"Walk the Talk #9: Spotlight on Kingdom Work" by four brothers

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

This is Strength to Strength, and we welcome you here today, uh, to a unique talk. Um, it's actually our ninth talk like this, uh, in the last five years, and our title is Walk the Talk, Spotlight on Kingdom Work, and we'll jump into that here right shortly. But I wanted to read a very beautiful verse, uh, this morning as we prepare, uh, for this presentation, and it comes out of First Peter, verse First Peter, chapter one, verse three. Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And that verse is, there's so much packed into that verse, but one thing that stands out to me is this idea that because of the resurrection, um, we can experience this new birth and we can have this living hope. And we live in a world where there's, there's hopelessness. Um, people have lost hope in, in, in governments, in institutions. Uh, they've lost hope in, in religion, in Christianity, uh, in church leaders.

But as those who are, know, understand who God is, uh, we don't, we don't have to, we, we, He can be our hope. Uh, He will never let us down. Uh, God is our heavenly Father, and He's a good Father, a faithful Father. And so may that be, um, our hope today. And so God bless each of you who are on the call, um, and who are, uh, will be listening to this later.

The description for our talk this morning goes like this: The unsung heroes of Jesus' kingdom are the faithful disciples who serve the Lord with fanfare, without fanfare or applause. Whether you are a warrior in secret prayer, a widow who casts in the last two mites, or a worker advancing the bleeding edge of the kingdom, you can rest assured that the deeds of service do not escape the eye of our benevolent King.

And this verse I just read talked about, um, the, this living hope that He's given us, uh, through, through Jesus Christ. And one thing I'm certain about is that as the four men who are gonna be presenting here on different ministries and businesses, that one, one goal that each of these men have is that we could adorn, uh, the gospel of Jesus Christ, that through their efforts and those who they're working with, um, that this, that their desire is that, that God will be glorified and that His kingdom could come in new and fresh ways, uh, through, through their work, um, and the work collectively as we press in to just being a beacon of hope, uh, in our world.

So before we jump in, let's just bow our heads for prayer. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this, just the, the, the incredible privilege of rising this morning and knowing that You are with us, knowing that You love us, knowing that You are a God that is in the heavens, uh, a God that will never let us down. And Father, we thank You for the amazing reality of the resurrection of Your Son, Jesus. We thank You for this new birth that we can have as our sins are washed away through the blood of Jesus Christ, and that as we can enter into Your kingdom and, and become part of this, this nation, uh, this nation that surrounds the whole world, and a nation whose citizenship is in heaven.

Uh, and Father, we, we wanna be those who, uh, are able to adorn this nation, are able to represent, uh, the gospel of Jesus to those around us. And Father, we pray that, uh, for these ministries here present and these businesses present this morning, that You would bless them in a special way, uh, and that You would, uh, that through the work of their hands, that many people could be equipped, uh, for more effective service, um, that, uh, their work would, uh, that from their work, the labor of their hands, that life would spring forth.

So Father, just God entracked a call here this morning, and most of all, Lord, we want You to be glorified because only You are worthy. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Okay, so we have, um, four, four, uh, presentations or four different organizations presenting here this morning. Um, Clyde Zimmerman with Salt Microfinance, Stephen Stallspoose with Urban, or I'm sorry, or Urban, um, a new ministry, and Jeremy Horning with Urban Sheds and Merle Hur with Anabaptist Brotherhood. And so we'll go in that sequence. Um, so we'll begin with you, Clyde. Um, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna read the bio here for this ministry and then turn it over to you. Um, Clyde's joining us to represent Salt Microfinance, where he serves as part of the leadership team, which is operating in 27 countries. The Salt program focuses on helping people discover sustainable ways to provide for their families while modeling and teaching a biblical way of life.

The program reaches out to people in material poverty through savings groups, Agroplus, micro loans, and vocational training, and the Salt and Light Financial Course. Clyde also works part-time for Anabaptist Financial as a business advisor. As a former business owner, his most important focus is using our occupations to demonstrate Jesus as a way of life.

Clyde, thank you for joining us this morning. Um, and just for the ones who are here attending the call, um, we will open it up for, um, to, to you all at the end. Uh, and you can ask any one of these four brothers questions about their, their particular work. And so if you think of a question, write it down or keep it in mind, and, uh, we'll open it up at the end. All right, Clyde, all yours.

Good morning, brothers. It's a privilege and an honor to be here and share, um, part of the ministry that God has me working in. Um, I would say at the outstart here that there are hundreds of people working in Salt, and I am just, uh, one small part of it. And it is an honor to be co-laborers with God in many ways. So, so I'll just do a, an overview of the Salt program here this morning briefly and, um, start with, is there a need? And, um, extreme poverty is defined by the World Bank as someone earning $1.95 a day or less. And this graph shows, uh, global poverty was improving for 20 years. And then due to the pandemic and war, there's, uh, an additional a hundred million people that were pushed back into extreme poverty.

Um, subsistence farmers is another major need and smallholder farming, sometimes called, usually several acres or less. In 2015, about 2 billion people living in rural areas of developing countries survive as smallholder farmers. And subsistence simply means that they primarily plant to feed their families. There's a picture I took in East India, uh, this farmer spreading seeds, a few cows with a piece of timber to work the land. These men are almost certainly concerned about crop failure, no harvest. They cannot feed their family.

In the 1990s, the World Bank asked more than 60,000 men and women living in poverty to describe poverty in their own words. And what's interesting, rather than focusing on material need, the interviewees described something different. They said this: shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness. So you can see poverty is much more than just a lack of material things. It's relationships with your community, family.

But I would, uh, talk a little bit about some biblical examples that we endeavor to follow. I think it's easy to think that development is something maybe more new, but, but that's simply not true. There's development truths all through the Bible. There are many, many, but I'll only mention a few this morning.

Deuteronomy 24:21, when you gather the grapes over your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward. It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. Now I can visualize this Jewish farmer. You and I probably have more in common with this farmer than is first obvious. Generations of good teaching, probably the latest and best farming practices. But here comes teaching from God: leave the corners of your field, only go over their grapes and olives once. Same for the wheat fields.

They were to provide opportunity to the poor who were capable of working. Ignoring this biblical teaching creates dependency, and dependency is very harmful to the people we desire to help, as well as to ourselves. We may develop a God complex, and we can also learn a lot what's not said in this scripture. There's something for the poor to do. The stranger means foreigner, um, the orphans and the widows.

So, uh, work is a blessing. The whole book of Kings, Second Kings, is amazing in this, and many examples of Elisha helping the poor manage what God had placed in their care. So if you want an interesting study, do a book study of Second Kings sometime.

I'll end with this one, um, Luke 2:52. It's talking about Jesus, and Jesus increased in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and man. And, um, this is powerful. Uh, holistic is what's going on here. Wisdom is intellectually, stature is physically, favor with God, spiritually, favor with man, socially. You know, what we try to do in the Salt program is bring the sacred and secular together, not teach the one at the expense of the other, of the other, but care about the whole person. The Salt vision, uh, we have chosen to represent it in a tree. Um, kind of the core values are below the ground, the root values. You don't see those right away. And, uh, then there's our mission.

Uh, you might say our mission is like the leaves. It's kind of indirect, you know, we obviously want the fruit, but our mission, what we do, we model and teach a biblical way of life, and we help people discover sustainable ways to provide for their families.

So, um, everything we do in Salt tries to connect those. But our long-term goal, and this is maybe more of a God thing, maybe it's the fruit we desire, is, is sustainable church communities demonstrating Jesus in daily life. And there's a lot, there's a lot said in that church communities that, you know, they can provide for their own, and, and it's attractive. It's, it's a little embassy demonstrating Christ as, as daily life in the midst of, of darkness and hurting.

So this is what we come back to many times. Does this align with what we're after? I won't go into the beliefs or the root values, but chronic poverty is often rooted in an improper worldview. And the last one on that list is a little hard to read there, but our worldview isn't perfect either, and we must learn from those we help.

You could say that in Salt today, we have unprecedented opportunity. This global map shows where we're operating. Um, there's some restricted countries not shown on this map, um, but dozens of people groups, and we have somewhere around 250 indigenous facilitators every day trying to be faithful with teaching the word of God and more than a hundred thousand active members. So tremendous opportunity, um, but so many needs in the world. Today, just over 102,000 people receiving regular biblical teaching, uh, that number up on top there, $3.03. That is the average weekly savings per member that a member brings to a savings group. Some places it's much, much less, like 10 cents, 15 cents.

Um, the, uh, and then once they accumulate their savings for a while, then they, they give loans of their own accumulated savings to their members. And the average loan size is about $217. And this is a three-month average here at the end of last year and about 83% of, uh, average global meeting attendance. So, uh, pretty high attendance. Some places it's in the nineties, other places obviously a little less. Depends a lot on the culture.

We have five different methods we use or aspects, uh, teaching-based savings groups. Savings groups are very, very common, but we'd like to think our focus is a little bit different. There's focus on teaching biblical truth. Agroplus is our program that we work with the smallholder farmers I talked about, vocational schools. Um, might be, it's really about helping young people develop a skill or trade to help their families in Anabaptism. That's normal. It's not normal in many parts of the world. This could be welding, like in Uganda there. It could be automotive in, in West Africa. Could be sewing and tailoring, could be, uh, computer classes, et cetera.

Micro loans is what we started with. Don't do much of that anymore. We only have one country doing that. And of course, the stateside Salt and Light is, uh, um, is, uh, what we, uh, use here, stateside, to help the poor and become better, uh, biblical stewards ourselves.

So model and teach a biblical way of life, help people discover sustainable ways to provide for their families. It's a lot said, but how? Um, another way you could say it is changing our worldviews, not more like us, but closer to God. Now, you may have heard that all of us have a worldview shaped by our experiences, family culture, income status, life experience. They're given to us by others. We didn't choose them. For example, for a Haitian boy, lying is telling the untruth and getting caught. Uh, in other words, it's not a lie unless he gets caught.

India caste system. Believe it's a religious duty to be poor. It's very difficult to change if you believe it is your religious duty to be exploited. I think it's important to note that our worldviews, uh, have problems as well. Focus on materialism and wealth and, and, uh, not being the stewards maybe the Bible calls us to be. Because of this truth, our focus is heavily on the spiritual soil.

Poverty grows out of the soil of an improper worldview. The vast majority of people in developing countries are steeped in poverty, are very afflicted in the spirit world, appeasing the gods. And this is true for people of all faiths: Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or no faith at all. This might be a farmer who goes out and burns all the residual, the, uh, crop from his prior year, all the organic matter, get rid of the evil spirits rather than using it for compost. And when this continues for generations, it's because of a broken worldview.

So teaching is the core of the Salt program. If, if we were to describe it in a word, it would be biblical teaching. And we give printed teaching manuals to everyone, even if they are illiterate. And why would we do that? God has a unique way of bringing the printed word to people that are searching. And we put a lot of time and energy into developing content. Um, here's a little bit of an example, uh, left to right here. When we started a new country here in a few weeks, I'll be going to Mongolia. We're starting there. What, what, what have we learned from similar cultures? We change the names and the stories that align with local culture.

We have a lot to learn. And maybe the intermediate years, five to ten years, some progress has been made. And we change, uh, we do customization to learn more, make it more applicable to their culture. And then maybe beyond ten years, you know, development takes time, uh, more advanced content. And Salt's role may be different depending on the local church. And holistic, we're trying to bring the physical and the spiritual together, not teach the one at the expense of other. Um, so, but this whole thing of a slow, methodical, Holy Spirit-guided change of worldview. If it changes quickly, it's not sustainable.

Just a few pictures. Um, you know, this is from Niger. Uh, lots of challenges there these days, but unbelievers, we want to share the gospel. Those that are professing Christians, frequent teaching meetings to help them learn what it means to live out Jesus' teaching in daily life. And of course, the economics, better provide for their families, help the poor in a sustainable way, and reduce suffering, show the compassion of Christ without creating dependencies.

This is a vocational sewing and tailoring class in East Asia. Uh, learn a skill. Many women are, are learning how to do sewing in a meaningful way in their, in their homes. Uh, here's an agriculture view, making compost. This is in the Bangladeshi Rohingya camp. Um, many times the resources are in the communities, but they're untapped. But as we walk this path, we get to interact with meaningful relationships in restricted countries and allows interaction with community influences over the long term.

Not only that, uh, just this ability to walk with our indigenous staff and just discipleship and mentoring and walking together and just learning. Salt gets used in so many different ways, and we have talked about calling it to the Leatherman or maybe the Swiss Army knife.

Many Anabaptist missions use salt very differently. And, uh, just a few examples of that. Trucks are designed to carry cargo, different kinds of cargo. So churches and missions come to us, and they have a specific need. They want to help a people group learn better, provide for their families. Some want to plant churches. Some want a way to start teaching and developing relationships. So some church planting, teaching and developing relationships with the goal of planting new churches. And we have teaching content that does that. Other countries have existing churches. They need, uh, regular teaching. So strengthen existing believers, practical spiritual teaching. For example, Nigeria have huge churches, and they have foundational scriptural doctrines, but they need teaching in areas like marriage and morality and leadership to become more Christ-like.

Community development. Other countries like Liberia started recently. They want to move away from aid and teach people how to produce and provide for themselves. Uh, spiritual teaching included in each model, but the emphasis is different. So the salt truck, so to speak, hauls different cargo depending on what people are looking for. I'd like to drill in a little bit on restricted countries. It's a creative way to bring the gospel to the unreached. Places where the government is hostile to Christianity. We need to be a little bit more innovative, but let's look at the need in the restrictive countries. This map is from the Joshua Project. The red dots represent people groups who are unreached. As you will notice, most of them exist within a small window, and this is sometimes referred to as the 1040 window.

And that simply means 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude, sometimes called the resistance belt, and it includes the majority of the world's Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. There's approximately 5.2 billion individuals in this area, of which about 3.2 are considered unreached.

Also, it's the home to the majority of the world's poor. The poorest of the poor, eight out of ten live in the 1040 window. It's amazing overlap between the poorest countries of the world and those that are least evangelized. Now, this is chronic poverty. It's been going on for a long time, and it's a very, salt is an effective vehicle. Let's look at this a little closer. Three dominant religions. Green is Muslim, yellow is Hindu, orange is Buddhist, black is non-religious, and many of these are very resistant to Christian teaching. But let's take a closer look. Why is salt an effective tool? Well, commerce is a universal language. When building relationships, it's helpful to have common ground to work from.

We automatically do this when meeting something, someone. If two deer hunters meet, they start talking about deer. Common language. Business is the same. Businessmen are always looking for better methods. This is a few pictures from areas that my family and I have lived on and off over the past 10 years. This man is produce sales. If you show him how to prove his bottom line, he'll be interested. This is a butcher. Fairly certain he wants to become more profitable. This man is, uh, operating a lumber shop, a yard, and, uh, if you show him how to operate more efficiently, you have a friend. All of these people are attempting to provide for their families. Sit down, buy some tea.

It's a great way to start a friendship. If you tell them you're from America, they're more interested. Now, it's changing, but that's the way it has been historically. People falsely think that America has three easy steps to success in business. Now, we both know that's not true, but it's a great challenge getting an environment to, uh, getting government approval to be there. I spent a lot of my time focusing on this.

So come back stateside here. Um, I want to talk about Salt and Light a little bit. Really appreciate our partnership with Strength to Strength. The site saltbooks.org, you can get information, and there's various tracks to reach different people groups. And, um, yeah, it was greatly expanded here recently. And, uh, yeah, it's a tool that people can use locally. As we conclude here, I'd like to just mention just one more, a few more things here. You know, we have wrestled with, as we work in a community, there's different stages. In the startup phase, you have the red line is salt, energy, and resources poured into it, and the yellow line is the local, what they're doing.

They've been taken advantage of, stepped on, they are not able to do well. And so we have to do a lot of energy to get started. But then in the middle phase, this might be the next five years, we see they're really excited about it. And we recognize we have limited resources. So maybe beyond that, maybe out to 15 years, and it varies in different places, we have to think about, um, you know, we're going to, we don't want to walk away completely, still do some seminars and teaching, but some areas, they may do great. Other areas, not so much, and we have to move on with that. We have to be okay with that and give others opportunity.

I've said our goal is sustainable church communities demonstrating Jesus in daily life. If I had more time, I'd share a story about these people, but these brothers are doing just that. There's some godly men that are dear friends, dear believers in Christ that are faithful in teaching all things of the scripture and the historic faith.

So we're just very, very thankful to the many generous donors that God, that we have, and the opportunity God has given us, pray for us that we could be faithful. And may God bless.

Amen. Uh, thank you for the slide. Uh, commerce is a universal language. Uh, so thank you for, for taking us through the different aspects of salt. Um, and I really, that last graph there showing, which was, I think the green line was, you know, the work of salt getting something kicked off in a country, then that dropping off, and then that local, um, and the locals embracing that and, and carrying it on, you know, so that's, that's just, uh, speaks sustainability, um, and impact as people own it. And I know that's, that's been happening. And, um, and also then the idea too is, you know, church planting really, um, is at the heart of it.

And that's, that's your, that's your vision, these sustainable communities that represent the way of Jesus. Uh, so thank you, uh, for, for, um, for sharing that talk. Um, so you mentioned, of course, Salt and Light is for here stateside specifically, which you mentioned the salt, saltbooks.org, I believe it is that we have, or you can actually get it off of our website as well here at Strength to Strength Books. We partnered, uh, with Salt in getting those books to market. So we, we ship those, um, so that there's more information on our website about that. Um, all right. So any questions, keep those for, um, at the end, uh, of our time here, uh, this morning.

Um, so next up is Stephen Salzfuss. Uh, he will join, he's joining us to represent Urban, which was inspired by five brothers and is currently a simple, loosely structured effort overseen by three men. It is not a formal organization, but a place for connection, inspiration built around a simple observation.

Struggling small towns and neglected urban neighborhoods often begin to change when hardworking, faithful families move in, live among the people, and invest their lives there. Urban itself is not the goal. The goal is to cast a vision for families to move toward needy places and integrate their lives there, not keeping up treasures for themselves, but rebuilding what has been broken and pointing people to Jesus through the ordinary rhythms of life and work.

All right. Uh, Stephen, go ahead. Yeah, thank you for having me on here, Ryant. Um, I, um, when I was asked to come on, I was excited for the opportunity to get the word out, um, for the conference that we're planning.

And, uh, but I, but when I thought about some more, um, when I read the descriptions to unsung heroes of Jesus' kingdom or the worker advancing the bleeding edge of the kingdom, as in your descriptions for these talks, I, I wasn't so sure if it fits.

Um, but then as I was, uh, considering, um, and you know, I trust that what we're doing, uh, is, is we're, we're, the reason for the initiative is to inspire more of that. Um, Urban, in other words, is not the goal, but it's really, I believe, is to advance the church with the tools we have in our belts in the area of business. And I think that's really our goal here.

So, uh, I'm going to look at three different things. I'm going to kind of look first, um, a little bit about what Urban is not. And then I'm going to look a little bit what we're trying to promote in a little more detail. And then I'll just share about the details of the summit and invite you all to come.

Um, a little bit what Urban is about. Um, this first page here is, is kind of, you know, a little snapshot. It is about transforming our, our business mindset into a lifestyle mission, uh, to urban and small town environments, uh, by simply using the resources we have to further the kingdom of God.

Um, it's, it's, uh, it's about bringing glory to God, uh, and, and, and encouraging, uh, just a simple lifestyle in, in urban settings. Um, so let me move on here. Um, it is, so what it's not meant to be, it is not for businesses or people that want to heap up treasures for themselves on earth. Um, I'll read Matthew 6:19 to 20. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth do not, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. I think we're all familiar with that here.

And so, uh, just move on. Um, it is not for the people who want to promote the prosperity gospel.

It is not meant to be a nice glaze on top of your current business to make it look good. So the reason I'm bringing this up a little bit is, is I know how these things, uh, in my own life have, have sort of penetrated and I'm not, we're not trying to promote that. We, we really want something better. So what Urban is really about, it is for people who want to or are pouring out the blessing to the people around us as God has blessed them for his glory and, and honor.

Uh, the promise we see in Genesis 12:3 to Abraham, um, I will bless those who bless you. I will curse him who curses you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Uh, I guess it would be 12:1 to 3 in, in more detail. Uh, but really, um, this is our promise and, and we have been blessed.

And the goal is to use that blessing to bless those around us. Um, it is for those who want to transform their current mindsets into a life of service through the workplace. And it is for those who want to or already have moved to urban settings and towns and in a simple and practical way live out the gospel of the kingdom in the communities they are in.

Uh, so this next slide is, is just a snapshot, uh, a picture that was, uh, put together with the latest technology of our day. Um, and, and just to give us a visual of what we're seeking to do. Uh, so you can see in this picture, it's, it's multicultural.

Um, it's people working together. It's, it's fixing the houses. It's planting gardens. You know, there, there looks like a lot of joy and hope in, in this place. And so just a little bit of a visual of, you know, what we envision. I know this is probably beyond reality, but, uh, it is something that I think we can aspire to in the idea of just creating joyous and, and atmospheres where, where we're, we're restoring things. And I think along with that, you know, lives also get restored.

Um, so the first Urban Summit is planned for this year on June 26th. And then on June 27th, we plan to do a city tour. Um, and I'll go into more details of that later. Uh, we plan to meet in Salanca Fairgrounds here in Quarryville in, in, uh, Lancaster County.

Um, the address is there if you're curious. Um, a little bit of the outline for the summit. Um, the, we'll start off with probably more of like an inspirational, uh, um, icebreaker kind of thing. We want to talk about the Moravian story. I'll, I'll further present that and share some of that. And then, uh, the whole summit is geared towards being more of a discussion, more of a, um, interactive time, more than just like a conference style where you just get and talk to. It's more meant to be engaging. And so, uh, we're hoping, we're, we're planning, we have, uh, we're, we're hoping that four brothers to have like a business discussion where, where we'll have each give their talk, but then have like this open, hopefully time of dialogue and discussion amongst the group.

I don't know how it's all going to go. We're just kind of winging it. We don't really know what the outcome is, but we're really, the goal is really to create an environment of connection and discussion around this, um, idea.

So we plan to have food trucks there. Um, the summit is, is free. Uh, we're going to collect, uh, a free will donation to try to cover the expenses of renting the building and, and, and things like that. But the food trucks, um, are there and you can buy your own food. I mean, in, in that sense, it's not free, but instead of us providing all the food, we decided just to provide food trucks. And this also gives you maybe an opportunity to think about what it might look like to operate food trucks in urban settings since it's kind of a move today.

Um, we'll have an urban life discussion similar to the urban business discussion, but geared more towards just living in the city, what family life looks like in the city, um, more towards, you know, just the day-to-day life in, in the people we're kind of thinking are going to, there's going to be people there who, who are probably pretty curious what it looks like to live in the city because most of us have the mindset that cities and urban settings are, are, are hard to, hard to live in. I'm sure they are, but I think there's many practical things that a lot of us sometimes miss. And the goal is to get people who live in cities and come teach me, teach us.

I don't live in an urban setting. And so I, I'm, I'm, we're excited for this discussion to try to help, uh, people see the, the practical life of, of city or urban settings. Um, we're also hoping to have a, a, or planning to have a session where it's more geared towards agriculture, um, community gardens, uh, and things like that. And that's kind of my personal interests in this.

Um, so that's pretty much it for that. Um, then the next day we plan to go visit cities. Uh, like I mentioned earlier, we plan to go visit, uh, if people are interested, we'll have, uh, three different cities they can choose from: Baltimore, Reading, and Lancaster probably. And if, if people are interested, and then we'll go and, and visit, you know, businesses, visit the location and hopefully, you know, get, um, our mindsets shifted towards the feasibility of some, some of this.

Um, and I, I might be coming across as like, you know, I got this figured out and all of this. I don't have it figured out. And that's why we're doing this. Uh, just kind of winging it. But, but we're excited to, to get those who are living in the cities and to go to those who are living in the cities to learn. And you guys can probably come. There's, I think there's a few on this call, at least Bryant plans to be there and speak to us. And you can tell us the things that we're missing and the things we need to learn and the things that are hard and the things that you made mistakes on and, and so forth.

That's what we're looking for. We're not looking for the polished talks necessarily, but just something that we can, you know, reach and, and feel and, and things like that. So, uh, if you have something that you want to display, a business or a side hustle or an opportunity, or maybe, maybe you need a family to move with you to go somewhere or whatever, you know, come and, and, and share that. Um, if you have a business or something you're trying to, that you think would be a good fit to, to be, uh, displayed or, or to be a good in, in this theme, you know, we, we want you there to, to show what you have.

Um, this again will be free. It's just, uh, we might do some screening depending on what you have, but, uh, it'll be pretty much free for you to just come and, and display that. Um, so you can register at urbm.com, uh, slash register. You can, you can take us, you can, I don't know if you have a, a phone, you can look at this QR code or, um, if you don't have internet access, you can email me at, uh, connect.urbam@gmail.com. Again, it's connect.urbam@gmail.com. Urbam is spelled U-R-B-A-M.

So you can just email me saying you want to come and information that way. Um, we do have a Telegram group, so you're welcome to join that to stay updated. Uh, if you're interested, I'm going to go back and just open up, uh, this, uh, registration page to go down here and show you a little bit the plans for registration. Basically just, uh, your name, phone number, email address. Uh, we, we don't have necessarily a deadline, but we're, we're promoting, uh, to try to, um, uh, get your registrations in, you know, at least a week in advance. So we have some time for planning. Um, since it's kind of loosely structured and yet it's structured kind of in a way where we're hoping to sort of flow, it's not quite as critical for us to, to get everything perfect, so to speak.

But we do want to be organized so everybody can enjoy themselves. And so we would appreciate registration sooner rather than later in that way. Um, so the registration, put your name in, put the amount of people you're are coming. If you're going to be attending the city tour, choose the city you want and the people who are going along. Um, have a table to display. Just put that in here. Tell us what you want.

Um, and any questions or comments. So that's, um, pretty much all I have. I know I'm probably not at 15 minutes, but I'll hand it back to you, Bryant. Thank you so much for sharing. And 18, almost exactly 18 years ago, my wife and I moved into the city, newly married, um, and have lived in urban areas ever since.

Um, and 18 years ago, there wasn't, there wasn't many discussions like this happening, um, in the Anabaptist world. And I couldn't be more excited, uh, to see Urbam happening. Uh, and really, you know, as I was, you know, this all kind of came together somewhat organically. Uh, I kind of catch ideas a lot throughout the year of, of ministries that we could, we could represent here and people suggest them. And so I had these four is like, hey, you know what? Um, wow, salt, um, impacting the world, but also having a really good curriculum for right here, stateside, uh, the salt and light courses, uh, which is teaching, focused on teaching. I mean, they have all the tools there to empower people in urban areas and cities or just anywhere really, um, who are building relationships to, to do that.

And then you have this vision right here, which is focused on business, um, you know, which is, uh, a beautiful vision. If we could just see, uh, have our eyes open to all the opportunities that we have every day as we walk with people in business, it would be, it could transform our communities, uh, increase our impact tremendously. Um, and I liked how what you're not, um, that's, that's some, that's some, uh, stepping on toes stuff right there, brother. Uh, so thank you for leaning into that. Um, I have to decide if I can come. Uh, that's, that's a pretty convicting stuff and it's good. So thank you for sharing that. Um, and, and then also next is Jeremy Horning here with Urban Sheds, which really is some of the same idea.

Really, I mean, it's, it's right along this line of how can we live sustainably, uh, in communities, bring value, and then also use them as a way to, to get to know people, uh, for the sake of the gospel. Um, so yeah, I'm excited about your, your organization, Stephen. So press on. Um, looking forward to being at, at your first, uh, conference there, the summit. Um, I think it's in June, right? What was the date again? June 26th. June 26th. So yeah.

Uh, and we'll open up at the end here for any questions for these ministries. So, all right, thanks again. And then next is, uh, Jeremy Horning. Jeremy is coming to us from Kampala, where it's afternoon, Kampala, Uganda, uh, East Africa. Good to have you here, Jeremy. Uh, Jeremy and I went to Bible school, uh, 20, maybe 21 years ago, uh, right in that range.

Um, we've kept up ever since. Consider Jeremy a good friend, um, and excited to have him on here. So Jeremy is representing Urban Sheds, a company built on a simple mission to give homeowners something worth having and craftsmen and craftsmen work worth doing. Wow, that's a good line there. To give homeowners something worth having and craftsmen work worth doing.

Since 2021, Jeremy has lived self-supported in Kampala, Uganda, with his wife and four children and a part of followers of the way. From here, he runs Urban Sheds remotely while remaining invested in the builders and communities his business serves.

Jeremy is passionate about the nuts and bolts of daily life that create a thriving urban community. In his words, a service-based business is an ideal way to establish a real presence in a local community. If you want to know your neighbors and touch their lives in a meaningful way, start a service-based business.

Amen. All right, Jeremy, go ahead. All right, thank you. As Bryant said, my name is Jeremy Horning and, uh, yeah, I'm the founder of, of Urban Sheds, which is a, a modern, uh, shed company that it partners with craftsmen across the US. So the, the business in itself, I, I would say actually it isn't that exciting unless you know the backstory of the business. So yeah, so let me tell you a little bit about the, the backstory. So, so in July of 2014, I moved my family to, to Boston, um, to help establish an intentional Christian community there in the city. And because of everything that surrounded our move and everything, we actually, we actually arrived there financially at zero.

You know, we had, there was no existing business to plug into. We didn't have a network of friends or, or relatives to, to help us get started or anything nearby. Um, so we had to figure out how to survive in, in one of America's most expensive cities, uh, before winter came.

And those, those early days were tough. And so I would kind of like to, to share our story because some of you might be on the verge of actually moving to a city or making that leap. And, and I want, yeah, I want you to know the risk, but also the possibilities of the life on, on the other side. So, so we lived in Boston seven years and our life was, it was full of, of many good things. We, uh, we hosted church in, in our, in our home for all the seven years that we lived there. Uh, we had sometimes up to 80 people in our, in our home. Um, it was very culturally diverse.

Our, our potluck, potluck meals were probably some of the best that we've ever had. And that, that says a lot coming from a, a Mennonite background. So, um, there were long stretches, uh, where we had overnight guests every weekend, uh, people visiting the city, you know, people exploring the community, people, you know, just wanting to see what was happening, what was going on.

Um, every month our family joined a food packing event at the local mosque. Uh, we packed and we delivered food for, for refugees in and around Boston. And, and through that, our children got to see, you know, firsthand, your kind of firsthand experience with other cultures, with other faiths, um, in a way that, you know, no books, no, no courses or anything could, could provide. Um, we had enough money to travel, which was nice, uh, enough to be generous with our, with our home and our table, uh, without continually, you know, counting the cost. You know, we, we could say yes to things, to things that matter. And, and most importantly, I, I had time.

I had time to, to sit in coffee shops, had time to read and write and think. Um, it was in those years that I pretty much rebuilt my whole life philosophy just from the ground up and, and found a solid ground underneath my feet.

Um, there was also a, a Iraqi refugee family that, that we became good friends with. Uh, they had fled the war and had landed in Boston. And, uh, we went to their home, they came to our home, our children played together. My wife helped his wife learn how to drive, um, and she got her license. And, uh, and their, their story became part of our story.

So that's kind of a small snapshot of our, of our Boston life. Um, and it was, it was made possible by the, by the many different businesses that I, that I had started and, and was running. Um, so if moving, if moving to a city can, you know, provide such a full life, you know, why don't, why don't more people go? Um, and when I, I listen to people who feel that pull, you know, towards a city or towards community, you know, towards something more, um, they usually have like some just practical hesitations, you know, things like the cost of living, which is often, you know, much more than what they're used to, or just the income question, you know, how are they going to make enough money, you know, to move into, you know, a city?

Because cities are, you know, notoriously expensive. Uh, things like not knowing anybody or just starting from scratch, you know, all these things are, are like very real questions. And, and I'm not going to, you know, dismiss them, but, but I think underneath these questions, um, is something that's often harder to say out loud. And it's something more like, you know, I'm not sure if I have what it takes to actually do this. You know, the fear that you're going to uproot your family, you're going to, you're going to move somewhere expensive, you know, where nobody knows your name. And it's like, you know, is it, is it going to work? Um, but, but amid, I think amid all those fears, it's like we have that, that persistent belief that, that cities are full of, of people that need community, uh, who need examples of, of how to live well.