Randy Bezet - Pastor & Founder of Bayside Community Church

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:00) Hello my friends. Today we are talking to Randy Bezet, the pastor and founder of Bayside Community Church. We have a special discussion on faith in the workplace, understanding and overcoming doubt, and leadership lessons from a lifetime of service. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast. Here we go.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:22) This is the Modern CTO Podcast.

(Randy Bezet at 00:00:33) Zoom is a bad word and a good word at the same time. They're always sick of it, and actually, it's been a great minute of it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:39) It has. Are we recording, by the way? Yep, we're recording. Oh, okay. Great.

(Randy Bezet at 00:00:43) Oh, so don't say anything.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:44) Don't say anything bad. Talk about Harry. No, he was great, the CIO of Zoom.

(Randy Bezet at 00:00:50) Uh-huh.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:50) He came on when the whole pandemic happened, and we got to talk. He brought his puppy on the podcast too.

(Randy Bezet at 00:00:55) He did? You did a podcast with him?

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:58) Yeah. Yeah. I had already done a podcast with him earlier, about a year before that. And then I said they're really smart, so I bought a bunch of their stock when it came out. Now you must see what you're doing. Those that you think are on the way.

(Randy Bezet at 00:01:12) How many electric vehicle guys are you interviewing right now?

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:17) I'm just buying all the Tesla stock I can.

(Randy Bezet at 00:01:19) Yeah. DPW, man. It's rolling right now. Yeah. Everybody's in that space right now.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:25) Yeah. And then one really cool interview I got to do recently was with Tom. He's the CEO of Firefly.

(Randy Bezet at 00:01:32) That's kind of what inspired our time today.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:34) Right? Yeah. At the end of the podcast, he just started talking about how faith had impacted his entire journey building this rocket ship company. It's a difficult thing. They had, you know, I think they raised several hundred million in revenue. They're putting rockets into space, which is beyond my capacity.

(Randy Bezet at 00:01:53) Right. I don't get it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:54) And they had a lot of difficulty starting. It took them, you know, seven plus years to really get it going and get to their first launch. And I'd asked him about all that difficulty and how faith has played a role in his journey. And he just started talking about God and faith. And for me, I was surprised that I felt a little bit awkward because I felt like I didn't have the tools or the skills to talk about faith or God in public. In private, I feel maybe 20% compared to what I see on stage with the pastors and how confidently they speak about God and their beliefs and faith. So even in my own private family, very low confidence with it. And then in public, virtually none. And so whenever I find one of those dark spaces, I'm like, I gotta shine some light on it. I gotta go out there. I have to develop the skill. I can't turn from this. And so I looked in my Rolodex.

(Randy Bezet at 00:02:50) And I found that still a Rolodex.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:51) I do.

(Randy Bezet at 00:02:52) No. You don't. Oh, I don't. A figure of—

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:55) Digital. There's no way. Alright. Let's—

(Randy Bezet at 00:02:57) You just lost a bunch of listeners.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:59) I know. Alright. Let's be real. I Slacked Jake, my producer, and I said, who do we know?

(Randy Bezet at 00:03:05) That's your Rolodex?

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:06) That's my Rolodex. Yeah. And we had Brad Sosa who is a CTO at AVI. They do really cool video stuff in a NICU or hospital setting where it's very important to bring in doctors from multiple locations. They do those types of video systems along with sports. You know, when you see little animations at the bottom of the sports screen, they'll do stuff like that too. And he's a pastor, actually. So I found him by finding one of his sermons and finding out he was a technology leader, had him on the show, and he was just a really great guy.

(Randy Bezet at 00:03:37) He had a lot of coming around then.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:39) Yeah. And then so I said, what we'll do is we'll, we need somebody that's a CTO with pastoral background so I can ask them about faith in the workplace. And then we need to go get a straight up rock star pastor and bring them on and ask them about it.

(Randy Bezet at 00:03:54) When you're doing it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:54) I will. I will. I think it's next month because I have questions. You know? But first, before we get into that, though, I want to know about your background. How did you get into ministry?

(Randy Bezet at 00:04:06) Well, I mean, we won't take the whole podcast with it, but honestly, we could. And the reason why is because ultimately, which all of us are searching for is, God, why am I here on earth? And that usually is a series, a season worth of podcast, is it not? So being in the ministry, whatever your calling is in life, it's always a story. But ultimately, I knew when I was very young, I was raised in a Christian home, even went to a Christian school, was doing a project for, I think, my Bible class, and I was reading a book about a missionary. And at 13 years old, I really saw a vision of myself doing ministry. I was, you know, preaching as you would think. Okay. A pastor preaches. But it was so much more than that. I saw all of the things of ministry all at one time happening simultaneously, and me in the center of that, of doing all of those things. And so, it was there I knew that I was called to ministry. At 13 years old, that's fairly young, so a lot happened, a lot of circles, a lot of going here or there, and trying to figure it out. Ultimately, though, in January 30th, 1992, after I had run from God and tried things my own way, I made a decision that ultimately came with a job, with a career. I was in outside medical sales, Joel, and that's my career. That's what I was doing. And I had another opportunity for a promotion and climbing the corporate ladder and taking the number one sales territory in the country. And I was like, I would have to leave Louisiana, which is where I'm from, Baton Rouge, and I was gonna move to Virginia and take this huge territory. And I thought, man, should I do it or should I not? And I was having a conversation with my brother who was in ministry as well at the time. I was like, Rick, what should I do? And he says, Randy, in life, you can know the will of God or hope you get lucky. And it was a light bulb moment. You know, we've all had different light bulb moments of different things. This was my light bulb moment. I don't wanna get lucky anymore or hope that I get lucky. I wanna know what God's will is for my life. And so, I knelt down literally right there in his office, and I just prayed a simple prayer. God, not my life. I wanna live for you and whatever you have for me. I don't wanna take this job. I don't wanna ultimately marry someone or do anything. God, I need you. I don't wanna do it on my own. And everything changed that day. And so when I stood up, when I finished surrendering my life at that moment, what happened to me when I was 13 came back to my heart, and it was like, Randy, that's the purpose that I put in you a long time ago. So, I kept working, you know, my job. I did not take the promotion. I stayed in Louisiana, where my church I grew up in, and just started being involved in God's work around the church, serving, picking up trash, going to youth meetings, and it just grew out of that. And about a year and a half later, they were hiring a position for a middle school youth pastor part time, and I took that position. So I still traveled during the weekday, and on the weekend, I would do the services there, and I did that for about another year. And then I ended up going into ministry of that church full time. So that's kind of how it all happened for me.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:29) How did you find Florida?

(Randy Bezet at 00:07:31) Well, when you're from Louisiana, you know, everything looks like the promised land. Louisiana is great. I mean, I always rag on my home state, but I love the food and I love the football and all of that. But it's, you know, other than that, it's a great place to be from. You know? So when I served in ministry as an associate and assistant pastor. Like I said, I did youth ministry for about a year, and then I was doing other things in the church, adult kind of assistant ministry stuff. And I just felt God stirring in my heart to start a church. And so I literally—you know, it's almost like startup business, really. Like, you can live, you know, in my with church ministry, there's product to sell in every city. So, you can go and live anywhere, right? And so, I opened up a map of the U.S., and I was like, where do I wanna live? Because I literally could have gone anywhere. And I looked a lot of different places, from Southern California, you know, to Arkansas because my brother was living in Little Rock at the time, and I looked in Northwest Arkansas. It was a pretty booming place up there with Walmart headquarters and things like that. But my heart kept coming to Florida. I love the beaches, man. I love warm weather. I love golf. I mean, I love golf. Okay. That's my that's my thing. And so I thought, well, I need to go to a place where I would live even if I didn't start a church. And, this is ultimately where I want to live forever. And I would live in this same community even if I didn't have a church here. So, I was just driving around checking out places, looking for future growth areas, and you know, because that's what you need, a lot of people moving into an area. And a lot of research, a lot of praying, and I had a moment with God here in what we call East Manatee in Bradenton Lakewood Ranch area. And I literally, I saw these families, Joel, after school one day. Moms were picking up their kids from school. The bell had rung. You know, parents in the car line, people in their golf carts, because, you know, Florida. You know? Yeah. They're picking up their kids in their golf cart. Yeah. They do. And the kids and the families and the bell ringing, and it's the end of the day chaos right at school. And I happened to be driving by this school when that was happening. And God dropped something in my heart that was louder than an audible voice. I've never heard God audibly, but it was Randy. These people, they need me. And I want you to come here, build strong families, and help people know me. And, that happened in February 2002. And then I moved here in July and started the church in September, which is now eighteen, a little over eighteen years ago.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:11) I like that. I think that's like a Randy-ism, the way you will say, what did you how did you just say it? That, oh, God doesn't speak audibly to you. So I hear that a lot and hear that a lot in the pastoral community. But what I don't hear is how God does speak to you.

(Randy Bezet at 00:10:29) Yeah. That's a great that's a great question. And I think that's so important. I'm actually doing a sermon this weekend on finding God's will. We're starting a three week series, a season, as you would call it in your podcast. We're doing a three week season on how to know what God's will is for your life. And and ultimately, that's what you're asking. How do I hear from God? How do I know what he wants me to do? It's the it's the number one question. It happens every survey that's ever done, you know, in the Christian side of the world. What do people wanna have a conversation with God about? So if you could sit down and have a conversation with God like this, the number one question that people would ask is, why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing here? It's all about purpose. And, to answer your question, you have to peel back a little bit and go to 30,000 feet. Okay? So that's what I'm doing here. And there's three parts to God's will. We all wanna know what God's personal will is for our life. How do I know that he's talking to me? And, how do I know what to do? But, we can't start there. It starts with what I call the sovereign will of God. That really simply is what is God up to on this earth? What is he doing? In other words, one of the things that God is doing is he already came here and brought his son. His son lived a perfect life, sinless life, and then yet paid the price for our sin. And now he's in heaven, the scripture says, and he's seated at the right hand of God. Okay. And it says he's praying for us. That's comforting to know. Right? No matter what you're going through right now, that God is in heaven praying for you, that your faith wouldn't fail and you would stay strong. That's that helps me a lot. So that part of God's sovereign will is he was going to do that. Whether the world understood it, knew it, cooperated with it or not, that's what God was gonna do. God is still going to send his son to come back again. That's his sovereign will. He's going to do it whether we agree with it or not. Building his local church because that is his expression on this earth. That's part of God's sovereign will. Whether we cooperate with it or not, he's going to do that. Transcends countries, transcends, you know, empires. The church has still been here. You know, that's part of God's sovereign will. Okay. So, we need to understand what God's sovereign will is. Then there's what I call God's written word. That's the Scriptures, the Bible that we use. And then there's the personal will of God. So, here's the easy way to say it. The more I understand the sovereign will of God, I kind of understand what God is up to on this earth, the more familiar I become with His written word. I mean, I spend time understanding it and reading it because it speaks to my life. Then, the easier it is to find God's personal will, which is what we want. So we've got to grow in these other things first. So and that's how God speaks to us, personal will of God. You're reading the Scriptures sometimes, and you go, Wow, man, that's what I needed to hear today. You know, forgive others as God has forgiven you. You could be reading the Lord's Prayer and you could realize, Man, that person was hurtful to me, but I need to forgive them so that God can forgive me. And I think that's how he speaks, which when I'm reading God's Scripture and I'm spending time with him and shutting off the busyness of the world and having solitude with him, it's louder than an audible voice. So I don't know if that makes sense to you, but to me, that's how I position myself. And I hear people who are non pastors, just people like yourself and other Christians who are not in church ministry. That's how they hear from God too.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:07) For me, I try, I work really hard to try to turn it into words. Right? And I think one of the best ways I've come up with is there's typically two different ways I feel like I'm hearing from God. I think one happens unexpectedly. Sometimes it's almost like an imagination of a, you know, scenario. But and and the other comes as a sort of as if it's like a memory or something I already knew that was opened up to me. But with both of those situations, I get them from God and not from God. And the difference for me is sometimes it's got this authentication signature on it. Right? And when typically, when I'm in doubt, I remember what it feels like to get a message or get a feeling or or get a word that is 100%, like, you just know. Sometimes you just know. It's like you can't not. Heavy in the, this is it. Yep. And so I tend to write those down and remember those, because inevitably, doubt will set in. And things happen. And so to lean back on something that you are certain is from God. Sometimes I use God or the universe. I don't, it just I can feel it and I know it's real. And then from there, it's like, alright. Well, walking around like a child figuring out there's different groups of people and they have different rules and there's, and I googled, you know, Wikipedia had hundreds plus religions and all of this stuff. And I was like, well, when I first connected spiritually—

(Randy Bizette at 00:15:55) I looked at that and—

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:56) I was like, which one's right? Yeah. What's that rule? Sure. I'm an engineer background by trade.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:02) I'm like, where's the list of things I can do? And you can't. You just kind of have to. That's where the faith, I think, comes in. But in my exploring, I found that I can connect spiritually, but I have to be around a group of people who are connecting to that too. And I found this church, Bayside.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:22) And when you guys were talking about, you know, relationship with God versus religion, the rules, it reminded me a lot of—and I know very little about the Bible. I bet—

(Randy Bizette at 00:16:35) You know more than you think you do. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:37) But I felt that's, like, a lot about what Jesus' messages were. He was coming to a people that had, like, what, 615 or something like that? A lot of laws, and they had to do these laws. And he sort of said, you know, focus on these two things and connect in. Right? And if you need a name, use my name. Right? And so that's kind of my macro, you know, takeaway from the stuff that I've learned.

(Randy Bizette at 00:17:00) Honestly, to me, relationship with God is very complicated. And I'm not saying it's been complicated by God, but I think by man. And if you would boil it down, which you just in essence—that's what you referred to—when people ask Jesus, "There's a lot of stuff out there, Jesus. Tell me what's most important," you boil it down to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then love your neighbor as yourself. Okay. Well, that does kind of simplify things, and both of those, in essence, are what you just said—relationship oriented. They're not rule oriented. In fact, I don't know anybody that's ever come to God because they wanted to know the laws of God. I mean, "Oh, God. I want to understand." They wanted relationship with God. They wanted to know that He loved them and was real. So I think that's what we're all looking for.

(Randy Bizette at 00:17:56) And it's that relationship thing to go back to what we were talking about. How do I know if it's God or not? Yes, there's God's word and the written word, and I think that's important to know that. But you need to have people around you that can help confirm, like, "Well, Joel, I think that's a bad idea," or, "You know what, Joel? That seems smart." So it needs to be what you feel that God is telling you to do. It should be not contradictory to God's word because He would never contradict Himself. Okay? So that's why it's important to know God's written word. And then you need to have people around you—so relationships—so they can be honest with you and say, "Yeah, that sounds like a very wise decision, Joel," or "That sounds like a very unwise place to go or a thing to do." That's the guardrails. Keeps you in line with what God is really saying in your life.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:47) Yeah. You're giving me a lot to think about, my friend.

(Randy Bizette at 00:18:49) Yeah. Yeah. Well, you said something, though. I'm curious. Can I ask you a question? Your podcast.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:55) Yeah. Do whatever you want.

(Randy Bizette at 00:18:56) I'm having a good time. I'm learning here. So you said some things are—when you're understanding God, like, it comes from God, and some things don't come from God. I don't understand what that meant.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:06) Oh, well, it's like a road, and there's multiple cars, and they all contain information, and they're coming to you showing you messages. But, like, some have a little God signature on them.

(Randy Bizette at 00:19:16) I see.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:16) So that's the confusing part.

(Randy Bizette at 00:19:19) Mhmm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:19) Right? That's why people are looking, I think, for the rules. As you were saying, I think everything starts in a really good place. They have this moment or this connection spiritually to God, and then they start looking for the rule book so I can get this on demand. Right. And then you slowly and painfully realize that's just not how it goes.

(Randy Bizette at 00:19:39) Then it wouldn't require faith. Right. And for Christian faith, it's faith. And, you know, so some of it is, "I don't understand it all now. So, God, I'm going to have faith. Well, how do I know it's You? Well, it doesn't contradict His word, and have a group of people around me who are heading in the same direction as me, and that's going to determine, right, where you end up." And that's why those things are so important. It keeps us, you know, on track. All these cars you're talking about on the road, we need to make sure we have people that are heading in the same direction as us.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:12) So those are two notes I can take here.

(Randy Bizette at 00:20:16) All right? You're taking notes. You got it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:19) I got one-on-one with Pastor Randy. Are you kidding me? In fact, I think we might record this and, like, play it back.

(Randy Bizette at 00:20:25) Oh, I didn't know that. Can we start all over again?

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:30) No, sir. How do we do this at work? So at Men's Night, which was fantastic, by the way—

(Randy Bizette at 00:20:36) I really enjoyed it myself.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:38) So cool. And at Men's Night, I was hanging around. I'm usually backstage at events, so I don't ever really attend events as a participant. So I started walking around lost, like, "What do I do?" And then, so over at the Connect Center—

(Randy Bizette at 00:20:52) Like, you didn't know your way around?

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:54) Right. Well, like, I don't really socialize at the events. I'm usually, like, backstage preparing for the event or hanging out.

(Randy Bizette at 00:21:01) So you weren't throwing hatchets and—I watched monster trucks and stuff like that. Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:21:07) Yeah. The obstacle course that went down, that was crazy.

(Randy Bizette at 00:21:11) Yeah. I mean, with that awesome beard, you should have been throwing an ax. I thought of one, man. You'd have looked the part anyway. That's right. Flannel shirt on, you would have been, like, bawling out.

(Joel Beasley at 00:21:21) I did not have a flannel shirt on. That's funny. So I was hanging out at the Connect Center with one of the singers. I forget his—I think Brian. And he serves, and his wife serves in kids ministry as well. And so I asked him. I said, "Hey, Brian. I'm doing this interview with Pastor Randy. I need some good questions. The premise is faith in the workplace." And I don't—I'm a very monkey see, monkey do learner. If I can see some behavior, some action, I'm pretty good at replicating it. But I've never seen somebody talk about faith or God at work. I don't have a large library of how that goes down, because we go to church and we hear a pastor preach, and they usually give an invitation, you know.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:03) And we hear them speak with their intensity and passion and their ability to be articulate and have a good message. And then we hear the word of God. Right? And we hear what we should be doing. And then it's like, "Okay. Well, where's the application?" Right? And so I asked Brian. I said, you know, he worked at a bank before. And I said, "How would faith happen at the bank? Or how would you talk about God at the workplace?" And he told me a story of somebody who he was, like, in a break room, and he saw them, and they were, you know, clearly upset, something was wrong. And so he said that he would—if that scenario presented itself—he would sit down with them and just ask them how they're doing. If they wanted to talk, they would talk. And then, if they didn't want to talk, they wouldn't.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:56) And he goes, "If they did talk, maybe they were dealing with something like addiction or some sort of issue, he would, you know, talk with them about it. Ask them at the end of their conversation maybe if it's okay if he prays for them." And typically, he said people are very receptive to that.

(Randy Bizette at 00:23:12) They usually don't say no.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:13) Yeah. People usually don't say no to that. And so, and then at the end after he prays for them, he would invite them to church, say, "Hey, you want to be around other people like this? What are you doing Wednesday or what are you doing Sunday?" And I was blown away by that. I was like, "Okay. So it's not, like, the race to get them to accept Jesus into their—" Right. Right. Because when you don't have a model, your mind just kind of scans around and—

(Randy Bizette at 00:23:37) You're kind of left to decide for yourself how to do it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:40) Which is the premise of this interview. How do you—so how do you do it? Like, how do you do faith in the workplace?

(Randy Bizette at 00:23:45) I mean, Brian, I think, was spot on. He really was. Because in essence, if you could, like, ask the average person in America who would respond to this question, "Hey, what do you think of church or God?" If these people—if the ones that would say, "Oh, God, it's Christians"—okay, if you could ask them why, it would be because they had a bad experience with someone who called themselves a Christian, and yet they didn't represent Christ really well. You know, years ago there used to be a bumper sticker that said, "Jesus, save me from your followers." And so we've done it wrong. I mean, I guess those who have done that, you know, Christians, we have some maybe bad experiences. We're not perfect. No, we're not. We're definitely not. Well, that's the thing too. "I'm forgiven. I'm just not perfect." So we don't get to just have a trump card to do what we want and say what we want. So we must be mindful of this whole idea that our job is to—Jesus called it—we are to be salt and light. Salt is savory. It makes people thirsty even. Okay, so we should make people want more of God. Light, we should bring light, not darkness. We should make things better. Ultimately, we should be spreading love.

(Randy Bizette at 00:25:03) I mean, that's really what it is, and there's enough hate and division going on in our world these days that it should be really easy to spread some love. So what does that mean? I think you have to be very wise at work. If you just go to people and start trying to push your way in and start, quote, "preaching the gospel" and preaching at people, well, that's going to be one of those experiences. "Yeah. I know the Christian before. I don't have anything to do with them." It's almost like a wait and see. "God, You have me at this workplace today. I'm on my way to work today. Don't know what's coming my way. I need Your help because of all the problems I've got to deal with at work today. But, God, help me to see people at work the way You would see them, to be available for them." And I guarantee you'll have, you know, water cooler moments or, you know, break room moments like Brian described, and you just can see when someone is hurting. And the Scripture says that it is the goodness of God that leads people to relationship with Him. So be the goodness of God. "Hey, are you okay today?" You can tell they're not. And if they choose to open up, well, that's an open door. If they don't, then don't force your way in there.

(Randy Bizette at 00:26:15) Just pray for them. I think we miss as Christians the power of prayer, and we think that we have to do. And if we would just pray and then let God open the door, well, then when the door is open and they go, "Yeah, I'm not having a good day," well, then the door is wide open. You get to walk right into that and then invite them to church. And if they come, great. If they don't, they don't. But you're simply using those bad moments as opportunities.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:42) So I grew up in the eighties and nineties, and church was very different then. And I feel like sometimes, I guess, tying back to the people who maybe had a bad experience, like, with Christians or—

(Randy Bizette at 00:26:56) Or even in church?

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:57) Or just a few—

(Randy Bizette at 00:26:58) Like, I grew up in church, you know, always telling me I was going to hell. So—

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:02) I know.

(Randy Bizette at 00:27:02) Why did I want to go? You know? I just already know I'm going to hell. Help me to know how not to go. So bad experiences.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:09) Yeah. I feel like I use myself a lot as my experiments, right, to better understand myself. And one of the things I think is that we'll often, like, fix God in, like, a moment, or we'll fix any scenario, and we'll just let it be permanent. Like, so I had this experience. Boom. That's what the experience was. Nail that to the wall. Move on. If I ever need to go back and reference it, it's there. But I also believe that there's a lot of people that are trying to understand God. And as we grow in both maturity as a people, our understanding of God unfolds. Right? And it grows and expands. I think it's a very dynamic thing.

(Randy Bizette at 00:27:49) I believe you. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:49) I think the last 20 years were in our shift from religion to relationship is literally through the seeking of understanding. And so when people say things like, "Oh, like, God's dead," or "That's—God was, like, a thing back then," I'm like, I really think that we're just trying to understand Him. And we need flexibility. Like, we're like kids trying to grow. I have two small kids, watching them. You kind of have to give them some margin, give them some flexibility, and guide them in the right direction. And I often feel like—I feel like I'm, like, a toddler in my spiritual walk.

(Randy Bizette at 00:28:30) Right. Well, I mean, you have to be adaptive as a parent because your kids are doing new things, and you're having to learn how to parent them through those. And I think our relationship with God shouldn't be static either. You know, if your business—whatever business that you're working in—if you're doing business today like you were a year ago, you're becoming obsolete. And so if everything should be growing and adapting, then our relationship with God should be growing and adapting, not necessarily our theology, meaning I'm a Christ follower, and so that's my foundation. But how I interact and my faith and how I grow with God, it should be adapting all the time. It shouldn't be static. Like you said, great picture, word picture. "I did that. I got the certificate. Here it is on my wall. If I need it, I come back to that." But we're in the school of our faith, you know, forever. It's not like I graduated, kind of a thing. And I think the church should be doing that as well, like every business should be adapting. And if not, it kind of becomes obsolete. So for me, as a pastor, it's trying to figure out how can we be relevant to today. And what's so interesting is that the latest survey that came out with people are looking for in church—because they're looking for a church that is, you know, relevant and fun, believe it or not. That was the number one thing. But it's not boring. It's not predictable, and it's not like I leave there feeling worse than I did when I came, because we're all, you know, under a heavy weight of stuff that's happened over this last year. So we're looking for a church that's going to bring relevance to what our situation is and to bring fun and encouragement.

(Randy Bizette at 00:29:56) The second thing, most important, is prayer and support. "Can I come here and people, like, see my pain, recognize it, like speak to it?" Yes. "Give me some tools to leave here with, but I need somebody to be with me." Prayer and support. And to me, that's what we are as a church constantly adapting and trying to figure out how do we create moments for that, whether it's through online because a lot of people connect digitally now from church than ever before. How do we do that there and actually in person?

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:45) And one of the things that you said recently at church that I really, really connected with and thought was pretty profound as far as me hearing it and understanding it was you had said, "It's not our job to put shame on people. It's our job to remove the shame or take the shame from people." And I was like, I wish I could have you go talk to the pastor I grew up with. You know?

(Randy Bizette at 00:31:09) Or the one I grew up with.

(Joel Beasley at 00:31:10) Right?

(Randy Bizette at 00:31:11) Yeah. And so people are full of shame, and you're right. Our job is not to put shame on people, but to help take it off. And in essence, if people would just realize at your workplace that's why you're there. Maybe we're here for beyond collecting a paycheck. You know, finishing this project that I'm working on is not just a means to an end.

(Randy Bizette at 00:31:34) Although it is, in some ways, it is to provide for your family and help you live the dreams and do the things you want to do, but it is not just a means to an end. It could be the end in and of itself as well, which we're there for a purpose and on purpose. So go to work every day realizing that, God, I'm here for something beyond just that, and it's to take shame off of people. It's to spread God's love. It'll change the way you live your life and the actual excitement that you would have going to work because, God, I don't know what you're going to do today, but somebody's going to need you today, and that's why I'm heading to work today.

(Randy Bizette at 00:32:11) Man, it kind of gives you an excitement on the way to work. The commute will be just preparation for what's going to happen that day.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:18) And you're right. From these interviews that I've gotten to do, it seems the natural progression is we start out as sort of experts in our field. Maybe if I'm a software engineer, it's writing code and we get really into the problem and really excited to solve it. And then, some people will go into management and then they start to realize that they can do more with a group of people if they can get that group of people to operate together than they could do by themselves, and then that becomes more rewarding. And then you go to the next stage, you can get groups of groups of people.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:52) And then quickly, at least for me and some of the people I've talked with, the most rewarding thing then becomes the growth of the people that you get to pull in. It's like, how do I pull in the right people and help them grow? And it almost seems abstracted from the smaller lower level problem. And so, really, one of the most common pieces of feedback I get from leaders when I'm talking with them about leadership topics is that it's all about the people. It's all about the relationships.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:17) And so it's becoming more clear now than ever before that it really is about that simply for me because it is the most rewarding experience I can have.

(Randy Bizette at 00:33:30) Something about helping other people succeed, that's why parenting is so rewarding and difficult. What we're talking about is the most difficult. I'm going to go get my work done, collect my paycheck, and I'm getting out of there. Okay. That there is a reward for that, but it's the least fulfilling.

(Randy Bizette at 00:33:48) But the hardest thing to do is to go to work and to live your life thinking of others as well and then using the platform that God has given you. In my case, it's a literal platform, but all of us do have a platform. And it's the influence of the relationships that we have and using that to help other people along the way in their journey. It's the highest level of living that there is. It's the most rewarding and fulfilling.

(Randy Bizette at 00:34:15) It's counterintuitive because we're selfish in nature thinking about self. But when the more you think about others and focus on them, you actually make their problems greater, so therefore your problems get smaller. And I personally think that if you make other people your highest priority, even in your own prayers, then what you're doing in faith is saying, God, I'm trusting you to take care of my problems. I'm going to focus on others. So why wouldn't he take care of your problems if you're going to use the rest of your life to empower and help share God's love with others?

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:49) Yes. You got me thinking today, Randy.

(Randy Bizette at 00:34:54) Well, you thought this was for your listeners? Come on now. Just happen to have a microphone. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:59) This is good. Yeah. For people who want to be competitive or do really well, right, and be a good Christian or really take it seriously, then they have to deal with the absence of God sometimes or, I guess, doubt. Like, let's say you have a plan. If you're an entrepreneur and you get an idea for a business and you instantly you're all pumped up that day, you get started, and now you face the litany of walls that you'll have to break through.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:28) Or you're a Christian and, you know, you're on that journey. How do you deal with the doubt? How do you think about doubt?

(Randy Bizette at 00:35:38) Well, I think doubt is, you know, it's a reality. We all have it. We doubt ourselves. We doubt whether we're going to make it through this problem, this circumstance, whatever it is, whether it's a faith thing or in your job or your parenting, whatever it is. So, even Jesus' followers had problems.

(Randy Bizette at 00:35:58) There was one person who came in and said, Jesus, will you heal my child? And he said, Well, do you have faith? He goes, Yeah, but I also have doubt. And so, it's okay to have that. Well, Jesus took his faith and still did the miracle.

(Randy Bizette at 00:36:14) So, it's okay to recognize that you have doubt. Acknowledge it. God, I do have doubt. I don't know if this is really going to work out. However, I'm going to trust in you that it is going to work out.

(Randy Bizette at 00:36:26) That's faith. And even if you don't feel it, don't equate faith with feelings, because man, it isn't. Feelings, what I call them, is they're kind of neutral. They really have no bearings on whether you're in line with God's will or not, because sometimes our feelings, they are parallel with God's Word and God's will. And you're like, I feel God's close and He is.

(Randy Bizette at 00:36:52) Well, the scripture says that He is always with us. He'll never leave us nor forsake us. Sometimes we feel like God is so distant, but we're still doing what God has asked us to do. The feelings just aren't right. So do the right thing whether you feel it or not.

(Randy Bizette at 00:37:06) That's what faith is. And the doubt will subside, and the faith will grow. That's hard to do. So, you have to separate feelings. I just you can't allow feelings to lead you, is what I'm really saying.

(Randy Bizette at 00:37:21) Faith is doing the right thing even if you don't feel it. And faith could be so small that it could be like, I don't know if I even believe what I'm doing, God, but I'm just going to go ahead and do it anyway. That's what faith does.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:34) I think that's why principles become so important.

(Randy Bizette at 00:37:37) Sort

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:37) of gives you the work to do in the waiting.

(Randy Bizette at 00:37:40) It's totally true. And it could be that the waiting that you just described isn't necessarily because God is just waiting because He's, you know, being cruel. Like, you could just do it now, God. It could be so be ready for this. Okay?

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:56) Okay.

(Randy Bizette at 00:37:56) It could be the things that you're waiting for and you have doubt that are going to happen, but you're still trusting God for and you wonder why he hasn't done it. It may have nothing to do with God. It could have something to do with you. Your character, your shoulders, you're not ready to carry, to walk in all of that. There could be a pride issue, a character issue, and if you had what that is that you're believing for, your foundation of your life and your faith isn't great enough to hold it, and it could all collapse.

(Randy Bizette at 00:38:24) And we've all seen people rise to some level of success. And then, usually because of a moral or character issue, it all crumbles, right? So it could be God just getting you ready so you can handle it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:37) I feel like in my personal life, I've already gotten my immeasurably more. Right? And that was actually a scary thing that I've talked about and kind of worked through is what do you do when you feel like you've got what you thought would maybe take twenty years? And what's after that? And the only thing I could think of was just continuing to be useful to other people at a larger scale.

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:01) But as far as myself, wanting more things, my want is pretty low. I found out that just consistency and execution over a long period of time is going to give me more than I could dream of. And that's hard because I want to have the dream and achieve the dream. But, I often get this feeling that while that way, you know, it works and you can make some progress there, that the best possible dream for your existence comes from faith, and that's the tough part.

(Randy Bizette at 00:39:33) Actually, last night, we had our trustees meeting, which is our financial board of the church. And two of the people that serve on that board were, in essence, kind of we were having a discussion about what you just said. Like, what I've achieved in life and where I am is like, I never thought I would get here. And I sold my company or, you know, things are at this pinnacle and I thought it would take me much longer, but I'm 38 years old or I'm only 50, and I've accomplished all. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. What am I supposed to do?

(Randy Bizette at 00:40:06) And for A type people, which, you know, if you're listening to this podcast, you are one of them, or you would be listening. Okay. Right?

(Randy Bizette at 00:40:20) So then we're achievers, and we're doers. And what happens when you've kind of hit the pinnacle? Or I've sold my business or my company, or I'm no longer doing that because I got a payout. I got a buyout. I sold whatever. And you're sitting there wondering, oh, man.

(Randy Bizette at 00:40:36) What am I supposed to do now? That's an awkward place. And it causes a lot of insecurity and a lot of doubt. So we were having that discussion last night, and I reminded them that we're not called to be human doings, human beings. And so just be okay in your relationship with God.

(Randy Bizette at 00:40:56) And it might very well be that he's just using this as a preparation for what is next. And sometimes we need our ax sharpened. You know, it's the moments where you're not working and you're sharpening the ax that allows you to do more when you are working. It could be you're in an ax sharpening moment, your character, your faith, or whatever, because God knows what's coming next, and he's getting you ready for it. So just rest, relax, grow in it so your shoulders, your character, is ready to take you to where He's going.

(Randy Bizette at 00:41:26) And, that's a hard spot to be for A type personality people.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:29) Yeah. It is even harder for me to realize that this is what life is. It's going to be me growing and stretching and being prepared and then achieving something and then going through the next stage and the next, and this is what it is.

(Randy Bizette at 00:41:44) Yeah. It's moments of huge growth and stretching, and then there's moments of almost the waiting, as you said it a while ago. It's very fitting. And it's in the waiting where we get restless. And so, don't just do something for the sake of doing it, because if we just fill our lives with stuff to make us feel like we're important, then when God comes and says, here's the open door, you're so busy you don't have room for it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:08) Oh, you got to have margin. That was the lesson of my past two, three years. Margin was a lesson I learned a couple times.

(Randy Bizette at 00:42:16) Well, you have to be able to live with margin so when opportunity comes, you can say, yeah. And several of the people last night, they're liquidating so much in their life, simplifying their life. And not because of fear. They just feel like it's the right season. And I think it's because God is putting them in a place, or maybe your listeners, or maybe even you, that things are being simplified, being liquidated, so that when the opportunity comes, you have the margin to say yes to whatever this thing is that God.

(Randy Bizette at 00:42:45) And, by the way, it'll never be a project. It's always about people. And, yes, businesses are about profit. Okay. But, ultimately, your business isn't just for profitability, but the people that work there or the customers that you serve for you to be the church outside the church.

(Randy Bizette at 00:43:03) Because, in essence, most of those people, or perhaps a lot of those people, will never darken the doors of a church. But the church is actually in their workplace because you're there. So recognize, right, what's really at stake here.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:16) Yeah. I see profit. It just means that you're making the systems efficient enough to make more than it spends. And then it's what you do with that profit that I think is really important. So, for us, the way we look at it at our business is we want to invite more people to the party.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:30) So, we grow because we created a culture and we know that there's other people out there and other cultures to create a great community at our organization, while at the same time the thing we're doing to generate that profit is being useful to the people around. Then that's a win. It's a win win win situation and that's not how I thought about profit ten years ago or fifteen years ago. I had an immature understanding of finance and money. And now I understand it's really about creating a product or service to go out there and help people and then connecting those people.

(Randy Bizette at 00:44:18) It has to go beyond a spreadsheet.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:19) Yeah. For sure.

(Randy Bizette at 00:44:20) Which is why you're so fulfilled now. You're also more profitable than you ever been.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:23) I am. Yeah.

(Randy Bizette at 00:44:24) I mean, could it be that God is looking for people that have this understanding whether you own your own business or you work for someone, but he's looking for people that he can trust to put them in places of influence in their job or give them contracts with the business they have that they couldn't get on their own because he knows he can trust them because they're not just living for spreadsheets.

(Randy Bizette at 00:44:46) That is important. And God does want us to be extremely profitable, but why? And I think if we all understand that, God could do something really radical in our country and in this world if we understood that. I mean, to me, is I know this is not a church podcast thing, but as Christians, we believe God for revival, meaning for people to have these awakening moments with God. And what if it happens in the workplace, in the marketplace that's not really done in the church place?

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:15) I think it'll be done however it needs to be done.

(Randy Bizette at 00:45:17) Well, it'll happen when we choose to look at life through those lenses.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:22) Yes. I want to get weird with you for a little bit. Alright. So nerdy stuff. Have you come across simulation theory?

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:29) No. Okay. So, the shortest thing of simulation theory is our technology is advancing. Eventually, it'll come to a point where we can run simulations of humanity.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:39) And then, it'll even grow farther, let's say, a thousand years out, and we can run a full simulation of reality where all the participants exist and none of them understand or are aware that it is a simulation. That's a leading theory out there amongst the science people.

(Randy Bizette at 00:45:57) Elon Musk talks a lot about that, doesn't he?

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:58) He does. He talks a lot about it. Yeah.

(Randy Bizette at 00:46:00) I mean, kind of we're all in the matrix right now? Kind of. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:03) Oh, I should have used the matrix as Yeah. Wow. That would have been way faster.

(Randy Bizette at 00:46:10) You didn't know if I knew that, so you didn't want to make me look bad.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:13) I'm just surprised that you've out, Randy. I love you, buddy. Okay. So my favorite thing about that is how popular of a theory it's become, but it also requires the concept of God. Like, you can't have that.

(Randy Bizette at 00:46:26) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:26) I mean, you're literally discussing the concept of a creator creating. And so for me, it was this moment of, oh, the thing that most of the science people believe, whether they're scientists and they have faith or not, and what a large portion of the people who I know are atheist are interested in as a theory for life both require a god.

(Randy Bizette at 00:46:49) Well, they require faith, don't they? Because even all the science in the world doesn't have all the formulas figured out. There's still a lot of t's that are not crossed and i's that are not dotted.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:01) More so than not.

(Randy Bizette at 00:47:02) Indeed. So there is some element of faith no matter what you believe in.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:08) Yeah. I think Neil deGrasse Tyson says we understand, I mean, I think less than a few percent of the entire universe. I mean, I think it's interesting because I do get nerdy, but even in our own existence right here in this room, the rules that govern the physical reality here, when you get to a very small scale, a quantum scale, they don't apply. They're not the same. They don't work the same.

(Randy Bizette at 00:47:35) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:35) So the things in this room don't work the same at different levels, and they follow different rules at different levels. And so for me—

(Randy Bizette at 00:47:41) Now you're speaking over my head. You need a Matrix kind of explanation.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:45) But it makes it for me, it helps me understand spirituality. I was curious. Do you, do the pastors get together? So my experience is just as a member of the church, right?

(Randy Bizette at 00:47:56) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:56) So I don't see other parts of it. Do pastors get together? Does the church get together and try to better understand God? And have weird—like, one weird conversation that I've had running in my head is, because of the in relation to the simulation theory, what if I was the creator of a matrix and I wanted to create a perfect world? What problems would I encounter? What rules would I have? How would I institute free will? And would there be an ultimate destination and they would have free will? And so these sorts of thoughts, they run through my head and I'm like, there's no financial benefit for them to be running through my head. I don't know why they're going through my head, but I might as well, you know, explore them. But I was curious. And when I went to go sort of type it up in the notes or to think about asking a pastor, I almost felt like it would be wrong. Maybe that was because of my upbringing of don't question things and just do. But I'm curious. Is there communities out there of pastors that are maybe exploring this type of stuff or having these types of conversations?

(Randy Bizette at 00:48:59) I'm sure there are. You know, my level of understanding of what you're saying is as pastors, we're consistently thinking about our customers, if you will. Who's the people that are in our communities? And what are the questions or the problems that they're dealing with, and so we need to address them. And so that's kind of how we live our lives. That's what any business would do. Right? Here's my customer. What questions do they have, and how do I build products or services that solve those problems? So at least we're thinking about those things, but we're not necessarily—at least I haven't looked at, well, we need to create a whole series or a season of weekend services that deal with helping people with that. And I think, in essence, what we do on a regular basis is helping people grow in their faith, which should be able to translate into other things in your life. So that's kind of how we're dealing with it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:49:53) Oh, that makes a lot of sense. That's how—so it's similar to what we do. We poll our community. We find out the topics that they're dealing with and what they're going through. Then we bring speakers in and address it.

(Randy Bizette at 00:50:02) Sure. Okay. That—I mean, everything that we do on the weekend, a topic we're talking about, is literally has come through a focus group in some way. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:13) I like it.

(Randy Bizette at 00:50:13) Yeah. Otherwise, you become irrelevant. You know, like church, we're still doing it like we did in the nineties. Well, if you were doing a focus group, you'd realize no one's looking for church like that now or maybe a very small niche, but that's not really what the masses are looking for.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:30) On men's night, what was the name of the pastor, the coach guy?

(Randy Bizette at 00:50:31) Tom Mullins.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:34) He was so good.

(Randy Bizette at 00:50:34) Oh, man.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:35) Man, he was so good.

(Randy Bizette at 00:50:37) We had so much fun with him. He literally was a college football coach, so you can just imagine how much fun we had.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:42) We broke down. I played football in high school. We did a breakdown. I was like, I was so—my eyes lit up. I was like, I know how to do this.

(Randy Bizette at 00:50:51) And then you did the claps on one of them.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:52) Oh, of course. Oh. Amazing.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:54) Yeah. I'm just glad we didn't have to do burpees or up downs.

(Randy Bizette at 00:50:56) Oh, yeah. I would've—yeah. We're done at that moment. Yeah. That's back in high school. I mean, I don't do that anymore.

(Joel Beasley at 00:51:01) So how do you connect with other pastors?

(Randy Bizette at 00:51:04) You know, it would be conferences or things that you would go to in your own industry. We have that as well. I'm in some networks where we really do a lot of relational connecting, and that's how we get to know each other. And then, you know, you find people that you really connect with or that you're trying to learn and grow, and they kind of seem to be the expert in that. So you spend time and learn from them, and that's kind of how it happens. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:51:30) How do you fill up? Like, how do you get inspired and keep your margin there?

(Randy Bizette at 00:51:35) Well, you know, it's having some time where I silence the world and I just, I get alone so I can hear from God, not necessarily audibly, but, you know, all the ways we talked about. And I listen to podcasts. You know, this is a podcast world. YouTube, I listen to other pastors preach. I read tons of books. I like productivity and management and leadership, things like that, you know, outside the Christian world, if you will. And so those are all the things that I do that grow me. Because if I don't grow, I can't grow the church.

(Joel Beasley at 00:52:11) Are we a hard stop at one hour?

(Randy Bizette at 00:52:13) Close to around there. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:52:15) Okay. Cool. Let's wrap up with what are you learning right now as a leader?

(Randy Bizette at 00:52:21) Wow. What am I learning right now as a leader? Well, I don't know how to talk about this totally without—you know, there's a lot of context involved in this. But as a pastor, the things that—it's been a hard season to navigate over the last year is in our church and in this country, there's a representation of all sides. And figuring out how to not pick a side, but to—can there be a third option? I either have to be with you or I have to be with this other group. Well, why can't I just stand in the middle and be the third option? And figuring out how to do that and bring people together rather than having to pick a side. And I've been learning a lot about how to do that without compromising my faith and what I believe, but realizing even as Jesus did, he always picked a different option. Like, why can't there be a better or a different way than I have to either side with the Pharisees or side with the prostitutes and the tax collectors. He was trying to bring everybody together, the people that were against Caesar and the people that were for Caesar. He was bringing those together. And that's what I've been learning a whole lot personally and trying to lead in that way.

(Joel Beasley at 00:53:38) I love it. That's what we need right now as a community, as a country, as a world. We need more unity, less division.

(Randy Bizette at 00:53:44) Amen. Best leadership advice you ever received?

(Randy Bizette at 00:54:00) Best leadership advice I ever received. I guess I can answer it this way. I think the greatest influence in my leadership has been John Maxwell. I've read—I don't know if I've read all of his books, but I've read most of them. And I'm personal friends with John. I've traveled around the world to play golf and just hang out with him, and I do. It didn't start out that way. It just—he was a mentor from a distance reading books. And this whole idea of what we talked about earlier, love God and love others, is that it's about people and relationships. That's the greatest leadership lesson I ever learned, and it's seasoned in pretty much everything that he teaches. And I've given my life to not building Randy's dreams, but helping other people build their dreams. And I don't have anything on my list that I haven't checked off yet, and I haven't pursued them. So that's my greatest lesson.

(Joel Beasley at 00:54:44) That's awesome. I love John Maxwell. I actually gave a talk and went multiple countries and everything. And in the talk, I referenced John Maxwell, his leadership is influence concept. And, yeah, listening to his Audible books and things like that in the morning, I'm a big—he does write so many. It's like the 12 laws. It's the 26 laws.

(Randy Bizette at 00:55:05) The five laws. He's a genius. I love it. His latest book, you know, Change Your World, what a great topic for right now. I think it just dropped, too. Change Your World.

(Joel Beasley at 00:55:17) Yeah. Alright.

(Randy Bizette at 00:55:18) So I was with him in October, and he kind of gave me a little—I was with about 50 other people and, you know, just hanging out with him, and he was telling us about the book and what was coming, and I just was savoring for it to come out. Right? So, yeah, he's a great man. He has influenced my life, and the lesson is really about other people living your life, building other people's dreams. And in essence, I think God then he takes care of your dreams.

(Joel Beasley at 00:55:43) Boom. I think that's a great way to end it. Thank you so much. This has been fantastic.

(Randy Bizette at 00:55:47) Joel, I am so honored that you would do this. I mean, what—outside the realm of what you would normally do? And I'm honored that you would trust me to be on your thing, man. Thank you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:55:56) Thank you so much. Alright. What a great episode. If I didn't get your questions answered, there was something on your mind while we were talking that you really wanted me to ask, go ahead and send me an email, [email protected]. Because in a couple weeks, we're having a follow-up with Brad, who is both a pastor and the CTO of AVI Systems. So email me your questions that we can have discussions about anything that I might have left out on this very special episode of Faith in the Workplace.