Scott Lawrence: 0:00

It's okay to have bad days and. I think leaders and pastors and just Christians, just fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, hear us. It's okay to have a bad day.

Rhett: 0:10

Absolutely.

Scott Lawrence: 0:11

It's okay to feel down in the dump Now don't let a bad day become a bad season.

Rhett: 0:16

Right.

Scott Lawrence: 0:17

Surround yourself with life-giving people, Be in the Word, Remind yourself of what's true. But man again, Pastor Rhett is one of my overseers. He knows this. Like I've called him on bad days, Like we've had conversations. We've had real difficult conversations about what does the future look like if things don't change, Because all of those things have to be real conversations. You know, and praise God, we're in a situation where this past July I was able to go full time with the church and I don't think I would have ever envisioned that a year ago. You know, I just wanted to have the faith for it but honestly, like I wouldn't even allow myself to have the faith for it because I would have just felt like I was going to be disappointed.

Rhett: 1:11

What is going on? Armchair Authentic Podcast family, it is great to welcome you back to another episode of the podcast with your friends Rhett and Justin. Today we're looking forward to an in-depth conversation with a friend of ours, scott Lawrence. Scott is a church planter and the founding pastor of Keys Church in Kissimmee, florida. In today's conversation, we talk about the faith and perseverance it takes to step out of your comfort zone to plant a church and the leadership lessons learned along the way, especially when things don't turn out the way you hoped and planned that they would. We can't wait to dive into this conversation, but before we do, we always want to take a moment and say thank you to every single one of you who have taken the time to rate and review the podcast. Man, it means so much to Justin and I, but more than that, it truly is the best way we can serve those who aren't on this journey yet Now.

Rhett: 2:14

If you're new to the show, thank you so much for tuning in Listen. Would you do us a favor? Would you go to Instagram or Facebook and follow us at Armchair Authentic Instagram or Facebook and follow us at Armchair Authentic. That's at Armchair Authentic. You can also follow us and find us on X. That's at Armchair Off Pod. That's Armchair Off A-U-T-H-P-O-D.

Rhett: 2:37

One more thing I want to encourage every single one of you to do, and that is, if you're enjoying this podcast, if it's blessing you or inspiring you or even encouraging you in any way, could you do us a favor? Would you take a moment to pull out your phone, copy the link from your favorite podcast platform and send it to a friend man? That would mean so much to us. Thank you All. Right Now onto the conversation with our friend, scott Lawrence, church planter and founding pastor of Keys Church in Kissimmee, florida. Justin, I'm really excited. Today we have one of our dear friends, scott Lawrence, pastor founding pastor, I might say of Keys Church in Kissimmee, florida, with us on the podcast. Scott, it's so great to have you as a guest today.

Scott Lawrence: 3:27

Man guys, I am incredibly honored to be here. If I'm being honest with you, I don't feel worthy to be on here with you guys, and so this really is an honor. Thank you so much for having me.

Justin: 3:38

And it's so good to have you too, and you know we've met before and we were talking about that before we got started with our recording. But I'm really excited to just dive in and hear about your story because I've heard it secondhand, as you and Rhett are closer in relationship and he has shared so many stories about you and the steps you've taken the past few years in preparing for what you're doing now. So, Rhett, I'll yield to you to set this conversation up, because I'm really looking forward to diving in with Scott.

Rhett: 4:07

Yeah. So for our listeners who may not know, scott and I go back and honestly, scott, I was literally trying to think of when you and I first met. So it would have been at our time at Ridge Church in Wetumpka, alabama. For those who don't know my story, there was a time of transition, two seasons of transition One when I was coming off staff at Church of the Highlands trying to find my next season. I helped Pastor Trip Healy, who was a guest on our podcast at one moment, and that was around 2014 of the summer, and, scott, I wasn't sure if you were there yet in that season. I don't think you were. And so then I went on to serve another church and I believe it was when I was at a church in Mobile and my continued relationship as an overseer for Pastor Tripp and Ridge Church that you came on staff at Ridge, and I believe that's when you and I started to connect. So, but I can't. You're one of those friends that I feel like I've known you forever, but I can't go back and go.

Scott Lawrence: 5:00

when is that moment? You can't remember the origin story? Yeah, the origin story. Where did it begin? I would think 2016.

Rhett: 5:07

Okay.

Scott Lawrence: 5:07

So we ended up at Ridge, although we visited some in 2014, when we had moved to Wetumpka.

Scott Lawrence: 5:13

Okay, we really didn't make the decision to call it our home church until Easter of 2015. And then it was January of 2016 where me and my wife Kirsten went on staff there, and so I would imagine it would have been sometime in that first year, right, that we were on staff. It would have been the first time we met. I heard of you and who you were, but I didn't have the honor and the pleasure of meeting you, I think until maybe sometime, I would imagine, the end of 2016.

Rhett: 5:41

Man, I love it. All I know is this when you meet a friend who you immediately connect with, you're like all right. I'm not just saying this for the podcast sake, but I remember when we first connected I was like this is a guy that I could do life with for the rest of my life. I mean you and your wife, kirsten, and your entire family. I mean you guys, I really can't.

Rhett: 6:00

I feel like I'm bringing Scott into the living room and introducing him to all these people that are, you know, our listeners and our friends, and I want you to love them as much as I do and I know you will once you hear a story. But your faithfulness, your ability to be just self, you know, sacrificing your life, your family and investing everything into serving Pastor Tripp and Ridge Church and helping it become all that it is today. And in that journey, you know, and us connecting and having fun and through my season of church planting, coming back through Atumka before we launched in Boise, idaho actually Nampa, idaho and planting One Life Church, we just had a lot of connects and a lot of conversations and through that, god began to pour into you and your heart and your family a crazy desire and just to leave everything you've ever known to take a step of faith from the comfort zone and into the abyss of nothing.

Rhett: 6:56

Just trusting God and planting keys church. And so our heart is to have real conversations with real people about real life. And my brother, you are living real life and you are an example of that as a dad, as a husband and as a leader spiritual leader in planning a church. And so I kind of taught me through that like what in the world talked you into taking a step out of an associate pastor role you know, doing things on a high level for Ridge Church into planning a church in the Orlando, kissimmee, florida, area?

Scott Lawrence: 7:30

Yeah, stop me if you've heard this one before. I never had the desire to be a lead pastor.

Scott Lawrence: 7:37

Just wasn't on my radar. You know, when I felt called into ministry originally, you know I was thinking student ministry as many people do. I don't have the gift of playing instruments or leading worship in any way, shape or form, and so I didn't know at the time that the Lord had gifted me to communicate the gospel effectively and so I just knew he had gifted me to love people and to mentor people and to disciple people. And as it is with most young people you know I was in my early 20s it was like well, clearly that that must be to student ministry. And there was an experience that I had as a teenager doing student ministry, being a part of a student ministry in which I went to this church and I went there for a season with me and my wife Kirsten we're just dating at the time, but I remember going and it wasn't overly big student ministry but I remember the youth pastor didn't even know who I was. He never talked to me, he never introduced himself to me, I wasn't part of like the in group. It was kind of one of those student ministries and by no fault of his, I'm sure his heart was in the right place and you know I was probably just another kid who was coming in and he didn't know how long that kid was going to stick around, you know.

Scott Lawrence: 8:54

But I remember I didn't feel seen and I didn't feel loved and I didn't feel that way from the church. And so when I had a real encounter with Jesus you know I was baptized at a young age, at seven, but I went to a Christian high school. But when I really encountered Jesus at 19 and started following him and never turned back, and then when I felt called into ministry, all I could ever think was I never want anyone to feel the way that I felt. I never want anyone to feel like they're not seen. I don't ever want anyone to feel like they're not known, that they're not loved, because it's what we believe right there's a God who sees you and knows you and loves you and wants a relationship with you. And I thought, man, there was so much heartache in my life and bad decisions that I made that could have been avoided had somebody just loved me and taken me under their wing and discipled me Right.

Justin: 9:44

Yeah.

Scott Lawrence: 9:44

And so then I wanted to do that for other people and you know I was just like, well, that must, that must mean student ministry, that's like, that's the, that's the natural step.

Rhett: 9:54

And well, can I just interrupt you for a second? You say natural step. For me that was never a natural step. I didn't want nothing to do with youth ministry Cause I knew how crazy I was as a youth. I was like, yeah, I don't want to deal with that. Can you put me around the adults please? I love.

Justin: 10:07

I'm with you. I love student ministry. It was a highlight of me and my wife Summer's life for many years. So I'm with, I'm tracking with you and I can identify too, jumping in, how you had that, just that feeling of being really excluded or just being invisible. I remember that, red.

Justin: 10:28

I remember that for both of us, before we really surrendered our life to Christ, we stepped into a youth ministry to check it out and it was like the club and we were not members and we found our way out of there.

Justin: 10:39

So I remember that feeling. And then it would turn out for us where we'd step back into the same youth ministry, this time having an encounter with God. Our lives are surrendered and we all of a sudden were the in crowd and we made it our aim because of what we went through. We began bringing in any of the outsiders who felt invisible and that, and it made such a change in them and it became a ministry to me and Rhett. So when you said that, that all that popped into my head, because I remember the Scott Lawrence kid who felt excluded, because I was that once and when I was given an influence, the first thing I wanted to do was to utilize my pain and actually give some purpose behind it and help somebody else. To utilize my pain and actually give some purpose behind it and help somebody else. So I resonate. I know Rhett doesn't.

Justin: 11:27

Yeah, my heart Rhett doesn't because he didn't like students.

Rhett: 11:30

No, no, no, no, no. I want to say just to clarify I mean I already come from the assumption that our friends in the community that follow us and listen know that of course I love students.

Scott Lawrence: 11:39

But I just did not have this driving passion.

Rhett: 11:41

Well let me just start in students. I mean, oh, you and I served in the youth group and and God did a lot of things in development in that, for sure, Our world was worship. Yeah, it was worship. And so I like give me a song, give me an instrument, give me a mic, I'm good. But if I don't have to sit there and like I have to preach because I never wanted to preach or communicate nothing Let me sing.

Rhett: 12:00

I'll sing all day I don't care, but preach a message. Forget that I didn't want nothing to do with that.

Scott Lawrence: 12:08

I didn't either. I don't know. I guess in my brain I didn't put two and two together at the beginning. That being in student ministry would mean that I had to speak in front of students.

Scott Lawrence: 12:19

I started as a volunteer at the church that we were going to at the time and just loved investing in students and leading a small group and just those type things. And here's a funny story for you I can remember the first time that I was asked to speak in front of students we did this thing on Sunday because it was a bigger church, church of close to 1,500, 2,000 people, and they were meeting at a hotel in a ballroom, and so downstairs during the second service we would do like a little student thing for the students who were part of the first service or maybe they were, you know, coming to the second service and didn't want to sit in the service with their parents, and we called it Rewind. And really what we do is the way this pastor preached is that he, like you know, he essentially had his whole outline and you filled in stuff, right?

Scott Lawrence: 13:05

And so kind of rewinding the sermon and like just giving the highlights of the sermon when you talk about like the easiest thing that you could possibly do like reading off of a sheet of paper and I remember the student pastor being like hey man, I want you to, I want you to lead today. And I was like uh, like I don't think that's a good idea Actually, like let's not do that. And we're talking, man, we're talking like 15 to 20 kids in this room.

Scott Lawrence: 13:28

Right, it's not like I have 500 kids in front of me and um, I remember standing up there and like I start talking and leading the discussion and I literally froze, like I got so nervous and so in my head that like I I started stuttering at one point and I just stopped talking and man thank, praise the Lord for for this gracious youth pastor who was leading me at the time, who stepped in and bailed me out in front of these kids.

Scott Lawrence: 13:58

I was so embarrassed Like I was, like this is the worst thing that's ever happened. I'm an idiot. I can't show my face at this church again Like this is how I'm feeling and he literally told me he was like hey, I want you to lead it next week too.

Scott Lawrence: 14:13

And, and you talk about leadership right and and seeing something in someone that they didn't see in themselves and kind of, the rest is history, man, and the next week it wasn't an issue, thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit in my life, because it was not me. Right. And then one opportunity led to another, to him saying hey, I want you to speak on a Wednesday night.

Scott Lawrence: 14:36

Then this church planted its first campus and they asked me to go be the student pastor at that campus to start the student ministry at the second campus. And that was really start the student ministry at the second campus and that was really my introduction into ministry.

Justin: 14:49

Well, props to your leader, first of all, to give you that second chance, because that could have been devastating and it could have made you feel like you just helped me confirm my calling is not to do that and never gave you a chance, and you would have had to live with, potentially, the embarrassment or the shame of that moment. So props to your leader, who gave you another chance, knowing it could be messy, and you did better than the previous. And then it seems like there was the stair step where it kept getting better and better and led by the Holy Spirit. But props to the leadership there.

Rhett: 15:19

And the multiplication that happened from his investment in belief in you, because that's right. You know, with what Justin just said, I mean, if you think about it in my mind, big picture, god could have still shown up and moved in your life, but Keys Church might not have even been planted had it not been for somebody investing into you. Now you won't say this about yourself, but I will because I'm your friend, I'm also one of your overseers, which is a huge honor in my life to get to be a part of Keys Church and just who you are and your wife. But what I would say is this if you're listening, go to keyschurchcom and listen to some of his messages.

Rhett: 15:54

He's an excellent communicator and he does an amazing job stewarding the gift of communication. And you are a student of communication and I've seen you grow throughout the years and so you've always had this heart of learning. And how can I get better? Not just so you can stand out, but so that God can shine in and through you. In a way. There are no distractions and you're doing an excellent job and an amazing job, and you've been flying under the radar. I'll tell you that right now in some circles and some scenes. But I want you to know that you're an excellent communicator and I never knew that story in some scenes. But I want you to know that you're an excellent communicator and I never knew that story. That's amazing to me because you know some pastors if you're listening today, as Justin mentioned and as you just said, like you got to give people a chance to fail and believe in them and give them opportunities, because they might just be the next church planner in your church several years down the road.

Justin: 16:40

And then even just the whole creative side that you have, because, as Rhett was talking about the website, not only listen to the message, but, man, the website's awesome. I mean just the way that you've designed it. I'm really into seeing how different people are just wired. I mean we're just so uniquely designed and you have even getting you know. People can't see you because we're audio only, but you just kind of have such a creative vibe to you and even the website, everything that you do. It seems to be well done, so just wanted to add that on top of it too. So whatever was happening in that process of developing communication in your leadership, you've also learned along the way some somewhere. I don't know if it was just innate in you or what, but just an excellence to have putting together stuff as simple as a website.

Rhett: 17:24

He's the Levi Lusko of Osceola County.

Justin: 17:28

Wow, those are big compliments right there.

Scott Lawrence: 17:31

That is quite the compliment.

Justin: 17:32

I wouldn't go there, I mean dude's got style.

Rhett: 17:36

Dude can communicate, dude can love people, can create atmospheres and moments for people to experience the presence of God and just being who you are and that's why I love. I appreciate you saying earlier you don't feel worthy to be on this podcast. I'm like, are you kidding me, dude? Like your faith, your obedience, your sacrifice, your investment, what y'all have done and the more things we'll talk about as this conversation goes on, I mean the grit and the grind and the tenacity that you guys have had to step out in faith and to create something that didn't exist. I mean that's inspiring, bro.

Rhett: 18:03

That to me, that's huge and so it's an honor for us to have you on this podcast and to dive in a little bit more of your story, and so thanks for taking a minute to share some of that, because I think everybody can resonate with the insecurity and the vulnerability and the I don't want to do this, but then somebody believes in me and gives me an opportunity and to take a step.

Justin: 18:22

And then even to hear the part of it started when you were younger, how that led into now you're serving at Ridge Church. You end up meeting Red at some point, so around those years of 2016, 17, whenever that is that something begins to stir inside of you. Can you talk us through that process? Here you are at Ridge Church. What were you doing at Ridge?

Scott Lawrence: 18:46

Was it students? Yeah, so I would say the story of my ministry career, for lack of a better term, is people seeing something in me that I didn't see in myself? And so Pastor Trip Healy, who I know y'all have had as a guest on the podcast, he jokingly tells the story that the first time that we sat down with him, me and my wife, and they were going to ask us to take over some leadership stuff because leaders recognize leaders right. And so he was, him and his wife Rebecca were like hey, we need y'all to come help with some stuff, because they were only a year and a half in and they needed some help and they were asking us to help take over kids ministry. And then that would lead to to me inevitably doing student ministry. But in that first conversation I told him I said, yeah, man, I'll do anything that you want me to do, as long as it doesn't have to do with computers and technology, cause like I'm not, like that's, that's, that's just not who I am.

Scott Lawrence: 19:40

So even for you to be like oh man like you're a creative and your vibe and your website and it's like it's laughable.

Justin: 19:46

That's funny.

Scott Lawrence: 19:47

Eight, eight years ago, and then to think now and um, and that's just through the Holy spirit and and people calling out things in me and realizing like I do have value here, I do have ideas when it comes to D, have that vision and other people gave me the freedom to have that vision and then, you know, I was able to to run with it and Pastor Tripp is such a great leader at giving people the ball in ministry and then letting them run with it.

Rhett: 20:17

Yeah.

Scott Lawrence: 20:17

And he literally handed me and my wife, Kirsten, the vision and said now run with it. Like here, here are the guardrails, like here are the boundary lines, like, just stay within the vision of what we're doing here at Ridge Church and go. And we did. And because we did, at some point we were over every single area of the church with the exception of finances. And that's not, that's not an exaggeration, because at one point your boy was in charge of the worship team, even though I don't have a worship leading bone in my body. Like I, literally I scheduled people and I helped with um Ableton, as as much of a struggle as that was. And like I, just I helped with everything and I facilitated stuff, because they were just like, hey, if we we know, if we give it to Scott or if we give it to Kirsten, that that it'll get done, and it'll get done with some some form of excellence, because they're always just going to put their best foot forward and try to do it to the best of their ability. And so over time, you know, at Ridge we started it was just kids ministry and then kind of evolved into all the family ministry as I took over students and then a need arose to like, hey, could I train you how to do some of this stuff on video and just doing video announcements? And then it was like how would you feel about being in front of a camera doing video announcements? And I was like I would rather not to be completely honest with you, but like, if you want me to, I will. And it was like the first time I did it. It was like cool, Well, this is going to be. Your job from now on is to do the video announcements. And for any young leaders listening, I would say this Every opportunity that I was ever given, specifically a Ridge Church, was never an opportunity that I asked for.

Scott Lawrence: 22:02

I just tried to serve my pastor and his vision well with whatever he asked me to do. So, for instance, I never asked for a platform. I never asked to speak to students. I was asked to start speaking to students. I never asked to lead a team huddle I was asked to lead a team huddle. I never asked to give announcements on a Sunday morning. I was asked to get on the platform and give announcements. I never asked to preach a on a Sunday morning. I was asked to get on the platform and give announcements. I never asked to preach a sermon. I like to say I was voluntold that I was going to preach.

Justin: 22:33

I've never heard that For the very first time. I can't believe it. I'm glad that's a new word.

Rhett: 22:36

I'm really glad that you're pointing that out, because if you weren't, I was going to. What I'm hearing is a man who just walked in humility and faithfulness. You loved God, you loved your family, you love the local church. You had the spirit of availability to say God like, I'm here and I'll be willing to say I don't want to put words in your mouth, but what I'm hearing is I'm willing to say yes to everything for you and you, for your glory and so, but because of your faithfulness and because of your availability and your teachability and your humility, it's amazing how it opened up doors and you're willing to say yes to walk through those doors.

Scott Lawrence: 23:11

Yeah, and so it was 2017. Memorial Day weekend of 2017 was the first time that I ever taught a big boy sermon is how I talk about it.

Rhett: 23:19

You know where I taught on a Sunday morning, in front of the whole church you know it's a big church sermon.

Scott Lawrence: 23:23

I taught on a Sunday morning in front of the whole church. It was a big church sermon and I taught that message and Pastor Tripp's comments the moment I got off stage was well, awesome. You're going to have a series next year, so this is good. I can trust you, which, of course, I was honored because I took it and take it very serious communicating the gospel. I know that's a big deal and I never want to take that for granted, and so, um, yeah, that that just led to more opportunities to teach on a Sunday and in the beginning, um, if I'm being honest, I hated it. I hated it.

Rhett: 24:00

You hated communicating.

Scott Lawrence: 24:01

I hate. I hated community. What do?

Rhett: 24:02

you think that was? Was it the insecurity inside of you? Yeah, it's absolutely insecurity.

Scott Lawrence: 24:07

Like that's a big part of it, I think, also not recognizing yet the way that God had gifted me creatively, and so thinking about having to give a sermon illustration or teach a message or tie it together and still learning. You know, in the beginning you're learning. You're learning how to be a communicator, you're learning how to preach the gospel properly. You know you're learning all of these things. And it felt like a burden. You know it just did Like this thought of like communicating to people who I'd had an insecurity where I hadn't gone to seminary or anything like that. So I'm like there are people in who are listening, who are smarter than me who know more than me, and here I am trying to speak to them.

Scott Lawrence: 24:54

At the time, you know, I was 27, 26, 27 years old and I'm like, I'm just this young dude Like everybody thinks I'm a fraud, like, that's what I'm, that's what I, that's what the insecurity is telling me, you know, is that, um, I'm fake. And they know that I'm fake. And I can remember the Lord just just wrestling with me, and I remember the moment that I felt the Lord just tell me, like, don't despise the gift that I've given you. Like, like, if this is a gift, just don't despise it. And and that really convicted me, because I realized that's exactly what I was doing, that there were people who and of course, I think this happens to almost every communicator right, like, generally, you don't get off the stage and people are like that was terrible. You know, like, maybe, if so, I'm so sorry.

Rhett: 25:41

Most people in the South are very kind. Oh God bless, that was awesome. Everybody's just South, at least to your face.

Scott Lawrence: 25:47

Yeah, they're so nice, but I always had people would tell me like man, that was great. You know, that was the best message I've ever heard. You're so gifted, like I heard that time and time again.

Scott Lawrence: 26:03

And there, another gift that you could give me, because this feels like a burden. And again, I just had that moment with the Lord in which I felt like he was telling me that I was despising the very thing that he was trying to give me to be a blessing to other people. And it changed my perspective on how I viewed communicating and how I viewed the opportunities that I was given to communicate. And I decided to make the change of, no matter how hard it is and no matter how hard it feels, that I was going to view every opportunity to communicate the gospel, not that I wasn't, you know, viewing it as an honor or a blessing or, you know, an incredible opportunity, but I was also viewing it as a burden. And I had to repent and say, lord, forgive me for despising the thing that you've blessed me to be able to do and help me to do this through the power of your Holy Spirit, to the best of my ability. And honestly, pastor Rhett, you were so gracious in saying that I've grown as a communicator, which obviously I have A lot of that's repetition just over the years.

Scott Lawrence: 27:07

But I think a big part of that too is just changing perspective and saying, okay, lord, if this is how you've gifted me, then I always want to put my best foot forward. And we know for anybody who's listening and has had to communicate week in and week out, like you're not going to hit a home run every week, like that's just impossible, like that's you can't put that, you can't put that pressure on yourself. But what I can do every week is be biblical and be life-giving and give people the hope of Jesus and that's just it for me. You know, is it? Is it biblical? Does it point people to Jesus? Like that's really all that matters?

Justin: 27:47

So, when you said that you surrendered, you know, first of all, having the desire to speak wasn't something you wanted. You started getting affirmation from people, which, once again, that's the value of affirmation.

Justin: 28:02

It's such a powerful thing when people speak. You know you say it, you see it, but you surrendered it. What was the main difference you felt in that moment? Like you went up there feeling like it's a burden. Do you remember feeling a sense of now, when Jesus says my yoke is easy, my burden's light. Did you feel that sense of surrender? And now, when you spoke, that you felt like, wow, I, this is still tough for me. I don't, I don't want to accept it, I'm just being. I'm being kind of a slave to this by choice. Or did you really feel like, did that discipline turn into some kind of a delight towards speaking?

Scott Lawrence: 28:36

Yeah, I would say that in the beginning it still felt like a burden, even though I wasn't, I wasn't going to allow myself to view it as a burden. Yeah, you know it wasn't, unfortunately, you know it wasn't immediate that I that I was like, oh, this has gotten easy. And honestly, here we are two years, and you know, over two years into our church plant and it's probably really only in the last six months that I feel like this has gotten easier. Not that it's easy, it's still. You know, it's still a burden from the sense of communicating. The gospel should be something that that is heavy on us and burdens us. But to your point, it absolutely feels like, okay, my, my yoke is easy, my burden is light, justin, I mean.

Rhett: 29:24

I feel that now, and I didn't feel that.

Scott Lawrence: 29:27

I made that surrender three plus years ago and it took two and a half years later for it to finally start feeling easier.

Rhett: 29:38

Yeah, I'm reminded of the story of Moses in the burning bush in the Old Testament, where Moses is in the desert. He's really trying to escape the purpose that God has for his life. If you will, he really doesn't even truly understand where he is in this whole God process of being an Israelite. But God speaks to him and it's interesting that he begins to argue with God and like, hey, god, I'm not a good speaker, I'm not a great communicator, I stutter.

Rhett: 30:04

I'm like all these excuses of why I shouldn't be operating in something you're calling me to this feels like a burden, like do you know who you're talking to? Like, and that's kind of what I'm hearing from you. It's like I feel like God has given me a gift and he's asking me to use it, but I'm not necessarily sure I want to use it because it's pretty heavy and I take it. You know it's a lot of work, it's churning and, god, there could be so many other people that are better than me. But okay, lord, if you're calling me to do this, then all right, I'll do it and you've surrendered to it and I appreciate your honesty and vulnerability, because some people go, oh man, preaching is the best thing in the planet. I love it, I long for it and I'm like are you even a real human?

Rhett: 30:41

Because it's the biggest chore for me as a communicator and, having planted a church and having done it for four years straight, I mean it was a burden. And it's a spiritual burden and a weight that, if you're truly walking in the fear of the Lord and the reverence of God and the awe of God, there's this heaviness to know, lord, I'm just human and you're holy, and I really want to get this right. I don't want to mislead anybody, you know. I know that those who teach are going to be judged more strictly and looked at and held more accountable, and I just feel the weight of that and I know who I am because I can relate to you. Man, I feel like one of the disciples.

Rhett: 31:18

You know the book of Acts, you know you've got the disciples and the Pharisees, and the Pharisees are calling out the disciples and they're going. Man, these are a bunch of idiots Like but but we can tell they've been with Jesus. We can't argue the fact that, although they're uneducated, if you will, that they have, there's something different, there's something powerful that's happening in and through their lives, and so I can relate to that, and so the insecurities there for me were just the same, and so that's why I love our podcast and that's one reason I wanted to have you on it as a guest. For those leaders who might be struggling and thinking, man, I'm like, am I normal? I'm like why is this so hard? Is this supposed to be a chore? Is this supposed to be a burden?

Justin: 32:09

But I'm gifted in it and I'm fighting it, but yet it's kind of the struggle and the perseverance of walking in the gifting and the calling and the what's next of what God's asking you to do, and then even being able to just be who you are, even when you step into in this case, speaking, not now transforming into this speaker who you know we've talked in previous episodes where plastic kind of kicks in and it doesn't feel real. You're now going through that process of embracing this gifting but also staying true to who you are, which is what made that a gift in the first place, because it's you being up there, being present, as you know, scott, in this case. And so you know, kind of in a transition to kind of get us to the season. You are not what's going on now, but the season that has been the past couple of years. You've now surrendered to this gift. You're starting to communicate more.

Justin: 32:50

You're being faithful. That's really what it comes down to. You've been faithful in whatever you were asked Zero agenda of what I hear, love that Very relatable to me too and you're handed stuff. You're faithful in it. You're given more and now something obviously begins to stir inside of you Because you have surrendered to this speaking deal. You're being faithful to it. You're starting to conform a little bit more understanding. This is part of what I'm going to do. You're probably thinking I'm going to do this for Ridge Church for the rest of my life, because that sounds like the heart you have. You're not looking to go anywhere. You love Pastor Tripp Healy and something begins to stir. So can you start with that part of the season now and kind of take us through which is ultimately leading to what you're doing now?

Scott Lawrence: 33:38

Yeah. So again, it goes back to people seeing stuff in me that I didn't see in myself, and I can remember in 2018, when I taught my first series at Ridge Church, that leadership sat me down and they were like, hey, we just want you to know, like, if you want more opportunities to speak, like, if you want they were like assuring me that, like because they already saw something in me that I didn't see in myself and I didn't understand what they were saying at the time, but they were basically saying, hey, we don't want you to feel like you're going to outgrow your level of leadership here. So, like, whatever else we need to hand you, like we want to be able to hand you, which kudos to them. That's great leadership to say to say we see something in you and we want we don't want to smother that flame, but we want to fan it for you.

Scott Lawrence: 34:39

Very important, you have a church of your own Stuff that we're not saying. Kirsten and I are not having these conversations. I'm not thinking about going and planting a church because, quite frankly, being a part of a church plant even though I came a year and a half in I saw what all it took. I saw what all it took to set up and tear down. Every week I got to have a I wouldn't call it a front row seat, because y'all did move all the way to Idaho Rep.

Scott Lawrence: 35:07

But, like we saw you and Linda and y'all's faithfulness right and I was just like I don't think I want that, like that's not what I want. And then people continuously said stuff and continuously said stuff and continuously said stuff. And so now it's this thing in the back of my head, it's this. It's just kind of this small thought that won't go away. That inevitably became a conversation between me and Kirsten. That was like what if? God was calling us to plant a church.

Scott Lawrence: 35:39

Like. What would that look like? And this is a funny story. We were on vacation. It was Thanksgiving week, so I guess at this point it'd be almost six years ago, Thanksgiving week of 2019. So five years ago and we were at Disney World. We just happened to take our family to Disney World for vacation.

Rhett: 36:03

Happened. I know you, you guys are like Disney crazy, are they fanatic?

Justin: 36:07

They're fanatic, You're just we just happen to be at Disney.

Scott Lawrence: 36:11

No like you guys were always yeah.

Rhett: 36:15

Yeah, everybody has those friends who are all about Disney and you're you're listening to him right now he's being very humble.

Scott Lawrence: 36:23

If you have four young kids right and at this time three it's like do you know what entertains them? Mickey Mouse, I'm just saying, and one of your, daughters is named Snow. I mean let's go. I mean it's a beautiful name.

Rhett: 36:36

She's amazing.

Justin: 36:37

Sorry I didn't mean to interrupt your conversation. You just happen to be at Disney.

Scott Lawrence: 36:46

You're. You're bringing great context to where this is probably going.

Rhett: 36:48

Yeah it's happening to me at disney. Yeah, her, her legal name is snowen, which is a great name I love it s-n-o-w-e-n.

Scott Lawrence: 36:52

So if you want to steal that, don't say snowden the number of times people have been like is your daughter named? Snowden. I was like, no, I'm pretty. Didn't that person get in trouble for being?

Scott Lawrence: 36:59

like a let's stay away from that name. But so, so we were at Disney and it was on Thanksgiving day and we had taken our kids to the AMC movie theater and Disney Springs to see Frozen 2. Frozen 2 had just come out and I didn't know anything about Frozen 2 other than that I'd seen Frozen a million times because I was a dad, you know, a dad of two young daughters, and so they loved Frozen, and so I'd seen Frozen a bunch. And so here we go to see Frozen 2. And I think it's the second song of the movie. Elsa is singing a song called Into the Unknown, and there was a line in the movie in which she says don't you know, there's part of me that longs to go into the unknown, and I'm a grown man who starts crying. Let's go In a Disney movie. So don't tell me, the Lord won't speak to you through anything. Oh, totally, brother. You're talking to two right here. Yeah, for sure.

Rhett: 37:58

Yeah.

Justin: 37:58

We talked about that on a previous episode.

Rhett: 38:01

I mean the.

Scott Lawrence: 38:02

Holy Spirit is speaking to me.

Rhett: 38:05

We don't make me talk about Toy Story. Speaking to me, we don't mean to interrupt your story. It's okay, woody.

Justin: 38:10

I got this, you can go, should I?

Rhett: 38:13

oh, my, mine was the Greatest Showman. The Greatest Showman was like the movie that God spoke to me through and just confirmed everything that I was called to be the guy that goes and brings all this dysfunctional family together and Rhett almost talked me into going to Idaho with him, because it was basically that scene between it's called the Other Side, where it's.

Justin: 38:34

Hugh Jackman and.

Rhett: 38:36

I forget the other guy, Zac.

Justin: 38:37

Efron singing their song together and I saw that I would end up watching that movie like a year later and I was like that's what Rhett was. He wanted us to have a little singing.

Scott Lawrence: 38:47

All right.

Rhett: 38:48

Where I agree and say all right. Anyway, sorry, we don't mean to be taken away from your story. This is just this is authentic man, we just kind of rabbit trail. We're trying to let you know we relate greatly with what you're saying so God does speak through Disney movies or Pixar or whatever.

Justin: 39:06

Into the unknown, continue Into the unknown.

Scott Lawrence: 39:09

Yeah, so I literally man, I'm, you know. So I'm teared up, grown man. I'm sure people are looking like what is this dude doing? And I knew literally in that moment. I can't tell you anything else about the rest of the movie, because all I'm thinking for the rest of the movie is we're supposed to plant a church. Like, like, goodness, gracious, we're supposed to plant a church, like I'm scared to death. It's the unknown, and yet I know that there's part of me that wants to do this and that I believe it's what God's calling me to.

Scott Lawrence: 39:42

And what's funny is it's this big like mountaintop moment for me and my wife, Kirsten was nine months pregnant at the time with our fourth child.

Justin: 39:52

Cleaning up popcorn.

Scott Lawrence: 39:53

Yeah. So like we, we get out of the movie theater and I remember where we were standing in front of the movie theater and I was like hey, we're supposed to plant a church.

Rhett: 40:01

Like the answer is yes, and she just goes okay.

Scott Lawrence: 40:05

Like hey, we're supposed to plant a church, like the answer is yes and she just goes okay. Like you know I'm expecting some big. You know she's either going to fight me on it or like we're going to have this like absolutely, and she's just like okay, and if you talk to her she's like I don't remember that moment.

Scott Lawrence: 40:19

I was nine months pregnant, but like sure that's exactly what we're supposed to do, and so that's awesome. From there, conversations began after the beginning of the year. You know, just trying to honor our leadership. Yes, Talk to me about that.

Rhett: 40:33

Talk to me about that, because a lot of there are people who are listening and leaders who are feeling called to maybe plant a church or step out and create a ministry of 501c3 or just, you know, take a step into the unknown, out and create a ministry of 501c3, or just take a step into the unknown. And I think the hardest conversation for somebody in your shoes is how in the world do I tell my pastor Because this is a very fireable offense, unfortunately on many levels, for many pastors across the country, and it shouldn't be but for you. How was that experience? How did you approach your pastor and how did he respond? Shouldn't be but for you. How was that experience? How did you approach your pastor and how did he respond? And how was that blessing curse, like, oh God, we're losing our best person? Like what was that? What was that? Like man.

Scott Lawrence: 41:13

Yeah, I think I've heard horror stories. Right and praise God, mine's not a horror story. So, I sat down with Pastor Tripp and I just told him you know what, what I felt we were called to do and how long were you into the the stirring at this point, when you had the talk?

Scott Lawrence: 41:32

Man it was. It actually ended up not quite being January, it ended up being in December that we ended up having having the conversation, but there had been a real stirring since August and then there was that confirmation in November. But there had been a real stirring since August and then there was that confirmation in November and I just knew, like I can't, and there were unfortunately at the time. You know, we're a small church and when I say small you know 250, 300 people. So like everybody just knows everybody. And even though we had not said anything and this is the crazy part, and this is what's so great about Pastor Tripp being one of my best friends in the world is because he knows like we didn't say anything, but because other people had expectations on us that we were going to go plant a church there were these rumblings that forced me to have the conversation before January because I'm like, because before we went on vacation we had not told anyone we were going to plant a church.

Scott Lawrence: 42:28

We had not decided we were going to plant a church, but I felt like, even though we still hadn't told anybody, there was not. Why would we tell anybody? That makes no sense. We wouldn't even know where we're going to plant a church.

Rhett: 42:38

Right.

Scott Lawrence: 42:39

So, um, and honestly in my mind I was thinking in five years, I wasn't thinking that I was going to do it anytime soon. I just knew that God was asking me to do something that I needed to say yes to. So I didn't know what timeline looked like, I just knew that God was asking me to say yes, but I just felt like I wanted to honor him, because I was like you know what, if the answer is yes, he needs to know that the answer is yes, he needs to know, because If something gets said and then he comes to me and then I'm like, no, this is how I'm feeling, then it, then it has the potential to become a well, why didn't you tell me?

Justin: 43:14

Right.

Scott Lawrence: 43:14

Type type situation.

Justin: 43:16

Yeah.

Scott Lawrence: 43:17

Because there were.

Justin: 43:18

there were other other people who were just saying so you did what you did because there was a heart to honor your leadership. Yeah absolutely, but it was also more than just Pete's of the previous night.

Scott Lawrence: 43:35

Even with that, you had already been months into this processing before you ever even took it. Yeah, and it may seem quick, you know, when you just go August to December, but I mean that's a lot of thinking and a lot of processing and a lot of prayer and a lot of um. You know, I had to know that.

Scott Lawrence: 43:44

I heard from God to say yes to this, and I think I think that anybody who's planted a church would would tell you that, like there's just, it's not something that you just say or you take, not if you really know what planning a church is, not, not if you've really had a front row seat to being portable and trying to build a team and those type things, and so, um, we have the conversation and, um, you know, pastor trip didn't fire me on the spot.

Rhett: 44:12

But, honestly, did you even feel like that was even a thought, though, With the leader that you were serving? Was there even a thought thinking? Well, you know, I mean, based off of my relationship, I think I might be let go pretty soon if I bring up this conversation. Or I know him and we're friends and he's entrusted me and he's secure and we can have a conversation.

Justin: 44:32

Or it's the unknown and he could be thinking. As much as I love this person, I've heard horror stories, so I don't know what really is going to happen.

Scott Lawrence: 44:44

I think it's more what Justin just said. Right, because I'd heard other people's stories and so there was security in the fact of like I did not go into that meeting thinking I was going to lose my job. Like that's not what I thought. What I did think was like there was just so much uncertainty of how it was going to go because there was misinformation from other people in the church at the time. And again, what's funny is to this day none of us know how it started. But it ended up being a very good conversation. Right Like a little awkward at first because you're telling a friend who you love, who you're serving, who you're a big part of the church and the vision that you're that you feel called to leave. Right, like that's I can. Now I can appreciate Pastor Tripp's position, now that I'm a lead pastor. Right, right, it's hard to now that.

Justin: 45:31

I'm a lead pastor.

Scott Lawrence: 45:31

Right, right. It's hard to understand that until you are the leader.

Justin: 45:35

Yeah.

Scott Lawrence: 45:35

And that's something that I would always hear when I wasn't a lead pastor that I kind of brushed off and I was like, oh well, I got as much buy-in as he does and I care as much as he does. But until you are the leader and Rhett, you know, you just know, everything feels deeply personal, even if you don't want it to.

Scott Lawrence: 45:54

Yeah, right, like, and, and. Even though somebody could be telling you, well, I'm going to do this because the God's calling me to do this, in the back of your head, the enemy wants to tell you well, they're just leaving because they don't like you.

Rhett: 46:06

Like even though that could, that's the furthest thing from the truth.

Scott Lawrence: 46:09

Like that's not even. That's not even remotely part of it, and it's like but again, we ended up having a beautiful conversation. It was a long conversation and you know he gave me some really great advice that day, just about figuring out where it was that we wanted to plant a church. Um, you know, he encouraged me to kind of draw a dot on the map. That's like this is where you live now and where your family is, and how far are you willing to move away from everything that you know? And one of his examples was I don't know if you want to do what Rhett did. That's what he told me.

Scott Lawrence: 46:42

Yeah, because he and I were having conversations left and right going.

Justin: 46:44

Oh my God.

Scott Lawrence: 46:49

Because he was like I think you would want to be able to drive home, like I don't think you're, even if it would take a full day.

Justin: 46:54

like I don't think you you're going to want to have to hop on a flight. Scott I don't think you're 30 hour material.

Rhett: 46:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't talk yourself into thinking, you know, we'll just take a four day weekend trip. It'd take us four days to drive across the oh, we'll pay for a flight. Well, that's five grand with four kids and whatever.

Justin: 47:09

I mean like I love the guidance of the fact that he's telling you that because, if it's an unhealthy leader, they're going to want you as far away as you can be. So the fact that he's looking after you, giving you advice, don't go as far as you could go potentially, yeah, and to tell you how secure he was.

Scott Lawrence: 47:28

I mean, in that conversation he talked with me about what it would look like for us to be a sister church and kind of plant the next city over.

Justin: 47:37

Would that be?

Scott Lawrence: 47:38

something that we were interested in, so there was no open hands there was no, there was no like oh, you're trying to, I think, cause he knew my heart and I knew his heart and he and he knew that there was no like that. I was trying to steal something, or take something or split the church, Like that's just not who we are.

Scott Lawrence: 47:54

You know like we didn't take a single person from Key's church, from Ridge church, with us to plant Key's church. You know like we didn't. You know, we, we parachuted in solo and so, um, we have that conversation and he, he set the timeline because I said five years and he was like nah, he was like two and which which seemed, which seemed very sudden for me, because I I've processed okay, if I'm doing this, I need to go back to college.

Scott Lawrence: 48:24

Not because I felt at this, at this point, I had gotten past feeling the need to be educated for my own securities. Because of the way that I sermon prep and the seriousness that I take in studying scripture, I didn't feel that need. But what I wanted to do was alleviate that from being a barrier for somebody else to come under my leadership because, well, you don't have any formal training other than just being an associate pastor.

Justin: 48:54

And so there was a framing that you had in your mind of what it should look like.

Scott Lawrence: 48:59

Absolutely so at this point, like I'm already getting paperwork filled out to enroll in in um college, and he knows that. And so we kind of we kind of put a date on the map, ish, and was like, ok, like two years, but less. But let's see, and his reasoning behind two years, one of his reasonings that that was a lot of wisdom, was if you wait any longer than that, you may change your mind. You may change your mind and if you're actually certain that this is something God wants you to do, then you have to put a date on the map to then have the faith to actually do it.

Scott Lawrence: 49:37

Wow, that was wisdom Because, yeah, because if you wait and I get it now, right, because, if what? If we get comfortable, because we said five years and here, here we are at what would have been that five year mark, and so we're just now going to plant a church. We are at what would have been that five year mark, and so we're just now going to plant a church, or do we get comfortable enough where we are that we're like, nah, maybe we were never called to plant a church, and so then we kind of missed that window and what God was asking us to do.

Justin: 50:01

That two years is healthy, though, because if there is something on your heart and it's led you to get to the point to have to say something, it would make sense that you're probably not going to get to fully focus in what you're doing, because there's something up here that's taking your attention. You still can give a lot to where you're at, but for only so long, and someone with wisdom like Tripp knows that. The people that I've talked to in the past, I mean they would agree with that, but what I would also say is back to giving shout outs when I hear things about leaders. I love that response of Pastor Tripp to be able to you have that conversation with him and him also create a timetable, but the timetable isn't Well. Let me tell you it's time to go right now. You need to get up. Go on, go on.

Rhett: 50:50

Go on, go on, get on, go on, go on, get All right. I know I said two years, but now it's a year, now it's six months, now it's three months. Hey, I'm tired. That's a gracious number, that's so true. Yeah.

Justin: 51:04

Because it helps you and I think it honors where you your relationship of how you had served under the ministry at Ridge Church.

Scott Lawrence: 51:15

There were things that him and I discussed in that conversation, which I'm not going to say specifically what some of those things were, that were like this is what we would want things to look like, even though some of these things may feel impossible at the moment. Right, and because we were committed to leave well, and because they were committed to sending us out well, committed to leave well, and because they were committed to sending us out well, all of those things, without fail, have happened and have fallen into place, and Pastor Tripp and his wife Rebecca are some of our best friends in the entire world.

Justin: 51:42

Wow, that's so great.

Scott Lawrence: 51:43

I just don't think there's a lot of people who leave somewhere and can say that about people who they served under for a long time, or that the people who they serve under would say the same thing about them. And so to me, it's just when you're committed to to be faithful and you're committed to love people like Jesus, and you're committed to honoring and putting people above yourself both ways. This wasn't just a me and.

Scott Lawrence: 52:06

Kirsten and I did this, pastor Tripp and Rebecca did this, and other people at Ridge did this to us as well. That it has allowed us to feel like, hey, ridge Church. You know, we feel like we have two home churches, right, we have Ridge Church in Alabama and then we have the church that we planted, keys Church in Florida, and it feels like they're sister churches. In a lot of ways they feel like one church. But, man, that's a tribute to God and His faithfulness.

Rhett: 52:38

Yeah, I think there's so much to honor in Pastor Tripp and honor in you and the way that you guys have handled that conversation and honoring going in, honoring going out and I know Pastor Tripp and Ridge Church blessed you guys tremendously and still have in helping support Keys Church and the vision, and that's amazing. So what I want to do now is I want to fast forward. There are so many micro details we could jump into even the process of having to step out, move your family, find a home, build all the stuff, get the team built, the launch on launch day. But let's fast forward to where we are now. So, keys Church where are we Two years, in two and a half?

Scott Lawrence: 53:09

at this point? Yeah, a little over two years, a little over two years now.

Rhett: 53:12

So my question to you is this Is it everything you thought it would be?

Justin: 53:16

Oh, man no Thank you for that answer, thank you for the answer.

Rhett: 53:22

Yeah, no, I asked that because it's a loaded question. I already know the answer to it. But I think people go into it thinking it's one thing and then they find out it's actually another, and so talk to me. I know that there are some challenges, I know that. But with what you're willing to share in this season and what you're comfortable sharing, you know, dive into that Kind of dive in a little bit deeper. Why is it not looking like you thought it would look or feel like you thought it would feel, or feel like you thought it would feel, and in the thoughts and the process and what you're going through right now, two years in, to a dream and to a vision that you probably had in your mind, thinking it was one way, and it's kind of actually another right now.

Scott Lawrence: 53:58

Yeah, I want to start with this. I mean, we are so blessed by ARC, the Associated Relation Churches and the ARC family and we launched with ARC and we love ARC and we support ARC and as far as we're concerned, we'll always support ARC and what they're doing and, again, so honored to be a part. But I think some of the false expectation comes from a lot of times you only ever hear the success story, like that's kind of and and in a way, rightfully so, because you want to encourage people and you want people and you're not trying to discourage people from going and planting a church, so you don't want to be like hey, hey bro, this is going to suck, let me tell you how hard this is going to be.

Rhett: 54:44

Are you sure you want to do this? Yeah?

Scott Lawrence: 54:46

So what's the hardest thing you've ever done in your life? Cool Times that by 10.

Justin: 54:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Scott Lawrence: 54:52

And then feel like you're on an island and nobody cares and nobody understands, and feel like you're a failure. And feel like you question everything, including your calling. And then, like, you know, let's see if you can just stick it out, Like you don't want to set up anybody that way. And so it's like okay, let's, let's be full of faith. And you know there's a lot of talk of run the play, right, Like that's that's been the language for a lot of years, and just church planning in general. This isn't an exclusively arc thing, Like so, just run the play. So if you do a, B and C, then these will be your results. Like without fail is the way it's talked about. Right now we know that that's not true, but a naive church planner has no idea.

Scott Lawrence: 55:34

And so when I'm just told that if I just run the play and I'm somebody who has always put my best foot forward and always done whatever it takes to do things with excellence and you know to to just make sure that things are attractional to people and to be relatable to people and then you come and you run the play and the play got busted and you got sacked for a loss, it's like wait a second, this was not the, this was supposed to go for a touchdown. Like why did I just lose 13 yards?

Rhett: 56:07

Like this doesn't make any sense.

Scott Lawrence: 56:09

That's a really good way to say it, bud Like why did I just lose 13 yards Like this doesn't make any sense that's a really good way to say it, bud and it's like it makes you feel like a failure, like there's just there is no way around it. I'll give you an example Our first interest party. Now we have the hindsight and the wisdom to know that, man, we should have been celebrating like nobody's business, but we had like 65 people come to our first interest party. Okay, keep in mind, we parachuted into a city 500 miles away where we knew no one, right. So to have 60 people who you did not know at your first interest party.

Justin: 56:42

I'm hearing that and I'm thinking that's an amazing number that was more than our first.

Scott Lawrence: 56:46

You know it should be something to celebrate should be something to be excited about.

Scott Lawrence: 56:53

But because when I was at a training and in a breakout, I was told about somebody who did things a certain way and when they did it that way, they had 150 people show up to their first interest party and 100 of those people chose to join their team that day. I mean, this is a story, I'm not making this up. Praise God that that was their, that was their experience. That's amazing. I thought, well, we had about half the people they had show up and we had three people sign up to join the team. We're failures, like we're not going to be able to grow this team. Nobody's going to commit to be able to grow this team. Nobody's going to commit. And honestly, I can look back now and say that wrecked us in a way that it really derailed the rest of our planting season.

Scott Lawrence: 57:39

Wow Because we felt like failures from the jump, when really we should have been exciting and we should have been celebrating. And unfortunately then there really was a decline in how many people we got to come to interest parties. The next one had 40-something people, the next one, you know, had 20-something people, but then we had another one that was bigger. And then we tried to switch some things and we did what we called invite nights to try to get people to come and kind of give them a taste of what we're trying to do. But it was to try to get people to come and kind of give them a taste of what we're trying to do, but it was.

Scott Lawrence: 58:12

It felt like an impossible uphill climb. And the number of times that I questioned like, Lord, did I hear from you? Like, was this actually what you asked me to do? Like, am I just naive? Did I come down here based on, you know, maybe, my own pride and my own ideas? And and I wasn't actually hearing from you, which, hey, by the way, none of that's true. And if you're a leader who has dealt with those feelings, man, the enemy will say anything to you to try to get you off mission you know, and the truth is I, I just had the wrong expectations.

Justin: 58:53

Yeah, it was an unhealthy comparison from what you had heard. Because it is interesting when you're telling the story. I'm looking at it like, even as you showed the numbers dwindling with each interest party, I'm still looking at it like man, that's awesome. 20 people showed up, yeah.

Scott Lawrence: 59:11

But it all goes back to the framing, yeah, and for us it's like terrifying, because like to, to launch, like here you are, we're trying to raise four kids and we're trying to get medical stuff taken care of, we're trying to get schooling stuff taken care of, and I'm finishing up school but then I'm having to get a job to make ends me, and then we're trying to recruit a team and then you know, you have to have a certain amount of people on your launch team to then be able to be approved to launch.

Scott Lawrence: 59:40

And then trying to find a space to me and the finances because of where we are, it's just not an affluent area and so giving isn't what we thought it would be, even though we did a decent job raising our launch funds. And then I had a heartbreaking call from somebody who I really loved and respected, a week before we launched the church. They called to check on us and I kind of was just honest with them and vulnerable and they literally told me had we known that this was the case, we wouldn't agree and let you to launch. And I was like, bro, not really sure that's what I need to hear a week away from launch, like based on you saying what of what you're at Liberty to say.

Scott Lawrence: 1:00:26

Yeah, just just kind of the whole like, hey, it just hasn't looked the way we thought it was going to look, and we have had a hard time getting people to commit to the launch team, and so we're really just right at that 40 number, barely of people, and we're having to launch at night because there is not a space for us to meet on Sunday morning. This is a very crowded area where we live, and the one space that we got the okay to meet at for Sunday services one we didn't have enough people to fill that space because it's an 800-seat auditorium. But then, two, it was $1,200 a week. Well, we didn't have the finances to pay $1,200 a week. It would have killed the church within the first month. So, like sure I could have done it in the name of maybe that was the thing to do. But instead we found another space that we were going to be able to meet at in the afternoon, and so it was like, well, we're just going to have to launch with a five o'clock service. Like it's not ideal, it's not what we want, but maybe it's what God's asking us to do.

Scott Lawrence: 1:01:31

We definitely feel like, and we felt like our backs were set up against the wall at this point, that we felt like if we didn't launch the church, the church would die before it ever started. That the people who were committed to that launch date and were a part of the team that they would leave if we didn't, if we didn't give them something tangible. Because something that we heard over and over again was like, well, we just need an event to show up to. And it's like well, we've got this interest where, like no, like we need a church service to show up to. Like that's what people kept telling us. Like they were not interested in having coffee, they were not interested in having dinner, and we did all those things, but that wasn't their interest. They were like no, we'll get involved, we'll plug in, we'll whatever, once you get the church launched. And so it was a combination of really barely hitting that number, our finances not looking better, which I mean we raised $180,000.

Rhett: 1:02:29

It's not anything to snub your nose up at that was a lot more than I did, buddy.

Scott Lawrence: 1:02:33

You know so. Yeah, but then meeting at night, and I, you know, I was just told like hey, that's not the way that we want to do things. And had we known? We just wouldn't have.

Rhett: 1:02:48

You know we would have. We would have pumped the brakes for you and it was like that's discouraging.

Scott Lawrence: 1:02:51

Yeah, not the most life-giving thing to hear. Oh, literally a week out from your launch Cause you're already scared to death.

Rhett: 1:02:54

I mean people think oh, well, you know church is going to launch. There's money Like no, no, no, we've spent everything on everything. We have nothing. You know there's no guaranteed paycheck coming in, there's no guarantee that anybody's going to show up. I mean, I have faith to believe it, but at the same time I have enough doubt. I'm like doubting Thomas. I'll see it when I'm like you know we'll see what happens. You know, that's how I felt I was scared to death. I didn't get any sleep.

Justin: 1:03:16

Me and Rhett when we were in Idaho. I came up for his first service and we were peeking around that curtain all the time to see, did anybody?

Rhett: 1:03:23

come in yet Is anybody walking in.

Justin: 1:03:26

Stay in the back. I'll go be your site. Don't look out right now.

Scott Lawrence: 1:03:31

And, in my mind, what was so bad was that we were close enough that we had a lot of people come down to well-wish us right.

Rhett: 1:03:38

Yeah.

Scott Lawrence: 1:03:38

And so I'm counting going, oh, They'll be gone next week. Half of these people won't be here next week.

Rhett: 1:03:44

Yeah, minimum.

Scott Lawrence: 1:03:46

You know, and so you know, we launched with close to 150 people, which is great.

Rhett: 1:03:52

That's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing.

Scott Lawrence: 1:03:55

And it was great. But but again, exactly what they tell you happens is what happens the next week at 70, and the next week it's 50 and the next week it's 40, you know, and what we realized really quickly was we thought that meeting at nights would one. We did add necessity. So I don't want to try to act like it was some vision thing, where we were like oh, we're going to meet at nights and be different.

Justin: 1:04:19

You improvised.

Scott Lawrence: 1:04:21

But you know what you do as a leader is. You then try to make it a vision thing. And you're like so now we can reach people who work second, or work, or work, you know, on Sundays, during the day, and we can do that, and we can do that.

Rhett: 1:04:33

You know you're reframing the vision for where you actually are in this season.

Scott Lawrence: 1:04:37

Yeah, and everybody was so excited and like they came the first couple of weeks and then it became really clear that, man, do you think there's a lot of excuses not to get up on a Sunday morning and come to church? There's so many more when you wait the whole day to then come to church. It's like I can do anything but be at church. I'm tired.

Rhett: 1:04:57

And the one thing you haven't mentioned yet is the culture that you were called to. I mean, you were not called. Yes, Some people might look on the map and go, oh well, Orlando, that's the South, it ain't the South y'all. I mean, once you get past the panhandle of Florida, you are no longer the South, You're in another country and I love I've had the opportunity to be there twice and I love your church family and I love the Puerto Rican culture. It's just, but it's very family oriented, it's very community driven. It's like and they're hanging out man at the barbecue at the park, baby, on Sunday afternoon.

Justin: 1:05:28

Right, not at church Right.

Scott Lawrence: 1:05:30

Yeah, yeah, it's just very different and for people who don't understand that culture, in that context, we're not a very big church and Kirsten and I were counting the other weeks, we were talking with somebody and we have seven different nationalities represented in our little church. You know, like we are very much a multicultural church and again. Pastor Rhett's been there like he comes and now he's one of three white people in the room.

Rhett: 1:05:53

I love it, I feel it. They make me feel so welcome. They're high-fiving, like it is. It's awesome, it's great, it's great but it is different.

Scott Lawrence: 1:06:02

And you're absolutely right and that is a big, big part is you know, we learned in the when we were doing these invite nights. We learned that we did the five-minute countdown traditional, like a lot of churches do To this day. Our five-minute countdown starts at the beginning of service.

Justin: 1:06:21

It starts at 10.

Scott Lawrence: 1:06:23

It doesn't start at 9.55. Because everybody's late and they joke around and they say, well, we're all on island time.

Justin: 1:06:30

Well that's a real thing.

Scott Lawrence: 1:06:31

It is a real thing, that's a real that's a real culture thing and to this day we have we have some families who and they've been around since the beginning and I love them with all my heart and they'll show up in the first point of my sermon every week.

Rhett: 1:06:45

Like the sermon.

Scott Lawrence: 1:06:45

The service time is the same you know like it hasn't. It hasn't changed, like the distance that you're driving is the same, but that's just culture.

Rhett: 1:06:53

Yeah Right, and I'm just glad they're at church and those are the things and those are the things you're learning as you're there. It's like you're getting. You're actually planting. You're a farmer in new soil. That is not. You know the deep south, where everybody's culture is. You go to show up on time and you end on time. Right Now you're in a whole new culture, a whole new soil. I tell people this you can't plant bananas in the Northwest. Banana trees don't grow. You plant banana trees or even palm trees. They don't grow up in the Northwest. They grow in a very humid climate with a particular soil. And you're learning that and you're having to adjust. You have the vision, but your process is having to change according to the culture that you're in and all of that's good, but those are the things that you know can really wreck somebody If you're like we got to start on time.

Rhett: 1:07:37

We got to end on time. It's got to look like this. Got to, you know, we got to run the play, got to do this, you know, and yeah, man it'd be discouraging and yeah.

Scott Lawrence: 1:07:43

And so I'll say this to any, any church planner who's dealt with this, or aspiring church planner Like, just know, you can run the play in it, not work, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Like, like that, like that's just the truth.

Scott Lawrence: 1:07:56

And it doesn't mean that you're a failure and it doesn't mean that what you're doing doesn't matter, but for us that was a reality. That was hard for us to wrap our mind around, that took a lot of prayer and a lot of maturity and a lot of wonderful people like Rhett speaking into my life and reminding me that I'm not a failure, because there were people who know us and who are around us and who have seen what we've done and they're like you've done everything that you could possibly do and it just is what it is and that's okay. And when you become okay with that, that's honestly that's where the fun begins Right, and that's where you become thankful and you become able to celebrate little wins, you know, and they're not even just little wins anymore, they're big wins, and I'm not, you know, praise God for the church that's had, you know, 5,000 salvations in their first two years of the church. Man, we've had 42, and all 42 of those people matter, you know like, and we're thankful to be a part of it and that God would choose to use us. And what would their stories be had we not come and started Keys Church?

Scott Lawrence: 1:09:03

And so for us, it's like we're so okay with where we are now, but it took a year, a year and a half, you know, a year, year and a half for us to to get okay with it, because eventually we did move from Sunday nights to the Lord opened the door for us to meet on Sunday mornings. So we launched in September of 2022, january of 2023, we moved to Sunday mornings. That's where we currently meet now. Actually, check this out, guys, paying less than we were paying to meet at nights which is like unheard of in this area.

Scott Lawrence: 1:09:36

So you're talking about just the Lord's provision and what we're, what we're paying in the space that we're in, and um it w it hasn't all been rainbows and sunshine. As a matter of fact, our, our worst Sunday as a church was week two and the new space. So many people showed back up week one of of meeting Sunday morning. You know, like we had kind of dwindled down to around 20 to 25 people. We had like 35 people in week one of meeting back on Sunday mornings and we were like, let's go.

Scott Lawrence: 1:10:08

Like this is again naivety. I'm like this was the bandaid, like we have fixed it. We would just weren't meeting on Sunday mornings, like, let's go, the the exponential growth is on the way, like this is. And I'm trying to protect myself from these things. But in the back of my head, if I'm being honest, like this is, I'm trying to be full of faith. You know, it's just like this is going to be the case. And it was 30 degrees the next Sunday morning and I don't know if you know anything about Central Florida it doesn't it doesn't get 30 degrees.

Justin: 1:10:37

That is wild.

Scott Lawrence: 1:10:38

And I, and I found out that not only do iguanas fall out of trees, but people don't get out the bed.

Rhett: 1:10:46

I got this little picture of iguanas just dropping like flies out of all the trees.

Scott Lawrence: 1:10:50

Hey. I'm telling you look it up, We'll get a falling iguana warning oh man, they will fall out of the tree, are you?

Rhett: 1:10:58

serious Uh-oh Today on the news. We got a iguana warning we're hitting 31 degrees. So be careful of all the trees you walk under today, because you might be knocked out.

Scott Lawrence: 1:11:11

But you'll probably be fine, because everybody is still in bed.

Rhett: 1:11:13

Everybody is every last one of them. And why don't they make a disney pixar movie about iguanas?

Justin: 1:11:15

falling out of trees at 31 degrees, you know, because it never goes under 30, and where you're living, I mean iguanas falling out of trees.

Rhett: 1:11:24

That almost has a rhyme to it, like iguanas falling out of tree.

Scott Lawrence: 1:11:26

Anyway, sorry, I'm pretty sure that's the coldest morning it's been since we've lived here, and of course it fell on a sunday morning and so literally we go, we go and we set up and you know, here we are. It's like is anybody gonna come?

Scott Lawrence: 1:11:41

five minute countdown starts like we have the people leading worship, we have me, we have kirsten, we have my amazing mother-in-law, cammy, who's running sound for us and pro presenter she's doing both at the same time and camera and and, yeah, and camera, she, you know, she hit record on the, on the camera, and there's two people who walk in, two and then we're sitting there during worship worshiping, and then two more people walk in, so now there's four. There's four people who aren't there to serve, and my kids are in kids ministry and a volunteer and the power goes out during Psalm 3, the power trips, and it's our second week in the space. I have no clue where the power box is Like you were talking just like an embarrassment of riches Like what else could possibly go wrong?

Rhett: 1:12:38

Oh, but wait.

Scott Lawrence: 1:12:39

Oh, but wait, you know, the power goes out, and so like I just get up and I pray, you know, because it went out in the middle of the song, and so then they're just like I guess we'll do acapella worship with.

Rhett: 1:12:53

All we had was a keyboard and that's electric, so you know, and plastic now.

Scott Lawrence: 1:12:58

Yeah, and a gym day, and so now it's just a gym day and then somebody singing acapella and there's four people in the room and I was like I was just like there's no way that I'm about to try to teach a message in the dark, like that's just like I love your honor.

Rhett: 1:13:16

Hey, thank you so much for your honesty and vulnerability. I mean, this is real life. These are the stories right here, man, this is why you're on the podcast. This is real life.

Justin: 1:13:24

You have a breakout room that says we've told you some really great stuff and you need to have that, but we need to give you a heads up on some stuff that could happen. Yeah.

Rhett: 1:13:32

So you might have some iguanas falling out of trees with two people a power going out and like dear God, what did I just do?

Scott Lawrence: 1:13:42

So don't let this scare you away, but be very aware this could happen to you. So I go up and I pray and you know the worship team, the guys. They came from the university that I was connected to and so they were like all right well we're going to leave and I'm like, well, that's awkward, bro, thanks for coming to lead worship.

Scott Lawrence: 1:13:55

I guess it was just really weird, because I think they were also like what do we do? And the way that our room is set up is cafeteria and there's a room in the back of the cafeteria. Well, that room still had power. It just killed everything that our, our lights and our speakers were plugged into, kind of in the front, like we just didn't know that we needed to spread out stuff differently for the sake of the power grid. And I just told the four people I was like, hey, I was like let's go to the back room and, man, let's just have small group. And we just went and talked about the sermon from the week before and talked about some things in the sermon series that we were in, and all four of those people are still at our church.

Scott Lawrence: 1:14:35

All four of those people still serve at our church. One of those, one of those families. It was the first time we had the opportunity to take them out to lunch. They, they, stuck around and helped us tear down. Um, I joke with them and I say I know y'all just stayed because you felt bad for us, like there was no like, like y'all are good people but, you stayed because you felt bad for us and they just laugh. You know, they neither confirm, I can neither confirm nor deny.

Justin: 1:14:58

That's why we stayed.

Scott Lawrence: 1:15:00

Um, but, and I, I just remember being like so, so, defeated, and yet, honestly, it's, it's just been a steady climb from there, right, it's just, it's steadily gotten, gotten better.

Rhett: 1:15:17

Can I, can I jump in for a second? If be honest, you and Kirsten sitting around the dinner table that evening, or after you loaded and packed up the trailer, was that the moment you're like all right, I'm done, pass the trip? You know you want to hire me back, baby, we'll be there next weekend. I mean, was that going through your mind? Or were you sitting there thinking, no, we know God's called us and I know this is hard and this is not what it was supposed to look like in our minds, but we're called here and we're going to persevere and push through.

Scott Lawrence: 1:15:42

So the truth of the matter is for me, the burden has always been financial. The burden has not been how many people are in the room. The burden has been can we continue to afford to do?

Scott Lawrence: 1:15:54

this and through the Lord's provision and some wisdom that he gave me in the beginning. With some of our finances of hey, I know conventional wisdom is to spend every dime you get on advertising and everything else I was just like some of this needs to go in a rainy day fund, because I just don't think our giving is going to be what I hoped it was going to be, because at this point I'm working a full-time job.

Rhett: 1:16:23

Which is two full-time jobs as a pastor and a church planner as a dad and three as a husband. That's something to note, because you're working a lot of know it's.

Justin: 1:16:31

A lot of times in the rules, if you will, there's the exception. Yours has become more of the exception which you got. You don't put God in a box. The exceptions are always there, and that can even become new norms. And so in your case, you would have loved, ideally, to be full time on staff at your church and it just didn't work that way. So you had to provide for your family. So you're working a job, and the full-time job of being a pastor and taking care of your wife and kiddos.

Rhett: 1:17:02

Give me in us knowing that, give me just a glimpse of what your weeks were like before you were able to move on to full-time, as far as you know, with the church providing for you. So a week, and you don't have to go into micro. But just give me an overview. You're up at what? 3.30 in the morning, 4 o'clock, your sermon prepping.

Scott Lawrence: 1:17:23

Talk me through that really quick so people can get an idea of what your life was like for almost two years. Yeah, so I would wake up Monday through Thursday at 4 o'clock in the morning and I would get up and praise God for a coffee pot that has the timer on it. Where it can, the coffee can be made when you step into the living room in the morning, but I would wake up and I would sermon prep from four till six or six, 30.

Rhett: 1:17:45

And then I would get dressed and.

Scott Lawrence: 1:17:48

I would go to work and I was the director of IT at a local Christian university and I would go and I would work until four o'clock and I would come home and we would lead small groups and we would reach out to people and we would care for people and we would, you know, care for our children and raise our kids and try to do date nights and everything else that you're supposed to be doing as a church planner and as a father and as a husband all of that was reserved for after four o'clock because I had a job from seven to four every day and yeah, that was my life up until July of this year.

Scott Lawrence: 1:18:31

So, and I'll say this like it's easy to look at something like that and go, oh man, that stinks. Like how unfortunate. Like man, what a bummer. Like I hate that you have to do that because I had to learn how to manage my time and about a one month period if this church was going to continue and if I was going to be a good father and if I was going to be a good husband and a good leader. Like I had to learn to manage my time really quickly and I think, had I had the freedom to be full time in ministry, it may have taken me years to learn to manage my time.

Justin: 1:19:12

Wow, what a great, great perspective.

Scott Lawrence: 1:19:15

But instead, you know, I was forced to get up early and everybody's just wired different, right. So for me, I always tell people I'm not a morning person, so it's not like I wake up and I'm like man, hey, justin, how are you guys doing Like I'm so? Like, hey, justin, how are you guys doing Like I'm so, like that's not, I'm not a morning person in that way, but I'm most productive in the morning. So, like my brain, my creativity, like it is.

Scott Lawrence: 1:19:38

It is on 10 from the moment I wake up and you know, for the first three or four hours of the day and at night it's just a struggle. And so it became clear to me if I'm trying to sermon prep once my kids go to bed, I'm going to be sermon prepping from 8 to 1 o'clock in the morning every day and not spending any time with my wife, or I can wake up at 4 o'clock and I can get done in two hours. What would take me five hours once my kids go to bed, because I'm just more creative.

Justin: 1:20:12

Yeah, and those late night sermon preps. By the way, it will make you sound like a space cadet when you're talking. Oh yeah, because you'd be like where did that idea come?

Rhett: 1:20:20

from. I noted that at 1 am as.

Justin: 1:20:23

I wake up from you, know, on the couch. Yeah, that's true, that's so cool. I relate to what you're saying on that early morning. Yeah, you've learned how to utilize your energy and it's like Rhett the story that I mean we've used this so many times but it really is. It's like you've taken what could have taken years to learn. If you gain the whole world, lose your soul.

Justin: 1:20:48

What you've maintained in this process is you've prioritized your family. You've still prioritized your congregation, and I think of David going out to the field having to care for the sheep. It was nothing that anybody would have desired and he stepped out there every day and he took on the role that his father had called him to do and it was in that season of taking care that he learned how to protect what was his when the lion and the bear, and he learned how to use that sling. He probably learned how to play that. You know harp out in the field, just kind of chilling, and he used every bit of that later in his life and it was preparing him.

Justin: 1:21:22

And every time you're talking, I'm thinking to myself this is such a setup for you, Like what you're getting to see now, but this is a setup for also things that God knows. I call it authentic humility, and what I mean by that is I see authentic humility as it's a state of contentedness in accepting the responsibility, like being aware of your responsibility and then fully stepping into them, at the same time acknowledging that what's happening right now there's something greater. For what I'm actually doing. This right now, for and when you can live in that mindset and that's what I'm hearing from you there's no greater place to be than authentically humble.

Scott Lawrence: 1:22:07

Thank you, man. I appreciate that. That's good and and that, and just trying to have that perspective right and you don't have that perspective every day Like, right, I don't want to act like every day was was me just like choosing to have this great perspective Cause, going back to what you asked right about, I was like was this a season in which you were like, hey, do I want to? You know, do I just want to quit? Do I just want to hang this up? It's like, yeah, like do I want?

Justin: 1:22:32

to.

Scott Lawrence: 1:22:33

Like, yeah, I want to, but I felt like, Peter, where else am I going to go? Lord?

Justin: 1:22:41

Yeah.

Scott Lawrence: 1:22:42

Like you're the one with the words of life, like I just know this is what I'm called to do and this is the last thing you asked me to do.

Scott Lawrence: 1:22:50

And so, until you give me the next thing to do, I got to continue doing the last thing that you told me to do, and so I can't jump ahead of you and I don't want to fall behind you. And you know, kirsten, I just decided, like the Lord will make it clear If the grace on this season ends. He will make it clear if this door is ready to shut. But until then, like we just push forward and we have faith and we just try to be good stewards and we try to be good leaders and we try to love people and we try to point them to Jesus and everything else is going to work. Like that's what our faith is. It's just that everything else is going to work. Like that's what our faith is. It's just that everything else is going to work out. Like, if we just try to love people and lead them to Jesus, everything else will work out.

Rhett: 1:23:34

I love that, because what I'm hearing is what you're not saying is, you know, once we hit 100 or 150 or 200 or 250 or whatever that number might be for whoever, then we'll be satisfied and know. You know what we're successful. But what I'm hearing from you is, man, we're successful in being obedient to what God has called us to do, and that's to be faithful and loving God and loving the people he's called us to in this season, and because of that, I know, because I've experienced it, there are families whose legacies and family trees have been changed for generations because of your love, your sacrifice, your availability, your investment, your time with them in the church and being able to invest in leaders and meet them right where they are and love them in small groups and community, and I mean people's families have been dynamically changed because of your availability and your investment. So you guys have been hugely successful, massively successful for the kingdom of God. And that success I think we have to define what success is.

Rhett: 1:24:39

What is success? That's right, and so what I'm hearing you say success is loving God, loving my family, loving the church that he's called me to. It's not about a number, it's not about a platform God, loving my family, loving the church that he's called me to. It's not about a number, it's not about a platform. It's just about being obedient and being faithful and just loving the people and enjoying the moment and loving the people who are right in front of me and giving them my best, yes, and being faithful in what you've been given.

Rhett: 1:25:02

Yeah.

Justin: 1:25:03

And then let him decide how he decides to move along in this process. For you and it's an enduring yeah. And I love how you, when I said what I said, I love, scott, how you jumped in there to say it's not just, I just wake up every morning you know, rainbows and unicorns, and that's what I love too.

Justin: 1:25:21

It's okay to have those days of what in the world is going on when you can endure in a situation like that. It's almost a parallel of Jesus saying well, it's easy to love people who love you, go love somebody who doesn't. Well, it's easy to live your best life when everything's working out for you, but how are you going to live when you actually have to make the decision to endure? And the fruit of the Holy Spirit that that is producing in your life and people who come across your path is evident even in our conversation talking to you, scott.

Scott Lawrence: 1:25:54

Yeah, man, I'm reminded of you. Know you had brought up David, and it's like just read Psalms right, like Lord, where are you? You've forsaken me, Like you've turned your back from me, like, oh, there you are.

Justin: 1:26:06

Yeah.

Scott Lawrence: 1:26:07

Like, oh, there you are. Yeah, like, oh, there you are, you know, and it's like you're so right, man, like it's okay to have bad days. And I think leaders and pastors and just Christians, just fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, hear us Like it's okay to have a bad day, absolutely Like it's okay, you know, to feel down in the dump. Now, don't let a bad day become a bad season, right.

Rhett: 1:26:30

Right.

Scott Lawrence: 1:26:30

Surround yourself with life, giving people you know, be in the word, remind yourself of what's true, but like man again, pastor Rhett is one of my overseers, he knows this Like I've called him on bad days. Like we've had conversations. We've had real difficult conversations about what does the future look like if things don't change, because all of those things have to be real conversations. You know, and praise God. We're in a situation where this past July I was able to go full time with the church and I don't think I would have ever envisioned that a year ago. You know, I just I would have wanted to have the faith for it but, honestly, like I wouldn't even allow myself to have the faith for it because I would have just felt like I was going to be disappointed, right and. But the Lord has has been faithful and it's been beautiful to see our church grow and the people in our church to understand our vision and what we're doing. Um and now, for me to be able to give all of my time and my resources over to the church, which has allowed me to give my time and resources over to different things in our community, which allows me to do amazing things like this as well to sit and to be on a podcast with you guys, which is things that I would have had to say no to before

Scott Lawrence: 1:27:52

you know, and and I went through a season of having to say no to some really good opportunities, and that was that wasn't easy. Like it's not easy to be like, hey, can you come to this lunch and we're going to have this thing and there's going to be these leaders, and can you come be a part of this and we're going to have this retreat? Can you? And it's like nope, nope, nope, nope. You know, but you can't let those things discourage you. Like you have to realize, like maybe it is just a season and maybe the season for you is going to be longer than the year and a half it was for me, maybe, maybe it'll be shorter, but trying to to keep the right perspective and there'll be good days on that, there'll be bad days on that.

Justin: 1:28:31

Yeah, to me, everything I've heard today is a story of victory and that's why we wanted to have you on the podcast, because we wanted to have you tell this story, because it's not always conventional in this predictable where it's only up from here. I love the stories where it doesn't go, where it's so God being put in a box and the way that you've explained from. I mean, people are feeling you when you're talking about the power going out. Any potential church planter right now is envisioning, thinking oh boy.

Justin: 1:29:03

I have to be aware that I'm signing up for that potential thing.

Rhett: 1:29:07

They'll be aware of it, but they'll also be naive and thinking, oh, that's not going to happen to me. And then it's going to happen to them. They're going to be like, oh wait, I remember that podcast and they're going to reach out to Scott.

Justin: 1:29:15

That's right, they're going to say I'm reaching out to Scott at Keys Church because of the testimony that I heard.

Rhett: 1:29:33

So I'm grateful that you've taken the your story on that, yeah. So one thing I want to jump into as we begin to close this. There's so many. You know, scott, I believe there's going to be a part two at some point where we have you back on and talk more about maybe just the way this has impacted your family and your wife and your kids and the growth through that as a husband and as a dad. There's things I want to dive into there that I believe will be very beneficial to people in the future who decide to plant a church.

Rhett: 1:29:54

But before we close this, you're not going to say this about yourself, but I noticed a journey you went on this year regarding your health. You know your physical health. You've always been disciplined. You've always had. I've seen it. You know, with your faithfulness and audio video, lighting, production, preaching, communication, the way you love your family, the way you love your wife, the way you handle your finances. But something transformed in you this year. I don't know where it came from, but I have to speak to it because, again, we're not doing a video, but seeing you and being a part of your life man. You have physically transformed this year, physically in your health. And so you know, really quick, give me, give me a 30,000 foot view of what in the world happened. How much weight did you lose, how did you do it and where did all that come from? Because, bro, you look good man, you're fit the word is fit right now, and I'm noticing this about incredible leaders like yourself.

Rhett: 1:30:39

I mean, you're really taking care of yourself in that regard. How are you doing?

Scott Lawrence: 1:30:43

I appreciate that. So I guess I should start with I have a heart condition. That is a genetic thing. My dad has it, where we have arrhythmia, I inherited it. It generally doesn't have. I would have probably suffered with it regardless of what my health is.

Scott Lawrence: 1:31:01

But it can be exasperated by being unhealthy, and so when I'm under lots of stress then my heart will go out of rhythm. When it doesn't get itself back in rhythm, then there has to be a medication, or there has to be you know where they shock your heart back into rhythm. I've had to have that happen before. Last year I had a bout of that. They were able to get it back in rhythm, but then they said, hey, we need to go in and do an ablation and this is a procedure where they go in and they burn some electrical ends in your heart. I don't know how that works. I don't know who was the first person who was like hey, the heart is like an electrical box and if we just burn some stuff, your heart will be the right way, like I've been, praise God for people who are way smarter than me. But they said, hey, if we do this one, you're young, you're healthy and it'll just the chances of this kind of eliminating this for you. It's, it's really good, it's like 90 something percent. So, like you should do this, don't, don't let you know, heart surgery at 33 scare you. Like you need to do this. And so I said okay.

Scott Lawrence: 1:32:06

So last November, um, I had that done and you would have thought that maybe that would be the catalyst to like now you need to be healthy as a pastor and a father of four. But there was just always an excuse, right, because I do fancy myself, um, as at least a semi-disciplined person, right, when we talk about waking up at four to sermon prep and those type things and being in the word, and. But I used my discipline in every other area of my life to be an excuse to not be disciplined when it came to my health and what I ate and then exercise. Because my excuse was I basically worked two full-time jobs, because I'm a pastor and I work a full-time job and I'm a father of four and so I don't have time to think about what I'm eating or to try to exercise or any of those things.

Scott Lawrence: 1:32:51

And so we did 21 days of prayer and fasting at the beginning of this year and I was doing a liquid fast at the beginning of 21 days of prayer and during that liquid fast I just felt the Lord convict me and was just like how are you going to tell people to be spiritually disciplined when the only discipline in your life they can actually see with their eyes is your body? Like they can't actually see my spiritual discipline, like they can't see what kind of father I am? Can't, they can't see what kind of father I am. Like for the, for the few who really are close to me and get an inside look at me and my children and me and my wife and you know, maybe know some of my study habits and stuff, like they see the discipline. But for the regular person, um, and then I had a friend of mine who was doing a fitness thing called 75 hard. I don't know if you guys are familiar with it.

Rhett: 1:33:48

Are you familiar because of of you and your Instagram posts? Yeah, it's insanity, is what it is 75 day hard, so we'll talk about that.

Scott Lawrence: 1:33:57

Yeah, we'll get to that. We'll get to that in a second.

Scott Lawrence: 1:33:59

So I saw him doing it and there's this guy and he and he has a podcast and he's the creator of it. And I'm not recommending that because language and things like that. But I was watching some clips, my buddy was posting this guy and I went and listened to one of his podcasts and I remember hearing from the Lord and the Lord saying see, you wouldn't be able to reach somebody like that because he would never listen to a word that comes out of your mouth because of the way you look.

Scott Lawrence: 1:34:23

And I just thought I just thought, is my health being a stumbling block to me reaching people with the gospel? And I want to make this very clear. This is a personal conviction for me. This is not me saying this about anybody else, about any other pastor, and I'm definitely not saying that your health makes you. You know, if you're not extremely physically fit, you can't reach people for Jesus, like we were reaching people for Jesus when I was overweight, like it's fine. You know, it was a personal conviction for me of what I felt like the Lord was asking me to do, and it's just an area of my life that I had ignored for so long. And it really it was sin. And we don't like to say that about overeating and obesity or any of those things, like we don't like to say it because it feels harsh, but it is sin and it was sin for me and really, maybe for the first time in my life, I saw it as sin and when I did, I couldn't unsee it does that make sense?

Scott Lawrence: 1:35:18

like I couldn't, I couldn't give the excuses anymore, and so it just started with I'm gonna, I'm gonna eat healthy, like and what does that look like? So did a little bit of research and it's like, okay, we're just going to go trying to eat healthier, going to eat high protein, going to, you know, not just count calories but count my macronutrients. First time in my life I've ever done anything like that. You know, I always thought like gym bros count macros, and I'm like I'm not a gym bro, so like that's not going to be what I do. But I was like, okay, well, I'll try this. And then I found like, oh man, when I eat more protein, I'm more full throughout the day and therefore I don't eat as much. And then I just started with walking, because I was seeing some stuff about how walking is is really kind of one of the best forms of burning fat. And then, um, I incorporated um, they call it rucking, which is just weighted walking with either a backpack or a vest. So then I started doing that and then, over over the course of, you know, first several months, you know you end up losing a lot of weight.

Scott Lawrence: 1:36:19

But then I watched my, my buddy, do 75 hard. And what 75 hard is is it's a. It's a workout program in which, for 75 days in order to complete this, for 75 days straight you have to work out two times a day, a minimum of 45 minutes each workout. One of them has to be outside, like that's a non-negotiable. You have to be on some sort of diet. You're not allowed to consume any alcohol. You have to read 10 pages of a book of your choosing it doesn't matter what it is, but you have to read 10 pages of a book of your choosing. It doesn't matter what it is, but you have to read 10 pages of a book like a physical book, not an audio book every single day. You have to weigh yourself every day. You have to take a progress photo every single day and I may be missing something, but I should know I did it for 75 days. That in itself is good.

Rhett: 1:37:05

Yeah, that's hard, that's harder than hard. That's seems impossible, for that seems impossible for a lot of people.

Scott Lawrence: 1:37:11

Yeah, and so when I went full time with the church in July, I prayed about it and I said, as I'm starting being full time in ministry again, what I'm not going to do is fall back into old habits. What I'm not going to do is start being complacent and undisciplined with my time. And so I'm going to do 75 hard for the first 75 days that I'm in full-time ministry, like at Keys Church. That's going to be what I do, and so that's what I did, and I did 75 hard, which is good. It started me doing some weight training and working out more, which is just good for overall health.

Rhett: 1:37:51

Did you miss a day? And if you missed a day, do you have to start over?

Scott Lawrence: 1:37:54

Yeah, if you miss a day, you have to start over. So I did not miss a day.

Rhett: 1:37:57

There you go. I did not miss a day.

Scott Lawrence: 1:37:58

Oh yeah, you have to drink a gallon of water every day too. That's on there.

Rhett: 1:38:00

Would you mind me asking how much weight that you've lost?

Scott Lawrence: 1:38:03

I think that it's 65 pounds. So it may be maybe it may be more than that, because I did not weigh myself until um. It was towards the end of 21 days of prayer and fasting you know so and I, and I weighed 249 pounds. My guess is I was probably at 255. Um, and right now I'm at 185. Come on, bro, I'm so proud of you.

Rhett: 1:38:26

I mean that just speaks to the discipline, your heart, your faithfulness and just being obedient even in what God was asking you to do personally. And I appreciate you setting that up and not putting that kind of weight or you know if you will, or that kind of pressure on other people, because it is an individual journey with the Lord for each of us. But you have inspired me and I'm telling you, I told Justin, I said you know I've got to get better. You know I got this buddy doing this. I'm not doing 75 hard.

Scott Lawrence: 1:38:51

I'll just start with walking, and I did I started walking.

Rhett: 1:38:55

Yeah, man, seriously, it's amazing what a mile a day will do. I mean, at first I couldn't even do that. I could barely walk to the mailbox, you know. But you always have looked good, you've carried weight well. But it's amazing to me to see the transformation. I've always seen it spiritually, but now to see it line up physically, for you too it's an inspiration and an encouragement. So proud of you Way to go.

Scott Lawrence: 1:39:14

Amazing bro. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you guys.

Rhett: 1:39:19

Well, man, it's been so great to have you on the podcast. If people want to follow you, see more about the church. I know I mentioned the website earlier, but how can people, if they want to reach out to you, inspire you, encourage you, even maybe give to your ministry if they feel so led to do? I mean, how could people be a part of what's going on in Scott, kirsten and Keys Church?

Scott Lawrence: 1:39:37

Yeah, so if you want to find out more about Keys Church, you can just go to keyschurchcom. Kind of see the website. If you feel like the Lord wants you to invest in what we're doing in Central Florida, you can do that from there. If you're interested in what we're doing on social media, my wife runs our social media and I'm not saying this because she's my wife, but she does an excellent job and so if that's something that you're interested in for your, for your church, and visual vision being visually aesthetic and that type thing, you can check us out at keys church, fl for Florida on Instagram and then personally, I'm just at underscore Scott Lawrence on Instagram.

Justin: 1:40:14

Hey Scott, it was so good to have you today on Armchair Authentic man, just such an amazing story and I hope people definitely check out what's going on with you.

Rhett: 1:40:23

If I had one last question for you, that is, do you have any final thoughts that you would want to share before we close this episode? Anything on your heart that you're thinking, man? I'd just like to share this to a leader out there today. Is there any closing thoughts?

Scott Lawrence: 1:40:36

Yeah, I would say never underestimate the power of being faithful and don't let the enemy tell you that your faithfulness is you being fake, because the enemy will tell you that you're doing the things that you want to in the moments that you don't want to do them. You asking for forgiveness, you being in your Bible, you praying when you don't feel it, that somehow that's you just checking a box, that somehow that's just you being fake, but that's you being faithful and it's you taking that next step to looking more like Jesus and becoming who it is that God's created you to be. So be faithful.

Justin: 1:41:17

On the next episode of Armchair Authentic. We are celebrating Thanksgiving.

Rhett: 1:41:23

It's the purple stuff, baby, Like it comes in a can oh it oh, it's amazing like dude you cannot have thanksgiving how are we even?

Justin: 1:41:34

friends sweet potatoes you're an alabama fan, I'm an auburn fan.

Scott Lawrence: 1:41:38

You hate you hate sweet potatoes I love sweet potatoes you don't like cranberry sauce.

Justin: 1:41:44

I love it, dude, let me hold on. Evokes the same gag response it's fruit.

Rhett: 1:41:50

It's like a fruit. I mean, it's fruit right.

Justin: 1:41:52

I love cranberry juice.

Rhett: 1:41:54

That makes no sense.

Justin: 1:41:58

I hate it. We're really looking forward to that episode. But in the meantime, if you enjoyed this episode, would you do something for me? Would you take out your phone, Would you copy the link and send it to a friend? We would really appreciate that. Thank you Well, until next time. We hope you have a fantastic week. See you soon. Thank you.