Why God Gives You a Seed, Not the Orchard
Ever feel like your dream is taking too long?
You can see it. The vision for your life, your family, your work, your faith. It is clear and it is good. So why are you still standing in a season that looks nothing like it? Maybe the growth you felt a year ago has dried up. Maybe you asked God for an orchard and He handed you a single seed you cannot even identify. On the latest Daron Earlewine Podcast, Daron sits down with Matt LeRoy, a friend of twenty-five years, and they land on a truth that reframes the whole wait. God almost always works slow and small.
You do not burn down the orchard in winter
Matt plants churches and builds discipleship resources, and he keeps returning to the picture of an orchard. An apple tree does not bear fruit year-round. There are seasons when the branches look barren, even dead. His line is simple. You do not burn down the orchard in winter. Things are happening under the surface that you cannot see yet. Daron adds the part that stings a little. God usually shows you the orchard first, the full picture of where you are headed, and then He hands you a seed. Not a tree. A seed you have to bury, water, and wait on. The vision comes fast. The fruit comes slow. Both are from God.
Character, competency, community, and courage
So why the wait? Daron offers four honest reasons a dream gets delayed, and none of them mean God is against you. Sometimes it is character, and He is using the same wall you keep hitting to build something in you. Sometimes it is competency, and you simply need more reps before you can carry the weight of the thing. Sometimes it is community, and He is moving people out to make room for the ones who will actually help. And sometimes it is courage, and the seed is just waiting on your next brave step. Slow and small is not a reason to stop dreaming big. It is the road between the vision and the harvest. If you are in a barren season right now, that is not proof He forgot you. God is near you, not far. He is for you, not against you. He created you on purpose and for a purpose.
Want to talk through the season you are in? Email daron@daronearlewine.com.
Connect with Daron
Subscribe for new episodes every week. Questions or reactions, send them to daron@daronearlewine.com.
Episode Summary:
Most people quit on a God given dream somewhere between year two and year three. Not because the dream was wrong, but because nothing visible was happening.
Matt LeRoy carried the idea for Follow Jesus for ten years before it existed. Daron carried the vision for discipleship in the marketplace for three. The money did not show up until a coaching client reached into his pocket and handed over a check.
In this conversation, Daron Earlewine and Matt LeRoy trace a friendship that started in 1999 and the long, unglamorous road from a bench at a conference to a finished book. If you are sitting on a vision that is not moving, this one is for you.
Key Takeaways
⚡️ God gives you the picture of the orchard, then hands you a seed. The gap between the vision and the first step is where most people quit. It is not a sign the vision was false. It is the design.
⚡️ Delay usually falls into one of four categories. Character, competency, community, or courage. Naming which one you are in changes the delay from a punishment into a process.
⚡️ If the dream had happened when you wanted it, it would not have been what it is. Ten years of stirring did not slow Follow Jesus down. It edited it.
Follow Jesus releases November 2026. Free copies at the Dirt World Summit in Phoenix, and available wherever books are sold.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
What is the dream you are still waiting on? Drop it in the comments. Matt and Daron both waited a decade on this one.
If this episode encouraged you, share it with one person who is curious about Jesus but does not know where to start.
#FollowJesus #Discipleship #GospelOfMatthew #DaronEarlewine #MattLeRoy #ChristianPodcast #FaithAtWork #BlackbirdMission #DirtWorld #BibleReadingPlan
Connect with Daron on Social Media:
Links to the Daron Earlewine Podcast
YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Libsyn
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Matt LeRoy: Jesus is real. Jesus is trustworthy. Jesus is the truth, and what He says is truth. I had just discovered again that Jesus is the most compelling story possible. And I had felt drawn to Him in a, not a new way, an old way. Just again.
Daron Earlewine: Hey, welcome back to The Daron Earlewine Podcast. Daron Earlewine, your host. There is going to be a lot of laughing in this episode. We are just going to prepare you for it.
Matt LeRoy is back. Welcome back, Matt.
Matt LeRoy: Thank you, Daron. Great to be here.
Daron Earlewine: Matt, this is our first in person podcast. Did we do one or two with you in North Kackalacky?
Matt LeRoy: I remember at least one.
Daron Earlewine: At least one. So we just finished over sixteen hours of recording videos the past two days.
Matt LeRoy: Yes, we did.
Daron Earlewine: We are working on a project called Follow Jesus. The Call, The Cost, The Commission. It is a co project with Blackbird Mission and Orchard Center. We are creating this resource, a forty day journey of fifty.
Matt LeRoy: Bonus ten.
Daron Earlewine: Bonus ten. Boom. Helping people discover just the basics of what it looks like to follow Jesus. And this is a dream you have had for years to create.
It was a need that we at Blackbird Mission, our nonprofit, wanted to respond to. Because with the growth of Rogue Collective Coaching, our corporate coaching company, helping awaken people to become who they were born to be, we really want to see that spark a disciple making movement in the marketplace.
I felt like I was saying we have a need to create a resource, and you had a vision for it. We brought those two together, and we recorded it all this week. You have written the book already. This is going to be a podcast people can watch and listen to if they do not want to read.
We got to the end of that and thought, we are here. You are here from North Carolina. Let’s sit down and do a couple of podcast episodes.
What I want to do for this first episode is tell the twenty five year story slash three year story of our connection.
The reason I think this is important to this conversation is that I think often we get ideas, maybe we have dreams, and we are waiting for some kind of massive big bang moment where it all happens. Or we think that because we have an idea, it is going to happen in six months.
Oftentimes we are not patient enough, or maybe not paying attention enough, to see what God is doing. And it is usually a little bit longer period.
All the time here on the podcast, our three things we talk about are that God is near, He is not far away. He is not against you. And He created you on purpose and for purpose. We are all about helping find purpose.
What struck me in the last set of videos we recorded, which were about twenty minute conversations that will be the end cap for each week of Follow Jesus, was our combination of how we hosted those. Me hosting and guiding the conversation, you bringing in depth theological and biblical insight into it.
There were just moments where it was like, wow, we are doing exactly what we were created to do. In those little moments.
I think all of us long to have those. It is not usually twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. But most people would say, man, I would love to have something where I feel like I am doing my purpose. And I feel like the past two days have given us an opportunity to do that.
Matt LeRoy: Absolutely.
Daron Earlewine: So I thought, let’s just have a conversation about how it all came together. Maybe that will help encourage and even equip somebody watching who is saying, man, I am seeking that.
Matt, tell people who you are and what you do now, and then we will go back to 1999.
Matt LeRoy: I love it. Can’t wait.
My name is Matt LeRoy and I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. That is my hometown. With my wife Sarah and my twin sons Luke and Sam, who just turned fifteen last week. I absolutely love it. I am loving life right now.
What I do is a few different things.
Daron Earlewine: I like to hear you explain it, because then I am not the only idiot when people ask, so what did you say you do? And I am like, how long do you have?
Matt LeRoy: Exactly. Let me break out a whiteboard. I am going to need to chart this out a little bit.
So I have a few different jobs. One of those is I work with something called The Circuit, which is a network of church planters. I have a real heart and passion for church planting. I went through that process myself. My real heart in that is to encourage other church planters. So I help oversee The Circuit.
Then I am working with an organization called World Hope International. It is a Christian development and relief organization whose mission is to bring hope in hard places. We are working in five different countries around the world with our three pillars, which are clean water, global health, and protection.
Under that umbrella of protection, that is working with schools and education programs, but also anti human trafficking efforts. They host different recovery centers for people who are coming out of human trafficking. So I work with them as well.
Daron Earlewine: Stirring. Absolutely inspiring organization.
Matt LeRoy: And then my third job is getting to work with you and creating discipleship resources. I am helping to oversee something called Orchard Center. The heartbeat and the impulse and the mission of that is to see discipleship and mission happening in community.
We are creating discipleship resources that local churches can use, individuals can use, small groups can use, even, like you are talking about, working into the marketplace.
With that driving desire, the thing that brings all those together, that driving desire of helping people follow Jesus. And also living that out myself, continuing to learn more and more of what it means to follow Jesus and staying in step with who He is and where He is going to lead next.
That is my life right now.
Daron Earlewine: That is your life now. So let’s dial up the time machine to 1999 and get in it.
Matt LeRoy: I think I had multiple colors in my hair at that point.
Daron Earlewine: Yours was a little more black. A little less gray and white than it is right now.
Anyway, so I am chasing my first dream, which is to be a drummer and a rock star. And you are a youth pastor. And you were good at that. You know what, I bet you are still good at that.
Matt LeRoy: I can play. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Daron Earlewine: I was telling my story to my middle son when we were driving back from Wisconsin, up there doing some coaching with a great company called MJ Excavating.
I explained it to him and I thought he had heard my story. He had, he just might not have paid attention. Now he is nineteen and he could not get out of the car. So for six hours we are telling him the story, and I played him some of the songs, because they are on Spotify.
And he goes, Dad, you have got to lead with this. You tell people you were in marching band, you speak and stuff. He is like, you have got to start with, I was a rock star and traveled around the country. It is a way better start.
I was like, thanks. I received that.
Anyway, we are chasing the dream. You are a youth pastor here in Indianapolis and you needed a worship team.
Matt LeRoy: That is right.
Daron Earlewine: And we wanted to help the local church. We wanted to help lead worship. Our lead singer had gone to college with you. So it was a connection. You also went to college with my wife.
Matt LeRoy: Yes, this is true.
Daron Earlewine: We should just do a whole episode where you tell stories that I do not know about.
Matt LeRoy: Let’s do it.
Daron Earlewine: And make her sit there and listen. She cannot talk. She has no mic. She cannot correct it. Her head would pop off. That would be great.
Anyway, so we were connected through connections that would become major connections that we did not know we were connected to.
Matt LeRoy: It is crazy.
Daron Earlewine: So we come and start leading worship. You had an amazing youth group. Loved working with you.
Fast forward another year or so. My dream dies. I end up stepping into doing some different ministry stuff, and I end up on staff with you as the adult pastor. And then the next dream, of launching a church plant, that was called The Crux. You were instrumental in helping that happen.
Dude, it is just kind of crazy. The whole quote of, you cannot make old friends. It is nuts to me that we have been friends, lived life very closely, then not that close, and then now reconnected.
I do not have any questions prepared for this, but here is one that just jumped into my head. What was your impression of me when I was twenty three years old and we first went on staff together?
Matt LeRoy: Oh man. You think I am going to say something funny because I laughed so hard.
Here was my impression of you, and this is totally just straight coming from memory. When I very first met you, and this proved to be true, it was very clear that you are a leader. A really driven and gifted leader. You had that role in the band. And you ended up having that role even in our youth ministry.
Even though I was the youth pastor and you were part of the worship band, you played a significant leadership role in shaping who we were as a youth group.
That was such a transformational time for me. Such a key time in my life.
That was very clear to me from the beginning. And then when you came on staff with us and we got to actually work together day in and day out, that just kept becoming more and more clear.
Like I said, I work with church planters. So you were twenty three at the time.
Daron Earlewine: Twenty three, twenty four right there.
Matt LeRoy: There are not a whole lot of twenty three year olds that I would say, yeah, you should definitely go plant a church right now.
Daron Earlewine: Trust me. Somebody should have been like, put this guy on the back burner for a second.
Matt LeRoy: But I remember that whole process, and it was very clear that that was the right next step. And it was really clear that you were the leader who was called to that, who was gifted for it. I was just really inspired with how you led even all the way back then.
Daron Earlewine: It is funny. Thank you. I receive that.
It is interesting how we can always remember the worst parts of ourselves. Because I feel like I was just a chaotic idiot back there who had a bunch of ideas.
Some of the stories we have shared just driving around this week, you are like, do you not remember when you had that idea? And I am like, no, I do not remember that.
Matt LeRoy: I want to interrupt you for a second. I am not trying to make this whatever here, but I have told you this before. Your ideas happen. Your ideas end up happening. And I just think that is a really incredible thing.
Who knows how many ideas you have had that did not happen. That is for all of us. Anyone who is a dreamer sees that. But so many of your ideas have come to fruition.
I think that is a way that God has uniquely gifted you. And I keep seeing you live that out. So when you get to that point when you have got to take the next brave step, you have already seen God come through for you.
Daron Earlewine: It is true, man. We will come back to that, because you shared that word of encouragement to me about three years ago. I do not know if you felt like it was a prophetic moment, but when it came out of your mouth, it was not you speaking. It was like it was downloaded directly from God to me. It was an amazingly prophetic moment. We will get back to that.
I remember when I first started working with you, Matt. I love ideas. I love the idea of creating something of a movement. And I love people.
This is going to make me sound heartless, and I am not. But I do not always go people first. I go idea, or maybe process, first.
I was always struck when we first started working together by seeing that Matt genuinely loves people. The way you treated people, the way that you connected with your students. It just came across that he is genuinely invested in loving people.
I learned that from you. It would drive me nuts. We would go somewhere and I would be like, Matt, we have got to go. And if I am saying we have got to go, we are late.
Matt LeRoy: Exactly.
Daron Earlewine: Then we would wait for you, and then we would be Matt LeRoy late.
Matt LeRoy: Oh, that is bad. That is a whole new layer.
Daron Earlewine: But the reason we were usually late is I would go out to the car, and then twenty minutes later be like, where the freak is Matt? And you would go back in and you were standing somewhere with someone with a smile on your face, listening to a conversation, engaging with people.
It was annoying to me because we had stuff we had to get done. But I was like, he genuinely takes time for people. That was awesome to watch and learn.
Matt LeRoy: Man, thank you.
Daron Earlewine: Also, getting to hear you teach, and you were what, twenty five maybe?
Matt LeRoy: Probably twenty two, twenty three around that same time.
Daron Earlewine: Hearing you and your understanding of the scriptures. But not just from an application point, not just a theological point. The way that you have always loved history.
So many of your sermons would always have some historical thing. Could have been US history, you love US history. Church history, some history. But you brought the historicity of something and were able to weave it together, which gave so much more depth to what you were teaching. I always thought that was intriguing and I appreciated it.
Dude, we have been friends for over twenty years. If you add up all the times we have just laughed together, it has to be a couple of years of our friendship.
Matt LeRoy: This is very true.
Daron Earlewine: Including half of a couple of the episodes that we tried to film together. When Coop has to edit those, he is going to be like, curse these guys.
Remember when we got on a plane dressed as Pooh and Tigger?
Matt LeRoy: I do.
Daron Earlewine: How did they allow us on the airplane?
Matt LeRoy: I do not know. Security things were a bit more lax. A little different.
Daron Earlewine: Were we going to Orlando or something? We were working at the church and we found those costumes.
Matt LeRoy: No, I think we bought them. We bought them and we felt like, oh man, this would be great for the youth group.
Daron Earlewine: I do not know why we thought that.
Matt LeRoy: They were the full on fuzzy, zip up in the back, over the head, full body Pooh and Tigger outfits.
Daron Earlewine: And we wore them.
Matt LeRoy: I was Pooh, you were Tigger. And that kind of fit our personalities a little bit. We changed into them in the tunnel going onto the plane one time and just walked down the aisle, and everybody thought it was hilarious. And we did too. Now looking back, maybe not so funny.
Daron Earlewine: I have a picture of us in my office dressed up as Pooh and Tigger.
Matt LeRoy: That is right.
Daron Earlewine: Oh dude, we had some good times. And then we ran for president that year.
Matt LeRoy: Pooh and Tigger for president. Do you remember that? We put together a little campaign. It did not really go anywhere.
Daron Earlewine: Was that for a youth group thing?
Matt LeRoy: Yeah.
Daron Earlewine: That was great.
So I start the church. You end up leaving, get married, and then you head to Asbury to go get a master’s degree. That would have been what, 2004?
Matt LeRoy: 2004 is when we left Indiana.
Daron Earlewine: And then we stayed in touch, but not a ton. You went to Asbury for three and a half, four years.
Matt LeRoy: Three and a half.
Daron Earlewine: Then you went to Chapel Hill. Moved back to Chapel Hill. Planted Love Chapel Hill. Did that for thirteen years.
Matt LeRoy: Yes, I was there for thirteen years.
Daron Earlewine: In that time I was at The Crux, then at East 91st Street for four years, and then in 2012 went and launched Blackbird Mission, Pub Theology, Radio Theology, all the theologies.
And then three years ago we are at Exponential, a church planting conference down in Florida. I think maybe we had texted each other and said, hey, I am here, we should try to connect. But how many people are at that conference?
Matt LeRoy: Oh, I would not guess.
Daron Earlewine: Exactly. So we were not organizing our connection. And then we walked out of a door at the same time. We had a five minute conversation and I was like, bro, do you want to go to this next session? And I was like, no.
So we went and found a bench and we are just kind of catching up.
Matt LeRoy: I am sure that was a good session, but not as good as what happened.
Daron Earlewine: That is true.
So I remember sitting down, and this would have been three years ago. At that point I felt God nudging something, doing what I had been doing with purpose in the marketplace as a discipleship thing. But I did not quite get it yet.
I am talking to you like, where are you at? What are you doing? And you are unpacking some of the things that were changing your life.
Which was odd to me, dude. Because I have always been a little, I used to say rebellious, now more rogueish.
Matt LeRoy: Exactly.
Daron Earlewine: You were a little straight down the middle. You know what I mean? Like you serve on prestigious boards and things.
And you start sharing where God was moving your heart, and some of the dissatisfaction or disappointment that you were having in different traditional ministry settings. At the same time you were trying to figure out, I do not know what this could be.
We had that moment of just going, man, I think God is speaking to us similarly in different ways. And I remember walking away from that conversation being like, man, I think there is something that is supposed to happen here maybe.
How do you remember that conversation?
Matt LeRoy: The same way. Absolutely. What you were sensing and what I was sensing. Like you said, there was some disillusionment and other things like that that I was experiencing.
But what was coming as clarity during the middle of that disillusionment was Jesus. Even in moments when it felt like other structures were giving way somewhat, Jesus was still the solid piece in the middle of that.
I had been through a time where I just had to discover that again. That Jesus is real. That Jesus is trustworthy. That Jesus is the truth and what He says is truth.
I had just discovered again that Jesus is the most compelling story possible. And I had felt drawn to Him in a, not a new way, an old way. Just again. It felt like maybe a fresh layer of what was always there.
So that was what was stirring in me at that time as well. Just a hunger for people to continue to experience Jesus, even in a time period when a lot of people were deconstructing or were walking through disappointment and disillusionment, maybe with the church as a whole.
The way that Jesus led me through that, I had a real hunger and desire to lead some other people in that. To just tell people about Jesus. Keep teaching about Jesus, keep talking about Jesus, keep walking with Jesus, and just keep Jesus right at the middle of all of it.
[Mid Roll Ad Read. Speaker unconfirmed. See flags.]
Sorry for the interruption here in the podcast, but I wanted to take this moment to invite you into something.
If you have ever been in a place in your life where you just felt stuck. You felt like maybe you are just spinning your wheels. You have been thinking that there has got to be more for me. I listen to the podcast all the time and I hear Daron talk about on purpose and for purpose. I have to discover my purpose.
Well, that feeling is right. You do need to. And I want to help you. I want to help be a guide for you to step into who God created you to be. That is the purpose and the design of what we do with Rogue Collective Coaching.
So if you are curious, or if you are saying, listen, I am not curious, I know it is time for me to take action, here is your call to action. Go to RogueCollectiveCoaching.com. Click the button that says book a discovery call. Jump on a thirty minute conversation with me. We will talk about where you are and whether Rogue Collective Coaching is your next step to help you become who you were born to be.
RogueCollectiveCoaching.com. Book a discovery call. Can’t wait to chat with you. Let’s get back to the episode.
Daron Earlewine: Guess what maybe kicked up some of that desire to have that conversation. You actually pulled up on your Facebook yesterday that it was five or six years to the day that you had been on the podcast.
Matt LeRoy: Yes. It was during COVID.
Daron Earlewine: COVID, that is right. And I remember us having that conversation. And I remember walking away being like, this is not the first conversation, Matt, I need to have. This is the next one.
So we had that, and I cannot remember if it was that conversation or the next year when we met again at Exponential. We sat back down and I had a little more structure of what I thought this thing could be. I laid out what I think about with Rogue and how Blackbird could come alongside, and we have discipleship, whatever.
For me it was still just a wacko idea that I was not sure could happen. I remember we had finished the conversation and I am being real doubtful. And you stopped and you said, Daron, how many of your ideas have not happened? Your ideas happen.
And dude, it was like a moment from God being like, stop doubting the visionary gifts I have given you. Stop disqualifying yourself by what I want to say is almost like a false humility, but is actually used as a defense mechanism to shrink away from the risk.
And then you walked away. And you got about ten steps away and you came back and you said, one thing more. You said, I think you are supposed to start slow and start small.
You said, your son Knox is getting ready to go into high school. And you said, you have done such an amazing job raising your boys. You said, do not miss these next four years. Start slow. Start small.
Dude, that has been a core value for me over the past year and a half of starting Rogue Collective. Somebody is like, how are you going to scale it? Can you do this in verticals? And I just keep coming back to going slow and small.
Honestly, since we are talking about chasing ideas and visions that God gives us, I can think back to when we first worked together, when I was first planting a church. In that time I only saw things as big and fast. I really did.
Through the volunteers and the leaders that I burned out, and me getting to the point of near complete burnout, it is because every idea that I had, I thought it had to happen big and it had to happen fast.
Matt LeRoy: And they never do.
Daron Earlewine: They never do.
Now God has helped me gain the wisdom to know that I am about a three year guy. I tell people I live at about three years in the future. I get an idea now, and I know that God might be showing me something that we maybe could do in three years.
When I was twenty five or twenty six, I would get an idea and be like, we are doing that right now, and it needs to be big and fast. In six months this should be the thing. And it would fail for lack of good process or structure, burn people out trying to make a thing happen, and then I would feel like a total failure.
So just to encourage you, if you are listening. Whether it is a character development issue, whether it is a competency issue, whether it is a vision or a dream I think you have. Maybe it is something for your marriage, maybe it is something for your career, your children. I do not care what category it is.
Embrace the fact that almost exclusively God works small and slow.
Matt LeRoy: Absolutely. That is why when I am using that imagery of orchard, part of that reason is it reminds me over and over of the season of things.
For an orchard, if you plant an orchard, how many years is that going to take before you actually start seeing the fruit? And then the quality of the fruit has to have that time to continue to become what it can be. And it is seasonal.
If we are talking about an apple tree, an apple tree is not bearing fruit all year round. There are seasons to that. So there are times when the branches are going to look barren, when it is going to look dead.
And one of the things we just say over and over again is you do not burn down the orchard in winter. There are things that are happening beneath the surface that you cannot see yet.
Daron Earlewine: So good.
Matt LeRoy: If we will be patient and move at the pace of the gardener, who has been doing this from the beginning and has refused to give up. If we will walk with Him and at His pace, then in the right season we will see that growth happen again.
That is an encouragement I would give to anyone listening who feels like they are in a barren season.
In the church that we planted we had a lot of college students, and I would get this all the time. We would sit across the table and they would feel really discouraged because they were not in a season of growth. They would say, I was experiencing a lot of growth back here and now I am just not. And it seems like this just happens where I go through these times when the growth is not happening.
And I am like, you mean like the way God designed the whole universe to work?
He does that with all of us too. There will be those times when it does not look like you can see the growth. Be patient. Slow and small. The image of a seed. Slow and small. And eventually then it does become something that grows beyond what you even imagined in the beginning.
Daron Earlewine: I think the interesting and frustrating thing is that usually when we get a vision from God, we get a picture of the orchard. And then He brings a seed into your life.
Matt LeRoy: Exactly.
Daron Earlewine: How often do we have this amazing vision, and then it is, bury this and go water it and go look after it. You have got this inspiring vision I want to invite you into. It is a seed.
Matt LeRoy: Exactly.
Daron Earlewine: Like, what? I cannot even tell what that is. Give me a little more than that. What kind of seed is that? An apple? Is it a lemon? What is it?
Matt LeRoy: Oh, it is a seed.
Daron Earlewine: So we get a vision of the orchard, and then God goes, okay, now you know where we are going. Go plant the seed.
Matt LeRoy: That is exactly right.
Daron Earlewine: So I just encourage you. Like Matt just said, it could be you feel like you are in a barren season. It could be that you are questioning. And I see this vision of my future and it is way better than what I have today.
Okay, well, journal that somewhere. Think about that. But then look around at what is happening right now and go, okay, where is the seed? Am I caring for the soil of my soul?
It is an interesting process. And I guess the coolest part about getting older, the gift of it, is for both of us. For me it has been from a music and traveling ministry to a young adult ministry, to a church plant, to another young adult ministry, to nonprofit ministries. All the different things I have gotten a chance to create in. For you, from youth ministry to degrees, to church planting.
We have been able to see a couple of visions go from I see it, to I planted it, to it is happening.
Matt LeRoy: It is a process. It absolutely is.
And the tension there is that slow and small is the process, but that is not telling you not to dream big. Even that day with that conversation, what you mapped out and what you sensed God was stirring in you, that was not small. That was not slow. It is just that the road between sometimes is going to be that kind of process.
So saying slow and small is not to discourage anyone. But just to know that if God is stirring something that big in you, it is going to require patience. He has got enough patience for you, but He is going to ask you to have patience too.
Daron Earlewine: No doubt. And then the cool part about carrying the analogy is that you plant the seed, you take care of the soil, but if God is in it, then He begins to do some things that only God can do.
Matt LeRoy: That is exactly right. He actually produces the growth. He does more than you could ask or imagine.
Daron Earlewine: So rewind and fast forward a little bit. We have those conversations, and we keep talking. And then you go, hey, I have got this whole Follow Jesus thing. It is actually a part of, how many do you have? Seven, nine, how many?
Matt LeRoy: Ten.
Daron Earlewine: Ten. You are like, I have got ten volumes I want to do, but I want to come to this first one.
And I am like, well, I feel like God is saying there is some kind of harvest coming for us for souls. And we need a discipleship resource. I did not think I had the time to create it.
So we start dreaming about that. You are like, this is what I want to do. The first one is called Follow Jesus. And I am like, oh, cool. So, okay, how do we make that happen?
You came last year to do Worship on the Water with us. God rained it out. So we just got a chance to hang out a bunch more, which was actually probably more necessary.
Matt LeRoy: It is true.
Daron Earlewine: And I said, what do you need? And you said, well, I need to change this around. I need about this amount of money to be able to make this thing happen.
And I was like, okay, well, I do not have that amount of money.
So I remember us in August saying, now let’s pray. For us in the nonprofit world, for Blackbird, Giving Tuesday is usually a big push for us to try to raise. We have a great small group of monthly sponsors that have kept Blackbird alive since 2012. But every year there is a portion of our annual budget that we have to raise in other ways.
Matt LeRoy: And that gets you back to even.
Daron Earlewine: Exactly. But we needed even and then some to be able to say yes to this project.
So that was July of last year. We are praying about it. I am talking to some people, trying to do stuff. No go. And I am like, well, I do not know. I thought this was from God. We need an orchard of money trees.
Matt LeRoy: I do not think those exist yet.
Daron Earlewine: So I am out in October with a client, with a company that we work with through Rogue Collective Coaching. And I am talking to the CEO and his wife about this vision. What we could do, what we want to make happen. Here is what it is, but this is what we need to make it happen. And I said, would you just pray about maybe joining us in that.
Went to bed that night. Wake up the next morning, do a whole day of coaching with their company, and we are hanging out that night.
And he is like, hey, tell me a little bit more about this discipleship idea. I am laying it out and all of a sudden he is getting fired up for it. It could be this, maybe we could help with it. It was an amazing conversation.
And then he goes, well, my wife and I are going to give. He is like, we just kind of prayed about a number. And I only saw her for about thirty seconds today. He said, I walked past her in the office and said, did you pray about it? She said yes. And he said, I asked her what her number was, and it was the exact same number God gave me.
So he reached in his pocket and he handed a check to me. That was the largest single donation that Blackbird Mission had ever received in twelve years of existing.
Matt LeRoy: That is incredible.
Daron Earlewine: And he said, now it is paid for. He said, now you have got to do it.
Matt LeRoy: Wow.
Daron Earlewine: Now you have got to do it. So I remember calling you, dude, and I was like, Follow Jesus is happening. Let’s go. We have the means to make it happen.
We started praying, planning. And the culmination is this week. You worked your butt off the first half of this year writing the book. And then we sat down this week to record the audio and visual part of it. The heart being, we know that some people may not be used to reading the Bible, or reading a book even, but maybe they will embrace a podcast. So the layout of the book is that they can listen and watch the whole thing.
But dude, it is just so cool to realize that we saw this orchard, God was planting a seed, and then to see Him go, here is the means you need. Say yes to it. Make it happen.
I do not know, dude. It literally is the greatest adventure and the greatest joy, following Jesus into the ideas He has.
Matt LeRoy: That is exactly right. And thank you for that, Daron. Thank you for reminding me of all of that and recasting that story. It is so important for us to keep remembering, and to realize we are still in that story.
Who knows what is in that bend up around the road. Who knows what other conversations are already happening where God is about to make something possible that you have been praying about, that you have felt a burden about. He gave you a dream and He has been making it, and He will keep making it happen.
One other encouraging piece to that for anybody who is wrestling through that dream stage right now. The whole idea of Follow Jesus as a journey through the Gospel of Matthew, that really originated probably about ten years ago.
Daron Earlewine: Really?
Matt LeRoy: Yeah. So it is this thing that has been stirring for that long. And if we had done it ten years ago, it would not have been what it is.
Sometimes some dreams need that time to grow and shift. There is an editing that takes place. There is an okay, we thought we were going that way, actually we need to go this way.
That is one of the things I have thought about even over the past couple of days of recording this and working on this. If it had happened earlier, when I was really wanting it to happen, it would not have happened in the same way and it would not have been the same thing.
I am just really grateful for where we are. Really grateful for you and Blackbird making that a possibility. An encouragement to anybody else out there. Just know that sometimes the reason for that slow and small is because it is going to become something even more than you had hoped it was going to be.
Daron Earlewine: That is beautiful, Matt.
And I think there are a couple of different categories. Some of it is that God gives you that image, that vision. And if everybody is not dreaming about discipleship resources and disciple making movements like we are, that is okay. It could be anything. Maybe it is a career change. Maybe it is a degree, going back to school. Maybe it is a family, a spouse, whatever it could be.
I think there are sometimes where God says, I gave you the picture, but right now your character is not strong enough to sustain that. So we have got to develop. You have got to develop a little bit more so you can handle the weight of it.
I think sometimes maybe it is competency. Your character is there, but you need some things you have got to get better at. You need some reps.
Matt LeRoy: Absolutely.
Daron Earlewine: And I think sometimes it could even be, I do not know why I have to alliterate everything.
Matt LeRoy: It is good. So she will remember. She does.
Daron Earlewine: I do it all the time. It is annoying. I cannot stop.
Matt LeRoy: You are going to love it.
Daron Earlewine: So it could be character. It might be a competency issue. But it could also be a community issue. Like the people you have right now, they are not going to serve this vision. They are in the way. Or they are not the level of people. Or I have got something else for those people.
And so just knowing, like we say every week on the podcast, God is near you, He is not far. And He is for you, He is not against you.
So you may be in a season where the character development, you keep banging your head against the same wall, the same struggle, and you think, oh, God is mad at me. No. He is for you. And He is using these struggles to develop you.
Competency. Oh, I am just not whatever, God must be against me, He is not giving me my thing. No, He is so for you. But He is saying, I have got to get you to the place where you can handle this. Where you can actually excel at this.
The people in the community. If God loved me He would bring me great people. No, God loves you so much that He is actually removing some people so He has room to put some new people in.
Last point. God has created you on purpose and for purpose. You stay on that path and you get to have these little sweet spot moments like we have had this week of going, dude, I think I am doing exactly what God put me on this earth to do. That is priceless.
Matt LeRoy: Yes, it is.
Daron Earlewine: Dude, let’s go put on our Pooh and Tigger outfits and get on a plane. Coop, you want a costume? Bring the picture to the next episode. Which one would you be in Winnie the Pooh? Piglet?
Matt LeRoy: Piglet. You are too tall for Piglet.
Daron Earlewine: You are the tallest Piglet in the world. You got one more thing in there?
Matt LeRoy: Yeah, let’s do it. This is just encouragement and a challenge to people too. I love what you were saying about community. A little bit of a twist on that.
One of the things I also had to learn is you cannot ask somebody else to do it for you. And you cannot be mad at somebody who is not doing it for you when God put the burden on you.
Daron Earlewine: Can I add a fourth C then?
Matt LeRoy: Yes, go.
Daron Earlewine: It would be courage.
Matt LeRoy: There it is. You have got to have courage.
Exactly. Do not be mad at people who maybe are not seeing it. That is not their fault. God gave the vision to you. Maybe you are not sharing it in the right way, or whatever. But it is not up to other people that we maybe think, oh, these are the people who will help us. Well, maybe. But if it is not the right thing for them at that moment, do not be mad at them. Just know that God gave it to you, and He is going to connect you to the right people who will help make that happen.
Daron Earlewine: Well Matt, I am glad we are connected still. So, twenty seven years?
Matt LeRoy: Or twenty seven, probably twenty eight.
Daron Earlewine: I think it was 99, actually. I am sticking with that.
Matt LeRoy: All right, you go for it. I like how you have been saying 99. I was like, do I correct him? You said 98. Should I correct him? Then you went to 97.
Daron Earlewine: I cannot stand for that.
Matt LeRoy: His math is so off.
Daron Earlewine: You are right. It probably was 99. Okay, I will adjust the story from here on out. Put that in the show notes.
Dude, here is what I want to do. Stick around for one more episode, will you?
Matt LeRoy: Great, let’s do it.
Daron Earlewine: What I want to do is just a thirty thousand foot flyover of Follow Jesus. Because if everything checks out and we get it done, it will be live and available around the world in November of this year. Just a few months away. We have got some work we have got to do.
But I want this to be a little precursor of the resource we are working on.
Matt LeRoy: Excellent. Love it. Let’s go.
Daron Earlewine: Awesome. Hey, stick around for the next episode. Until we do, always remember, God is near you, not far. He is for you, not against you. He has created you on purpose and for purpose.
Thank you for downloading this episode of The Daron Earlewine Podcast.