Episode 1662: Interview with Dan Nichols About Living Into a Life With Christ

===

Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining us on episode 1,662 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Dan Nichols: I'm Dan Nichols. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to recognize that Jesus is worth living for is key.

And one way to be inspired to do that, so listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.

That people who really truly know you see that you are a leader rather than putting on this front of like, "Here's all my leadership wisdom and pontifications, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." So there's a big difference between what you appear and then what the reality is, and I think very few leaders actually work on the reality.

[00:01:00] Most leaders work on the perception.

Scott Maderer: Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's podcast episode, I interview Dan Nichols. I ask

Dan about learning and leading the Northeast Leadership Summit. I also ask Dan about how his calling led him to writing books on making scripture simple, and Dan also shares with you how he's

uncovered a faithful life by leading himself and others into a calling in ministry.[00:02:00]

I have a great book that's been out for a while now called Inspired Living: Assemble the Puzzle of Your Calling by Mastering Your Time, Your Talent, and Your Treasures. You can find out more about that book over at inspiredlivingbook.com. It'll take you to a page where there's information, and you can sign up to get some mailings about it, as well as purchase a copy there.

I'd love to see you get a copy and share with me how it impacted your world. Dan Nichols is a follower of Jesus, married to his best friend Joy, and the father to Landon and Declan He's the lead pastor of Grace Christian Fellowship in Cortland, New York, and the founder and president of the Northeast Collaborative, a regional church network.

He also planted Restore

Church in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania with a great team, along with the Northeast Leadership Summit Conference and Dents in the Darkness, a podcast. He's authored three books called Making Scripture Simple for Elementary Students to [00:03:00] Engage the Bible for Themselves, and Dan holds a Doctorate of Ministry from Clarks Summit University, where he served as adjunct professor, and he loves playing golf and pickleball.

Welcome to the show, Dan.

Dan Nichols: Hey, Scott. Thanks for having me on.

Scott Maderer: Absolutely. So I shared a little bit in the intro about some of the work you've done, uh your marriage, kids, you know, different things, but at the same time, I always think of intros as sort of, or bios as showing you know, where we are today, but they never really show the whole journey- Mm

of how we got here.

Dan Nichols: Yeah.

Scott Maderer: So take us back in time a little bit and share a little bit about your journey and, and what has brought you to the point where this is the message you feel called to put out in the world?

Dan Nichols: Yeah. So I'm living the life that I actually gave my sixth grade speech, uh, to a lot of people saying, "This is what I didn't want to do."[00:04:00]

My dad has been a pastor my whole life, and I actually gave my sixth grade speech saying, "My dad's my hero. I love him. Both he and my mom are amazing. However, there is no way I am going to be a pastor." And God actually, yeah, called me to do that, so. God

Scott Maderer: does have a sense of humor, yes.

Dan Nichols: It's wild, yeah.

Like I actually, growing up I saw some of the ugliest sides of church you could possibly imagine.

Scott Maderer: Oh, sure.

Dan Nichols: Uh, not from my parents, but just in church culture, and so I just never wanted to do that. I had all other so many other plans for my life. But God used a lot of different things, uh, reading the Book of Acts, getting plugged into a healthy church, and, uh, many other things, a broken engagement, to really confirm my calling into, uh, full-time ministry.

So I've been a church planter, a network, uh, leader, and now I lead a 225-year-old church that, uh, started when Thomas Jefferson was president.

Scott Maderer: Okay, cool. But why that? You know, you mentioned you felt called [00:05:00] to it, but-

Dan Nichols: Yeah ...

Scott Maderer: talk a little bit about that. Because, you know, f- knowing what we're called to is one of the things that a lot of folks struggle with and we talk about it a lot on the show.

Why do you think that was what you were called to? How did, how did you use that calling?

Dan Nichols: Yeah. I always say calling is confirmed in community, and people in my life just kept identifying, uh, God's work and how he wired me. So I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio- Uh, the great state, uh, the great Buckeye State go the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Huge fan of them, so sorry Wolverine fans if you're out there. But yeah, so- It,

Scott Maderer: it's okay. We just lost two listeners, but that's all right.

Dan Nichols: Yeah, I grew up in Cleveland. And yeah, I, I really started to discover why I was put on Earth, and I was put on Earth to, um, catalyze, connect, and communicate.

Now, I didn't have that language to it back then, but those were ways that God wired me, and people were like, " you said you didn't wanna be a pastor , but this is really [00:06:00] something that we see God could use you in." And then, uh, ended up going out to Clarks Summit University just outside of Scranton, so any Office fans out there, you'll like that.

Yeah, it, it was just a transformative time for me in college to really get plugged into a healthy church, to see lives being changed, to see that God's game plan for his church can actually be a beautiful thing, which I didn't think it, it was. I thought the church was a joke for a very long time. And then, um, yeah, reading the Book of Acts, when you, when you dive into the word for yourself it, it can transform your heart and your mind and your trajectory of life in powerful ways.

Scott Maderer: So one of the things I like to highlight on the show is sort of what I call the intersection between our, our faith journey and our life journey, and that may kind of sound like a, a, a interesting question to ask somebody that just talked about being called into the ministry, but I also know a lot of pastors, and so...

Uh and generally I think people think the faith journey of [00:07:00] pastors isn't necessarily the real faith journey they had, and you mentioned earlier growing up at the church and seeing the dark side and some of that sort of stuff. Oh, oh, yeah.

Dan Nichols: Yeah.

Scott Maderer: Talk a little bit about how your faith journey and life journey have fed back and forth into each other.

Dan Nichols: Yeah. I mean, I think the, the biggest foundational piece is just a genuine relationship with Jesus, and right now in culture it's very popular to say, "Well, I'm all about Jesus, but I hate the church." And it's interesting, you know in scripture the church is called the bride of Christ, and so when we say we hate the church, we're saying that we hate God's bride, and, uh, he's, he's not, he's not okay with that.

Now, the bride can be really, uh, ugly. She's got all kinds of problems and issues, and she certainly isn't perfect, but, uh, he died for her, and because he died for her and to create this whole new thing. So for me, the faith tension is really, like, I love Jesus, I'm sold on the fact that he was everything [00:08:00] he claimed to be, but yet there's this very real struggle and difficulty that I saw through my dad's journey of being a pastor that I really didn't initially want anything to do with.

So now that I've been in it for 15 years- Uh, it's very rewarding, and it is, uh, a phenomenal calling, but it's a very painful calling. It ... You invite a lot of suffering into your life voluntarily, and i- in a way, for those who are called to that that's how I try to practice the way of Jesus, is in my calling as a pastor and beyond, but especially as a pastor embracing the suffering.

You know, I was just reading in Acts about how the early apostles said they counted it a privilege to suffer for the name of Jesus.

So I don't wanna suffer for organized religion. I hate organized religion, but I love Jesus, and I wanna serve people who love Jesus and those who haven't discovered the hope of [00:09:00] Jesus yet as well a- and as effectively as I can.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. One of the, uh ... So I had that moment where I was actually feeling called to, to seminary early on, and eventually ended up leaving the church completely because of this feeling, the hypocrisy of the church sort of thing. Yeah. And I always tell people one of my favorite prayers is, "Lord, please save me from your people."

Um, you know? But it did finally dawn on me that if there was a perfect church out there, they wouldn't let me in anyway, so

Dan Nichols: Exactly. Exactly.

Scott Maderer: So.

Dan Nichols: Yep. Our only rule is no perfect people allowed, so. No

Scott Maderer: perfect people allowed.

Dan Nichols: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We actually stole that from John Burke. He, uh, he planted a phenomenal church in Austin, Texas, um-

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm

a few years ago.

Dan Nichols: I've been to it. Yeah. Their story is pretty amazing. But that, that's helped set the culture and the tone of like, hey, look, uh, no perfect pastors allowed, no perfect people allowed, and it's all about God's grace and mercy and His [00:10:00] love, and if we can stay focused on that, I think we'll be good.

Scott Maderer: Hopefully. Well, and what ... Thinking about it from a, a leadership position, and, and I think this is things that people can take away, uh, you know, whether they're a pastor or whether they're a leader in, in other ways, what are some of the things that you've learned as you've gone through this journey of leading and, and launching churches and, and even going to a church that has a old and, you know- Yeah

storied history. All of those have to have their own leadership challenges. What are some of the leadership lessons that you've learned that you can kind of share?

Dan Nichols: Oof. Yeah, one of the most important is that the people who know you best should respect you the most. The people who know you best should respect you the most.

So we live in a day and age where leadership, in quotes, is kind of ... Uh it's super popular now. Like, everyone's an influencer, podcaster leader, all this. But a- oftentimes what that [00:11:00] means is I am trying to influence people who don't know me at all. I'm trying to influence strangers. It's much harder to be the kind of person that people who really truly know you- see that you are a leader rather than putting on this whatever, this front of, like, "Here's all my leadership wisdom and pontifications," and blah blah blah blah blah.

So there's a big difference between what you appear and then what the reality is, and I think very few leaders actually work on the reality. Most leaders work on the perception.

Scott Maderer: Yeah, I would, I would agree. I think the, the way I've heard it put by some folks that I admire is if I don't act the same way off the stage as I do on the stage, then I, I'm not really exhibiting character, I'm acting.

You know?

Dan Nichols: Right. Which to that end, in all seriousness, my dad thankfully lived and modeled that in my [00:12:00] life. Right. So I'm so grateful for his example. Uh, a great book on that, by the way, is Leadership As An Identity by Dr. Crawford Lorrits. It is by far one of the best, uh, leadership books out there. Uh, it's, it's just tremendous, and it's really helped me quite a bit.

Scott Maderer: Talk a little bit too of I know you put the Northeast Leadership Summit Conference together.

Dan Nichols: Yeah.

Scott Maderer: Talk a little bit about that. Why did you feel called to, to put that together? Who's it for? You know- Mm-hmm ... What is that program

Dan Nichols: doing? Yeah. So the northeast corner of America is the most unreached, unchurched, post-Christian corner of our nation currently, and there's a lot of stats that to back that up.

But it, it's on our website, necollaborative.com. So there's not a lot of resources in the northeast. Like, if you go to the midwest, you go to the south, you go to other portions of the country, there's tons of conferences, huge churches everywhere, all that stuff. The northeast is pretty different, so we needed a leadership development [00:13:00] track.

We actually dreamed it up at a camp one time, and really the design of it is for leaders, positional leaders, to bring up-and-coming leaders. So volunteers, church members, like it's for believers, but it's for, um, developing disciples in their next steps for Jesus. So I find that conferences are really about the people that you travel to them with.

So it, it's about, like, hey, this is the group I'm bringing, and the most valuable times are the trip there and then processing what you've experienced. It's not really the content, because let's be honest, you can get content anywhere. You can get it on YouTube and podcasts within milliseconds. It's not as much about that.

It's about that. So we designed it with processing time in the middle of it, and to my knowledge, we are also the only conference in the nation that makes a profit and then gives those profits away every single year. I still have not found a conference anywhere in the country that does that, and it's been a huge opportunity for us to invest in, [00:14:00] uh, healthy, revitalizing churches and then new church plants in the northeast.

Scott Maderer: And then of course you also write books and podcasts, and you just talked about information and books and podcasts. So obvious question you know, what, what, uh, what do you do... What are you called to do around, around books and podcasts?

Dan Nichols: Yeah, so, um, one of the the biggest callings I have in my life is to be a healthy and godly husband and father, and, uh, Gen Alpha really needs Jesus.

And, uh, as I've been raising my two sons, uh, our oldest son, Landon, is 10 now. He's survived three open-heart surgeries, lot of, uh, incredible journey with that. Um, but he's gonna live the rest of his life with half a heart, and so we've talked a ton about his spiritual life and heaven and all that stuff.

But when he was eight he looked at my wife, Joy, and he said, "Mom, you know what I think the hardest thing in the world is?" She's like, "What?" And he's like, "Following Jesus." She's like, "Why would you say that? You're a pastor's kid. That's not a normal [00:15:00] thing." And he said, uh, "'Cause so many people don't follow Jesus."

And we found out at eight years old he was processing some of the deepest questions of life at such a young age, and for two years, from eight to 10, he very emphatically told us, "Mom and Dad, I'm not a Christian," and was very resistant. But last year he ended up giving his life to Jesus, which is amazing, and one of the things that I started to notice was I wanted to give him access to scripture at that very young age, but I found out, you know, the New Living Translation I already knew this, but it was eig- it was written at an eighth-grade level, and yet he could read at third grade.

So between third grade and eighth grade there seemed to be this gap. And so anyway, I created the Making Scripture Simple series where I go verse by verse and paraphrase and basically say, "How would I explain this verse to an eight-year-old?" Or, "How would I explain this verse to an upper elementary student?"

And so yeah, that's how Making Scripture Simple was birthed.

Scott Maderer: And, and Dance in [00:16:00] Darkness the podcast?

Dan Nichols: Yeah, Dance in the Darkness is our podcast for, uh, again, uh, Northeast Collaborative. So it's designed to be more of a regional resource for, uh, our leaders in our churches out here that typically are very under-resourced or they just don't know how to connect the dots.

So we find that a lot of our ministry with Northeast Collaborative, it's a regional church network where we're able to connect the dots for leaders that often don't know where to go, especially in a very under-resourced section of the country.

Scott Maderer: And that's kind of where I wanted to, to come back and draw the dot, too.

So you mentioned in the, in the leadership, you know, being the leader for the people that know you the most, you know- Yeah ... that are closest to you. You came back to talk about the conference and bringing people together, giving them processing time, and it's not just information.

Yep. Now we talked about information that you're sharing as well.

Kind of draw the... Cause I think that's where a lot of us run [00:17:00] into struggles, is- We almost have a piece of that, but not all of those pieces. Yeah. In terms of, you know, a lot of us will expose ourselves to information, especially in today's world. You know, go talk to ChatGPT, it'll give you information all day long, some of it's even true.

And, you know, and, and go in there and do that. And you can Google and you can listen to podcasts or you can feed your mind, and there's people that do that, but then they don't connect and collaborate.

Dan Nichols: Right.

Scott Maderer: And then there's people that go to the conferences and connect and collaborate, but never learn anything new.

You know, they haven't read a book for six years. They haven't listened- Yeah ... to a podcast for six years. How do you see is this all kind of fitting together when you're talking about leaders growing and really authentically becoming that person who they're meant to be all the time?

Dan Nichols: Well, to grow effectively, it takes the, the head, the heart, and the hands.

So we have to have a holistic approach. So the head, the one that we focused on the most over the last few decades, is really just one piece of it. It's [00:18:00] still an important piece. So information matters, but it needs to be lived out in community. So for instance, Northeast Leadership Summit, there was, uh, one of our presenters who's an incredible leader in the Erie, PA area, Derek Sanford.

Um, he found a church planter of a much smaller church at this, at our conference, whose father had just passed away and whose brother-in-law had just passed away in the same year.

Scott Maderer: Wow.

Dan Nichols: So in the same year, he's going through intense lament and grief. Derek got his team to rally around and put together a sermon series package for this church planter that he had just met at our conference and developed a relationship with, and provided space and time for him to not have to preach and to have everything designed so that he could actually heal and find uh...

And just that kind of generosity and that kind of relational connection, that's what we're aiming for, and that's actually where the strength of Northeast Collaborative has been. We're not really, uh, all that and a bag of chips in terms of [00:19:00] organizational hierarchy or, you know, financial resources or any of that stuff.

We are rich in relationships. Mm. And that has been something that we're finding people are craving more than ever, because we've never had more points for connection, like we were just talking about, with technology and info and AI and all this, but we've never been more lonely and we've never been more isolated.

And frankly, when it comes to pastors struggling with anxiety, depression, all that stuff. So we're creating communities. We do cohorts where guys come in, they hear each other's stories, they actually build relationships. I was just up at a hospital with one of our pastor friends, uh, from a different denomination, which is, uh, awesome because we're very multi-denominational and we believe God's kingdom has no turf wars.

But he and his wife just, uh, had twins, and one of them had trisomy 13, and just, just being present with them and letting them know that they're loved, that they're not alone, uh, pastors and ministry leaders need that more than ever, and I think everyone does. Yeah. [00:20:00] I, So I'm, I've grown up Methodist and I'm, I'm still Methodist to this today, and, uh that's kind of the church that for me I've, I've felt that connection and that community in.

Mm.

Scott Maderer: And, uh, one of the stories, uh, my at the time former pastor... So the Methodist pastors move. You know, they're itinerant. They move them around, and my pastor from the church that I was at was moved down south to another past- to another church that was seven, eight hours away. She also had went through a very bad illness, and literally right as she moved, she got there and was immediately hospitalized.

Oh. Um y- you can imagine literally the first Sunday that you're appointed- ... you're, you know, you're in the emergency room and in the hospital. That's

awful.

So she called me because I was, I was somebody who found pulpit fill in where I, you know, in the old place where she used to be. I technically didn't [00:21:00] cover the south, but but I- she was who, you know, she had me in the phone, you know?

So it was like, "Let me call him," and and so I was working to find somebody for pulpit fill, and I couldn't. So I drove down and covered, you know, her services for the, the first two Sundays, you know, even though it was a seven or eight-hour drive. And it was interesting, 'cause she was immediately like, you know, "Oh, you shouldn't have done that.

It's not a..." You know, and I'm like, "I would do this for any pastor, much less you," you know? I mean, you know, it's like, because this needs it, that's just what was needed. And, um it's interesting how when you find a, a, a, whether it's a denomination or whether it's a collection of churches, when you find community that way within church where it's like, no, no, this isn't because you're my pastor or you're my friend.

This is because you need it, you know? Yeah. Um, a- and- y- yes, you are [00:22:00] also my former pastor and my friend and, you know, somebody that, that I love dearly, but that's not really the why if that makes sense. It's, it's because we, we belong together, you know? Mm. That we, we- Yeah ... have community.

Yeah.

Dan Nichols: Yeah, and I think people are craving deep connection. They just don't know where to find it, and ultimately that was what God's design for the church is. Like, we're just preaching through Acts now and, you know, the early stages, I mean, that's what people were finding. They

Scott Maderer: had each

Dan Nichols: other's back. Yeah, it was a, yeah, it was, it was incredible and one of the messages I preached, the, the tagline I said was, "Ideal can be real."

It often isn't, but really if we're following the Holy Spirit and we're actually doing this church thing God's way, there's gonna be some really amazing things that come of it. And so we're, we're doing all we can through Northeast Collaborative and at our church, uh, Grace Christian Fellowship in Courtland, to try to, uh, be the kind of church, not just do church.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. And that was kind of, you said head, heart, and hand. [00:23:00] You know, so head's information, heart is community, and hand is the actual putting it into practice part. I don't

Dan Nichols: know Serving, yeah. I, I think one of the reasons we struggle with anxiety and depression so much is frankly, we're just not, we're not moving anywhere.

Like, we're just stagnant, and it's... This isn't the cure-all or a pill or anything for it, but the reality is one of the best cures for anxiety and depression is mission and purpose, and finding that, uh, especially through what God has designed us for.

Scott Maderer: Well, and I think that too is something that the church has struggled with, and I, and I see beginning to change, which I'm, I'm happy about, is a lot of churches seem to be focused on service, which is great, but it was service for internal.

Dan Nichols: Yes. You know?

Scott Maderer: It

was inward-focused- Yes ... service. Yeah. Right ... uh, as opposed to outward-focused service. Yeah. And, and I see that beginning to change. Have you as well?

Dan Nichols: Oh, my gosh, yes. So in Wilkes-Barre, uh, we wanted to be a church that we said in the city for the city, you know, borrowing that from Tim [00:24:00] Keller's, um, mentality, that Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania needs to flourish and be a better city because God's people are there.

And we have the same mentality here in Cortland. Uh, this our Christmas offering we just utilized to help, uh, the, the houseless community in, uh, Dryden and Cortland and, uh, to come alongside organizations that are doing some really significant effective work to help them. I mean, yeah, it's just it's a really powerful thing when the church is not just...

And, and we should take care of our own, 'cause, you know- Yeah ... it g- God's word says we need to love one another, which is the family, but we also need to introduce people who don't have the hope of Jesus to the same hope we have, and do that together in tandem, and be in the kind of community that people look at it and go, "Wow, I need that.

I wanna be a part of that." The problem is oftentimes because we have this addiction to what I call comfolatry- ... it's the idolatry of comfort, we haven't left the door open really well and we haven't been super welcoming [00:25:00] to people who are, quote-unquote, "from the outside" or people who aren't part of it.

And so that's been something we've been working on, especially in a 225-year-old church, of, hey, shifting that culture to say, yes, everyone and anyone is welcome, and we need to do a much better job of initial, uh, initiating those relationships so that it's not just a four walls and we do religious stuff in here.

It's really a, a true community effort.

Scott Maderer: I agree. So I've got a few questions that I like to ask all of my guests, but before I go there and ask you those, is there anything else about the work y'all are doing up there or your books or podcasts that you'd like to share with the listener?

Dan Nichols: Yeah. I, I'd probably just come back to that whole thing about God's kingdom has no turf wars. That's something that's real important to me. I mean, we live in a day and age where- You know, in Corinthians, Paul was talking about, you know, they were saying, "I, I follow Paul," or, "I follow Peter," "I follow [00:26:00] Apollos," and, you know, all this tribalism.

And the thing is it was nothing new. I mean- No,

Scott Maderer: it's always

Dan Nichols: been there ... it was happening way back then. It's nothing new today, but it's just exacerbated, and we know so much more about it, and I think the echo chambers of social media algorithms make it way worse, and we've just gotta tear those things down.

And so that's one of the biggest things we're trying to do, is really champion that God's kingdom has no turf wars and that the bottom line shouldn't be, how do I grow my church, but it should be, as Dave Ferguson says, how do we grow God's kingdom, which often means your fruit is gonna, is gonna grow on other people's trees.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I, I love that. So my brand is Inspired Stewardship, and I run things through the lens of stewardship, and yet I've discovered over the years that word means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So for you, what does [00:27:00] stewardship mean to you?

Dan Nichols: It brings to mind the scene in The Lord of the Rings.

I love when Gandalf walks into the Great Hall in, in Gondor there, and the, the steward is sitting on the throne, and the steward is cl- you know, basically death-gripping the throne, saying, "I'm not gonna give this away." And Gandalf says, you know, "Authority is not yours to deny the return of the king.

You are a steward. What that means is, you are simply holding something that ultimately belongs to someone else." So I remember that scene. It's so powerful, and that is ultimately our calling, to not death-grip things that ultimately aren't ours, because everything we have is ultimately God's to begin with.

Scott Maderer: So this is my favorite question that I like to ask everybody. Imagine for a moment that I was able to invent this magic machine, and with this machine, I was able to take you from where you are [00:28:00] today and transport you into the future, maybe 150, maybe 250 years, but through the power of this machine, you are able to look back and see your entire life, see all of the connections, all of the ripples, all of the impacts you've left.

What impact do you hope you've left in the world?

Dan Nichols: Yeah, I'm glad you asked that, Scott. So I do a leadership exercise with our leadership development, uh, process here called tombstone goals, uh, or write your own eulogy. So we've done that with a lot of leaders, and my personal tombstone goals would be that, uh, I would be a faithful follower of Jesus, loving husband to Joy, great dad to Landon and Declan, a lifelong learner, fruitful leader, encouraging friend, and hero maker.

Scott Maderer: Yeah, I, I like my version better than write your own eulogy because write your own eulogy always felt really creepy to me. So I came up with, I came up with a way to ask it without saying, "By the way, [00:29:00] you're dead." it always bothered me when I did those exercises, so I'm like, "I gotta come up with a better question."

Um. So what's, what's next for you as you kinda continue on your journey?

Dan Nichols: Our church is about ready to go multi-site for the first time in over two centuries. Wow. So that's pretty exciting. Yeah, Dryden, New York. Uh, if you wanna learn a little bit more about Dryden, there's a, a documentary, uh, called...

It, the title is Village of the Damned, which sounds really ominous, but yeah, Dryden has experienced a lot of really, um, difficult spiritual struggles through the years. And, uh, I think that's on Amazon Prime now. It's either Discovery+ or Amazon Prime. But yeah, so we're going multi-site, and then Northeast Collaboras gonna continue to, um, yeah, empower pastors to lead and launch healthy churches, uh, in the Northeast.

Scott Maderer: If I can, I'll find a, a link to the, the, uh, documentary, too, and drop that in the show notes as well.

Dan Nichols: Oh, also Galatians will be out, uh, when this airs. [00:30:00] So Galatians, uh, is out. We also have Philippians. Colossians and Philemon were put together, and then First, Second, Third John, and Jude. Um, and then August 2026, uh, James and Titus will be putting together.

So all of those for the Making Scripture series that's a paraphrase for elementary students.

Scott Maderer: So you can find out more about Dan over at danandjoy.com, and of course I'll have a link to that in the show notes as well. Dan, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener?

Dan Nichols: Absolutely. First Corinthians 15:58, "Nothing we do for the Lord is ever in vain."

Scott Maderer: Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If [00:31:00] you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspiredstewardship.com/itunesrate, all one word, itunesrate.

It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review, and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed. Until next time, invest your time, your talent, and your treasures.

Develop your influence and impact the

world.