The heart behind
Good Soil.

Good Soil Discipleship wasn’t born in a boardroom. It was born out of transformation.

At 29 years old, I was a successful businessman. On the outside, it looked like I had everything. But inside, I was empty. That emptiness became depression. Drugs and alcohol became my way of escaping, and eventually addiction brought me to the end of myself. I ended up in rehab, and strangely enough, that’s where God began teaching me about discipleship.

Through the Twelve Steps, I learned a simple way of life: surrendering to God, taking an honest inventory, confessing where I had fallen short, making things right, developing a daily relationship with God, living honestly in community, and practicing these principles every day. But there was one part that changed everything for me: if you want to keep what you’ve been given, you have to give it away. I was taught that if I wanted to stay sober, I needed to help another alcoholic. Think about that. Recovery couldn’t stop with me. Someone had to walk with me, and then I had to turn around and walk with someone else. Without discipleship, I would die.

So I started giving away what had been given to me. More than 13 years later, I’m still giving it away, and by the grace of God, I still have it.

Years later, I began learning about the historic connection between the Church, the Oxford Group, and the spiritual practices that influenced the recovery movement. That led me to a conviction: if recovery received so much of its spiritual formation from the Church, maybe it’s time for recovery to help give it back to the Church. Recovery taught me that transformation isn’t simply about knowing the right things. You need a way of life. You need rhythms, accountability, people to walk alongside you, and eventually someone you’re pouring your life into. In recovery, we didn’t just learn it. We lived it.

Four years into sobriety, I felt God calling me out of business and into ministry. It didn’t make sense to me. People like me didn’t become pastors, or so I thought. But God began teaching me something I’ve carried ever since: God doesn’t always call the qualified; He qualifies the called.

I moved to North Carolina for ministry training, and in 2018 God called me back to Florida to serve as a Discipleship Pastor at a large multisite church in Palm Beach County. I loved it. But eventually, a question started bothering me. We were really good at connecting people to the Church, but were we equipping those same people to go and make disciples?

One of my discipleship pastors once told me, “If your disciples aren’t making disciples, then you’re not making disciples.” I couldn’t shake it. Because in recovery, I was making disciples. Someone helped me. I helped someone else. Then we taught them to help someone else. It was simple.

So I started wondering: could discipleship in the Church be that simple too?

I believe it can. But we have to help ordinary people believe they can do it and give them practical systems and tools to help them live it. That’s where Good Soil Discipleship was born.

Most people don’t lack good intentions. We want to walk with God. We want to know His Word. We want to disciple others. We want to lead our families well. Sometimes we simply need practical tools that help turn those intentions into a way of life. That’s why we created the Good Soil Discipleship Planner, to help people become intentional about their time, spiritual rhythms, relationships, and discipleship. Then came Emmaus — Walk With God, designed to help people develop a daily rhythm of walking with God through Scripture, prayer, reflection, and intentional spiritual growth.

But eventually, God brought this vision even closer to home.

While serving as a Discipleship Pastor, I was asked to also become the Kids Pastor. I freaked out a little. I didn’t feel qualified. I grew up without a dad in the home. My incredible mom raised five kids, and I certainly didn’t consider myself an expert in children’s ministry.

Then a pastor told me something that changed everything: “Being a Kids Pastor isn’t just about pastoring kids. It’s about equipping parents to disciple their kids.”

That clicked. I knew discipleship.

I began to realize that one of the most important places discipleship happens isn’t inside a church building. It’s at home. Around the dinner table. In the car. During bedtime conversations. On family adventures. In the ordinary moments we sometimes overlook.

That’s where the Good Soil Family Discipleship Kit came from. We wanted to give parents practical tools to disciple their children, but we also wanted to make it fun enough that their kids actually wanted to participate. Because some of the greatest discipleship moments don’t feel like lessons. They feel like memories.

With my own boys, that might mean trying to make an apple cobbler when I have no clue how. It might mean attempting axe throwing, building a tent that collapses, or baking brownies that don’t look anything like the picture. And I’ve realized something: my boys probably won’t remember whether the apple cobbler turned out right. But they’ll remember that Dad was there. They’ll remember that we laughed, that we talked, that we made memories, and that we made time for each other.

That has become one of the deepest convictions behind Good Soil: we don’t need to be perfect. We just need to be present.

Today, Good Soil Discipleship exists to help ordinary people do something extraordinary: make disciples who make disciples. Through the Good Soil Discipleship Planner, Emmaus App, Family Discipleship Kit, and everything else we create, our goal is simple: give people practical tools to walk with God, invest in others, and disciple the next generation.

Our family is believing God for one million disciple-makers. Not one million followers. Not one million downloads. Not one million people consuming more Christian content. One million people who live it and give it away.

Because discipleship was never supposed to stop with us. Someone invested in us. Someone walked with us. Someone gave away what God had given them.

Now it’s our turn.