PODCAST | What The Empty Tomb Means For Us (Feat. Joby Martin)

Resources:

https://coe22.com/

https://coe22.com/books

Transcript:

Christa Reinhardt:
Welcome to the Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Christa Reinhardt, Senior Marketing Coordinator here at Vanderbloemen. In today's podcast, our founder and CEO, William Vanderbloemen, talks with Joby Martin, founder and lead pastor of the Church of Eleven22 in Jacksonville, Florida. It's a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. In this conversation, Pastor Joby shares about his newest book, If The Tomb Is Empty, where he walks us through the cross of Jesus Christ and the empty tomb, and ultimately what that means for us. Because if the tomb is empty, anything is possible. We hope you enjoy this conversation.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, hey everybody. Welcome to the podcast today. Glad you're here. Always glad to get to introduce you to friends. And today, if you've ever watched the show Vikings, we have Ragnar. If you know, you know.

Joby Martin:
Hey what's funny is-

William Vanderbloemen:
[inaudible 00:01:13] Ragnar.

Joby Martin:
Ragnar. Yeah.

William Vanderbloemen:
Hrothgar.

Joby Martin:
Pretty much every time I travel internationally, there are people are like, "Are you the Vikings?" And I'm like, "Yeah." "Are you a Ragnar?" "Yeah, I am." [inaudible 00:01:24]

William Vanderbloemen:
Well Ragnar is actually a longtime friend of mine, Joby Martin. Joby, thank you for joining us today. I should say Pastor Joby. I knew Joby back when, but Pastor Joby is pastor of Church of Eleven22, which has a really cool story we're going to talk about. And if you have tried planting a church and you want to know some ways that work and don't work, this is going to be helpful to you. If you are just wanting to hear what's going on and how in the world a Gospel-centered ,almost Reformed movement could happen in Jacksonville, Florida, we're going to talk about that. And we're also going to talk about a pretty cool book Joby's got put out that asks a question that I think probably pretty much everything hinges on. So Joby, thank you for joining us today. I appreciate you making time.

Joby Martin:
William, thanks for having me, man. It's good to see you.

William Vanderbloemen:
You too. You too. Tell us a little bit of the story. So we met about 10 years ago. This church had started just a little bit before that. So walk us back and tell us the origin story of the church.

Joby Martin:
Yeah. I'm a total accidental church planner. So, I did not mean to do this. I was a youth pastor at a great church here in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, minding my own business as a student pastor. And then we started a service and I found myself in charge of that. And it started at 11:22 on Sunday mornings, and so I'm not very creative. So that's just what I called it: Eleven22. So people would know when to show up to church. And there was a series of events, man. For whatever reason, God breathed on it. And before we know it, our service is larger than the church we're at. And my pastor- Pastor Jerry Sweat's the best Christian I've ever met. He said, "I think you should plant a church." And I didn't even know what that was, man. That's kind of how I got connected with you. I signed up for some leadership network things and you mentored me, you among others, Larry Osborne and Steve Schrute. Those guys.

Joby Martin:
And so, we raised some money and Beach United Methodist let us live in their buildings for a few years. Then we renovated an old Walmart. And in September of 2012 we moved into that old Walmart. And like I said, man, God just breathed on it. And, in fact, I'm from this little redneck town called Dylan, South Carolina. And when I told my dad we were going to put the church in a Walmart, he said, "Boy, I always thought you'd work at Walmart." And so I offered him a job as a greeter. That's how that went down. And then since then, we're at eight locations right now. By the end of next year, we'll be at eleven. And God's been really, really gracious to us.

William Vanderbloemen:
Are the locations all in the Jacksonville area?

Joby Martin:
We have one up in Jesup, Florida, which is two and a half hours away, but the majority of them are in and around Jacksonville. And two of our locations are in prisons.

William Vanderbloemen:
Okay.

Joby Martin:
In Florida.

William Vanderbloemen:
Okay. So, unlike... So, when I grew up as a pastor in the denominational church and I went to Willow Creek in the Saddleback and they said, "Okay, you got to make a profile. The person you're trying to reach, an unchurched Harry and Mary and Sally and Sam... Saddleback Sam, I think it was. I don't remember. But anyway-

Joby Martin:
That's exactly right. Saddleback Sam.

William Vanderbloemen:
-find their pain points and preach to the pain points and put the cookies on the bottom shelf. That's pretty much what you all have done, right?

Joby Martin:
First, let me say me and everybody in my generation that's reaching people with the Gospel should be forever grateful to the Saddlebacks, Willow Creeks, and North Points, because without those brothers going first, we're still fighting over guitars and jeans. You know what I mean? So, but-

William Vanderbloemen:
Isn't that the truth? Isn't that the truth?

Joby Martin:
Our target audience is all people. So, Eleven22 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen their relationship with Jesus Christ. And I've done everything wrong. We sing too intensely. I preach too long, primarily preach books of the Bible. We call people to action. We tell them if they're not going to get into it, they can just leave, find another church. Things like, one year...

Joby Martin:
We sponsor a bunch of Compassion kids, like right now we sponsor 14,000 Compassion kids. And one year for our Compassion Sunday, instead of handing out a bulletin, we put Compassion packets in everybody's hand and lined the back of the sanctuary with trash cans. Instead you can either sponsor the kid or throw them away, throw them in the trash. Because if you don't sponsor them, that's where they're going to be eating. And so everybody sponsored all the kids. And they get so mad, William, and they're like, "I'm leaving the church." I'm like, "Fine, leave." And then they leave for six days and they get six friends and they come back. They're like, "You got to check this out. This is crazy." So, that's what we do. We just preach the Bible, man. Do what it says to do.

William Vanderbloemen:
It's seeker-friendly.

Joby Martin:
Well, not so much. We're more like in the day of Pentecost kind of sermons, right? God sent the author life and you murdered him, repent, surrender to him. We're more of that kind of attitude. But I do think our folks know that we love them. We're just not here... They're not the audience. God in heaven is the audience.

William Vanderbloemen:
For sure. And I tell people all the time, my job, working with thousands of kinds of churches, is really healthy for me and my soul. I have a lifelong wrestling match with pride, and I lose a lot. And I've said this quote before, but... I don't know if you've ever heard the old Ted Turner quote. "If I had a little more humility, I'd be perfect." [inaudible 00:06:58]

Joby Martin:
I feel you. And people ask me that, though. People ask me all the time, when they say, "How does your ego handle it since your church has gotten so big, so fast?" And my answer is, "Look, man, when the mosquito grabs onto the freight train, the mosquito does not feel bigger." And I feel like a mosquito just hanging on to this freight train-

William Vanderbloemen:
Agreed.

Joby Martin:
-because it's got to be God, because we're not that good, man. We're singing and talking like everybody else, but God's just reaching a lot of people here.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, and my vantage point watching you over the years, it's been pretty amazing to see what God's done. And it really does have to be God breathing on it. There's not a, "Here's the eight steps to your own Eleven22." And, as I look around churches all over the world now, and just look at how many different ways Jesus is building his church, it's like, huh, he really is going to do this with or without me. And I'm really not that big a deal.

Joby Martin:
Correct.

William Vanderbloemen:
And so, it's a good thing to see the good that he's doing through you in a way that many would say is unconventional or wouldn't work or it doesn't make sense from a marketing standpoint. You got antlers in the men's rooms, which I think is pretty cool, but you know-

Joby Martin:
Me too. Yeah, man. And I think one of the biggest things, bro, is... I mean, Paul told Timothy, "Fulfill your ministry." So we don't feel like we have to be anti-anybody else. We're not trying to like, "This ain't your mama's church and this..." That's not what we're doing. One of the great blessings of starting as a service at another church is that, when me and my friends started putting together this service, it didn't have to work. It didn't. We already had good church jobs. It was just an experiment. And we got together in my living room and said, "What if we created the kind of service that we all dreamed that we could attend?" That's it. That's it. And that's, today, what we're still doing, man. I'm still just, teach through books of the Bible. We sing very passionately. Basically Eleven22, the service, if you were to show up on a weekend, it's the last night at camp. That's what it is. We sing a bunch. I talk a bunch. We call people to the altar to lay it all down at Jesus' feet. That's what we do.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's good. That's good. Hey, I want to circle back to part of your story. I think it'd be really helpful for people out there. We've seen a lot of churches where the youth pastor's service gets bigger, then everybody doesn't get along and we agreed that our season had come to a close or whatever. And I got a word for it. I don't even have to define it. I say it was a splaunch. And everybody knows what I'm saying. It's a split. It's a launch. Who knows, it's a splaunch. But your story's very different. You and Jerry still keep up, right? And-

Joby Martin:
For sure.

William Vanderbloemen:
Talk to me about how you have maintained a positive stance there, and what you've done to nurture your own soul and the relationship with Jerry, because there's some people out there, whether it's the successor they're following or the legend that they're trying to live up to or... What have you learned about maintaining that relationship and maintaining your soul during that time?

Joby Martin:
Yeah. I think, William, I think Jerry gets all of the credit here, because he was the senior pastor and I worked for him, and if he wanted to, he could have just said, "All right, good job, scooter. Now hand me all of those services and I'm going to start teaching and preaching there." You know? And that was just never his posture. He was just humble. Everybody thinks their kingdom-minded until kingdom action is required, and he acted like the prevailing church was more important than just a singular church on one corner here in Jacksonville. And that's how he acted. So, it sure is easy to respect somebody that is so respectable. It's so easy to honor somebody that is so honorable. So, our stance was that we would honor him and honor the authority that we were under. But I'm just saying it was pretty easy when he was that honorable.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's good. That's a good word for anybody that's about to be leaving their church. And that doesn't mean retiring. Maybe you're moving to a different location, maybe a bigger church, smaller church. I heard our mutual friend, Craig Groeschel, give a talk years ago about generations managing their relationships. And he said it's about respect and honor. And the younger honors the older, and the older respects the younger. Isn't that good?

Joby Martin:
Yes. That's really good.

William Vanderbloemen:
Sounds like what Jerry's done for you. And I'd agree. In a succession, the vast majority of the success of the succession rises and falls on the shoulders of the older generation and what they do. So-

Joby Martin:
Yeah. All throughout the Scriptures, God always works in and through authority. So, I don't know how you could ever expect God to give you authority if you don't learn to live under the authority that he has put you under. And we got a bunch of rebellious spirits in the church world right now. In their mind, they're thinking- Go ahead.

William Vanderbloemen:
Go back and say that again. That was a Tweet there. That's good.

Joby Martin:
Yeah, man. All throughout the Scriptures, God always works in and through authority. So, how could you expect God to give you authority if you can't learn to live under the authority that God has already put you in. And so, that matters like crazy. And then, also, I would say, if you a are the one in authority, that does not mean you hoard it all up for yourself. Think about this. Matthew 16. Jesus takes the boys to Caesarea Philippi and asks the question, "Who do you say that I am?" And Peter says, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And then the very famous church planter verse that we all love, right? Upon this rock, I'll build my church so that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. The very next thing is that he gives him the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Okay. A lot of times in church world, we're more interested in building up our key ring than handing out keys to the next group of guys.

William Vanderbloemen:
Wow.

Joby Martin:
Pastor Jerry was more concerned about handing out the keys and saying, "Okay, now it's your turn." And the thing you do is going to matter. You're going to bind up and loose things here on earth that are going to be bound and loosed in heaven. And he could have just had the biggest, fastest growing Methodist church, but he was more concerned about raising up people and sending them out.

William Vanderbloemen:
Drop the mic. Let's all go home. That was awesome. That's worth the whole thing right there. You just made my day. So, let me shift gears and go to one other place, and then I do want to talk about your book. But there's a lot of talk right now about pastors in larger churches. And you see a guy draw a red card or blow up or... I've yet to meet... And we go in behind that a lot of times and have to help serve the church and clean up a mess. And I'm yet to meet the guy who says, "You know what I'm going to do today? I'm going to blow up my life. I'm going to blow up my church." I've never met him. It's usually good people and they get pulled off course.

William Vanderbloemen:
So, what are you doing... And, to put it all in perspective, there has never been a time in Christendom where we've had people in churches like yours that are, you got to watch over this many sites and you got to have this much this, and it's all riding on you and not a mass... So, we're in uncharted ground. What are you doing to keep your soul in a good spot as God does this amazing thing?

Joby Martin:
Well, William, we pay very close attention to that stuff. Right? And here's what's true, man. In my state... And you know all these people. You know everybody. You're like the Kevin Bacon of Christianity, so everybody's two degrees from William Vanderbloemen. But when this stuff used to happen 10 years ago, it might as well have been like Elvis to Madonna. I didn't know these people. I knew who they were. Now, when you hear about somebody going down, we text. We're buddies. Most of them, right? So, first of all, my heart breaks for them. My heart breaks for their family. My heart breaks for the church. My heart breaks for the cause of Christ in those cities.

Joby Martin:
And we have a pretty big staff and a bunch of young folks and they will ask me, they'll be like, "Pastor, what happened?" And I go, let me tell you what happened. This person started down a road and the spirit of God said, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." And this person said, "I got this." Everything else is details, man. Whether it's monies or honeys or power or meanness or whatever it is. But somebody started down a road, the spirit of God began to convict them, and they said, "Get off me. I got this." And so, one of the things that you better do is cultivate.... It's John 15. You better abide in Christ that he would abide in you, because apart from him, you can do nothing. And then in the very practical... I've noticed three things. I've studied a bunch of these guys, and a bunch of them are some of my buddies, right? In no particular order, some of these guys just need a hobby, like a legit, healthy hobby that can steal your mind away from church work.

William Vanderbloemen:
Wow.

Joby Martin:
And especially if you're the lead pastor, church planner type, we all are looking for this zing, this adrenaline dump. And so as dumb as it is, man, I love to hunt maybe too much. And right now is turkey season, and tomorrow morning I'm going to go get in the turkey woods. And I think I know where a gobbler is. And, if you're not a hunter, that sounds silly to you. No problem. But it gives me that thing, that outlet. I think I was in a room with you one time when Pastor Rick Warren said, "If you work with your mind, you should rest with your hands. And if you work with your hands, you should rest with your mind."

William Vanderbloemen:
Yes.

Joby Martin:
And well, we work with our mind, and so I get out in the woods and chase animals around depending on the season. I think you need a legit hobby. Another thing is, a lot of these guys don't have real friends. All right, if you're the lead pastor of a church and everybody calls you pastor and all that kind of stuff, if you have not been the butt of some jokes in the past couple of weeks from some of your dudes, something's wrong. Human beings are supposed to live that way. And I'm all for honor. We have an honor culture here and all of that, but you better have some people that love you more than they love what you think about them, and that can stand in your and go, "Hey man, you're being a jerk." Or whatever it is.

Joby Martin:
And then, I think regardless of what your ecclesiology is or how it's set up, because I know we got all kind of different churches, local eldership matters. There better be some local group of older, wise folks, for us it's a group of men, that can say no to you. And that's different than all your famous Christian buddies in all the cities around the world and only seeing you in the green room. Because you're awesome in the green room, but they need to see your countenance towards your wife. They need to hear the tone of your voice towards your children. They need to be able to see you in social situations, see what you look like in a stressful meeting, and then have the authority to love you enough to point out some planks in your eyes. Most of the guys that have gone down, they didn't have those things like legit friends, a hobby, and some local eldership or local authority.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's good. That's really, really good.

Joby Martin:
We try to keep those things in place, and then do whatever it takes to cultivate your relationship with your wife. I mean, whatever it takes. Lou Holtz says, "If you're a leader of anything, you should listen to your wife, because nobody..." What did he say? "Nobody knows you like she does. Nobody loves you like she does. And no one is less impressed than she is." And that's a good combination.

William Vanderbloemen:
That is a good combination. That's good. Well, I could go on and on with this. This is amazing. I call those buddies... The ability to poke fun at you. That's a great litmus test. Mine is, I call them the 2:00 AM friends. You can call them at 2:00 AM. Doesn't matter what you did or... It might be your one phone call. They're there. And I was telling some people about this and one of my 2:00 AM friends, maybe my best friend, was sitting there and he said, "Yeah, he's got 2:00 AM friends. I'm the 4:00 AM friend. And I bring the shovel."

Joby Martin:
That matters, bro. That matters.

William Vanderbloemen:
It matters. Especially for men. We're not very good at this. Hey, so you got a book. It's got a great title that's almost like a question. What if the resurrection happened? What if it didn't happen? So, tell us the title of the book. I always like to hear, what did God put in you that made you try and write a book? Because, having written a few, it's not fun. There's nothing fun about writing a book. So tell us, what did God put in you? Tell us about the book.

Joby Martin:
Yeah. The title is If the Tomb is Empty: Why the Resurrection Means Anything is Possible. That phrase just fell out of my mouth after pastoring this church about the last 10 years, where people would come up to me at the end of services and say, "Pastor, I am in an impossible situation financially, relationally. It's impossible that my marriage will be restored, that my prodigal will come home. You don't understand my sin. It would be impossible for God to forgive me and my sin, whatever it is, some impossible situation. And then one day I found myself just saying, "You're a Christian, right?" And they say, "Yeah, yeah." Okay. So, you believe Jesus died on the cross for your sin and was resurrected from the tomb? "I do." All right.

Joby Martin:
Well, if the tomb is empty, then anything is possible. If God can breath new life into his dead son, surely he can breath new life into your marriage. Surely he can restore that relationship. Surely he can forgive sin. Surely, whatever the thing is. And so, it's really... The whole book studies seven different mountains in the Scripture. We start on Mount Moriah with Abraham and Isaac ,and we traced the Gospel through seven mountains. And we find ourselves, at the end, back on Mount Calvary, which, most Christians don't know, is the same mountain.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's right.

Joby Martin:
And this mountain holds a tomb, but the tomb couldn't hold a body. And so, the idea came, I don't know, seven or eight years ago. I was on a trip in Israel. And every time we got out of the bus, we were on a mountain. And I was like, man, seems like when God spoke these mountains into existence, he knew the things he was going to do on these mountains. And that God... He typically shows his glory up on the mountain, like the mountain of transfiguration, and his love and mercy down in the valley. Because right after the mountain of transfiguration, that's Mark chapter 9 with the man with the sick kid. Right? And all of our lives are just a series of mountain tops and valleys. So, you're either on one, in one, or in between the two. And so that's what the book is.

William Vanderbloemen:
That is so good. And is there a blog site or anything that... Or just go to Amazon and type in Ragnar Lothbrok?

Joby Martin:
Yeah. You can get it at Amazon and all the places. But, if you go to our website or church's website coe22.com/books, there's a bunch of... We did some podcasts around the content. And you mentioned how hard it is to write a book, but I have a co-author named Charles Martin. Charles is a New York Times bestselling author. He wrote things like The Mountain Between Us that became a movie. He's a deacon at our church and he's attended this church for the last seven or eight years. And he's my bow hunting friend. And so, we would go hunting in the fall. And then, our church has a retreat center. And after we would hunt in the morning, we would go sit in one of the cabins, build a big fire, and I would basically just download my sermon content to him. And then this New York Times bestselling author would help me take it from the stage to the page.

William Vanderbloemen:
Wow.

Joby Martin:
And we would pray and we would cry, and he's also been attending the church forever. So he would say, "All right, you know the story about when your dad took you swimming? Tell me that one." And I would just tell him that. And he helped me with all of that kind of stuff.

William Vanderbloemen:
Wow. Well, so, it's not only authentic, but really good writing, too. What's been a surprise? Books come out and you're always surprised by this, that, and the other. Like, I learned a valuable lesson. Next time there's a pandemic, don't release your book the day the world shuts down. Not a good idea. What's been something that, wow, God did something cool through this book?

Joby Martin:
One of the things that we did is in the first chapter on Abraham and Isaac, I just shared the Gospel and put a salvation invitation and invited people, if they pray to receive Christ, to email me and let me know. And we've had dozens and dozens and dozens of people from all over the place, all over the world, say that they've put their faith in Christ, "What do we do now?" Because we're trying to make disciples. We're not just trying to sell books. Right?

Joby Martin:
And one of the coolest stories is, my best friend from the fifth grade, his youngest brother, who is now in his thirties, I get an email from him. And his story is, he did a couple of tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and had came home and pretty much jacked up his whole life, and was really on the verge of suicide and decided he might go to church. And so, he was walking to church, because he couldn't drive anymore. He was walking by a bookstore, saw the book in the window with my name on it, and was like, "How many Joby Martin's can there be?" Buys the book, reads the first chapter, emails me, surrenders his life to Christ. He's coming next Sunday to Jacksonville and we're going to baptize him in the ocean.

William Vanderbloemen:
Wow.

Joby Martin:
Yeah. So, if that's the only thing that happens, man, if that's the only thing that happened, it's worth it. It's worth all the blood, sweat, and tears.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's worth all those days in the cabin right there.

Joby Martin:
No doubt, man. No doubt. So [inaudible 00:24:31]

William Vanderbloemen:
Man, it is always so good to talk to you Joby. And I know you're busy as can be and I just appreciate you making time. I hope there is a gobbler out there, whatever that is. I don't know. I play golf. I chase a white ball around and that's a whole different thing. But, thank you-

Joby Martin:
That's harder.

William Vanderbloemen:
-so much. I really appreciate you being here.

Joby Martin:
William, thank you, man. And thanks for all you do for the kingdom and all you've done for me and our church here at Eleven22.

William Vanderbloemen:
Thanks, Joby. And thanks everybody for listening.

Christa Reinhardt:
Thanks for listening to the Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast. We at Vanderbloemen help Christian organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, compensation, and diversity consulting services. Visit our website, vanderbloemen.com, to learn more, and subscribe to our Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts to keep up with our latest episodes. Thanks for listening.