305 | What an Awesome Ride. What a Wild Opportunity. (Jeff Zaugg)
Episode Description
In this special Thanksgiving episode, Jeff Zaugg shares powerful stories of God’s faithfulness to the DadAwesome community and ministry. From global impact to huge fundraising milestones and everything in between, Jeff focuses on gratitude and remembrance for all God has done in recent years. Plus, he shares the exciting vision for the next phase of DadAwesome.
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Jeff Zaugg is a loving husband, intentional dad, and passionate advocate for the fatherless. With experience in nonprofit leadership and pastoring, Jeff founded DadAwesome in 2018 and Fathers for the Fatherless shortly thereafter. Jeff and his wife, Michelle, have been married for seventeen years and are parents to four daughters, ages two through nine.
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· When you lean into remembrance of what God has done, it goes beyond your family to all the world. (Joshua 4)
· 10 areas of massive gratitude
· Reflecting on 6 years of impact
· Entering the next phase of DadAwesome
· Your invitation to support DadAwesome in two ways
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Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:41] It is Thanksgiving week and this is episode 305 of DadAwesome. My name is Jeff Zaugg and let me start with just saying thank you. Thank you so much for listening today. Thank you for watching today. Some of you that right now are listening to my voice in your, in your ears, usually, you know, the majority of our podcast listeners just listen on your on your favorite podcast platform. But today, episode 305, if you have time to hop over to our DadAwesome YouTube channel and watch today's episode. The first part is going to be dad wisdom around the theme of Gratitude, Thanksgiving and Remembrance. So I just have a dad principle to share with you guys. So it's not that important to watch the first little bit, but then we're going to move into, DadAwesome as an organization, as a nonprofit ministry. I'm going to actually put into practice what I share and I'm going to give thanks and give you guys a bunch of specifics, like, look what God has done. I'm titling today, What an Awesome Ride, What a Wild Opportunity. So I'm going to give thanks for some very specific things, share with you guys, like, look what God has done in nearly six years. So in January it'll be six years. We just celebrate episode 300 of the podcast, a few weeks ago. So I'm going to do that, it is going to be visual. I'm just a visual guy and giving thanks, I'm going to share photos and some video clips of look what God has done. And then the second part is look where God is taking us and some of the direction for, man, what a wild opportunity. Look at, look at what we could sort of step into in this next chapter. So, so thank you again for taking time to watch and to listen today. And happy Thanksgiving to you guys. I'm going to jump into, first of all, the principal. So we're we're just finishing 530 days, not that we're counting, the Zaugg family. We've been living in an RV for about two years. And as we've traveled the country with this mission, DadAwesome and Fathers for the Fatherless, we're ending this chapter. And one thing that we've done over these past two years is every time we move the RV, we take time as a family to remember and to list out and to say, Look what God did. So we have, I mean, specific times where where we've we've left an area like northeastern Florida, where our family is moving, and we actually had 86 specific ways that look what God did. And so we'll write them down on a clipboard or on a poster board, and then we'll take a picture so we have it digitally as well. It's just a remembrance practice to say we're not going to move on to the next thing until we give thanks. And it helps our little, our little girls know, Oh, wow, God did answer a lot of prayers or these were things we were even praying for, and look what He did. The delightful, unexpected things that come along or moments of stress come and then God brings us through it and we write those things down as well. So usually visual, looking at photos, looking back to our calendar and looking at our journals will help prompt, oh yeah, look at all the ways that God moved. So, so let's talk about Remembrance and Thanksgiving. Joshua Chapter 4, in the Bible, Joshua Chapter 4 has two parts of this passage that talk about remembrance. The first one, Joshua, calls up 12 men, one from each of the tribe, and they're at the Jordan River, at this point. They've been traveling in the wilderness, wandering in the wilderness for 40 years because of their grumbling, because of the lack of gratitude, because of not trusting God, they had to spend 40 years in the wilderness. But now they're at the point of entering and Joshua is their leader. He gets 12 men and he says, Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God in the midst of the Jordan and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder. So picture us as dads, a stone on the shoulder. I'm about to do a Spartan race and they have you carry, they have you shoulder a five gallon old bucket full of sand. So it's like a large, like, picture a large rock on the shoulder of these men, one from each tribe. So they have a stone in their shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in a time to come, what do these stones mean to you? Then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. And when it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to your people, to the people of Israel, a memorial forever. So this is the set up. Get the stones you're going to walk, you're experiencing a miracle, but get the stones so that your kids, when they ask, what do these stones mean to you? Then if you go down to verse 21, he kind of tells the story but expands it. So this is expanded, it says, and He shall, and He said to the people of Israel, when your children ask their fathers in a time to come, okay, so specifically, when your children ask their fathers in a time to come, what do these stones mean, then you shall let your children know Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground. Miracle. For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over as the Lord your God did the Red Sea. So he's going back in time, 40 years to this miracle at the Red Sea with the, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which dried up for us until we passed over so that all the people of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever. It's the dad principle to take from this passage out of Joshua chapter 4, is It's for our kids. Our kids are going to ask us, We can answer them, but we can like the Stones, the moment of giving thanks and remembrance, actually, it went beyond just the Jordan, that God expanded into. And they can remember that God did that same miracle 40 years earlier with the Red Sea. And it's not just our kids, but it's all peoples of the world. So when we as dads live into remembrance and gratitude and telling stories and organizing moments for our kids to to see, look what God has done. It goes beyond our family to all the peoples of the world will see and know that God is mighty and He and He, He takes care. And this is, this is at the, at the edge of so many more miracles. So by them giving thanks, gathering up the stones, stacking them, it says in one of the verses, to like to anyone else in the world, they just look and say that's a pile of rocks. But they know because the dads, the men took time to stack these rocks and give thanks and tell their kids and they can in the future, their kids can ask and they can keep telling their kids and grandkids, look what God did. So I want to encourage us, all of us on Thanksgiving Day, let's do that. Let's be men, let's be dads that have specific remembrance practices and remembrance, like this is what we do. We give thanks and we remember. We tell our kids, look what God has done and that, I believe, positions our families for more miracles to come. Those Israelites entered the promised land and God took care of them and protected them and gave them this land. And many of us we're dreaming and praying for miracles, but I think it's anchor back to we need to live in remembrance and gratitude right now before those miracles will happen. So with that said, a dad principle that's true of DadAwesome. Nearly six years ago, one mile from where I'm sitting right now, I was on a patio outside in Arizona, if you're watching on YouTube, you know that I'm sitting outside on a patio right now in Arizona. A conversation started that sparked this movement of DadAwesome. A conversation about how am I staying intentional as a dad? That conversation, almost six years ago, has led now to the Ministry of DadAwesome. And to over 300 episodes of this podcast, over, and I'll walk through a bunch of specifics. I want to give thanks because I have huge myself, our advisory team, the men behind this mission, the men connected to this mission, you as a part of our community at DadAwesome, we have huge dreams for where God is taking us. But if we don't give thanks and share with specific like Look what God has done, that's why I'm calling this episode, What an Awesome Ride, What a Wild Opportunity. So I'm going to get real practical here. We're going to dive into look what God has done. What an awesome ride. Looking at nearly six years in the past. And then I'm going to be like, Hey, the next couple of years, what a wild opportunity, I'm going to share some of that. And how we can not only be connected to the Ministry of DadAwesome, but actually how you could actually partner and be a part of helping this come and happen with some financial generosity. So, I'm going to talk about that as well. So let's dive into it. Massive gratitude. Massive gratitude. Let me get specific. Ten groups of people, ten things that I'm just, like so thankful for. So here's the ten. The first is DadAwesome, our community, the DadAwesome listeners, you, you're watching or listening today and this doesn't happen, the ministry doesn't happen without the community that says this is helpful, I want to be DadAwesome. So, I'm going to start with our DadAwesome listeners. I'm so grateful for every single person who listens and has shared DadAwesome with others, with other dads just two, two shoutouts, so Matt said this, he emailed this in, I love listening to DadAwesome the past few years and have found such encouragement in my own journey as a father. I've also enjoyed sharing the podcast with fathers around me. God put it on my heart earlier this year to start a fatherhood ministry at my church and I can point to many episodes of the DadAwesome podcasts that have allowed me to share insight and wisdom with other dads in the group. The DadAwesome ministry is the living, breathing and constantly evolving source of encouragement that I will continue to come back to and share with others because of how it equips us for fatherhood. So thanks, thanks Matt, for that kind of encouraging, shout out email. And then this is a review on Apple Podcasts from Kelsey. He said, After over three years of subscribing and listening to this podcast, I can honestly say that I think it only keeps getting better. And in this dad season of My Life, this is the podcast I find myself sharing the most with other dads, husbands and future fathers. There's just so many golden nuggets to pick out of the podcast each week and so much encouragement to be passed on, to be passed along during this difficult season of life. I'm very thankful for this podcast in my own journey and I'm so thankful to be able to share it with others. So that's the first, like massive Gratitude is the DadAwesome community. The second one is the DadAwesome guests. So, there's been about 230 men who have said yes to sharing about 45 minutes of their time with me to have an interview, to have a conversation around intentional fatherhood. And this ministry doesn't happen without the guests, those those amazing men and women. We've done some Mom Months that have shared as well. But those individuals who have said yes to investing, sharing, passing along testimony and wisdom, I want to give a shout out, massive gratitude to that group. Partner organizations. So you'll see this if you go to the new DadAwesome website, the other Dad Resources, Dad Ministries or men's ministries, these incredible, now friends and partners, these partner organizations around the world that serve men just like you. I'm so thankful for them. It's a big, like, there's no competition whatsoever when it comes to DadAwesome and fatherhood ministry. These organizations, and we feature them all over our website, were like, Go learn, go learn about them, download the resources, buy their books. So, and if you're watching on YouTube, you'll see some of them scrolling through right now. And our partner organizations, we're so thankful for. The Fathers for the Fatherless team. 900 men have said yes to the mission of biking 100 miles, doing a Spartan obstacle course race or or a triathlon or a run to help the fatherless. So that team that said yes to sacrifice, yes to doing something hard and yes to fundraising for this mission of helping the fatherless, so grateful and massive like so much gratitude for that team. The Fathers for the Fatherless host partners. We have host partners in Colorado and Arizona, in California, in New York, in Florida, all around the country, people who have said we want to be a partner, we want to host one of these events and those partners, so grateful. This thing doesn't expand, we haven't grown nationally, if it wasn't for other other leaders and other organizations who say, hey, come, we want to be a part of this, will you Come join us in our local location. So those partners are incredible. Our prayer team, over 65 individuals are praying and receive a monthly email with prayer updates and sometimes we do like weekly Marco Polo messages to our prayer team. There's always an invitation to join as well, so they'll be linked in the show notes how to join the prayer team, but I'm so grateful for our prayer team. Our financial support team. So 70 families have made a gift, a donation to support and fuel this movement. So, that team of amazing, generous people who have said we're behind this mission with our dollars and with our generosity, I'm so grateful. I'm massively thankful for our DadAwesome advisory teams. So, this is the board, the team and the advisors that say, they're going to keep me accountable and headed in the right direction and supported and and that team now, has been serving for, we had a little bit of change over after the first two years, but our advisory team, I'm so thankful for the men that serve on that team. The last two things that I massively thankful for is, there's a team of amazing men and women who actually work in a fractional way. Couple hours a week, four hours a week, six hours a week to help support the ministry, DadAwesome. So these are contractors who are a part of our team and they live all over the country and they have specific skills that they've said I'm in to support and serve this mission. So, I'm so grateful for our team that support the DadAwesome mission in real tangible weekly ways. And then lastly, the 10th thing that I'm massively thankful for are my favorite five women in the entire world. Here's a picture of the Zaugg family. I have four daughters, as you know. When this thing started, I had two daughters. So I am so thankful for Michelle and our four girls. They were all featured in episode 300, but I just want to say this again, like this ministry does not exist without the five Zaugg girls. So very thankful. So those are the ten people, individuals, areas, partners, organizations that I am so thankful for. The next section, nearly six years of impact, let's talk about some specifics around six years. What are some of the impact points, the impact areas? It's hard to quantify, like the individuals like Matt and like Kelsey that I read earlier. But I want to just share some of the impact points to the ministry, DadAwesome. So, let's move now into nearly six years of impact, and this is again, from a place of gratitude. Say these are ten areas that we've beenl what a privilege, what an opportunity, what a joy that we've had a part of impacting in these ways. The first is the DadAwesome podcast. Over 300 episodes, about 180,000 downloads. Most months now, it's between 5,000 and 7,000 per month are being downloaded and dads all around the world are listening and that doesn't even include the video side on YouTube. The second area is Fathers for the Fatherless. We've had 900 men say yes to this mission, over, we've had five seasons now of hosting events. The third area is our Fathers for the Fatherless giving. So that team of 900 men have generated $890,000 that have been given out to our local and global partners that directly serve the fatherless. So, some of you have asked that is DadAwesome funded by the dollars that you raised for the fatherless? Not at all. That's all out to our partners, all of our fundraising, the $890,000. We're so grateful we've had a chance to give through Venture, is our global partner, and then we have different local partners for all of our local events. The the next area is our life framework. So, so we this is a kind of unpacked over the last three years, but the impact of we now have a four part framework that kind of everything we do at DadAwesome falls within being a loved son of God, being intentional, all the facets of intentionality, walking in freedom, being free, man, I am free as a dad so we don't pass on pain, we pass on love and life and futures to our kids and then I enjoy. I enjoy my kids. Pleasure, delight, man, it comes from Dad saying, I love that I get to be a dad. So it's wrapped in, actually, God's words over Jesus when He baptized Jesus. You are my loved Son. You are my Son. I love you. I enjoy you. In you, I am well pleased. The whole framework is wrapped in God's words over His son that we can step into as dads, earthly fathers, we can step into love and delight and identity as sons of God and then move into man, we enjoy our kids. So the life framework is just an area of impact. We've had over 100 dads have gone through that framework and more to come on the life framework. Another area of just impact is 530 days of traveling in the RV. We traveled for Fathers for the Fatherless events. We traveled for podcast interviews, for partner meetings, for DadAwesome meet ups, and we actually partnered as well for the flip conversations. People were interviewing me for their podcast around learning about DadAwesome and Fathers for the Fatherless. So the travel has been, has been incredible and it has been hard and we're just so thankful, but we're also thankful that travel season is ending, this week, as we read as we released this episode. The next couple areas of just impact points and areas is we hosted the DadAwesome summit, last year and we're hosting another one in Washington, DC this year. This is for Leaders of Fatherhood Ministries. Pastor Mark Batterson is co-hosting this with me. So, we kind of came up with this concept together and he's playing kind of this sage. He's, he's speaking wisdom in and I'm gathering but it's the DadAwesome Summit but it's other organizations that are serving dads. So, making sure we don't think competitively, we think big, like, we need as many amazing, Jesus following organizations to help in this area as possible. So we're we're gathering and learning from one another and celebrating one another. So the DadAwesome Summit was an area of impact. The next is just our DadAwesome resources. We've gathered now, it's over 70 resources on our website from books to podcast that impact people. We're sending people to our resource page all the time so we can help dads find resources. The last two, last three are just relationships. The people, it's amazing, a podcast interview, how it can start with just a, I'm going to learn from you for 40 minutes. Many of those have turned into relationships that are a massive gift to the future of DadAwesome because these people care deeply about our mission and care about me and have even moved into mentoring me and in coaching me. So, many people I interview are 2 to 3 decades older than me and they've become now friends and mentors. So the relationship side is huge in this kind of foundational years of DadAwesome. And then last two areas of impact, DadAwesome giving. So, roughly $300,000 has been donated to the Ministry of DadAwesome over the last three years. So, so it's averaged out to about $100,000 a year, has been donated from its 70 families, have been a part of our giving team and it's just, just to kind of call this out like like the fact that these families have gifted to this mission has not only fueled the intentional fatherhood work that we've had a chance to do, like the intentional work, the DadAwesome and what we've created and the foundation that will go on, but it also that has led to nearly $900,000 given to our partners. So it's just a cool like impact point of anyone who's gifted money to DadAwesome made a donation to us as a nonprofit. Those dollars have fueled the fatherhood work that we do, the intentional fatherhood work, and they've been tripled out to other organizations. So so it's kind of like they've been they've impacted in four ways. They've impacted with intentional father work at DadAwesome. And then they've three, three more dollars have gone out to help our partners who directly serve the fatherless. So it's a, just as a like celebration, it's pretty, it's pretty amazing. I'm so thankful that those dollars don't just stay with my salary and stay with the organizational infrastructure of DadAwesome. But they're actually, they support us and they're tripled out to other organizations. So, the DadAwesome giving, the generosity that team is an impact area. And then the last one that I wrote down for just areas of impact, six years of impact, is other organizations. So these are other ministries that have featured and shared the story of DadAwesome and Fathers for the Fatherless. So, I've now, I think it's 18. 18 other organizations have had me on as a guest of their podcast to share the story and the Vision. Jesus Culture, their men's ministry, The Man Camp Podcast just featured us about three weeks ago, and there's many others that we feature some of them at the DadAwesome website. If you go to resources and search my name, they come up. So yeah, those are areas of impact and very grateful for those six years of impact in just a few of the areas. Now let's move into clarifying our mission moving forward. The heartbeat of DadAwesome. So you'll see now on our website, you've heard me mention this before, but this like this charge that I believe is it really does sum up our heartbeat. The charge to us as dads, as men, as a ministry is activating dads to lead with wonder. Let me say one more time, activating dads to lead with wonder. We are creating, at DadAwesome, activation. We're activating dads through a podcast, through video content, through challenges. We're activating dads through events like Fathers for the Fatherless. We're activating dads through this book project we're working on in a book that will actually be a tool to activate them. But it's not just like, go be intentional, go be intentional. The activation is not into duty and responsibility. The activation is too like, let's lead with wonder. Let's bring joy, let's bring delight. Let's bring our full hearts. Every one that I talk to you in their 60s and 70s is like, Man, I wish I would have treasured those younger years. I wish I would have treasured, not complained and grumbled my way through. So we're trying to infuse a shiny eyed wonder. We want to see dads lead, lead from a place of, not only like wonder and delight and gratitude, but, but man, can we actually have some fun being dads? So that's our heartbeats. We're going to resource the local church to activate dads to lead with wonder. We're not just out to to catch random dads, but we're actually building resources for the local church. But it's all around activating dads to lead with wonder. That's our vision and man, there is a multiplication that I'm calling the plus three like DadAwesome plus three. We're not looking for dads that they have to lead a ministry for fatherhood. We're looking for dads who would find three other dads. Would you be a plus three dad who just says at some point throughout this next year, maybe once or twice, I'm going to pull three other dads together to sit on a patio, like the one I'm sitting on right now, and start a campfire and talk about intentional fatherhood. So we're going to resource dads plus three. Just find three other dads and go for a bike ride, then talk afterwards about intentional fatherhood. Find three other dads and go on a hike. Find three other dads and go serve somebody. Go serve a mom who maybe they don't, those kids don't have a dad. So it's the plus three concept. Can we multiply? Could our vision activate dads not only to go after the hearts of their own kids, but to activate these dads to find three others? And that's that's where the compounded effect of the Ministry of DadAwesome comes. So, that's me bringing some clarity to our vision. Let's move now into how is DadAwesome funded. What's the funding model? How how do we support this ministry? So let me, let me break this down. So as the guy who leads this movement, who founded DadAwesome and Fathers for the Fatherless this is a very common question. How is DadAwesome funded? And let me try to break it down as easy as possible. So we are, we are a nonprofit, 5O1C3 organization, but we are a DBA doing business as, with our global partner, Venture. So, so Venture has been around for 22 years doing incredible work to help in Southeast Asia, primarily. And they are our global partner for Fathers for the Fatherless. And they said to us as we were getting started, hey, instead of building out all the infrastructure and doing your own separate nonprofit, we'd love to help you and help incubate and and provide accountability and structure and insurance and and support. So, so Venture, and they'll be linked in the show notes, they are our global partner and they are also our fiscal kind of oversight. And their board brings accountability as well as our advisory team that I mentioned earlier. So, so Venture we are DBA of venture and the donations still all come to DadAwesome that you make to DadAwesome, but they helped kind of steward and manage our bank account and and give you the tax receipt for your gifts so that as a structure side, that's how it works. We have an advisory team, that I mentioned earlier, that provides accountability and direction and wisdom that's deeper into our mission because the venture is doing a lot of work. Our advisory team kind of plays that role and has come around with incredible wisdom and support for this mission. For nearly six years we've been doing ministry at DadAwesome. But for three years there's been a strategic financial support structure and for three years I have been full time and I've been a staff member of DadAwesome. So this is how it's worked for the last three years. The first three, the first three years, it was a passion project and there was no money involved. The last three years we have had three income streams as a ministry. The first is an enterprising revenue stream. This means we have dollars that come in from people who are paying for a ministry impact that they're a part of. So, so our Fathers for the Fatherless participants pay a registration fee to be a part of those rides. Part of the registration fee fuels our operations and our support as a ministry. Fathers for the Fatherless has a sponsorship team, team of organizations who have donated money to be a sponsor to say, We're behind this movement. Those sponsor dollars go into our operating budget. So we have an enterprising revenue stream through Fathers for the Fatherless, and we just now are launching the DadAwesome store. Hats, jackets, like the one I'm wearing right now, coffee mugs and some other just merchandise that helps you share the vision of DadAwesome. That'll be an additional part of our enterprising ministry revenue stream. So we have some dollars, about a third of our dollars, in our budget, come from that stream. The next third of our income as a ministry comes from partner funding. So the first year this was Substance Church, they were our partner who's funded and helped with about a third of our budget, the very first year we launched, three years ago| The last two years, our partner who has come alongside and said, We want to help you and help with some of your operating expenses is our fiscal agents and our parent ministry. So, so venture supports at about a third of our of our budget they support with funding, which is remarkable and amazing. So so that's where that funding comes from the last third. So we have enterprising revenue, we have partner funding and the last third of our income as a ministry comes from personal fundraising. I mentioned earlier we've had $300,000 come from personal fundraising. Our budget was for about 70,000 each year and that's been exceeded the last three years. So we are so thankful, so very thankful. And again, those dollars have been supporting the Ministry of DadAwesome and they've been tripled out to our ability to give and raise money for other partner organizations that serve the fatherless, which is we're so grateful for. So our, our ministry budget is about $250,000 a year, is about what our ministry budget is and a third of that comes from a partner, a third comes from enterprising revenue, income streams and a third comes from personal fundraising. Friends and family supports and just our broader ministries support fundraising dollars. So hopefully that makes sense. I'm the only full time staff and then we have our team of contractors that I mentioned earlier, and we're a startup, we're three years in, and that's kind of how the funding model works. Let's jump into talking about entering the next phase and what's coming next for DadAwesome. Let's talk for a moment about this next phase and kind of as I see the phases of DadAwesome and Father's for the Fatherless. These are kind of the the high level, we have the action phase, which was year one and year two, we have the activation phase, which was year three through five. And then we're moving now into the anchoring phase, which is years six and seven, and then the acceleration phase, which is year eight and beyond. So the action phase, the first couple of years was like these short video series that we released, the first ten episodes of the podcast. We we just started interviewing intentional dads. After that, we started some challenges at DadAwesome. We had some small group curriculum that we made and tried out at our, at our host church. We we started sending daily text messages of encouragement, and then we did our initial Fathers for the Fatherless ride and we celebrated $17,000 being raised. We were like pumped, so pumped, and I'm still pumped. But it's amazing how things change as you move into the activation phase. So that was action phase was just trying stuff. This was all on the side as a passion project. Then we moved into activation. Activation phase was year three through year five. So we're just now kind of in that window of of ending the activation phase. And this phase included 24 Fathers for the Fatherless events. This phase included traveling, traveling as a family in the RV that I've mentioned. This phase included raising $890,000 for the fatherless, was in this activation phase. We hosted DadAwesome meetups all over the country and then now now I have been three years of full time fatherhood ministry in this activation phase. So the activation phase and I even mentioned we recorded 300 podcast episodes in the activation phase as well. So that's all activation. We just activating dads, we're trying things, we launched the new DadAwesome website, we're gathering resources, all these things we've talked about. Now anchoring, the anchoring phase, which I'm describing as year six and year seven, so this would be the year 2024 and the year 2025. The anchoring phase I'm describing is this, and we're just entering this as we head into January, is relocation of the DadAwesome base, our headquarters, to Northeastern Florida. So for there's a lot of other information that tied into that decision for our family to move to Northeast Florida. But we're moving to that area and relocation as part of the anchoring phase. Writing, editing and launching the first DadAwesome book, is a part of the anchoring phase. Facilitating DadAwesome resource testing in 3 to 5 churches, that's a part of this anchoring phase. Instead of traveling the country, like for the past few years, I'm going to be living with my family in Northeastern Florida, and we already have identified the first 3, up just up to 5, 3 to 5 churches, we're going to resource and build and test and just see how do these resources that we're creating, are they helping a dad ministry flourish in these churches? And we're going to get real time feedback. So we're going to spend a couple of years really focused in, in that area. Now, of course, we'll be doing other Fathers for the Fatherless events around the country still. But our DadAwesome resource testing is going to happen a lot, right locally in Northeastern Florida. And then the last thing is we're prayerfully going to be hiring another full time person or at least a half time a, a person who will be an integrator in operations, systems, structure, that ops side that we just have not had. Me as the visionary, the founder, the ideator, the let's go, let's take that hill, let's go. I've been praying for a long time about, God, would you reveal the right person and would you bring the right funding for us to hire this, this kind of complementary, this person who could really bring some structures to scaling of the impact and the resources? So that's the anchoring phase is what we're heading into. And then lastly, the acceleration phase, this is taking the tools we've created and bringing them to 30, 50, 100 churches going well beyond Northeastern Florida, back into some of our anchor sites like the Twin Cities of Minnesota to Colorado, to San Diego, to so many other areas of the country that we we have amazing friends and amazing churches that are waiting for resources that will help them launch DadAwesome ministries, to see their dads activated to lead with wonder. So that's our prayer moving into the acceleration. So as just a quick recap, we're moving from action year one, year two to activation, years three and five, 3 to 5, our anchoring phase we're stepping right into now, which is years six and seven, and then the acceleration phase, after these couple of years of anchoring, can we see this ministry accelerated to 30, 50, 100 churches in the U.S. and then even beyond with activating dads to lead with wonder? So, let' move into two invitations to support this this mission, this movement. And we've only come this far because of 70 families who have made financial donations, who have brought generosity and say, I want to fuel this move, move, this movement. So thank you to those 70. And let me just outline kind of two ways, the first way to help us move into this vision, this mission, is an end of year gift, this year in 2023. So from this kind of Thanksgiving through the end of the calendar year, we're praying for about 20 families to come around this mission, this vision and make a donation at the end of the year. That donation could look like $1,000, that donation could look like $10,000. It truly, like, coming in with a one time end of year gift would be such a help as we end this year. Our vision, prayer and goal in ending this year is $70,000 to be fundraising. Just in perspective, last year, our end of year giving came in at about $50,000. So we seen God bring generosity in the kind of end of the calendar year as people are looking strategically to make donations to kind of end the calendar year. And just want to invite you guys, that might be the level you step into is to say, Hey, here, we'd like to make an end of year kind of partner with us, end of year donation. The second way for you to pray about joining this movement is in the anchoring phase, which again, starts this January. For two years, January 2024 through December 2025, for two years we're asking and we're praying for 32 partners, anchor partners to come behind alongside to bring generosity to this movement, to fuel this movement. So these 32 partners that you can see if you're on YouTube, there's kind of five different levels. And we're praying for these 32 anchor partners to make either just a commitment to give each year. So doesn't have to be every single month, but just to give next year and the year beyond to make a donation. It would just be a game changer for our ministry. So if you add that to the partner support that we already have locked up in that partnership and the enterprising revenue that we're already generating of about $70,000 a year, that would position us to hire that second staff and to really move into this anchoring season with confidence, so we can build an infrastructure to really grow and impact more churches, more dads. So that is the prayer, those two invitations, is end of year donations and then prayerfully inviting you to be an anchor partner. That's what I want to invite you guys into praying about as we end this year and as we celebrate Thanksgiving. So, guys, as a reminder, our heartbeat here is can we, can we live with gratitude? Can we be thankful? Can we have remembrance as dads? Like, that's where we started this whole thing out of Joshua chapter four. And I've done that now in this episode by explaining the heartbeat and look what God has done. What a ride and what a wild opportunity God has called us into at DadAwesome. So thank you for taking time to watch, to listen. Thank you for praying for this mission and this movement, and thank you for some of you, it's just like it's not the right timing for your family to step into generosity, but you could make an introduction. So that whole plus three that I talked about, the ripple effect of plus three, a dad saying, I'm going to grab three other dads and go into this journey of intentional fatherhood, that that ripple effect exists when it comes to fueling this movement. You might be thinking of three other families or individuals that cared deeply about the mission of DadAwesome and that maybe would be a spot that they'd want to make a financial donation. So want to encourage you to think that way as well and pray that way. Are there others that you could pass along this video, this podcast to, to pray about being a partner? Thanks guys, for your encouragement. Thanks for being DadAwesome. It starts with your own family. So the mission of DadAwesome matters, but it only matters if you step into it on the home front. So let's go have a great week. Thank you for being one of these dads, one of, one of the dads, a part of our community that is choosing to lead with wonder. Have a great week, guys.
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· 4:47 - "Then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. And when it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones shall be to your people, to the people of Israel, a memorial forever. This is the set up, get the stones you're going to walk, you're experiencing a miracle, but get the stones so that your kids, when they ask, what do these stones mean to you?"
· 6:14 - "Our kids are going to ask us, we can answer them, but we can, like the Stones, the moment of giving thanks and remembrance, actually, it went beyond just the Jordan, that God expanded into. And they can remember that God did that same miracle 40 years earlier with the Red Sea. It's not just our kids, but it's all people of the world. So when we as dads live into remembrance and gratitude and telling stories and organizing moments for our kids to to see, look what God has done, it goes beyond our family to all the peoples of the world, that they will see and know that God is mighty and He takes care [of us]."
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