Miracles and Fast Church Growth w/ Pastor Joby Martin

Watch the full interview here -- > https://youtu.be/uSWarNW5KFo
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What's the journey of a church leader like? 

Step into the life of Joby Martin, author, founder, and lead pastor of Church of Eleven22 in Jacksonville, Florida as he unravels his story of personal growth in leadership and what led him to write his latest book “Anything is Possible”.

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In this episode, Pastor Joby will take us through the highs and lows of nurturing a spiritual community and guiding a church staff through fast seasons of growth and transition.

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With a history at a "jack-of-all-trades small church", Pastor Joby's leadership style focuses on trust, honor, and cultivating new leaders. 

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Don't miss out on Pastor Joby's personal stories of miracles and faith lessons that have enriched his spiritual journey. Don't just hear about it, be a part of this enriching conversation on faith, growth, and the power of community. 

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Watch the full interview here -- > https://youtu.be/uSWarNW5KFo

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You can purchase Pastor Joby Martin's latest book "Anything is Possible" on Amazon

Learn more about Pastor Joby Martin at www.jobymartin.com

Learn more about the Church of Eleven22 at www.coe22.com

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With tools like text and email messaging, custom church apps and websites, church management software, digital giving, and so much more… it’s no wonder over 37,000 churches in 50 countries trust Tithely to help run their church.

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Transcript

Frank Barry: 0:05

Guys, Frank here with another episode of Modern Church Leader coming to you, you know, with a great guest today who has a great story and he has a bear on his wall. So, pastor Joby, how's it going today? It's going great man. How are you? I'm doing? Good man, we're. I live in San Diego and the sun is kind of out today, so you know it's been overcast, I mean.

Joby Martin: 0:27

I'm in Jacksonville Beach, florida, and the sun is also out today.

Frank Barry: 0:31

So yeah, I mean, is there a lot of guys in Jacksonville and you're in Jacksonville Beach that are like hunters like you? Like, yeah, I expect you to be in Wyoming or something like that, now Jacksonville is like the capital of South Georgia.

Joby Martin: 0:45

So all right, this is like. This is like the end of the South. If you get more South from us, somehow you end up in the North, like if you get to Orlando you might as well be in Queens or something.

Frank Barry: 0:55

Yeah, To go to Tampa it's like Ohio.

Frank Barry: 1:01

Right, it's not good. Yeah, it's too good. Well, man, you have a cool story. We didn't get to meet, but you are at North Coast Church out in Vista, california, teaching at their conference. One of our team connected with you and got you to come on the show. So thanks for joining us. Super appreciate it. And man I love you planted a church. You were starting to tell me a little bit of the story and then we hit record, so I'd love to hear maybe a little more of the story. Like you planted a church a while back and even the precursor to that you started doing youth ministry and things were going really well. So tell us, you know, give us your journey into ministry and kind of fast forward to today.

Joby Martin: 1:41

Yeah, man, I this is my 30th year in vocational ministry, so I started when I was 19. I'm 49 now. I didn't really grow up in church, got saved at a summer camp and it was awesome. And then I went home to find a church and it wasn't awesome, yeah. And so I mean I was like, are we talking about the same Jesus? Because that guy can't was awesome, anyway. So Camp Jesus is way more fun. Oh man, he's the best and, and funny enough, he's heaven Jesus. So that'd be good. It's going to be good to see him.

Joby Martin: 2:12

So at 19, felt, called the ministry, did student ministry for a long time and moved here to Jacksonville and 03 to be the youth pastor at a church. And in about 2008, we started a brand new service there. We had a bunch of teenagers and a bunch of their parents and we had a contemporary service and anytime you call it contemporary it's not. You know what I mean. And so they put me in charge of a service to kind of reach the gap, and I didn't want to do like a 20 somethings kind of service because I don't know, man, the concentration of that much ignorance in one room just scared me to death, and so we just ran the service and we started it at 1122. That's where the name came from, but why?

Frank Barry: 2:57

1122?. But let's just start with the. Why did you even do that? Because that came before the name came.

Joby Martin: 3:04

Because I just thought people could remember that time, because if you started 11, like is it 11, is it 1130, like when does it start? So I just said let's just start at 1122. That's got a ring to it. And then we proof texted the whole Bible and thankfully, mark 1122 says Jesus answered and have faith in God. So we had a verse.

Frank Barry: 3:21

So there you go.

Joby Martin: 3:24

And so I got this worship leader in town to come and lead worship and all we did he and his wife and me and my wife became like family. I mean, he's still on staff with me now. We do vacations together. I love this family and we just sit around my kitchen table and we'd all been church staff people for a while. You know kind of we were. Honestly, we were like the youth pastor critics that would sit in the back row and complain about how lame big church was and be like if I was in charge, I would never do this and that. And then one day the Lord was like all right, scooter now you're in charge Get out there.

Joby Martin: 4:01

Yeah, so we just did church that we always dreamed of. Now there's, you know, lots of people are doing it, but we just would worship intensely and I would teach the Bible, and I had no idea that people would really show up for it. So, anyway, within about a year it had out on the whole church and then my senior pastor came to me and said I've prayed about this and I have a piece about it and you should go plant a church. And I thought that's funny because I just threw up in my mouth a little. It was weird how the spirit manifest himself peace in your life and vomit in mine. So are you crazy?

Joby Martin: 4:37

So he let me stay at our church and exist there as the church of 1122 for like a year and a half, while we raised money and found a facility and build it out and figured out things like we should probably get a bank account and insurance and all that stuff. And then we launched. And we launched in the fall of 2013 and I kind of hesitate to tell church planners my church planning story because I didn't mean to and I don't know what I'm. Still, I don't know how to plant a church. So I'm not the God of asks, because God was moving in such a significant way, we just had to hold on and not mess it up. So I mean opening our very first service we ever had. 3,364 people showed up to it and I thought I hope enough people show up, and that's the weekend that we can do it again.

Joby Martin: 5:27

So yeah, just been doing that for 10 years, 11 years now. I mean that's it.

Frank Barry: 5:34

That's, that's, you know, simple, not rocket science.

Joby Martin: 5:36

So we mean our broadcast location is in an old, renovated Walmart? Yes, that's a lot I teach from layaway. If you're like a millennial and younger, you don't even know what layaway is. We had the money first, and then you got your stuff.

Frank Barry: 5:54

They know what like a firm is and things like that. Now, right, like it's, like the new version of it's not layaway, but the payment plan and all that kind of thing yeah yeah, it's this generation's version of layaway, but I remember Kmart was right by my house. Oh yeah, I remember layaway. That was. That was the thing back in the day.

Joby Martin: 6:16

Yeah, that would have that was key to Kmart's unbelievable success was the amount of layaway they're working today. Kmart is unbelievable, oh, okay.

Frank Barry: 6:27

Oh that's. I mean, that's pretty cool. What, like, give me some of the I'm sure you've talked about. That's a long journey. It's amazing what God's done. What are some of the things you learned or you have learned over the? You know that whole experience and I don't know the first few years of planting the church that you looked at I'll go wow.

Joby Martin: 6:48

Yeah, one of the things I learned and this is especially for all you like rebellious youth pastor, want to be church planner guys is that you should plant from under authority. Why in the world would you ever expect God to give you any measure of authority until you learn to live under the authority that he has put you under now? And that honor is a decision, respect is earned and honor is given, and the way you exit one season determines how you enter the next. And so we decided to just do our absolute best to honor the church that was sending us out Right, and I think that had a lot to do with, like the supernatural blessing that we received when we started and I don't know nobody ever told me that. You just kind of I caught that I wasn't taught that.

Frank Barry: 7:44

Yeah, yeah, it was your. You said you know you're not a church planner. It doesn't sound like the situation you were in was like a church planning thing, but it just the senior pastor at that church was like hey, man, you should go do this.

Joby Martin: 8:00

Oh, like was there any?

Frank Barry: 8:01

DNA. I don't know if you're a part of any denomination or anything like that. Like was there any DNA in the church planning at all or how?

Joby Martin: 8:07

about this for American church history. So I was on staff at a United Methodist church and but I'm not a Methodist, I wasn't a Methodist and so there was some like there was definitely some lids to you know, my future and all that stuff. And so they planted us as a non-denominational really reform church. I mean, we're an Axis-Linan church, we're non-denominational, but I think the Wesley brothers would be rolling over in their graves but I think it's the first time ever the United Methodists have planted a non-denominational church.

Frank Barry: 8:39

Oh, put that in the next book, or maybe it's in one of the first two.

Joby Martin: 8:43

Yeah, it is, but it's crazy, right? But my senior pastor, his name's Jerry Sweatt and he's just the best Christian I've ever met in real life. I mean just straight up, like he. Well, how about this? His son is a youth pastor on staff with me here. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, that is cool. So his son, who was in my youth group at his church, is now my son and daughter's youth pastor here at this one.

Frank Barry: 9:08

Yeah super cool.

Joby Martin: 9:10

Super cool.

Frank Barry: 9:11

Yeah, so you're still connected with him. It sounds like pretty, oh, very much, very much. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, man, that's super cool. Okay, so that's one of the lessons Like any other lessons that come to mind where you're like man, we learned this at the beginning or during the journey.

Joby Martin: 9:28

Yeah, there's a lot, man. I mean, we made the decision to be family to just say, look, our staff is family, we love you, we love your family. You guys matter to us. There's a lot of really bright lights to that and there's a lot of deep dark shadows to that. I just think the pain is worth it, right? You know so my best friends in the world are the people that I get to work with, and I've been living life with these people for the last 10 or 12 years. Yeah, but you've got to be careful with that too, man. It's hard to fire your sister, but sometimes you have to.

Joby Martin: 10:02

And it's hard when you outgrow somebody that you, I mean, you just love them so much and it's just not working. And so, and one of the things that I learned is I mean, man, I'm a Bible preacher, I'm a gospel slinger, so I like to give good news and, by nature, I am an encourager, right, well, what I thought were like encouraging, let me breathe some life into you words were heard as promises, so you got to be really careful with that. You know, you could see a guy and be like bro and 10 years. I could see this in your life.

Joby Martin: 10:36

Well, the moment I said that he started counting down the calendar, and when he wasn't like a, you know, when he wasn't like the vice president of 1122 at the 10 year mark, he's like, but you say it, I was like, uh-oh, yeah, I did. No, that's not what I meant, right, I was trying to just encourage you, you know, in some area. So I've had to pay close attention to that. And then it's a really weird thing, especially, I mean, when we started, and still we didn't start normal, we had like 14 staff members on day one.

Frank Barry: 11:04

Today we have yeah, that's not normal. I would yeah.

Joby Martin: 11:09

But even then it felt like tight, like we could all have dinner at my house, right?

Frank Barry: 11:14

Yep.

Joby Martin: 11:15

Uh, now we have, I don't know, 300 or something.

Frank Barry: 11:20

That's crazy.

Joby Martin: 11:21

So right, so I meet new staff people at every staff meeting and they're like, oh yeah, I've been working here six months. I'm like, oh, that's neat, it's very nice to meet you. And so that means people that you used to be in every meeting with now you only see at the all staff events, because that's just the nature of these kind of things. And so you know, navigating that kind of stuff is can be tough.

Frank Barry: 11:45

Yeah, can be tough. What's interesting? Church planning, startup business, stuff different, but similarities right. And I remember the same like we used to meet every Thursday with the whole team and at the beginning it was four of us and then it was 10. And then it was, and it's like now the whole team meets once a quarter because the whole team can't meet every Thursday. It's not it would waste too much time, but it's a weird thing to go through. And same thing like when you you know you got people that are with you early who are awesome in that phase, and then you got to you know some people can grow with it, some people it's not their thing and you got to transition and it's tough, so totally resonate.

Joby Martin: 12:30

There's this thing too, like the human mind, especially in America. When they primarily see a person on a stage and on screens with lights and cameras and microphones, their mind just puts them in this like celebrity category. It just does, and let's say, even in the purest version, god does an amazing thing in somebody's life, and I just happened to be the one with the microphone taped in my face when God did the thing, so they began to associate me with that kind of thing. But here's the thing I've woken up with me every day of my life. I'm the same turd I have always been, from the youth ministry days to today. I'm just that guy. And now you live in a context where all these people work for you and serve you and honor you and you know, and those things are fine. But then there's that crew that was like setting up chairs with you back in the day and they're like why are people standing in line for you to sign a book? I don't understand.

Frank Barry: 13:33

Telling all to go home.

Joby Martin: 13:34

Telling the same thing. I know they obviously don't know you very well, so there's a lot to it. But man I mean I love the team that we have and the culture that we have and how many of the original whatever it was 12 or so are still on staff with you today. Probably some seven.

Frank Barry: 13:54

Okay.

Joby Martin: 13:56

And probably all but two or three. If they're not on staff, they still attend here, yeah, yeah.

Frank Barry: 14:02

That's pretty cool.

Joby Martin: 14:03

We had some moms go home to raise babies, some had planted churches. There's only a. There's only a couple. Let me think I Mean there's only a couple that aren't connected somehow with us still, either as a partner or a Member of the church now or yeah.

Frank Barry: 14:22

Yeah, that's very cool. That's very yeah, guys been good to us. Yeah, man, it's. It's an amazing story. Just unpacking it, what else? Like this is just fun. Like what else have you learned over the 12 years? Go like what? Like you're sort of alluding like there's the early days and what it was like, and then there's now. You know how has it been for you to transition over time through that kind of growth and you know, yeah, it was big at the beginning, but now it's a lot bigger and you got a bunch more staff and you meet people that are new and you don't know their names yet and all that kind of stuff.

Joby Martin: 14:55

Like what's well at first you know, everybody's sort of a generalist, yeah, and everything is everybody's responsibility. I can remember in an early meeting, we're all there, everybody that works there is in the meeting. I was like, alright, look around, we're they. So I don't want to hear they didn't set up my room because here they are, so this is us, you know, yeah. Well then, very shortly you've got to begin to bring in experts that are really good and talented in certain areas.

Joby Martin: 15:24

Mm-hmm and regardless of what you want to do, you better figure out real quickly what your unique contribute, your unique contribution is and what your best at, and Focus not only the most amount of time on it but your best time and energy, like best time of the day, best time of the week, that kind of stuff on it for the sake of the church, for the edification of the church, not not your own edification, and so you know it.

Joby Martin: 15:52

What that means to as a leader is oftentimes you feel like you have no idea what's going on all over the place. Yeah and.

Joby Martin: 15:59

And and that's probably right and probably very healthy, very healthy to let to hire in some people better at you in those arenas and then just turn them over and let them go and then, with that, most people in leadership positions Wait way too long to raise somebody up and actually hand over responsibility and decision-making rights Because they think, well, that person's not ready. Let's be honest, were you ready when you got the responsibility that you right man? You think Peter was ready, right, jesus gave him, the keys, the kingdom of God right after.

Joby Martin: 16:35

Like oh, in accessory of Philippi Yep, on the same page he gets called the devil. So obviously he wasn't like all the way mature and ready to go. But if you wait until it's time. You're probably way too late, yeah, yeah.

Frank Barry: 16:50

Was it hard for you in different stages to let go control? Yeah, and some things, yeah, and then. But as the lead pastor.

Joby Martin: 16:56

There's still a couple of things that I can I have to know everything about. I just it just can't be everything Right.

Frank Barry: 17:05

Other areas that you found, whether it's like you should know or that's just like you're, you have an attachment to your own. You have an attachment to a certain thing, so you like to still stay involved in it.

Joby Martin: 17:17

Uh, one of them is I think I should know, and the other one is just, it's just my preference, yeah. So, uh, for me, the weekend worship services, you better not move a light without me, without me knowing what's happening. Yeah, you know, you don't get to just change a song because you felt like it, you know, because the spirit told you. Guess what? I know him too, so check with me and I'll ask him and let's just double check on that one. All right, yeah, kind of stuff. Um, and the reason that one functionally makes sense is because, Look, if we're Nike, the weekend service is shoes Mm-hmm, it runs everything Mm-hmm. And uh, so I'm, I am fully involved in all of that.

Joby Martin: 18:00

Yeah, and then a few years ago, we brought a retreat center About an hour from here, because I think the problem with adult discipleship is adults quit going to camp and you know we look at too many screens and breathe too much air-conditioned air, and so we bought this, this property about an hour from here. It's about 3 000 acres, it's got cabins and it's. It's incredible, that sounds cool. Yeah, oh, my gosh, it's the best place ever and I just love it and I want to make sure it goes right, and so I keep a real close eye on it.

Frank Barry: 18:30

Yeah yeah, that's just personal preference, that's my baby Like yeah, I get it, I get it.

Joby Martin: 18:34

Yeah.

Frank Barry: 18:34

Yeah, um, yeah, and some of this is I'm like legitimately asking because I feel like again there's this similarity to you know Tithely growing and just the stuff you go through. And there's stuff that you like and that you're into and stuff that you should know and you know letting go and control. I think it's hard for anybody that's something's growing if you're playing any church planner out there or or it doesn't have to be a church plan, anybody that took over a church Right like through succession and then. But it's growing and then you have to give up control or do different things. Like it can be a hard transition to go through and hiring is also super important. Like you mentioned, you got to bring in the specialist. It's different than starting with your kind of your friend group or your whatever, like your close crew, and now I got to hire outside people and bring in specialists. What's that been like?

Joby Martin: 19:22

It's crap. Shoot man, I don't care who you use, I don't care how many personality things you do. Yeah, I mean, the only one that's a hundred percent is like. You know, the disciples got it right. They prayed and cast lots and that worked out good for them. But but even that Jesus picked one guy wrong. I mean I know he was right because he played a role, but you know what I mean.

Frank Barry: 19:41

Yeah, it's a crass shoot.

Joby Martin: 19:42

So we try to grow from the inside. We try to stay somewhere around the like. Let's hire 70% or so from the inside, but but with our growth we just hadn't had time to grow people up sometimes. So so then after we look through who's here already, then our next step is is Try to hire our cousins.

Frank Barry: 20:03

Mm-hmm.

Joby Martin: 20:04

You know, like Guys that you did camp with back in the day or yeah, that kind of stuff, or I mean, dude, make make no bones about it every time you see me at a conference. I got a couple of my guys with me there as my like travel companions and they are straight trying to snipe the best people they can find, because I figure I did it if you would, if you would pay money to go to a conference that they paid me to come speak at. You at least, or at least somewhat in line with who we are. Yeah, right, and so it's. You know that's. You've at least passed it. You know one initial Test? Yeah, yeah, we're constantly looking.

Frank Barry: 20:44

Yeah, that's uh, and we were joking before. Right, like I probably wouldn't get hired at tithily today and you brought it up right. Like you know it's it's gotten so much bigger and I I hate using this word in in the church context, but you know more professional, more grown up, more All the things um no, I wouldn't hate that, I'm pro that.

Joby Martin: 21:07

In fact, um part of the reason here I I didn't want to be like. You know, there's churches that have what they call an honor culture, which, in my opinion, is just weird you know what I mean.

Joby Martin: 21:20

And I've been to those part of churches and I preach those. They're fun to go preach that. They like pick you up from your truck and carry you in and bathe you in gifts, I mean. So it's super fun, but that's kind of weird. So anyway. But when we planted the church, I was 38 years old and I felt like Like a first half, meaning I felt like it was prom, like I had my dad's suit on. Yeah, act like a grown-up right. And I was like man, we've got a. We've got to Act like we're know what we're doing. We've got to be more professional than we actually are behind closed doors. Yeah, particularly with one another. One of the simple things that we did I know where is it written in any of our bylaws or anything. There's no rules on this, but I called every pastor pastor and called every elder elder and just publicly honored them all the time. You know like let's just treat each other like grown-ups right and um, and it was amazing the positive impact that had.

Frank Barry: 22:18

Yeah, like even the way we.

Joby Martin: 22:20

Totally, man. Now we cut up with the best of them, but it just, it just needs to be the right, the right context.

Frank Barry: 22:25

You know when you're at camp. That's when you go to the camp and you know, go hunting you have other avenues totally, totally.

Joby Martin: 22:33

But um, and then I made some hires. I hired my, I hired one of my kids, um, um preschool directors and I and um she's I don't know 15 years older than me. Everything she did was just incredible. Right, she'd run the little preschool Christmas dinner and it would be like you're at Ruth Chris, it'd be like a holy moly. Her name is Juanita Hamilton. I was like miss nita, I want to hire you to come work at 11, 22, and she was like what am I gonna do? I was like just make everything better. That's what I need you to do. Just whatever we're doing, you just add, add your class. Right, because it kind of smells like our fraternity house over there right now. I need you to class this thing up a little bit. And so that's incredible. We made some moves like that because we also, from the, from the very beginning, we were uh, even though we're a younger church compared to regular church, um, but we have been an intergenerational church from day one and uh, so we want to make sure that we were acting the part.

Frank Barry: 23:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I. I love the hire you mentioned. Just come make it better. Uh, was that? It sounds like that was like you're like just come do it, but in in one way, is that was that hard? Or is that hard for other people on staff?

Joby Martin: 23:43

They're like oh, there's a person here whose job is literally just to make us all better well, um, she was already a legend and everybody loved her, so she, her personality made it Easy. She didn't do it. She's so excited to serve yeah. Yeah, it never came across like he, because I tell you you, tech people, you know that moment when dumb guys like me don't know what to do and you go move.

Joby Martin: 24:07

Okay, she never did that she just came on our side and be like oh wow, that's really cute, but Pastor doby, let me yeah. Let's let's put some tablecloths on these tables. Since we're doing this level of an event, I was like, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. So she was great.

Frank Barry: 24:23

I love the whole story. It's quite amazing. I so, however, you guys grown like Is it? Are you all still multi campus in the same area, like, do you have campus pastors at different locations? Are you in the same state? You've gone out of state, like, what's all that looked like over the years?

Joby Martin: 24:41

Uh, yeah, we're in uh 11 locations right now and three more under construction. Uh, we're uh yeah, it is crazy three of them in prisons, which is super awesome. Yeah, our vision is that we are a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. So part of the secret sauce here is we do not bifurcate between Lost people in Christians. We think the church is for God and we think God loves it when people deepen their relationship with him, and we also I'm the kind of Calvinist to thank God delights in saving people. Okay, so We've partnered with our people Years ago. Man, years ago, the guy that led me to Christ. He was a football coach that took me to the camp I got saved at when he died. The guy that did his eulogy preached on Axe 1124 mm-hmm.

Joby Martin: 25:32

And it says and he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord. So I got that tattooed on me and then I was teaching on it and I was like, listen, man, a great number in the kingdom of God is not a bunch of people, a great number, it's just one more. Right when he'd every single one of you, identify your one more and start praying that God would use you to lead your one more to Christ. And Then we partnered with our people to identify the one more weekends and all that me. I mean you can bring your friend to church whenever, but yeah, you know, on a one more weekend I am going to, at the end of the sermon, give an opportunity for you to surrender your life to Christ.

Joby Martin: 26:09

Yeah, so, because when I was in college, I Was leading my fraternity brothers to Christ and I thought, oh crap, what do I do with them now? I can't take it on my church. They don't have pleady khakis like what are they gonna do? And so it wouldn't work. And so we did that. And then we have aggressively made room for one more all the time and and so that's been multi-site and they're all video venues, right.

Joby Martin: 26:35

They all have campus pastors and the primary job of the campus pastors is just to connect and disciple people, so it is the sweetest job on the planet. By the way, if you love people and you love making disciples, usually be a campus pastor here.

Frank Barry: 26:49

Right, there's all the Administrative overhead, or what I don't know what to call it is all taken care of.

Joby Martin: 26:57

Bro, we are centralized like the death star.

Frank Barry: 27:00

Yeah, okay your job.

Joby Martin: 27:01

You don't have to figure, you don't have to figure out insurance and parking and we got all that figured out. Man, yeah, what I need you to do is shepherd those people at that campus and Get people connected, help people take next steps, care for people.

Joby Martin: 27:16

Well, just that you know, I tell them I was like you should gain 15 pounds when you become a campus pastor because you eat two breakfasts and two lunches every day, because you're just gonna meet with people all the time, right, and you? And if you're a golfer, you know your handicaps gonna go down by 10 because you can play golf all the time with people. So just be with people, man.

Frank Barry: 27:35

So we've done that the job, and sounds amazing.

Joby Martin: 27:39

It is. See, I told you that's how I hire people. Some of your people gonna reach out to me right now and now we're in. We've got a campus up in Georgia we're looking at maybe moving to Orlando. There's man, there's about 250 people meeting in Sarasota, florida. That's just south of Tampa, mm-hmm, which is probably like three hours from here. There's about 200 adults meeting on Friday nights who have just declared they are the church of 1122.

Frank Barry: 28:09

So we kind of got to even figure that out right, it's not amazing like you know that's amazing to me when I've heard stories of that you know, like North Coast I've heard that specifically with them. You know cuz we we helped them with some of their tech, but they're like, hey, we have these like locations that just pop up. We know there's a bunch of people over here and totally like sometimes it's like oh, they're renting a school like on their own Right meeting.

Joby Martin: 28:31

So this was cool. North Coast has a campus. Is it called Ramona? Yeah, I hear you yeah okay, so apparently there's more rednecks in Ramona than than San Diego, and so is that true?

Joby Martin: 28:43

Okay, true, so years ago the Ramona crew reached out to us. They were using all 1122 stuff and they flew out here and the guys in charge were Unchmanuers, so they had resources and they knew what they were doing and they know how to get stuff done. And they were like, listen, if we could do an 1122 in Ramona, I promise you it would blow up by tomorrow. Yeah, and I'm like, well, where is that? They're like, yeah, we're just outside of San Diego. I'm like, well, hold on, I got a church friend, you know, larry Osborne, at North Coast it's. You should just do what you're doing, but just do it with them, because we're all like it's all right team.

Joby Martin: 29:19

It wouldn't even be that different. So we called Larry and Chris and made the introduction, and then that's how that thing came into existence. How cool is that?

Frank Barry: 29:29

So it doesn't have to be 1122.

Joby Martin: 29:30

I don't care if it's yeah, we have the dumbest church name ever, so it doesn't matter.

Frank Barry: 29:34

Yeah, but like.

Joby Martin: 29:35

I said earlier.

Frank Barry: 29:35

Like your name, you know might have been crazy and just you know it's the time, but you were ahead of your time. That's one of the most creative church names out there now.

Joby Martin: 29:44

Well, part of what happened to when we first started is I led this guy to Christ that owned a skate park and and it was called skate lab and he'd make all of these skate lab like Like skate stickers. You know, yeah, so he just made this 1122 logo and brought me one of those die-cut stickers. He's like can I give these out? I was like, yeah, man, yeah, as long as I get one. Well, after a couple of years, no joke, they were probably 10 to 12 thousand stickers on cars and stuff all over the city and nobody they didn't people, they didn't know it was a church, right.

Joby Martin: 30:21

Just have 1122, like just says 1122 and it looks cool and it was like a white car. You know windshields there or whatever. Yeah, we win window sticker. I can't tell you the number of people that would just see all the stickers. Google. What is 1122? Oh, that's interesting. Maybe we'll check it out, like we hear about it in our baptism videos all the time, yeah, all the time.

Frank Barry: 30:43

It's crazy. Yeah, I hey branding man.

Joby Martin: 30:47

Some people.

Frank Barry: 30:47

So you know people, you know think church and marketing and all the kind of things is weird. But you know it's marketing, it's branding, it's it brought people to the church and then they're getting saved.

Joby Martin: 30:58

So it's a big deal yeah and we have, we had, we don't even we have zero dollars in our marketing budget because there's things like that. Right, it's just like that was just a guy just did it. You know, it's just organic, it was awesome.

Frank Barry: 31:11

Yeah, yeah, that's that's crazy. Okay, you also wrote a book, so let's just spend a few minutes. I'm gonna be respectful of your time, so we'll we'll speed through it, but you wrote. You've written, a couple books, but your newest book anything is possible is Amazing. So what? What inspired you to write the book? You know well what was it like writing a book to. I mean, it's a lot of work really a really Well man.

Joby Martin: 31:36

I've been pre, like I said, I've been preaching, for I've preached pretty much every week, except for like Vacation or whatever yeah, for the last 30 years. So you know you get all this stored up content and when your church blows up, everybody's like you know you should write a book, you should write a book. And I was like, nah, not yet. So I really wanted to wait until I felt like the Lord said it's time. Yeah, and Justin, the way I think about the two books that I've written, it's really like a two-piece set, because book one is called if the tomb is empty and book two is anything is possible.

Joby Martin: 32:08

Yeah, and in pastoring people, I can't tell you the number of folks that would come to me and say, pastor, I am in an impossible situation. Hmm, like my marriage is impossible and I would. I would take them back to the empty tomb. I'd be like hold on, but you're a believer, right, right, you believe that God Physically raised, bodily raised, jesus out of the grave. They're like, of course, I believe that and I'm like, okay, and then one day I just said it I was like, well, if the tomb is empty, then anything is possible, like if he can breathe new life into his dead son, surely he can breathe new life into your dead marriage, and so that's where the idea came from.

Joby Martin: 32:44

Yeah, I mean book one if the tomb is empty. We chase seven mountains in the scriptures. We start on Mount Moriah, we end on Mount Calvary, which most believers don't know it's the same mountain, and we just track through God's hand in the Bible, through these mountains and we find a mountain that holds a tomb, but the tomb can't hold a body. So that's book one, very cool. And then book two is like the application of it right.

Joby Martin: 33:10

I. I felt like the you know the Bible teaching evangelical church needed a gospel saturated book on the miraculous One, because I've read the Bible cover to cover and can't find term limits on the Holy Spirit. So I still think he does what he's what he does, you know.

Joby Martin: 33:24

Yeah, there's no expiration date there, yep. But to a lot of folks that focus on the miracles, that's exactly the problem. They focus on the miracles and not the miracle maker. And so these are not. We study nine different miracles that really reveal God's heart. Hmm, because the miracles aren't about the miracles. They always pointed to the message, like Jesus it. Well, in the book of John they're not even called miracles, they're always called signs, because signs point to something greater than himself. Right, and Jesus wasn't just trying to, like, flex his raw power, he was always pointing to God's redemptive purpose. And so we, we, we, just the anchor is the greatest miracle of all time that Jesus came out of the grave. And you know, romans 8 says if he did not hold back his own son, then can't we believe him for all things? And then there's also a chapter on what do you do when God doesn't do what you think he would do if he was just listen to you?

Frank Barry: 34:21

Right, that's the book everyone's gonna have.

Joby Martin: 34:23

Like you know, rabbit ear and book Cuz and then it's hard interest, yeah, and then, and then interesting enough, and that, and so where I go is on John. In John chapter 6 there's actually two miracles there's the feeding of the 5000 and the walking and walking on water. But John 6 is where Jesus gets all crazy with his teaching and starts saying Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part with me. Yeah, and everybody starts leaving. Yeah, and he doesn't even explain it. I mean, post resurrection, we know he's talking about the gospel. Yeah, and we're not actually eating his flesh and drinking his blood. We're taking communion to remember the gospel. Yeah, and if you don't have the gospel, you don't have him. I mean that's what he'd say. Yeah, but he explains none of it. And you got to imagine Peter is thinking I have made a horrible career decision. Like what am I doing? And Jesus says do you want to leave too?

Frank Barry: 35:17

Mm-hmm.

Joby Martin: 35:18

Because he knows. He's like, yeah, I kind of do. And Peter's answer, man, is what you do when you don't get your miracle? He says, well, to whom shall we go? For you're the only one that offers eternal life. And then he says, because we have come to believe and know that you are the Christ. Most Americans want to know and then see if they're going to believe or not, but the offer from our Heavenly Father is no, no, no, no. You're going to believe. And then, as you are on the way, there's some things you will come to know. Right, right and so. And then, while I was right in the middle of writing this book, I'm on a red stag hunt in Scotland with some of my best friends and my best friend dies of a heart attack in the Highlands as I'm writing a book on the miraculous. So what do you do? What do you do? I tell you what you do. You just got to pick up your faith and pick up your doubts and pick up your own answer questions and do exactly what Peter said Where's someone going to go? And you just keep following after Jesus. And then, also during the same time period when I was writing this, I experienced the other end of it, the family that I talked about, our original worship leader that I vacationed with and all that same.

Joby Martin: 36:38

As Ben Williams, we're on vacation together at Disney and he has a grandma seizure. It's a brain scan and he's got a cancerous brain tumor. This was on a Thursday, oh my gosh. And they tell him you got about six months of normal life left. Within 18 months you'll be in hospice. So I mean, I've always got two girls. He sent me this text before he went into brain surgery and it was like all right, man, if I don't make it out, you got to take care of my girls. I was like, bro, you're going to be fine. He's like I get it. And he says this he goes well, they're going to need leadership. You're the best one I know. And I was like all right, I got you, but you know you're going to be all right. So they tell him that on a Thursday that was at a hospital in Orlando. We have the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and one of the great things about pastoring a real big church is you own nothing and you have access to everything. So, like I know all the Mayo people.

Joby Martin: 37:37

So I was like y'all got to get Pastor Ben in here, so we get him from Orlando, get him up here. They do a bunch of tests, they do brain surgery. He comes out of brain surgery and they're like I think we got it. I think you're going to be fine. That surgery was two and a half years ago. He is cancer-free, tumor-free Amazing.

Joby Martin: 37:56

This past weekend he should be in hospice. He went in hospice. He was in the Atlantic Ocean with me this last weekend. We baptized 1,125 people and he was out there dunking people and still leading worship.

Frank Barry: 38:08

That's incredible.

Joby Martin: 38:12

So this book handles the breadth of the work of God in our lives and our proper response. What do you do, man? Yeah, you just worship him. Whether you get what you want or don't get what you're asked for, the key is that you get him. Yeah, and that's the key.

Frank Barry: 38:29

That's the abundant life. It's hard, right. It's hard helping people get to that place. I guess it's about our relationship with God. It's about knowing him, growing, raising your family in that, all the things, not what you get or don't get, but I don't know, we're Americans, yeah.

Joby Martin: 38:54

One of the things I learned writing this book is tragedy and trauma will test what your actual theology is. Yeah, you know, I mean, I'm a preacher man, so I know what I preach, and I just preach the Bible. So I'm you know. But are you really smoking what you're selling? Right, yeah, and I'm, I ain't gonna lie. When my friend Bradley went down, all I could think about well, first, it was terrible. We had to like, bring all this stuff home and we're in Scotland and I mean it's just a train wreck. Anyway, I was supposed to be on sabbatical during that time and all your like sabbatical coaches will say, well, you got to stay away from your church because if you go to your church they're going to make you work. And I was like, yeah, whatever, bro, all I can think about is I want to be in this place with these people. Luckily, because it was my sabbatical, I had like eight of my buddies who are the best preachers on the planet. They were lined up to preach.

Joby Martin: 39:54

It was like Matt Chandler and David Platt and just some you know, ben Stewart, you're solid, you have that covered and all I wanted to do was show up, man, I just wanted to come to church and pray the prayers, sing the songs, hear the word preached. And we have like a super responsive culture. We got these like prayer benches down front and we make a big deal out of like the response to the message, to what God's doing. And I just wanted to get down there to that altar and pray and though I mean I cried a million tears or whatever still makes me sad. Yeah, man, of course, but I never.

Joby Martin: 40:36

I don't know man. God is sovereign and I know he's in charge and I know he's good and I can still believe Romans 8 28 that he's at work and all things Right. And I also am confident there will come a day and you know he's going to peel back the curtain and I'm going to step into eternity. And right now I only say just do a smudge glass, and then I'm going to see clearly and I'm going to get there and look at you. You did it again. I had no idea how you were working all of this for your glory, but now I see clearly how you were in charge of all things.

Frank Barry: 41:10

Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful, it's hard. It's like helping people, like you're doing in the books and the church and you know like stay focused in the right place. Like it's just massive, you know, and like you know, I mean, I think about it like there's all you know. You have stuff in your life, there's all sorts of stuff in our lives, where it's like those are the things that'll like drive you to God or in deeper, or you know. It kind of like shows your two character. You'll go the other way, right, but it's usually a dividing line.

Joby Martin: 41:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's watershed. You either run to him or away from it, right? The thing is, is anybody that I've ever seen get angry at God because he didn't do what they thought he should do? Which I can, and I'm not trying to minimize it, man, what's?

Joby Martin: 41:59

the point of people losing kids or battle infertility or, you know, when they do run away from him, they still don't find answers or peace, or hope. They don't find any of the things they're looking for. They just get beat up by an enemy who only wants to steal, kill and destroy, and isolation is one of his favorite tactics. Yeah, oh yeah, I mean. The Bible says that he prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. If you've ever watched Animal Planet, if you find that one antelope that's not with the group, it's dead, done Like. You don't even have to watch the end of the show. The lion is going to snipe that. Yeah.

Frank Barry: 42:36

Yeah, and I mean, could you imagine, though, like this is the thing like I think about. You know a handful of hard times right, and you're like could you imagine not having God's way right, like the church, your friends praying, like an ability to go to him, like the scripture to read and get comfort and encouragement and faith, and like not having those pieces and just trying to do it on your own and go isolate, like I just feel that makes me like sad for people because that's such a hard. That just seems so much harder compared to what God gives us to go through that stuff with.

Joby Martin: 43:15

Yeah, I was in Israel recently. We do. We do trips to Israel every other year, which are awesome, and we're in the Garden of Gethsemane, right. And as I'm reading through that passage there, it dawned on me that if Jesus so, he gets the disciples hey, peter, james, john, as you all, come a little farther and pray for me, yeah, and he's overwhelmed and overcome with the sense of what he's about to walk through. And the second person of the Trinity, who is preeminent, spoke everything into existence by his power, holds all things together that are in existence, whether visible or invisible. He felt like I need some help with this. I need some guys, I need some of my brothers praying for me. All right, so if Jesus needs a band of brothers praying for him, then who in the world do you think you are? Do you think I?

Frank Barry: 44:09

got this, I don't need anybody.

Joby Martin: 44:11

You are your mind. Yeah, absolutely. The enemies got you teed up. I'm about to take you out.

Frank Barry: 44:16

I don't know this, but I think people get afraid to let, to call them in and to get your brothers with you and to tell people what's going on. It's easier to hide from it sometimes for some people.

Joby Martin: 44:28

I guess I don't know Sad, I mean, I think you're dead, don't? One of the things we do here at our church, we try Like authenticity is not a strategy for us. We try. You know what I mean. I'm the first to admit like in the middle of the sermon. I'm the worst sinner I know. Yeah, and the reason I'm the worst sinner I know is because I know every see. You only know the sins that you've seen me commit, like on Instagram. I know the ones that like are only in my head and in my heart. Man, I know I'm a mess and need help. And the fake you's doing just fine. You can leave her on Instagram. She looks great, yeah, but the real. You needs a real Jesus who died on a real cross for the real you, man, that's what one of the things great about planning your own church is you can make it as real as you want to. And it's pretty grimy around 11 22. Yeah, I mean it is. It is grimy and I love it. I mean I really, really love it.

Frank Barry: 45:38

That's incredible man. Well, pastor Joby, this has been awesome. I want to be respectful of time. Can I ask you a couple rapid fire questions? Quick ones, yes, sir, no problem, we'll start with the first one. No, we'll end with that one. What's a book that everybody should read?

Joby Martin: 45:55

Every pastor should read the pastor's kid by Barnabas Piper.

Frank Barry: 46:00

Pastors kid Okay, is it? You're ready? Is it about? I have not read it. That's actually the first time I've heard of that one. Is it about raising kids as a pastor, or about?

Joby Martin: 46:09

Barnabas Piper is John Piper's son, mm-hmm, and he loves his dad and he's any appreciate. This is not a hit piece on his dad right whatsoever, but it is an honest look at the price that the kids of pastors have to pay. That's amazing and it it ran over me like a freight train man. I had all my elders read it, had all my pastors read it. My wife and I read it together. We shared a bunch of it with our kids. Yeah, so if you're in the ministry and I think there's a lot, I Think there's a lot you can learn. If you're a believer and you're like the boss or the CEO, you know, like people know who your kid is yeah, there's probably a lot that folks could learn from that.

Frank Barry: 46:53

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, Great second one podcast that you're listening to right now.

Joby Martin: 47:00

I listen to the undaunted life by Kyle Thomas is equipping me into pushback, darkness and of it. It's honestly, man, my son loves Joe Rogan and I'm like, what are you doing? And I, I was trying to just find for him some kind of redemptive alternative. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, and I'm not. And here's the thing. He's 17 years old. I'm not gonna like tell him he what he can and can't listen to, because that's futile anyway. Right, but I was trying to find something and then I went on that one a couple times and then got to know Kyle and it's, it's really legit. Yeah, I listen to that one a lot.

Frank Barry: 47:39

Yeah, I love that. Are there any you know non Christian or faith kind of based podcast? So not Joe Rogan necessarily, but any other one you like. There are their business ones or like things like that. They are like these ones scratching itch for me that I'm really interested in.

Joby Martin: 47:56

Just just a hunting podcast like that's fine, that's all I. You know, not really there's so much like Leadership stuff in the church world. Now, you know, I think, a funny one, john Chris, you know the comedian oh yes, how you know, I for a minute. He's got one called net positive. Have you listened to?

Frank Barry: 48:18

that I have not listened to that one. I see him on Instagram. All the time he's cracks me up.

Joby Martin: 48:22

So it's that it imagine, you know an hour of that kind of junk. It's him and like two dudes in there and their believers and they, but they kind of like make fun of church, they totally do it's a struggle. They try to explain to all the other people who aren't church people. Yeah, like what, what you? Know, like what, see what the poll is, or whatever you know it's, I mean. So that was pretty funny. The meat eater podcast, like listen to that you know about. Yeah, steve Ranella.

Frank Barry: 48:49

Yeah, yeah. That's a good one that yeah, all right, that's good, that's good, okay. Last one when do people need to go to get the book? They just go to jobeymartincom.

Joby Martin: 48:59

Yeah, you can get it there, or I'm supposed to say in, anywhere books are sold and anywhere.

Frank Barry: 49:04

Jobeymartincom and anywhere books are sold, yeah, wherever you can get it, wherever it's so good, so good. Well, pastor Jobe, the, do you go, pastor Jobe or pastor Martin? What's the?

Joby Martin: 49:16

most people call me pastor Jobe, if they, we're gonna say the pastor word in there yeah, respect, respect, thank you for coming on.

Frank Barry: 49:23

This has been great. I appreciate your story. I appreciate you know seeing what God's been doing through you in the church out there, it's been really cool. So thanks for coming on the show today.

Joby Martin: 49:33

Man, my pleasure, hey, and thanks for all that you do, because there's a bunch of guys like us that maybe can rightly divide the word, but we have no idea how to do all those techie kind of things that folks like you are gifted to do. So amen All that guys like you. We're just a guy with a bullhorn on the street corner.

Frank Barry: 49:51

We're all playing our part. You know having a good time using our gifts to build up the church, so love that. Well, maybe we'll get you back on another day, but thanks for today. Thanks, guys, for joining us. Definitely listen to this podcast, share with your friends, tell your family members, but we'll see you next week on another episode of Modern Church leader. Bye, bye.