Transcription
[Music]
He could have said, "Come be my disciple." He says, "Come follow me, and I'll make you a fisher of men." What you just did with fish, if you follow me, I'll show you how to do that with men. Because when you say something that matters, you should say it in a way that makes it memorable.
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Grow Leader Podcast, where we grow leaders that grow churches by helping them reach their full potential. So glad to have you with us today. My name is Matt. If you're brand new to us, we're glad to have you here. Sitting right beside the Chancellor, yes, of Highlands College. You have your Chancellor jacket on. Yeah, 'cause today was chapel, and, uh, anyway, I kind of like dressing like this. Anyway, I've heard some pastors call my, my sport coats the Birmingham Blazer, which, which fits for us because our local college, their mascot is the Blazers. And so it's, it's great. That is your Birmingham Blazer. You great. I like the Birmingham Blazer.
We had an amazing, amazing, uh, chapel service today. In fact, it wasn't just the chapel service. Uh, one of the distinctives of Highlands College is, is that we have an in-residence program. So that, um, our students aren't just learning from our very, very excellent faculty and staff, but I, I personally believe that students need more than theoreticians and just a bunch of smart people. They need practitioners. And not even just practitioners, but the industry leaders. And so we get, uh, we bring in people like Craig Groeschel and CC Winans and Chris Tomlin and Bobby Gruenwald, who created the Uber app, and many, many, many others, uh, Dr. Henry Cloud, others. So to, to, um, bring in expertise and really rub shoulders with our students. So they not only speak in the chapel services, but they also teach in our classes and spend time with students. And today, I have a very, very dear friend of mine, someone that I have just the utmost respect for, and that is, I call him the real Triple D. You know, it's not Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. It's Dr. Darius Daniels. Welcome, my friend.
I'm excited to be here. Triple D, I'm gonna take it. Yeah, I'm gonna take it. This has been, it's been an amazing day. Yeah. Tell the, tell, I mean, they always hear from me what I think about it, but of course, I'm attached to it. But just, just, just kind of download the experience, uh, to those that are listening right now. Literally, I think it was 2021 when I came, and this was Highlands College was a vision, and I knew it was going to be great, right? But to come and to see it today and experience, not just see the facilities, but to experience the environment, yeah, the enthusiasm of the students, the community that's being built, um, it's literally, I feel like the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon's Temple in First Kings 10. It's like my breath was taken away. Like, I knew it was going to be great. I just didn't know it was going to be this great. And like, this is something. I'm literally walking around, I was like, so how much money am I going to give to this? I gotta give to this. You can't. When you see something like this, you see God's hand is on this, and you just want to get behind it and invest in it and, uh, have a small part to play in what God's doing here.
It's, well, it's amazing. We're very proud to have you as a Professor in Residence, um, an influencer in residence, we're calling it, with your day here. And you're, you're a very well-educated person yourself. And of course, you know the philosophy of how we train students here, that we're not only giving them great academic instruction and this bachelor's degree, but also just pouring into them from this mentoring standpoint. Let people get to know you a little bit. So let's just say there are some pastors, I can't imagine, uh, someone listening who didn't know who you were, but kind of give us the, the quick resume of not only your, your church life, your, how you were raised, but also your education.
Yep. So long story short, grew up in a small town, right now it's 500 people, it's like 800 people. And I grew up there, Kilmichael, Mississippi. Literally one doctor. Seriously, like the town doctor. If he was at the clinic, you just go to his house. That's great. So I, I grew up there, went to a small liberal arts school in Jackson, Mississippi, played basketball there, called Millsaps College. Had all intentions of being a lawyer, major political science, going to go into law. About sophomore year, God started tugging on my heart about ministry. My father was a pastor, he's bivocational, well, during the day, pastor in the evening. Um, it's just a direction I didn't want to go. He was a great example. I didn't have interest in it. And long story short, by the time my senior year came around, I surrendered law school as a, uh, and made a decision I was going to spend the rest of my life serving God and serving his church. And, uh, my dad told me something. He said, "Part of your call to ministry is a call to preparation." And that is what made me make the decision to say, "Hey, okay, my next step's going to be seminary." So went to Princeton for seminary.
Got inspired with this Prof. What was that experience like going to an Ivy League school for seminary?
You know, it was, it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. 'Cause I think one, the thing people need to know about Princeton, it, it is a seminary versus the Divinity School. And at one time, one of the best 100% in the nation. I mean, so it is not as, it is, I wouldn't put it in the same category as some other institutions that are Divinity Schools where you may have people there who are studying religion for different faiths. Being a Christian, so creed is a requirement for admission there. So it was, I had some really great professors. And it was one professor that was actually responsible for my inspiration to be a church planter. Really? Yep. His name was Dr. Darrell Gutter. And I was sitting in his class, and he inspired me to be a church planter. And I took, as a matter of fact, when I, here, here's how things work full circle. A few years ago, I was an adjunct professor there. And it was because of him that I became an adjunct professor. I worked in his department, hopefully trying to inspire students to do the same thing that he did for me. On, man. And long story short, I got inspired to plant a church. We planted it a year after I graduated from seminary there.
And didn't you plant it right there in the Princeton area?
Did, yep. I felt like a, 'cause I came from Mississippi, and I'm looking around and I was like, I feel called. I feel like this is the Northeast. Yeah. Is a mission field. And I feel called to be a missionary here. So we're gonna plant it right here. And that's what we did. And we were there with a location in Central Jersey, then South Jersey for about 15 years or so. And in 2022, we, um, planted in Atlanta, Georgia, and that kind of became headquarters. I'm obviously skipping over a number of details. And so now we've got our locations, we'll have two really soon in Atlanta and two in New Jersey. And we're just trying to steward it well.
That's it. That's awesome. That's awesome. But you also, um, went to Fuller for your doctorate. Talk about that just for a second.
Yeah, I think I was in the, I don't know, I may have been like three years into the church plant and I realized that, um, long story short, I, I want to frame this the right way, but I realized the vision that God had put in my heart for our church could not be manif, I couldn't preach my way into that vision.
There's no, explain that. You lost me there.
So meaning that discipleship making through teaching, preaching the gospel across the pulpit was not moving the needle in terms of the vision God gave me for the church. It was developing people, but it wasn't developing vision. I saw I needed to learn the leadership skill. Okay. Wow. That I couldn't, I couldn't preach our way there. Um, I had to, I had to learn to lead well. And I saw that was kind of the ceiling that was keeping us from scaling the vision God had given me.
So I want to come back to that because, because I think you're an exceptional leader. Now, but the fact that you say, you know, I, I, the preaching was natural. Is that what you're saying? The preaching, like, I can do that. Uh, the leading is another thing. Let's come back to that because we're the Grow Leader Podcast, and we help churches reach their full potential, right? We believe in leaders growing. Yeah. We, we think when leaders grow and when leaders get better and churches get better, then the Great Commission happens. I want to come back to that. But you are an exceptional communicator. And I don't throw that out just to, just to flatter you. I genuinely believe you're one of the best at just taking thought, uh, I just, the way you develop it and the way you communicate it, it's just masterful, my friend. What you did today in chapel, in fact, if you guys want to see what Darius did today in chapel, we have all this on our YouTube channel for the college. It was just so good. I want to, I, I want you to help the pastors that are listening. Is there anything, I mean, is this just a gift and I can't teach it to you, or what can you teach about message prep and message delivery?
Yep. So in terms of the delivery, I can start there, okay? I think, and I learned this from Jesus, right? So take notes when you, somebody says, "I learned this from," "I learned this from Jesus." Not like personally, but like, Jesus didn't, Jesus didn't sit down and tell me this, but I'm watching how he communicated. So my passion, let me say this, my passion for communication happened when I was 19 years old. It was right around the time I was getting called to ministry. I went through just a really rough, really rough season in, um, college. And my friend invited me to this Bible study. PC, it might have been 12 people at the Bible study, okay? And most of us were college students. So we broke. But this, but this man, the way he taught, and I'm not even talking about like passion. His name is Keith Quinn. He taught, his preparation, the, the persuasiveness, it like literally rocked my world with words. And I just knew. I went into that Bible study feeling bad each week, and each week it was like he was teaching me out of that sunken place. And so I think that's part of what God used for my calling. And I said, "What Keith Quinn did for me, I want to do for other people. I want to rock their world with words." And so I became super intentional about it. And here's what I saw: that the messaging is just as important as the message, okay? The message is the content. The messaging is the delivery system. It's the way you deliver it, okay? And it is, um, something I saw with Jesus. Let's take something just as, just as simple as him inviting Peter to be an apprentice and a disciple of his. He could have said, "Come be my disciple." He says, "Come follow me, and I'll make you a fisher of men." What you just did with fish, if you follow me, I'll show you how to do that with men. Because when you say something that matters, you should say it in a way that makes it memorable. So I started working on what I call sticky statements, okay? How can I frame thoughts in a way, like with phraseology, if it's something that matters, how can I say it in a way that makes it memorable? And that's something I probably started working on.
And is that just sitting there just thinking about it, or have you developed some techniques and some?
I've developed some frameworks, some hacks, you know, basically I've developed some frameworks. So like, one example would be, um, so like, if you come up with one framework, you can come up with some others, right? So one framework is, I call it the walk-in, walk-out framework. When blank walks in, blank walks out. So I can, I can do that. So if I can say, if I can say, "Hey, when prayer walks in, worry walks out." So you can fill in those blanks with those words. So there are some frameworks that I've developed. And then just over time, I think some of it becomes easier and a little more natural. So I probably think that's one of the most important things to me. Obviously, the message is important, but I work really hard on the messaging.
Go ahead, Matt. How did you, because I've seen you, first of all, one of the things I love about you is you're the exact same at this table as you are in an arena with 16,000 students. Communication, tone, rhythm. But you, you definitely have found your own voice in communication. I think that a lot of times, you know, imitation is the first step to creativity. But for both of you, Pastor Chris, I'd love to know for you too, for the communicators, what are some things that you went through to kind of develop your own voice? Because you, you don't get loud. In fact, you have such a conversational volume when you speak, everybody leans in, like, "Okay, what's he gonna say next?" Where did you learn that? How does, how do communicators continue to find their own voice when they do communicate well?
I think one of the things that you just said, I don't, I don't think I started out with my own voice, if that makes sense. You know, probably none of us. But I do think there's something super unique about the voices you're attracted to. Does that make sense? So even though I didn't start out with my own voice, I wasn't attracted to everyone else's voice. I didn't try to emulate everyone else's voice. And what I realized is that the voices that I was kind of organically attracted to were some of the voices that God wanted to use to influence and to shape my voice, which is probably a compilation of different influences and kind of my own personality. So I just think it's, it's not something I could say that when I look back, I tried to find my own voice. I feel like I just woke up one day and I'd found it, if that, if that makes sense.
Yep. And they definitely, the people you listen to, definitely. And you obviously listen to a lot of sermons, not just, not just preparing them yourselves, right? I mean, that's what I do. I, I probably, I probably listen to 15 to 20 sermons a week.
How, how many do you listen to?
I mean, I would probably say at this point, I'm probably listening to one to two. Okay. Yeah. But I mean, I think it's a great, especially for those who are trying to develop speaking, is just like, uh, you know, have a lot in the download side of this. And, and you'll be attracted to certain styles. And I have a few that I could never do, but I still like listening to them. Fact, when I'm listening to them, I'm thinking, "I could never do that." So I'm just enjoying, um, enjoying that. But, but in all of that, it still comes down to what your, you know, your daily disciplines. You said, I, I spent a lot of time. I have this, this process. Talk about when it is, I mean, probably one of the biggest questions I get from pastors, especially when we're in a round table setting, and you've been in some of my, sure, my round tables, is, is they want it broken down to what time is it every day? What did you do before that? What did you do after? Can you, can you, can you talk about your disciplines a little bit? Because I think personally, knowing you the way I know you, I think it's one of your gifts is that you're a very principled and very disciplined person. So talk about your, your, your daily disciplines and where sermon prep fits into your day.
Yeah. So long story short, I think at chapel today, I told the story about an incident that I had in 2014, that panic attack, right? So after that, I just went through some time with therapist and coach. And what I ended up creating was something called an ideal week. Based off of the creation narrative, God did certain things on certain days. And then we were in a round table one time around, and God had orchestrated this, he's so sovereign. And you were talking about, I think somebody asked you a question, PC, about like, your week. And you, like, you'd be really bored. You'd like, you would be very unimpressed, or something like that, if I told you my week. He was like, "Cause I do the same thing pretty much for the most part all the time." And so that's when I went to the Book of Genesis. I said, "Hey, God did certain things on certain days. This is how I'm about to align my life." And literally, that's what I've got. Like, I got a whole framework for it.
Can you share it?
Motionless Monday. So Monday is my, um, Sabbath. Tactical in Touch Tuesday. So Tuesday is, I'm using the part of my brain, um, for that's strategic for meetings. So I'm meeting with my senior leadership team, I'm meeting with my directional leadership team. Part of that is leadership development. That's what I call touch. And then I'm doing a few one-on-ones. I'm touching my direct reports. And it's a framework for that meeting: "How are you doing? How are your people doing? How are your projects going? What challenges do you currently face? What challenges do you foresee?" So those are the five questions I'm asking my direct reports. That's awesome. On Tuesdays. And then it's Writing Wednesday. So Wednesday is dedicated to writing the content for sermons and things that.
How many of you, how many are you working on at one time?
Sermons? Yeah, I'm writing one on Wednesday. But like, still, God knows how many swirling around my head. And sometimes when I'm writing one for, like, let's say this coming Sunday, I might get a thought for the next Sunday. Exactly. And I start writing that so that I'm not starting from scratch the next week. I think that's one of the things pastors miss is, is study doesn't just have to be for the next thing you're doing. You, when you read the Bible and you get a thought, the main thing is is to get it somewhere where you can find it whenever that week rolls around. Yes. Because you'll, you'll be in those places where you're studying, you're thinking, "Oh, wait a minute. Like three weeks ago, I was inspired. I saw that verse." I was doing that this morning. I was, I read a verse this morning out of out of Philemon. I mean, think, I mean, I know it was in, it was in, you know, the one-year Bible. And I'm reading Philemon, and as a verse, how, how do you read the one-year Bible every year for 30 years and still see something? That's the beauty of God's word. But there was a one little sentence in there about, it said something like, the, the importance of sharing your faith to be able to experience the fullness of the goodness of God. Like, share. I never attached sharing my faith with knowing all that God has. Man, that's why I wrote that down. Next time I'm gonna talk about sharing our faith, which is, I don't even know when that is. Yeah. But I filed it. Put it in a place, you know, on evangelism or sharing our faith. So next time when I'm studying it, it's sitting there, waiting for me.
Yeah. And you've even described it as a metaphor. It's a cupboard. Can I keep the cupboard stocked all the time where when I need something, I know where it is? I think both of you probably have great filing systems, like personally, that you're using. Yeah. Studying, studying is like, yeah, filling your pantry full of food that you're going to cook one day. I like that. Yeah. So, and the fuller the pantry is, the less you have to shop. Yes. Whenever you are actually preparing a message. But, but go on. I, I could talk about this all day. I love just, I just took that. I just took that. I'm using that. I love that. Yeah. That that was like a mindset shift for me. Just fill the pantry. Fill the pantry. Yeah. You don't know when you need. Secret to the pantry is, you got to be able to know where to find it whenever you do want to talk about sharing your faith. I'm still Amazon Prime. I need this in two days. When is it showing up? Exactly.
All right. So, so you're doing most of your sermon prep and studying on Wednesday. And is that an all day? What does, what does that look like?
It actually doesn't take me all day. Because here's, here's the thing that I do. When I take some time off in the summer, so let's say if, if I took some time off in the summer 2025, which I do, my, my summer sabbatical, close to the end of the summer, I'm working on my preaching calendar for '26. Yeah. And so I have never, like, mapped out an entire year in the summer. I don't do that. But whatever comes to me during that time, I'm mapping out. That's great. So in my study is reverse engineering. I am studying knowing the subjects that I'm going to be teaching about. So if I know I'm going to be teaching on the Holy Spirit, exactly. I'm doing what I call strategic study. I'm not just doing random reading. What is, I am studying strategically, knowing, "Hey, let me fill my pantry exactly with insight and revelation on the Holy Spirit." So that when I sit down on Wednesdays, when it's time to do the series, and I sit down on Wednesdays to write, I have a pantry I can pull from. I'm not, that's exactly. I'm really organizing content and not necessarily creating content. So it takes me, you know, probably three, four hours.
That's awesome. That's awesome. But you stack the dominoes, as you would call it. You already know where you're going. Yeah. Even if you don't know what series it's going to be called, thematically, I know. Yeah. In February, we're going to do something around relationships. So every time I study and something comes up on relationships, then I'm just going to go throw it in the pantry, you know, section of the pantry where I can find that. So when February rolls around, you know, the way I say it is, is I don't, I don't really study outside of what I've already studied. I can just, I'm actually drawing from my own, you know, the, the gold that I've mined and stored somewhere.
So all right. So we have Writing Wednesday. Writing Wednesday. Thinking Thursday. Okay. And, uh, that is just the day that is dedicated just to think. Now, one Thursday a month, I'm going to step into what's called a creative meeting, where my team is going to present me ideas. And I do our all-staff one Thursday a month, which is more pastoral development with them. But other than that, it is a time where I am thinking through most of the time organizational challenges at home. At, I'm at home. Okay. Yeah. I'm at home or somewhere else I want to be. Okay. Yeah. It could be Topgolf. It could be, uh, whatever. Um, I've learned this thing recently called spiritual temperaments and sacred pathways. And even though I'm not a nature person, environment changes, open me up mentally in a different kind of way. So sometimes I have to like get away from my home. Yeah. I've heard it said, "Change of pace plus change of place equals a change of perspective." Yeah. So just, yeah, just mix it up a little bit. So that's it. Is, hey, is there any, any work I just need to catch up on? Any, any problem we're dealing with organizationally? Or if it's not problematic, where do I want to get ahead? Initiative.
Do you go in with an agenda in mind? Like, I know what I'm going to think about, or do you just let it just come to you?
Um, it's kind of a little bit of both. Okay. So there, generally speaking, there are things I have, like this, um, app. And on this app, I have what's called a master list. Because my philosophy is, I want to use technology for storage. I want to use my brain for creativity. So I don't want to have to.
Say that again. Say that again.
I want to use technology for storage. My brain for creativity. Okay. So I don't want to have to try to remember what problem I need to solve, what initiative I need to flesh out, what, you know, resource I want to create. When I get that, I got something called a master list. I just dump it in there. That's so when I, when I'm, when I'm going in thinking Thursday, I'm pulling some things off of that list, if that makes sense. And, um, I don't always know going into Thursday what I'm going to work on, but I know it's going to be something on that list that I'm going to give attention to. It's probably an area that most pastors don't do, and they probably should do, right? Is actually, they're so busy doing the next thing that they know is coming, that they don't take time just to pause and and think. When you agree?
I mean, well, I know it's important. It's important for me because I feel like, um, I was always, there was a season where I was always reacting. Yep. And I felt like a firefighter and not a visionary. So I'm always putting out fires, yeah, but I wasn't dreaming, streaming, and building, and getting ahead. And so, um, for, I know for me, it's, it's been, it's been a game changer.
That's awesome. Okay. We have Thinking Thursday. Yep. And then I have Filming Friday. And so Friday is when I'm going to do all of my filming. So if it's Bible studies, if it's curriculums for the church, if it's, um, programs for content for my coaching programs, okay, everything's going to be done there. So I do, I go from 12:00 to 1:00. I take a break from 1:00 to 2:00. Then I go from 2:00 to 3:30, okay? And then I go home. If it's football season, I'm taking a nap, and then I got to go to my son's game Friday night. Uh, if it's not football season, then I'm just kind of with my wife or with friends on Friday.
When you do filming or using teleprompter, do you, do you take the time to script, or you, or you can, can you just do it just off the cuff?
No, it is not off the cuff. Okay. Not off. I can't do that either. It is not off the cuff. I'll spend a lot of time putting things into script and writing it in a way where where it's not how you read, it's how you speak. Feels natural. Man, they'll save you so much time in the studio if you do it that way. Yes. Yeah. And I feel better about the quality of what I'm producing when I'm prepared and organized, etc. So that's Friday. And then I, I've got semi-slow Saturday. And it means if I've got, you know, an event or something like that at the church, then I participate in that. But other than that, Saturday's just kind of semi-slow. I'm watching football games, or, uh, if I, if, if there's, I need to do before Sunday, I'll do that. But other than that, yeah. I call it quieting my soul right before. 'Cause you really, the energy and the emotion and the spiritual focus and all of that that it takes to, you know, to serve people well and serve God well on a Sunday, man, if you don't come in replenished in some way. And I think the only way to really do it is just not to have a crazy full Saturday. In fact, I even have to think about, you know, the types of foods that I eat on a Saturday. It's probably the only day you think, you think about it every day, obviously. And I obviously don't. But I'm probably, I'm more like Darius Daniels on Saturday when it comes to my eating. Because even like dairy stuff and all that is not good for, you know, your, your voice. And so I'm really, it's the only day I'm kind of conscious about it. But, but it is, I, I think, but I never thought about it in the concept of semi-slow. Just, man, I've just got to, I've got to, I've got to make sure I'm paced well so I can leave it all out on the field on Sunday.
So talk to us. What does Sundays look like?
Sundays are a marathon right now for us. Our Atlanta location. So it is, I've got a service at 8:30, 10:00, 11:45, 1:30. So that is, that's every Sunday right now. That's right. Yeah. That's a day. But I mean, it's, it's, it's cool. I think one of the things that helps is Saturday. Yeah. Because I am like, physically, I'm recharged. But also mentally, PC, I'm not dealing with a lot of stuff that's going to take me out of a positive vibe, right? I want to come in Sunday full of faith, excited about what God is doing, etc. So I feel like I'm emotionally charged up, as you know, as well.
So guys, please go listen to some of the messages. You can find them, um, of course, you can find them on all the places where where messages are. Um, I want to spend the last few minutes talking about a part of your church. I always say that every church, every church has something that they do better than, than, than you. So I, even no matter what size the church is, I'll go try to find the one best practice of that church that I think separates them from everybody else. And it's, and, and I think when you go into other churches with that attitude, by the way, too, that, man, they can teach me something. And go into every leader and say, "Look, you know, they may not be able to teach me everything, but they can teach me this." Because there is a best practice. And I always say, Darius, "They're better than we are at that, for now." I like that because I'm going to learn it and come and try to perfect it, and then they'll come learn it, relearn it from me. Um, but I think one of the best things you guys do is your discipleship to men. I mean, I know enough about this, we were talking about it at lunch today, that you, in fact, I asked you straight up, I said, "What is the best thing you guys do?" And you said, "Man, PC, we, we can disciple some men." Just give us a little nugget. We don't have a whole lot of time, but give us a little taste of what that looks like because I think this is something that I think the church needs to be involved in more. And that is just organic discipleship. Talk about it a little bit.
Yeah. And so what I'm talking about specifically as it relates to what we do with men is, and I won't get into why, but there was this event one time that I was a part of, and it was a number of different, like tribes and sects there. And I, and I, it came to me, I said, "Man, I think we're under-challenging men." Yep. We're under-challenging men because they'll do some of this stuff. They'll, they will commit. And so what I didn't want to do is I didn't want to make men who were not ready for a next-level kind of commitment feel, um, that they had to rush their process and their spiritual journey. Yet, there were men who needed to be challenged more and were ready. So my thought process was, how, besides what we're doing in small groups and things of that particular nature, how can I reach inside the community of faith and pull out men who are ready to be challenged to go deeper? So the name of our men's ministry is called Made Men, based on Genesis 1:26. We believe males are born, men are made. So, PC, I created a 12-week intensive training, discipleship training for men. We call it Basic Training. But what we tell the men, "Hey, every man here is a part of our men's ministry. Every man here is not a made man." And what we mean by that is we wanted to walk, we wanted to say, "Hey, we want to be made in the image and likeness of God." So we created this 12-week process, discipleship journey. And I got inspired a little bit from it by my son's experience at West Point. And I said, "Hey, this isn't Army Basic Training. This is for Navy SEALs." So it's, so I created this curriculum. It is 12 weeks, 12 weeks in a row. You only get to miss one. We only open it up once a year. If you miss more than one, you can't finish the cohort. You got to do it again next year. Every man that's on, on, it's virtual. It's on Zoom. Your camera has to be on. If your camera is not on, they're gonna warn you one time, then they're gonna kick you out of the Zoom room. You must come on time. If you come in a minute late, you're not going to be allowed in the Zoom room. And when we break out in small groups to discuss the content, every man has to contribute. 'Cause as a man, you got to show up and you got to know how to. And then at the, at different points in the program, we have accountability exams where they have to take exams to make sure they've comprehended the content. It's open book, but you've got to take the exam so that we make sure that you're comprehending the content. And, uh, and then there's a community service hour component. There you go. Where you got to complete, I think about 30 hours of community service. So this last cohort, we had, I don't know, maybe, and we want the completion rate to be small. We maybe had, I think maybe like a thousand men sign up this last time, and 300 and something finished. I think the year before that, we had like 2,000 sign up and maybe 600 or so finished. I can't remember what the numbers were before. So we just finished our cohort. But what I want to say to like the, the moms and the, um, the wives in our church is, give them to me for 12 weeks. And we, we can't change everything in his life in 12 weeks, but if he leans in, we will give you back a different man.
That's good, man. And of all the things, I know we only have like a minute or so, but of all the things that's in those 12 weeks, what is the one thing that you, that is resonating the most, or that needs to be changed the most, or that, that you feel the most proud of of all the things you're working?
Man, in his family. Okay. That's one of the programs. "A Man in His Family." Because we deal with what it actually looks like to lead your home. Let go, particularly in the area spiritually, which is where I found a lot of men struggle. Because sometimes they don't even feel like they're in the same place spiritually as the wife is, right? Yeah. And so dismantling the view that you have to know more scripture than her to lead spiritually. So I feel like that is where we get the most feedback from men, and we get the most feedback from wives about the men. Like, one lady was just telling me not too long ago, she was like, "I was getting ready to leave the house, and my husband said, 'Wait, let me pray for you.'" I was like, "Who are you?"
I love that. Love that. We need to get you back on just to unpack that whole thing. Man, bro, I love you. I appreciate you so very much. And we have to stop for today because, uh, you're due in in a class here today for some of our students. And thank you for serving our students here today, too. We're proud to have you as a Professor in Residence at Highlands College.
I'm honored to be here. Love you, sir.
And we'll make sure we link to all things Dr. Darius Daniels in the show notes. Check those out at growleader.com/podcast. We're so grateful you're here today. Hey, don't forget, Grow Leader Conference is coming up in the summer. We just sent out, uh, registration links. Check and see if there's room. We'd love to have you here. And if not, be looking for a regional in a city near you. Grateful you're with us today. We'll see you next time on the Grow Leader Podcast.
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