. There's all kinds of things that could derail that statement that we can't prepare for, we couldn't predict for, but I think overall rates are going to stay steady. I think that whether you like them or you don't like them, the tariffs tend to come with an inflationary tone. And if that's the case, it's going to put Jerome and his buddies at the Fed in a tough position to do what they had hoped to do with the easing, the monetary easing. So I don't expect to see it, but I'm hopeful who knows. Who knows?    Keith Weinhold  10:29   Now, for you, the listener and viewer here, when you really want to know what moves rates around, Caeli talk to us about this persistently high spread, and what that means is that historic difference between mortgage rates and the yield on the 10 year treasury note.    Caeli Ridge  10:47   I feel like a lot of what that's going to attach itself to is the inflation, and then, more specifically, when we talk about llpas, and I think we've talked about this in the past, loan level price adjustments, mortgage backed securities secondary market, right? This is an investment that is bought and sold on the New York Stock Exchange, right? These are investments that carry value. And while the Treasury is usually the one that people will look at to predict where interest rates are going to go, I feel like in this higher rate environment, the secondary market understands that these mortgage backed securities are going to be paying off in advance of profitability. Now this gets a little bit complicated, but the easy way to explain it is is that if you secure a loan today at, say, seven and a half percent, if the anticipation is that interest rates over the next three years, maybe not in the next year, but two years, even three years, are going to decline. The mortgage that was closed today will likely pay off via a refinance. In that event, it's not reached the maturity date, such that when that initial mortgage backed security was purchased on the secondary market, it will have to pay off before the investor has been made whole or profitable. As a result, the margins it's called on in my world, it's called YSP, yield spread premium will not be met. So they're baking in certain levers, or they're hedging, as another way to say it, so that they're not left with those negative balances when these things do pay off when interest rates come down, because interest rates are not a straight line, they go up, they go down, they go east, they go west. So as a result, they're planning far in advance into the future. So I think that has a lot to do with it.    Keith Weinhold  12:33   Real Estate industries are shrinking, and it's all related to the fact that back in 2021 the number of existing homes sold peaked at almost 7 million, but last year, it was only about 4 million. That is a huge drawdown. The number of US Realtors is dropping since it peaked in 2023 and Caeli, from what I can see, the number of loan officers, even operating has dropped precipitously over the last four years, it's a reminder that the strong survive and in the mortgage industry, top service is what savvy borrowers need. You go with the people that consistently advise you to take your time and look at your long term strategy and make the correct decision, not always the one giving like 1/8 of a percent lower and an interest rate, so any lender can get you the next loan, and few are going to help you with your long term strategy. With this overall lower volume of transactions taking place, what are your thoughts about how it's impacted the mortgage and lending industries?    Caeli Ridge  13:37   It's such a good question. I'm glad that you asked it, and I really do think it speaks to the experts in the space consumers, our borrowers, as we call them, have to be, I believe, a little bit more discerning about who they want to align themselves with and who they want to work with as it relates to the interest rate. We've had this conversation off book. Ridge doesn't sell rate or cost. Now we're competitive, but we're never going to be the lowest possible lender out there. There's always going to be somebody that can undercut for an eighth, like you said, a quarter point, a few 100 bucks here and there. And we just don't get into that, our value adds far exceed an eighth of a point in rate, which, by the way, you probably can predict what I'm going to say next, if you're not doing the math, just as a sidebar listener, the difference in payment, and that's really where the focus should be. The difference in payment on an eighth or a quarter percent in interest rate on $100,000 is all of 5,7,8, bucks a month. Okay, so make sure you're doing the math, but the value adds that come with the education that we provide the 49 states, large footprint and the diversity of loan product, I think, far outweigh any eighth or few $100 difference when you're comparing side by side. I'm not saying that you don't want to get comparisons and you don't want to be a smart, informed consumer, but it really does matter that your lender understands known, owner occupied understands how to. Or take you from point A to point Z today and five and 10 years down the road.   Keith Weinhold  15:05   you've been a mortgage industry leader for a long time with this lower volume. Have you seen mortgage companies implode close shop?   Caeli Ridge  15:15   Absolutely, we have access to those data points and the number of loan officers just the individual in the doing the transaction, not including processors and underwriters and funders and doctors, but just the loan officers. I believe, in 2024 reduced by a margin of 53% gosh, yeah, that's a big number.   Keith Weinhold  15:35   Yes, this is really hit the industry substantially. Are there any other interesting industry trends in this environment where we have persistently higher rates, I make sure not to say high, because historically, mortgage rates are still not high. The long term average being seven and three quarter percent on the 30 year fixed rate mortgage Are there any other trends that this loss in activity has created?   Caeli Ridge  15:58   I feel like the informed investor is still finding ways to profit in real estate. They're finding diversity is key, which I'm a big proponent of as are you. That means single family residence to two to four units, cash flow versus appreciation, the short term rental, the long term rental, the midterm rental, making sure that they have a good, rounded portfolio is key. And there are some which I think we're going to be talking about today. There are some mortgage tools that I really feel like, for an informed investor, are allowing them to continue and propel further, even scale into the 25 and 26 years.   Keith Weinhold  16:36   What's happened to the volume of owner occupied transactions versus investor transactions. I would imagine that investor mortgage transactions really aren't down that much.   Caeli Ridge  16:47   not that much. I'd say there was a small blip, but I feel like we've made those up with some of the burr strategy loans we do, of course, all kinds of mortgage related transactions specifically for investors. And one of those products is a short term bridge loan, which would apply to the BRRRR method by rehab, rent and refinance. So we've been seeing quite a bit of that, where the investor will find a good deal on market or off market, where they can put a little bit of lipstick on it and then refinance it at the ARV or after repair value. So anything that we might have lost in just a traditional 30 year fixed straight purchase transactions, I feel like we made up in the other but it wasn't a big margin.   Keith Weinhold  17:26   What if there was a mortgage product out there that just didn't work like other mortgage loan products do? For example, your deposits or the payments that you make on this special type of mortgage is applied to the principal first and only. There are a lot of other interesting characteristics about this particular mortgage product. We're going to discuss that when we come back. You're listening to get rich education. We've got the CEO and President of ridge lending group back with us, an investor centric lender. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold.   You know what's crazy? Your bank is getting rich off of you. The average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns, and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back, no weird lock ups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing, check it out. Text FAMILY to66866, to learn about freedom, family investments, liquidity fund, again. Text FAMILY to 66866   hey, you can get your mortgage loans at the same place where I get mine at Ridge lending group NMLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than any provider in the entire nation, because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. You can start your pre qualification and chat with President Caeli Ridge personally. Start Now while it's on your mind @ridgelendinggroup.com that's Ridge lendinggroup.com   Rick Sharga  19:48   this is Rich charga, housing market intelligence analyst. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream.   Keith Weinhold  20:06   Welcome back to get rich education. We're talking with a steady guest over time, because not only are they an income property centric mortgage loan company that do mortgage loans in 49 of the 50 states, but they're also centered on education and looking out for you, the investor, over the long term. And cheyley, such an interesting product that you offer is called the all in one loan. It's been a long time since you and I have really talked about this. What it is is a first lien HELOC. It's a way for you to use the equity in your existing properties. You can do it with either a primary residence or investment properties. There are just so many reasons why an all in one load just kicks the butt on a conventionally amortizing loan, including that all payments are applied to principal first and only, and a lot of other exciting things. So Caeli, why don't we back up and just describe what the all in one loan is big picture.   Caeli Ridge  21:05   Now there is a lot to unpack, so we're going to take our time. Listener. First of all, let me just explain. Why is it called the all in one it's called that because it doubles as both a mortgage in the form of an open ended revolving HELOC and checking and savings. Both of those two features are combined, hence the all in one as a way of diminishing the amount of interest that can accrue over time. Let me explain so any revolving account, any account, including a credit card, for example, but first lien HELOC, second lien HELOC, whichever doesn't matter, open ended revolving is the key. Any open ended, revolving account will accrue interest daily based on two factors, the first being that day's balance and that months, in this case, interest rate, fully indexed interest rate. I'll come to interest rate later. As a result, you now have control largely over how much interest can accrue. Now let's take that statement and transfer it and look at it against an amortized, closed ended mortgage. You sign up for a 30 year fixed mortgage today. Let's say it's 7% whatever the interest rate is, is really irrelevant. Your principal and interest payment are defined on day one. There is no changing that monthly payment. Now you could certainly accelerate the payoff of that mortgage debt by doing what applying additional extra principal payments, right? But what happens to that extra principal payment when you send it off with your 30 year fixed mortgage payment,   Keith Weinhold  22:34   it drops your loan balance, but your minimum payment amount is the exact same the next month,   Caeli Ridge  22:38   right? And then what happens to all that liquidity that you had prior, it's now illiquid. Right? Exactly that off   Keith Weinhold  22:45   you've just transferred your cash flow into equity. Financial freedom is created by doing the opposite thing and changing equity into cash flow,   Caeli Ridge  22:52   very illiquid, and not the way an investor typically is going to want to run his or her business. So hence the all in one. Now for those of you that have heard the term velocity banking or infinity banking, maybe whole life insurance policy has a similar tone to this. The all in one, I believe, offers even more flexibility for variety of reasons that we're going to get into. But if you've ever heard those terms, that's similar to what this is. So I want to start by I usually like to give an example, okay, and provide some visual aid so that people can connect the dots. Let's start with the 30 year or a fixed rate mortgage. Just because I feel like, especially in the US, this particular loan product, or its concept is widely used in much of the rest of the world, in the US, I feel like we're sort of preconditioned here to really only understand that closed ended, amortized mortgage. So I'm going to start with an example there that actually highlights or leads into the concept of the all in one. So I want you to imagine a 30 year fixed mortgage and a 15 year fixed mortgage. Both of these mortgages originated or started at $400,000 as the balance on day one. The 30 year fixed mortgage locked at an interest rate of 4% and the 15 year fixed mortgage locked at an interest rate of 7% now, when I go through this exercise and I give this example to people, I ask them the question, Well, which one would you choose? And without exception, if they don't understand amortization, they are going to select that 4% 30 year fixed mortgage, because they don't understand that it's about speed. When you run the math and you look at an actual amortization table, you'll see that you'll pay $40,000 more in interest on a 4% 30 year or 360 month, versus a 7% 15 year or 180 month. So the point here, and what I'm illustrating, is it's speed. Now let's segue back over to the all in one. It's all about speed and how much interest we allow to accrue over time. So as you had mentioned, to start the kick this off, Keith, every deposit acts like a payment. Now here's where I struggled with this in learning. And when this was first introduced to me years ago, this part of it really caught me off guard. I had to really dig in and try to focus on what are they talking about? What do they mean? There's no payment due on the all in one. I'm gonna say that again. There's no payment due on the all in one. Think about your 30 year fixed mortgage. If you don't make a payment, what happens?   Keith Weinhold  25:19   You're defaulting, you're in trouble. You become delinquent,   Caeli Ridge  25:23   right? So that is not how this loan is set up. And it's not smoke and mirrors, okay? It's nothing fancy. The deposits that you make from ordinary income from all sources really Okay, so we want to talk about this is really special for investors, because we have access to gross rents, the rental income that's coming in before we send it back out the door, along with our net wages and every other source of income, deposits that we're getting can be utilized to your advantage. One of the ways in which I describe this is, I like to say you've become your own bank, so you have this line of credit, and your gross rents and all of your net wages are going to deposit into your checking account, driving that principal balance down, dollar for dollar, so that the interest accrual is diminished. Because remember what I said a few seconds ago, the interest is calculated on any open ended revolving account based on two factors, the balance for the day and the interest rate, so the more you have in depository income, and you drop it into your checking account, the longer it stays there, the lower the amount of interest is going to accrue within a 30 day billing cycle. Now let me just paint one more picture, and then we can open up to what questions come from this. So I want you to imagine this is I'm going to use easy, round math. I want you to imagine that you have an unpaid principal balance on your mortgage, on your HELOC of $100,000 just for round easy mouth, and that you bring in $10,000 a month in income from all sources. And just to keep it simple, we're going to say that that 10,000 comes in on day one of month one. Okay, so here's our 100 grand sitting there. My $10,000 is deposited into my checking account. Now my balance is $90,000 right? That 10 grand is not going to be touched. You will not touch that $10,000 for 29 days out of a 30 day billing cycle. And I'm giving you optimal tricks. Okay, this is how you want to use it optimally, yeah. Day one, instead of paying interest on $100,000 you're paying interest on paying interest on $90,000 and you're going to pay interest only on $90,000 for 29 days out of a 30 day billing cycle. Well, how am I going to make all my bills? And how am I going to eat? And how am I going to pay my cell phone? And what am I going to do? You're going to use a credit card, or credit cards of your choice, the ones that provide the best points, or whichever you prefer doesn't really matter. To pay all those monthly living expenses now we don't want to pay any interest on our credit cards. Right? 18, 28% whatever it is. No thank you. So now we're going to go to day 30 of that 30 day billing cycle. Right? 29 days that 10 grand has sat in there. Our balance has been 90. Our interest has accrued on that 90. On day 30, the credit card has amassed $9,000 in expenses. You've spent $9,000 for the month on food, gas utilities, car payments, cell phone, everything goes on that card. Day 30, you go into your checking account where your 10 grand has been sitting, and you write a check to pay off the credit card $9,000 so for one day of the month, we went from 90,000 in a balance to 99,000 right. 9000 had to come out of the 10 to pay off the credit card. We had $1,000 left over. Now I want you to fast forward into month to day one our starting balance, because that $1,000 leftover was our residual income, our discretionary our savings, it's what was not spent, but I have full access to it. Should I need it? So day one, month two 99, 000 is my outstanding balance. I drop in my $10,000 of income. 89,000 is what I'm going to be paying interest on for 29 days of a 30 day billing cycle. So this should allow listeners to connect some dots. There are two components of compound interest savings, the first being daily. We've got our income dropping in there. It's just sitting so daily savings, compound interest savings. And then that leftover savings, that residual, that $1,000 is going to be left in there month after month 24/7, access. That's monthly compound interest savings. So those are the two components that make this product profoundly impactful in diminishing that interest accrual over time. Why don't I take a pause   Keith Weinhold  29:30   so with the all in one loan, we're really integrating our consumer accounts with our mortgage. Absolutely right? Is there a way to automate these payments associated with this?   Caeli Ridge  29:43   Yes, I'm glad you asked. So everything that you have become accustomed to today in your checking and savings is going to be exactly the same with the all in one this mortgage is housed by an FDIC insured banking institution. It'll be one of two places depending on which. Which ends up picking up the rights. It'll be North Point or merchants, bank, those are the two that service this loan. Feel free to check them out when you think about the automation of your checking and savings accounts with your B of A, Chase, Wells, Fargo, whomever, credit union, whomever you bank with. Now there will be no difference to that experience and this experience so online bill pay, debit cards, routing numbers, paper checks. Should you still use those mobile apps? If you get a paper check, you take a picture and it uploads to the account. All the same exact automation as you have become used to today will apply with the all in one   Keith Weinhold  30:36   and you described how the all in one loan is an open ended loan versus your plain vanilla 30 or fixed amortizing loan, which is closed ended. For those that don't know, what do those terms open ended and close ended mean?   Caeli Ridge  30:48   So amortized is predetermined over the period of time that you've gotten the mortgage for. So whether it be a 10 year, a 20 year, 2515, 30, whatever it is, it is closed ended, so the interest rate that you secured against the loan amount that you've taken, they have come up with the formula, the calculation that says, This is how much interest you're going to pay over this length of time. And the longer the amount of time that you have selected, let's say a 30 or maybe even a 40 year. Those do exist, in some cases, the longer the amount of time that closed ended amortized mortgages in play, the more interest you're going to pay. Now, it keeps your payment lower for sure, but they're going to make it up in the interest that you'll pay in the long time. Now the open ended revolving just means that it is available to pay down and draw up, and pay down and draw up. It is not closed   Keith Weinhold  31:40   and then with those conventional mortgages, typically, especially when you originate a new loan for years, most of your payment goes to interest, which would not be the case with the all in one loan.    Caeli Ridge  31:53   Exa  ctly. Yeah. So anybody that's looked at an amortization table knows the first 10 ish years, we'll just keep using the most common, 30 year fixed first 10 years or so, maybe even a few years past that, 90% of your payment is going to go to the interest. You won't start chunking down any principal until the back end of that mortgage, 180 or complete flip to the all in one every dollar that goes in there drives the principal down first.   Keith Weinhold  32:18   That is huge, even if you pay a higher interest rate on your all in one loan, you can see how you have fewer dollars out of pocket in interest paid, which is what really matters to you,   Caeli Ridge  32:30   exactly, right? So think about a 20% interest rate. If you're paying 20% interest on 50,000 then 7% interest on 500,000 you can see how the math will work in your favor, regardless of the number in the interest rate in comparing side to side. And one of the other things that we haven't touched on, and maybe this is a good segue, Keith, it's not just the daily deposits. We have clients that take out a, you know, a million dollar line of credit, but they have $500,000 sitting idle for whatever it is their business needs. And in the E commerce. It doesn't even matter, but they have this amount of cash that they're simply going to take from this vehicle a regular checking account over here, and drop it in here, and that interest is saved. That $500,000 that was sitting idle doing nothing over here is now saving interest at an incredible rate. So it's not just the daily and monthly deposits. If you just have idle cash, or you know you're going to be getting a bonus or a tax refund, or whatever it is, those monies that would otherwise just sit in a one to 2% maybe interest bearing checking savings account can now be applied over here, driving down that balance further, dollar for dollar saving in that interest.   Keith Weinhold  33:39   So we are opportunistic investors here, when we see an accumulation of equity in a property or cash in an account, we want to get that moving with this all in one loan again, which is like a first lien HELOC, I would imagine that would we get plenty of room to borrow more in there, and there's been plenty of pay down, we might want to draw against it again for another purchase, and let this thing be flexible like an accordion back and forth as you're drawing the balance down and you're extending it out again. So really, the way I see the flexibility with the all in one loan is that you don't have to go through another mortgage loan origination each time you want to buy a property. You can just draw against this account.   Caeli Ridge  34:20   And we're still just scratching the surface in what this thing does exactly right? And I've said this twice now, you've become your own bank. Yeah, okay, if you pay it down over a short period of time, let's say that you had half a million dollars and you were able to reduce that down to 300,000 there's a $200,000 spread there that, at your discretion, do not have to re pre qualify and pay closing costs. Again, you don't have to ask permission or get it approved, for some reason, those are your funds, your equity, your dollars to do what you want, when you want, how you want. The other thing too is probably a good place to point this out, safety net, as long as there is a spread between what you owe and the credit limit. Whatever that is. If something were to happen That was unfortunate, some unfortunate set of circumstance befell the family, whatever, and no income was coming into the household zero. What would happen if you didn't have money to make your 30 year fixed mortgage payment? You're going to ruin your credit and go into default. Well, the reverse is true with the all in one if there is a spread between the balance and the limit and you needed to not make any deposits, the only thing that's going to happen in that case is interest is going to accrue on top of that balance. The only time a payment deposit is mandated with the all in one is when the balance is about to exceed the limit. That's the only time. Now I'm not saying that that's the way people are going to use it, but that's the reality of it. So what if this? Let's take this down the rabbit hole for a second. If you couldn't make a deposit, you're not going to go into default, right? You're simply going to add some interest on top of the existing balance. But what if you needed to draw from it for living expenses for a couple of months? Yeah? What if you needed, you know, $5,000 a month for three months until you got back on your feet, whatever it is you have access to do that. There's your safety net. You just simply draw from it, as long as there's a spread between the balance and the limit, those are your funds to do with what you choose    Keith Weinhold  36:13   if one takes out a HELOC, whether that's in an all in one loan form or not, something that I've advocated with my listeners for years is that now you do have this line that you can draw against to your point Haley, it's effectively another layer of insurance for that borrower or investor. So if you're interested in keeping down your insurance premium, you can get a HELOC or an all in one loan increase your insurance deductible, which can lower your insurance premium and increase your cash flow.   Caeli Ridge  36:43   Good point. You know, I hadn't even thought about that before. That is a new one on me that is actually brilliant. Yes.   Keith Weinhold  36:50   now we had a listener quite a while ago, Mark from Granite Bay, California, right in Mark's a great long time listener. When he found our show, he wanted to go back and re listen to all the old episodes. And he listens to several episodes multiple times. And Mark wrote in because he heard you on the show quite a while ago. And Mark says, I've been using the all in one loans, amazing mortgage balance deduction. But as a GRE listener, I know I can't be lured in by that alone. I also need to utilize its leverage. I just used my all in one loan Mark continues to say, probably, like a lot of others, to buy a duplex for mid south home buyers in all cash and then refinance that loan into a fanniefreda 30 year from my all in one loan simulations, and Caeli has an all in one loan simulation on her website that she'll tell you about. But to finish Mark's question, Mark says, I have gathered in these simulations that as long as properties are cash flowing, the best use of the all in one seems to be to keep repeating what we did on our first duplex purchase, use the all in one loan, to buy properties in all cash, and then later refi it into better debt or leverage, and then continue to repeat the process. Is that a valid way to use it? That's Mark's question.   Caeli Ridge  38:03   Absolutely. Mark, Well done, sir. And there's a few points here that I want to take a minute and peel back, Keith, so one of the first things that I would say that's really great about that philosophy or that strategy is going to be that on a cash out refinance of the property that was paid cash, using the all in one we get to use the appraised value. So under the circumstances, if you paid $100,000 for it, and perhaps it valued at 110, 151, 20, whatever it is, then we as the lender are going to refinance on a cash out refinance using that higher appraised value, so you have a little bit more leverage there, and potentially get more in that loan to value when you're comparing what you're getting back versus what you put in. The other thing, obviously, is that when you're dealing with a turnkey or a seller, an agent, whatever, everybody knows that when you can come to the table with cash, yeah, right, you become the more desirable buyer. There's that obvious piece, and then in terms of that strategy and that simulation. So please, yes, that is absolutely the first thing that I'm going to do with anybody that calls in is I'm going to get on the phone with them, a teams call, and we're going to do the simulator together. But I encourage everybody to get in there and play around with it. If you're not quite sure what data points it's asking for, let us know, or we'll do one together. But that simulator is going to allow you to compare the all in one to either an existing mortgage on a primary rental property or a new traditional mortgage. Let's say you're thinking about buying an investment property with a 30 year fixed and you want to compare that to the all in one, or maybe you want to refinance one of your existing properties, so you can compare it to existing versus new. And then within that simulation, it will allow you to forecast additional spending. That will allow you to say, I want to take out $50,000 in month 22 and it'll reformulate where the simulation of saved interest, payoff time, all of those things will be available to you within that simulator. It's very slick.    Keith Weinhold  40:00    And now that you, the investor, have the ability to pay all cash, not only can you close faster, but a lot of times, sellers are willing to give you a discount, since you can close faster and pay all cash, and then it's up to you down the road to go ahead and refinance that into a conventional product, or however else you want to do it. Caeli, what else should we know about the all in one loan?   Caeli Ridge  40:24    Couple things I would share. First of all, the qualification metric for the all in one is going to be a little bit more restrictive than a traditional 30 year fixed mortgage, so be prepared for a little extra brain damage. I know that getting qualified for mortgages is not everybody's favorite activity. I get it. There's a lot that goes on to it. It's not like the good old days where some remember you could fog a mirror and get a mortgage, but the all in one does take it to another level, even beyond what you're used to now. So debt to income ratio, I'll give you the specifics really quickly, so just be prepared. I like to set that expectation. Debt to income ratio caps at 43% on the all in one versus 50% that we would have from a traditional Fannie Freddie, 30 year fixed. The reserve requirement is calculated based on the line limit. It's dependent on the debt to income ratio. I'll just leave it there. It'll either be 10% or 15% of the line limit. So if the limit was 100 grand, 10,000 or 15,000 is the reserve requirement, and then the minimum credit score requirement. Owner Occupied is 700 non owner occupied is 720 so a little bit higher on the bar for qualification for the all in one.   Keith Weinhold  41:33   Who is this for? And who is it not for?   Caeli Ridge  41:36   It is for anyone generally that has at least 10% discretionary income at the end of the month. Typically, everybody's circumstances are different. I encourage you to play with the simulator. Get on my schedule. Let's do it together. But more often than not, we find that 10% left over at the end of the month is generally enough for it to work for the individual, and for those of you that got 2% interest rates during the pandemic, I just want you to know that I'm running the simulator against those loans day in and day out. And I would say, I'll give you a 65% of the time the all in one is beaten the, you know, what, out of a two and a half percent 30 year fixed mortgage   Keith Weinhold  42:12   that is really interesting. Well, there's a lot of opportunity and flexibility with the all in one loan. Is there any last thing that we should know about it.   Caeli Ridge  42:22   Start doing your due diligence. This does take a minute to unpack. Don't get overwhelmed by all the information. We've talked about some real tangible stuff here, but there's quite a bit that there would be to uncover. So take your time. Call us. We'll walk through it step by step   Keith Weinhold  42:36   and get started on that simulator and really see what it can do for you to make that actionable. Caeli, Where should one start?   Caeli Ridge  42:44   Head to our website, ridgelendinggroup.com you can email us info@ridgelendinggroup.com and obviously we're always a phone call away at 855, 74, Ridge   Keith Weinhold  42:54   and again, you can find that all in one loan simulator, where you can plug in some real numbers and see how it can benefit you. A friendly representative from Ridge can help you. Go ahead and do that there. So there's a lot of excitement about the all in one loan, especially, or an investor that has a GRE mindset philosophy and thinks about the opportunity of dead equity. But now that we've talked about that, tell us just quickly about some of the other products that you offer in there at ridge.   Caeli Ridge  43:23    So I think one of the real value adds for us is that we're not a one size fits all. We have an extremely diverse menu, as I like to call it, of loan programs. The all in one is at the top of a short list of my favorites. For some individuals, you got the fanniefriddies. You've got non QM, which includes DSCR, debt service, coverage ratio, bank statement loans, asset depletion loans. We have ground up construction for those that are interested in that. We have our short term bridge loans that I talked briefly about, where if you need fix and flip fix and hold, potentially, you need shorter term money, commercial loans for commercial products, commercial loans for residential in a cross collateralization way, if that is to your advantage. So as you can see, it's quite diverse.    Keith Weinhold  44:03   It's been valuable as always, and I definitely learned a few extra things that I did not know about the all in one loan myself. JAYLEE Reyes, it's been great having you back on the show, Keith. Thank you.   Now a mortgage company, of course, they have overhead and employees that they have to pay and so on. And you know, from talking with Chaley some more, I learned that they don't even make much profit from all in one loans. We wanted to discuss it together today for your benefit. However, though there are some real fees with the all in one loan, you pay points of three to 4% of the draw in closing costs only, but it's a one time fee, not every time you draw against it. She also let me know that it does not make your taxes substantially. More complicated, if you think that it can help you clear a few minutes, learn more and get hooked up with that all in one loan simulator, where they will help you through it. Big thanks to Caeli Ridge today, they really make themselves available. You can just call 855, 74, Ridge. Or if it's more your style, visit them at Ridge lending group.com Until next week, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.   Speaker 1  45:31   Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively.   Keith Weinhold  45:59   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, getricheducation.com.    

During the first part of today's show Chuck & Chernoff were joined by Nick Cellini & Chris Dimino as the 4 guys talked about what's going down with the Braves at North Point and this day in pop culture history. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Riff, Jeremy and Justin sit down to talk about what is coming up for North Point. We hope today is helpful and hopeful. Thanks for listening!!

Dan took a trip out to Wayne, PA to sit down with rock n' roll lifer Paul Keen (Pawnshop Roses, Dead Flowers, Wolf & Vixen). Paul talks about growing up loving the classic rock of his parents, especially The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Faces, and The Who, and finding a home in the Manayunk music scene at The Grape Room and Dawson Street Pub. Dan and Paul discuss the finer points of being two aging music guys who are trying hard not to be cranky nostalgists, the merits of dive bars and clubs, and how a life of playing out at bars has to be handled just right so as not to make your life a never-ending party.  Paul's newest project is a duo with his partner, author C.C. Lane, Wolf & Vixen. they have a new single out now called "Everyone's On Drugs", available wherever you get your digital music.  Dan's note: This is the last episode I'll be producing while residing in Philadelphia for a while. Next you hear from me, I'll likely be balancing a Zoom H6 on my lap while holding a mic in a small apartment in the North Point neighborhood of Hong Kong. There are a handful of interviews I conducted while still in Philadelphia, and I'll be putting those out over the next weeks. Philadelphia will always be part of me, and I'll be back to visit, and eventually to live again. I'll miss each and every one of you. Be well. 

Today on The Riff, Jeremy and Justin finish up a 2-part series on NEXT as they talk about the mission and the strategy of North Point. We hope today is helpful and hopeful. Thanks for listening!!

Send us a textGeneral Surgeon Dr. Jillian Ciocchetti left her very comfortable hospital-employed job of 15 years to venture into Direct Care Surgery. She gives us insight about how she connects with self-funded plans that funnel patients to her and she performs the surgeries at a Direct Care friendly facility. This is affordable surgery, not cheap surgery. Find her at:Northpoint AestheticsNorthpoint Surgery & Aesthetics

Send us a textGeneral Surgeon Dr. Jillian Ciocchetti left her very comfortable hospital-employed job of 15 years to venture into Direct Care Surgery. She gives us insight about how she connects with self-funded plans that funnel patients to her and she performs the surgeries at a Direct Care friendly facility. This is affordable surgery, not cheap surgery. Find her at:Northpoint AestheticsNorthpoint Surgery & Aesthetics

Today on The Riff, Jeremy and Justin start a 2-part episode about NEXT. They walk through the beliefs of North Point and also the taste of elk chili. We hope today is helpful. Thanks for listening!! Show Notes: Long Haul Faith  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S3UimAITeo

We all want to win at life and every year, we think about what we could do differently in our lives to help us win. But what if winning at life was less about doing more and more about doing the right things, consistently, for the right purposes? And what if we could create a structure to our life that enabled us to win for a lifetime? NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you! STAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against. We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

We all want to win at life and every year, we think about what we could do differently in our lives to help us win. But what if winning at life was less about doing more and more about doing the right things, consistently, for the right purposes? And what if we could create a structure to our life that enabled us to win for a lifetime? NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you! STAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against. We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

We all want to win at life and every year, we think about what we could do differently in our lives to help us win. But what if winning at life was less about doing more and more about doing the right things, consistently, for the right purposes? And what if we could create a structure to our life that enabled us to win for a lifetime? NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you! STAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against. We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

We all want to win at life and every year, we think about what we could do differently in our lives to help us win. But what if winning at life was less about doing more and more about doing the right things, consistently, for the right purposes? And what if we could create a structure to our life that enabled us to win for a lifetime? NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you! STAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against. We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

The Christmas story is a story that changes everything. In this series, we'll be walking through one of the most famous stories in all of human all leading up to a moment that changed human history for ever.NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you! STAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against. We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

Number 5

The Christmas story is a story that changes everything. In this series, we'll be walking through one of the most famous stories in all of human all leading up to a moment that changed human history for ever.NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you! STAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against. We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

The Christmas story is a story that changes everything. In this series, we'll be walking through one of the most famous stories in all of human all leading up to a moment that changed human history for ever.NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you! STAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against. We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

The Christmas story is a story that changes everything. In this series, we'll be walking through one of the most famous stories in all of human all leading up to a moment that changed human history for ever.NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you! STAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against. We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you! STAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against. We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you! STAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against. We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you! STAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against.  We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

President Trump declares victory. So now, let's really win. Also, there has been another attempt to sexually fetishize Jesus. Lastly, an AI deep fake of Joe Biden tells more truth about this election than Kamala Harris and the Mockingbird Media ever did.Episode Links:The crowd erupted in a heartfelt chorus, singing praises to God, "How Great Thou Art," as Trump closed his victory speech. A moment of unity, faith, and renewed hope swept the rally.CNN: "HUGE" shift toward President Trump among Pennsylvania Latino voters.FOX NEWS EXIT POLL: Kamala is woefully underperforming among black voters in Georgia. President Trump at 25% among black men, 14 points higher than 2020. Kamala running 6 points behind Biden 2020 among black women.New Hampshire's 2nd Congressional District race is wild. Democrat Maggie Goodlander [Jake Sullivan's Wife] had no idea what hit her after Republican challenger Lily Tang Williams went on a rampage. New Hampshire's 2nd Congressional District race is wild. Democrat Maggie Goodlander [Jake Sullivan's Wife] had no idea what hit her after Republican challenger Lily Tang Williams went on a rampage. ICYMI. Speaking at the 2022 Queer Christian Fellowship, a pastor and a ministry leader at Andy Stanley's North Point church praise the creation of a new LGBTQ+ -affirming group, calling it a great resource and encouraging people to check it out.“Jesus is polyamorous … he's having personal relationships with billions of other people too. He's kind of a relationship slut- an empowered, reclaimed sort of slut"A Joe Biden Deep Fake Tells More Truth Than Kamala Harris Ever DidAlan's Soaps https://www.alansartisansoaps.comUse coupon code ‘TODD' to save an additional 10% off the bundle price.Bioptimizers https://bioptimizers.com/toddUse code TODD to unlock up to $100 in free gifts and save an additional 10% off the special 3-product bundle for a 25% savings.Bonefrog https://bonefrogcoffee.com/toddMake Bonefrog Cold Brew at home!  Use code TODD at checkout to receive 10% off your first purchase and 15% on subscriptions.Bulwark Capital Bulwark Capital Management (bulwarkcapitalmgmt.com)Don't miss the next live Webinar November 21st 3:30pm pacific.  Sign up today by calling 866-779-RISK or go to KnowYourRiskRadio.com.Renue Healthcare https://renue.healthcare/toddYour journey to a better life starts at Renue Healthcare. Visit renue.healthcare/Todd

For too long the church has been known for what it's against. We want to be known for what we're For. 15 years ago, 24 adults and 32 kids set out to start a church that is For Austin. And if we're going to be For Austin, we have to create space for the people of Greater Austin. What if we built a center point in our community to connect? A place that is home to Northpoint on Sunday, but that benefits our community every day? What if we could really be… For Austin - for people, for the next generation, and for our community?DON'T FORGET: Be sure to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments!NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you! STAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against.  We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

For too long the church has been known for what it's against. We want to be known for what we're For. 15 years ago, 24 adults and 32 kids set out to start a church that is For Austin. If we're going to be For Austin, we have to create space for the people of Greater Austin. What if we built a center point in our community to connect? A place that is home to Northpoint on Sunday, but that benefits our community every day? What if we could really be… For Austin - for people, for the next generation, and for our community?Whether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you!Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments!NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comSTAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against.  We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

For too long the church has been known for what it's against. We want to be known for what we're For. 15 years ago, 24 adults and 32 kids set out to start a church that is For Austin. If we're going to be For Austin, we have to create space for the people of Greater Austin. What if we built a center point in our community to connect? A place that is home to Northpoint on Sunday, but that benefits our community every day? What if we could really be… For Austin - for people, for the next generation, and for our community?MUSIC:Trust In God - Elevation WorshipGod Is Not Against Me - Elevation WorshipDoxology - JK ArgWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you!Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments!NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comSTAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against.  We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

Political divisiveness is nothing new. Even Jesus had to navigate tricky political situations. In this 2 part series, we are reminded that God is in charge. And if we are truly Jesus followers, we are called to do as he did - think before we speak or act, and to love others no matter what – even if we totally disagree with them. Jesus was able to disagree politically, culturally and theologically and still love unconditionally. And that is his hope for us - his followers. Can you imagine a world in which we did the same?MUSIC:Whether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you!Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments!NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comSTAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against.  We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

Political divisiveness is nothing new. Even Jesus had to navigate tricky political situations. In this 2 part series, we are reminded that God is in charge. And if we are truly Jesus followers, we are called to do as he did - think before we speak or act, and to love others no matter what – even if we totally disagree with them. Jesus was able to disagree politically, culturally and theologically and still love unconditionally. And that is his hope for us - his followers. Can you imagine a world in which we did the same?MUSIC:Take You At Your Word - Cody CarnesDo It Again - Elevation WorshipBuild My Life - Shane & ShaneWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you!Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments!NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comSTAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against.  We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #Relationships #truth #faith #love

In this 5 part series “The Way of Jesus”, we talk about who Jesus is, what following Him looks like, and why life is better in relationship with Him. We will explore his declaration “I am the way, the truth, and the life” and what that actually means. And we will consider that maybe Jesus is not just a means to an end but is the answer to all we've been looking for and the only provider of genuine fulfillment. Whether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you!Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments!NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comSTAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against.  We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #love #Family #Relationships #truth #faith

John and Roman recap the Week 4 high school football action around the St. Louis metro area.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gateway-sports-venue-show--3605575/support.

Today, Jeremy sits down with ER Gammill to walk through his journey at North Point.

In this 5 part series “The Way of Jesus”, we talk about who Jesus is, what following Him looks like, and why life is better in relationship with Him. We will explore his declaration “I am the way, the truth, and the life” and what that actually means. And we will consider that maybe Jesus is not just a means to an end but is the answer to all we've been looking for and the only provider of genuine fulfillment. MUSIC:Evidence - Josh BaldwinGraves Into Gardens - Elevation WorshipReckless Love - Cory AsburyWhether you're joining us in person or online and whether you are a long-time attender, new here, just visiting, or simply curious about faith - we want you to know you are welcome here and we are for you!Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments!NEXT STEPS: Wherever you are, we want to help you discover what's next.https://www.npaustin.com/whatsnextNot sure where to start? We're here to help! Email: connection@npaustin.comSTAY CONNECTED: Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all things Northpoint: https://www.youtube.com/@NorthpointAustinWebsite: https://npaustin.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/experienceno...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northpoint_ch/ABOUT US:We believe that for too long, the church has been known for what it's against.  We want to be known for what we're FOR – our community, healthy relationships, the next generation, and people discovering a God who loves them. Vision: To inspire people to follow Jesus.Mission: Make Jesus relevant for everyone in Greater Austin.Thank you for giving to support our vision and mission: https://www.npaustin.com/give#Jesus #NorthpointAustin #God #encouragement #churchonline #inspiration #ChurchDNA #JesusWelcomesAll #FaithJourney #NorthpointChurch #freedom #connection #community #Northpoint #church #heart #grace #love #Family #Relationships #truth #faith

People get comfortable with the way things are, and they don't excel to the next level. A ship moving at sea won't develop barnacles, but a ship that's stagnant at dock will. Has your life become stagnant with mental barnacles? If so, this is the show you've been waiting for. Our guest today is Jeff Henderson, his best-selling book, What to Do Next offers tips on how to take your best step forward during times of uncertainty.Sit back and get comfortable as you learn how to get out of your comfort level and embrace the adventures that life has in store for you.Jeff was named by Forbes Magazine as one of 20 speakers. In addition, he's worked for well-known organizations such as the Atlanta Braves, Callaway Gardens, Chic-Fil-A, and Point Ministries, one of the largest churches in America. While there, he was the lead pastor for three churches over 17 years and helped launch North Point online, which became one of the world's largest online ministries. His book is called What to Do Next, taking Your Best Step When Life Is Uncertain.