Expert Ownership Podcast
Expert Ownership Podcast
Leveraging Your Business For Kingdom Impact
Tune into this compelling conversation with Justin Reeder, a visionary entrepreneur who has used his business to start one of the fastest-growing Christian ministries in the country. With a thriving truck cleaning empire spanning seven states, Justin's story is a testament to integrating marketplace success with profound community impact.
This is an interview we did with Justin a few years ago when COVID took place, but the principles he shared were powerful enough for us to repost it for your benefit.
Enjoy!
p.s. If you haven't grabbed a copy of our Listening Prayer Journal, grab yourself a copy HERE.
So today we pulled a podcast out of our archive because it was so good about how to leverage your business for kingdom impact, where we interviewed our good buddy, justin Reeder, who has his own business in seven different states.
Speaker 1:He's got locations in seven different states and then he began. He was the brainchild behind Love Life, which is now a nationwide pro-life ministry. Behind Love Life, which is now a nationwide pro-life ministry. He doesn't take a salary from that ministry because his current business covers everything. David and I, by God's grace, were able to start Love Life with Justin and help him get it off the ground. He's run it. Now there are oh shoot, I should have David here with me for this little intro so he could tell me. But I think we're in 22 different states and we've got over several thousand partnering churches and it has just been incredible. But it all was born out of Justin's business mind and I love it.
Speaker 1:And we actually interviewed Justin during COVID because he made some really cool pivots with his business that helped him not only survive COVID but thrive in the midst of it. And so we interviewed him. But the interview was so good that I told David. I said, man, we got to put that podcast back up, because it's been so long that a bunch of our new listeners have not heard this and heard Justin's story. But get an opportunity to listen to a guy, a faith-filled entrepreneur, who is using his business for Kingdom Impact in a very, very, very special way. So let me go ahead and stop here and then we will dive in to our interview with Justin Reeder. Tell us about your business, man. I mean, you started it, you franchised it out of Florida and now you're here in the Carolinas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's a simple business is we're cleaning trucks, you know. But it's a need that exists, you know, for every company. So we're washing trucks for companies like FedEx, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, waste management. If they got fleets, we'll wash them.
Speaker 1:Oh, just pressure washing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we soap it, we brush it, we rinse it, we do water recovery. It's a blue collar industry, but we've really brought excellence and faithfulness to it.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, now I'm going to pivot the conversation because I believe there's a reason why your family is doing so well with this business. Not only are you creating jobs, which is an amazing thing, not only are you bringing profit to a community and you're blessing all of these other businesses by ordering products and all of these other things that you're doing, but you're not just focused on income, you're focused on impact. How many years ago did all of a sudden I remember you talked with me and Jason about something that was on your heart as a business owner Walk us through that whole thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's really your guy's fault that all that happened. But no, seriously, I mean, you guys obviously have encouraged me and spoken into me in so many ways over the years and one of the things is I felt the call of ministry on my life at a very young age and I always thought ministry meant that it had to be either a pastor or a worship pastor or a missionary in China, that's my paradigm for ministry, and the Lord really showed me early on in business and you guys really helped pour fuel on that fire that my ministry is in the marketplace.
Speaker 2:There's no separation between the two, and so we started really just pouring into our people, discipling them. We saw people come to know the Lord in our business. Our employees are baptizing guys doing discipleship training in our office space, like you guys do here, and so it's not, you know, we don't do business to allow us to do ministry. We do ministry in the business and we also do ministry outside of the business. It's all of the above. It's good, and so we also are generating profit. Obviously that we're pouring into mission fields, but I think a lot of Christian business guys a lot of times only view it as let me make some money and then I'll pour it into missions, or I'll give it to people that know how to share the gospel, or give it to people that know how to do discipleship, and that's an element of it, but it's both and so. But in 2012, you guys invited a friend of mine out to the abortion center. That brought me.
Speaker 1:And that's when we first met was in 2012, in front of the abortion center. Let me just pause and say real quick Jason and I would actually take business meetings in front of the abortion facility and if you watch the story of William Wilberforce, Amazing Grace, he used to actually take some of the parliamentarians and he would take them down and the business leaders of the day. He would take them to the slave docks and he would let them smell it and he would throw the shackles on the boardroom table and he would just say, hey, experience this. So, Jason and I would bring business owners and pastors down to the abortion facility across the street where mothers were walking in, and we would pray and have our business meetings. But it really was very impactful. So you showed up. Yeah, that's what happened to me.
Speaker 2:You guys brought me out to the slave ship of our day and I saw for the first time what I had heard about. Of course I knew abortion was taking place but never went in front of those places, didn't know the magnitude of it. In my backyard I'd actually been doing business with a company right across the street from the business park where the abortion center is. It was actually one of my very first clients. We've been one of my clients for 10 years. At that point I still have that client. So it was just. It was shocking to me that this was happening in our backyard, out of sight, out of mind, at the scale and the magnitude that it was. And my heart just broke that day as I saw around 30 moms pull into this abortion center. It was no longer a statistic, it was real, it was human beings. Lives right in front of me. I remember one of the moms. She was even showing, like you could see her belly and I just broke man.
Speaker 2:I broke of my own lack of action, a conviction of my own. Here I am building a company which is great, doing a lot of good work, but I'm not caring for the least of these in my city. And so I was deeply convicted. That day, I was broken over what I encountered, Went back to my office, shared it with my staff and said man, did you guys know what's happening in our city? And then eventually took my staff out there and we just prayed in front of the abortion center, didn't know what else to do. But it wasn't just the darkness that really shook me. It was actually that the church wasn't there. It was the absence of light that really was deeply convicting to me. Here we are in the Charlotte area, where we have more churches per capita than anywhere else in America, and we have the largest abortion center in the Southeast, and there's only a faithful few that are out here. Where is the church? And so the Lord just started really working in me in a deep way in 2012.
Speaker 1:So then, obviously, what came out of that Finish the?
Speaker 2:story, and then I'll start peppering some questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I got involved with you guys and Cities for Life and some pregnancy care centers in the city and just was in a season of prayer and fasting and we felt that the Lord was leading us into a new season. Didn't know exactly what that looked like we thought it was going to be international missions actually but the Lord had different plans for us. In August 20th 2015, I felt the Lord speak very clearly to me during that season of prayer and fasting. I've called you to the least of these and I've called you to be a voice for the voiceless. And over the course of a week, he just began waking me up in the middle of the night, downloading a strategy and a plan to mobilize his church. And that's what became Love Life. And that's the mission of Love Life unite and mobilize the church to create a culture of love and life that will result to an end to abortion and the orphan crisis. So we launched it in 2016,.
Speaker 1:And we've been running at it since then, and I just want to say this real quick because there's so much awesome stuff in what you just unpacked for us, but you started off with identity unpacked for us, but you started off with identity. You started off talking about how you're running your business back in 2008, 2009, 2010, and you recognize that your business was your ministry and that you were just as much a minister as anybody else that's been called into and I put this in quotes ministry, full-time ministry. Right that you recognize that first and that as you begin to run your business as a ministry, then God pricked your heart for you to actually do something outside of your for-profit business and to create something in the nonprofit space, and that, specifically, was to the mission field of life of the unborn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that better the mission field of the unborn, which is the greatest mission field of all time. I mean, we're looking at Isaiah 1, how God says don't pray to me because your hands are filled with blood. You got to do something about the bloodshed first right, your religious activity.
Speaker 2:What is that to me? You know, the most vulnerable among you are dying. What are we doing about that?
Speaker 1:That's right, and so you now are making an impact literal global impact right now through Love Life, and literal global impact right now through Love Life and if you haven't gone to Love Life, you need to check out lovelifeorg. That's the website, right? They're also Love Life CLT on social media. It's just powerful. You guys need to go check that out. But what I love about this is that you started this and you've been funding your own salary to run Love Life out of the money that you make in your for-profit and you're not raising money for your own support. That's a beautiful thing. Now the ministry needs support, but your own personal salary and listen entrepreneur out there you need to recognize what Justin Reeder has done is exactly what we believe God is calling other entrepreneurs to do Start an awesome business that meets tangible needs and make great money and then use that so that you can go out and make an impact in the world.
Speaker 2:That's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:Walk us through Justin real quick on how you do it with your business, because you still own your business. We're not saying abandon your business, walk us through for other entrepreneurs that are like I want to have an impact, or at least in five years, I want to do what Justin did Walk them through how you're doing.
Speaker 2:Well, I'd say, first off, you just got to be faithful where you are, don't get ahead of yourself. It took us about 10 years to really build the business to where it was, to where I was able to get out of the business and really pour all my effort and my time now into love life. But there's no such thing as an overnight success, right, it takes about 10 years. That's what we always tell people and for us that's what it took. It took 10 years to really establish it really well, to be a launching pad now for kingdom advancement. And look, life's too short for this just to be about putting more dollars in our pocket and playing more golf and being on the beach. We got to have a kingdom mindset. We want global domination for the glory of God.
Speaker 2:And so that's what we're after with this Leverage everything you have. Now is the time, as a Christian business guy, to leverage everything you have for the kingdom of God, especially in a time when we are facing the greatest moral issue, not only in our generation through abortion, but in the history of the world Since 1980, 1.5 billion have been murdered in the womb since 1980. Those are the best numbers we have 1.5 billion globally since 1980. It is the greatest genocide in the history of the world and it's happening in our time. We must leverage all that we have for it.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's amazing. And you know, in order to do this, I remember you walking through 2012,. You go out there 2013,. You're starting to really spend some time with the Lord. 2014,. Boom, it exists, but I remember in your business and it follows the pattern that we built. Expert ownership on it starts with you scale through system. You have a system in place with your company, and then you have to build your team through that system and succeed through others, and then you have to have good leadership and then you have the opportunity now to bring in the impact, because the income is now flowing, because you've built it properly. You did the exact same thing, though, with Love Life, like now in the midst of COVID-19, there's been even not only a pivot in your business, but there's been a pivot with Love Life, because you can't gather anymore. The prayer gatherings that once took place can't gather the same way they did. Tell us how you pivoted and you're utilizing systems to scale this thing up.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we kind of were forced to pivot in a lot of ways, as some of us ended up in jail for being out on the public sidewalks praying, which is pretty crazy. I never thought I'd ever be in jail. It was my first arrest.
Speaker 1:I just want to pause real quick. This is Jason, for those of you who are just listening to the podcast and not watching the video. So David got arrested. What was it a week and a half ago?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And of course, it was national news. What most people don't know and I popped this out on social media was the week Justin here got arrested doing the exact same thing and nobody covered it. So Justin plowed the ground and David came in and got all the hoopla around him. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, justin. Someone had to clear the way. Someone had to clear the way, that's right.
Speaker 2:No. So obviously we want to honor social distancing, we want to respect the reality of COVID-19. And we have a lot of pastors in New York City that are suffering greatly from this virus. One of our pastors actually passed away this last week from the virus. So it's very serious and we want to honor that. But we got to be creative and the reality is that abortion centers remain open in the midst of a global pandemic, which I mean honestly. That should stir us greatly as a church.
Speaker 2:What an incredible hypocrisy exists in the land. Here we are trying to preserve life, yet we are murdering our children on a scale and a magnitude like never seen before. We're limiting church services, while abortion centers have no restrictions on them whatsoever, packing people in these buildings. So we have commands from Christ to love our neighbor as ourselves and we must obey those commands. If I was a child in the womb, if I was a dad or if I was a mother in that hopeless situation, I sure hope there would be a voice of hope that there would be a.
Speaker 2:Christian witness at those places, and so we must continue to be at these abortion centers, even in the midst of a global pandemic, while honoring social distancing, while honoring CDC recommendations. And so we're doing that through a virtual prayer walk. Now we're having our pastors go out to the abortion centers with small groups. No longer are mass gatherings of hundreds or thousands, but a pastor at every abortion center with a handful of people, while honoring social distancing, with hand sanitizer, all those things, but nonetheless a Christian witness at a place of death to be a voice of hope for those families that are going for abortion. So we're doing that now, not only in the four cities that we're in, but we've opened it up to the nation. And so now, this last Saturday, we had over 13 abortion centers covered all the way from Miami to New York, to Detroit and everywhere in between. You're doing it through Facebook Live. Facebook Live, you have one live feed and we're pulling in each individual city on this live feed. So we're taking you literally to the front lines of the abortion centers across the nation, where a local pastor is present and he's going to give us an update. Hey, there's 10 people there in the abortion center right now. One just chose life. Now pray with me, pray with me, church.
Speaker 2:So we're growing a global army of prayer warriors that are praying in real time as families are in the valley of decision at these places of death with a Christian witness, and really we're just challenging the church. It's time to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. There's an inward repentance that's very real Isaiah 58, true fasting and true repentance that must occur within us. But there's also an outward action that is associated with true repentance or with true fasting, and so we can be praying and we can be fasting, and that's great, that's a huge part of it. But there's also an outward action and that's where the Christian witness at these places of death is so necessary. But it's not just there to be prayerful but it's also to say Mama, we will walk with you, dad, we will walk with you. If you've had the abortion, we want to bring you through healing and restoration through Jesus Christ. So it's the church in action, man, and we know it's in this repentance that we will see revival and awakening and a healing in our land, as 2 Chronicles 7, 14 says.
Speaker 1:I love that so much, man. I tell you what my heart's beating fast the hair on the back of my neck standing up man. You know, what I love is that somebody could have tuned into this podcast about five minutes ago and heard you talking and been like now what preacher is that? What church is he a pastor of? And what they don't know is that you are an entrepreneur who owns a business that's located in seven different states.
Speaker 1:Five states, five different states Six sounds better, but five states. But the same thing that made you awesome in your for-profit business is what's making you so good and so creative in this nonprofit space and standing for life. I mean, god has definitely raised you up for this hour and I want to encourage those who are listening to this podcast today and when you're listening to Justin right now speak is the way he's speaking and something inside your heart is stirring. Just know that that same identity of a minister is inside of you. That's right, and you are called to full-time ministry. Now, stay in your for-profit space and kick butt there, make as much income as you can and use that to generate it so that you can make an impact, just as Justin is doing.
Speaker 1:That's not just a call for Justin, it's not just a call for me and David with the stuff that we've been doing, but it's a call for you too. This is exciting, man, yeah. And in order to do that, if you need help with your system, if you need help with building your team, if you need help on how do you lead properly and grow it to the level that your company grew and grow it to the level that our companies have grown, to expert ownership. That's what we're pushing expert ownership. And the goal for Jason and I is impact. That's our goal. It's not just success without significance or money without meaning. It is absolute, like you said, global domination of the kingdom of God for his glory.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I just want to encourage people to get connected to that, because you guys have poured into my life a lot over the years and I know a lot of those principles are in that training. So encourage people to lock into that and just say start small.
Speaker 2:The kingdom of God starts small. Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed it starts small, but then it grows and it expands, and expands, and expands. What are you doing with what you have now? What are you doing with the revelation that God has already given you? The simple revelation of that your business is your ministry. How are you treating your employees? Are you sharing your faith in the marketplace? It's in that step of obedience with the revelation that you have that God starts to unlock greater revelation in your life. So be faithful in the area that you currently are. I think about the story of David. David wasn't out to slay a giant. On the day that he went to slay the giant, he was simply delivering pizza to his brothers I say crackers and spray cheese.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean pizza, bread and cheese. That's what I call pizza. But delivering pizza to his brothers, his dad said go take this to your brothers. And he just was being obedient. He was being faithful where he was and he didn't get to pick the giant in his land. He didn't get to decide what Goliath looked like, and we don't get to pick what the giant in our land is today. It just happens to be abortion. We could have been born in a different generation and it might've been slavery, but this is the time that God picked us to live in this place and we get to choose how we will live in that time and place. And the giant in our land is abortion, and so God calls us to bring that stronghold down in Jesus' name, and that's such a good encouragement.
Speaker 1:David did have his own little business. It was a family business. When he heard the giant taunting, he was willing in that moment to lay down his business, to lose it. That's where so many entrepreneurs find themselves today. It's very difficult to think about laying down your business, to stand for what's right.
Speaker 1:So I commend you for not holding your business to a point where you weren't willing to stand for what's right. And now, looking at it, you had the five best weeks you've had in a long time after you get arrested, and all this stuff, that's happening. Man, the Lord is really blessing you, so congratulations to you, Justin. God be the glory.
Speaker 2:And I just want to say surround your people with amazing people of God, like these two have been in my life my dad, my team members at the company that have the same mission and mindset that we have. The team that's working on the business side knows that that is propelling what's happening on.
Speaker 1:Love.
Speaker 2:Life's side as well as the ministry that's happening in the business and vice versa. Our team on Love Life knows that the team over on the business side, they're all working together. Again, it's global domination for the glory of God and leveraging all that. We have to do it, and so surround yourself with people that have the same heartbeat, the same mindset, that are kingdom advancers Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, justin, I'm so stinking inspired, I love it, I'm ready, I'm ready, on both ends of the spectrum, to be God's minister in the for-profit and non-profit. And you know what I'm really excited about. I'm just going to throw this out there. I'm really excited about the course, or the community, or whatever it is, that the three of us are going to do together, for leveraging your business, for Kingdom Impact. That's coming. Yeah, let's do it, this little podcast is the kickoff.
Speaker 2:For that, I just want to go ahead and send that shot right after Awesome Day one. Thanks.
Speaker 1:J-Boy. Thanks guys. And I tell you, what I picked up immediately from him is he said two things that, right when covid hit, his business was doing really well. But right when covid hit, the first thing he said was we're not going to spend any cash yep, where's my cash? Yep, and then I'm going to call my clients, I'm going to ask them what they need. Yeah, those two things. That was the first two decisions that he made. So I would make it this way Cash and communicate those two things You're like that.
Speaker 1:Baptist preacher. No, but that's great because he had a pivot. He planned and then he pursued the pivot. So this is, I mean, absolutely, and he had his best week in a year, but it's, and I really believe, what's really important. In my opinion, the absolute most crucial takeaway for all of our listeners is that business can be your ministry If you have a heart to serve the Lord, and excellence paves the way. Excellence is what opens the door, and he had a system. Look, you think for 10 years he's building his business without a system. He had good leadership in place, he built his team, he had his system and boom. Now he can transition from success to significance, money, from money to meaning and income to influence, impact, impact, same thing, all of it. Yeah, but I just love that. His system and how awesome he was in business is what gave him the foundation to do this love, life, work, and he doesn't broadcast this to anybody.
Speaker 1:He's paying his own salary out of his business so that he can do all of the stuff in his nonprofit. That's fantastic, man. This was my favorite podcast so far.
Speaker 2:It was fantastic.
Speaker 1:And another thing is that none of us really broadcast this, but Justin didn't put out a newsletter for support. He didn't do any of that stuff. He came to my brother and I. We went to one more business leader and the four of us business guys got together and we looked at our companies and we said where can we harvest out of our company some resources whether it be an employee or some additional resource support from our marketing teams or whoever, including with our money and we were able to launch Love Life and be kind of on that launch mission.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of entrepreneurs that are out there. If you go ahead and just in your mind right now, you make yourself available and ready to be a voice for the unborn, or ready to transition some of your resources, including your money, to making some impact and whatever it is that's really close to your heart. Pay close attention to that, because Justin's story shows us that we can do it. Yep, and expert ownership isn't about just making money. It is about making that impact and living a life of meaning and helping others experience life. So, man, this was great. I can't wait for people to hear this. All right, have a good day.