A God who works with His hands
Jordan Raynor sits down with Spencer Lewis, Carpenter, to talk about why he has chosen to resist the phenomenal opportunity he has to grow his business, the difference between excellence and perfection, and the significance of Genesis 2 showing us a God who works with His hands.
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[00:00:05] JR: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I’m Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Every week, I host a conversation with a Christian who is pursuing world-class mastery of their craft. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how the Gospel of Jesus Christ influences their work.
Today's guest is Spencer Lewis. He's a world class carpenter, with well over a decade, two decades, worth of experience practicing his craft. He also stumbled into being a YouTube celebrity, kind of by accident, with more than 10 million views on videos that teach you from everything about installing doors to renovating baseboards, all things I am wholly inept at doing.
Spencer and I sat down, we had a terrific conversation about why he's chosen to resist opportunity to grow as a business, stay small, stay a business of one person. We talked about the difference between excellence and perfection, and where the line is there and how we deal with that line. We talked about the significance of Genesis 2, showing us a God who works with his hands. I think you guys are going to love this conversation with my new friend, Spencer Lewis.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:01:41] JR: Spencer, longtime listener, first time caller, welcome to Call to Mastery. How you doing, man?
[00:01:46] SL: It’s a privilege to be here.
[00:01:48] JR: Yeah, this is exciting. So, I'm really interested in your story. Talk to us about how you got into carpentry? What's the backstory for you?
[00:01:57] SL: So, I just stumbled into it. I was a teenager, and I had worked at a golf course from about the time I was 13 to 16, and heading into my summer vacation when I was 16 years old, they cut back my hours. So, I had to find a different job and my grandpa hooked me up as a driver for an Amish construction crew. So, that's how I got started, fell in love with it from there, and I've been doing it ever since.
[00:02:25] JR: Did you grow up Amish?
[00:02:28] SL: No. I live in Indiana and we have a lot of Amish community around us here. So, a lot of the construction is done by Amish crews, that's just kind of the way it is around here.
[00:02:42] JR: That's so interesting. I'm really curious, actually, what did the Amish teach you about work? You're 16 years old. It's your second job, like what do you think the Amish did differently than maybe the rest of the world and kind of how they approach their craft?
[00:02:55] SL: Well, I try and convey this to my followers on Instagram and YouTube all the time about how much of an impact it had on me from the standpoint of working hard. Amish work very hard. They have an extremely hard work ethic. I remember my first days on the construction job site, we were tearing up shingles off of roofs. It was super hot, and I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it. I mean, they just worked and worked and worked. And eventually you're around that and it starts to become a part of you as well. So, the hard work ethic that I have now, I attribute a lot to those early years. I always say like the Navy SEALs have Hell Week, and that kind of – it teaches you where your breaking point is and what you're capable of. I definitely got a lot of lessons and how to work really hard manually in those years working with Amish.
[00:03:59] JR: So, if you're looking for your own equivalent of a Navy SEAL Hell Week, go work for the Amish. That's a good lesson.
[00:04:08] SL: Yup.
[00:04:09] JR: So, I'm curious, looking back, and maybe this was explicit while you're doing it. Was there a connection between the Amish’s theology and that discipline to work hard? Were those things connected? Disconnected? Talk to us about that.
[00:04:20] SL: I definitely think so. I mean, an Amish lifestyle is a very simple lifestyle, and your pride as a man, a lot of that is wrapped up in your ability to work and they deny themselves a lot of the entertainment and pleasures of the world. So, going to work every day is kind of what it's all about. Nowadays, I think a lot of young people, it's kind of a competition to see how little you can do and the work ethic on a construction crew was, there was shame in not being a hard worker or not being capable. So, you didn't want to be that guy. How that ties into theology, I'm not sure as far as Amish go, but a lot of their significance in life is wrapped up in who they are as a worker, for sure.
[00:05:20] JR: Yeah, that's super interesting. I like the way you framed that, this competition amongst young people to see how little work they can do. I think that's so true. But you were working from an early age, you're working from 13, talk about the value of that. I don't know how old you are. What are you in your 30s? Like looking back –
[00:05:37] SL: I'm 33.
[00:05:39] JR: You’re 33. All right, the 33-year-old carpenter, I love the parallels. So, like looking back at you 20 years ago, what would you say to the 13-year-old, 16-year-old now about the value of starting work, and even hard work early in life?
[00:05:54] SL: I think it was really important for me. I even started work even earlier than that. I was fortunate. I spent a lot of time around my grandfather. And even I think as early as the age of about 11, I had a couple acres that I basically farmed for produce as a kid. I mean, my grandpa did that with me. We raised sweet corn, green beans, tomatoes, everything, and then sold it. So, that started me out on that path of understanding how to create value, how to market that value, even as a kid, 11 to 13 years old. And then of course, after that I got a job at the golf course and then into construction. So, I’ve really never known anything but doing hard work and doing the best you can at it.
[00:06:44] JR: One of my favorite questions to ask in job interviews is what your first job was, because I think you could tell a lot about somebody's work ethic based on that. I remember, I was hiring a chief sales officer at a company previously and I asked him that question. This guy's super impressive. He was already the chief sales officer at a really big tech startup. He’s like, “My first job was flipping burgers at McDonald's.” I was like, “Oh, yeah, this guy gets it. He's going to work hard. He's going to grind it out.
Alright, so you are farming at 11, you're working on a golf course, you're doing carpentry, and you've been doing carpentry for a long time, but eventually, somewhere along the way, you also became this like YouTube star. You got 10 million views on your videos. How in the world did that happen?
[00:07:33] SL: So that happened by accident as well. It was – even going back to starting out in those early years and construction, I’ve always been a learner. We talked a little bit about the enneagram before I hopped on. I'm an enneagram five. So, learning and thinking is like my way of life. I poured myself into learning as much as I could about construction all the way from the time I was 16 years old. So, I would read internet forums before school, before going to bed, read every trade publication. So, I never had this awareness of the direction I was going. But those early years, I was just taking in so much information and then also participating in communities, online trade forums, just talking about tools, techniques, and everything in between. I didn't realize I was becoming a subject matter expert in those years.
But then I think it was about six years ago, I hopped on Instagram. I had never been on social media. I had no awareness at all of what social media was all about. But a carpenter friend said, “Hey, you should really check out Instagram. There's a lot of carpenters on Instagram.” And I thought that doesn't make any sense because I had this vision of Instagram as where women would hang out and post whatever, I don't know. But I hopped on, and there was this incredible community of tradesmen sharing pictures of their work, and sharing dialogue and different things.
So, I jumped headfirst into that, because I love learning and I love sharing. My Instagram account just started to grow and grow and grow. I would get messages all the time just from people saying how much they were learning from me. And at that same time, I was seeing these huge problems that we had in the construction industry, as far as bringing tradesmen up and teaching them and getting them up to speed quickly. I knew that, kind of, having that entrepreneurial mindset, I needed to – there was a solution that I could bring to the table that could help a lot of people.
So, what I thought was going to be like a membership website where I could create videos that'd be teaching, and I knew I had to somehow monetize it because it was going to take a ton of time. And long story short, it ended up evolving into YouTube. I just started putting the videos on YouTube. And thankfully, I feel like God blessed it and it's grown a lot. We're about 100,000 subscribers now.
[00:10:24] JR: It's crazy.
[00:10:25] SL: So, I try to put one video a week out, just teaching whatever it may be, carpentry related to get guys up to speed as quickly as possible.
[00:10:35] JR: I love it. But it's this lesson of going where you'll learn the most in your career. I talked a little bit about this in Master of One, economics being held consistent, like just choose the path in which you're going to learn the most the fastest. So, we connected, because I saw a picture you post on Instagram about Master of One. You sent me a really kind message about how my work has impacted you. So, I'm curious, what specifically about the message of my books, I know you've listened to the podcast, what's resonated with you personally?
[00:11:10] SL: Yeah, so that was this last year, a friend of mine actually posted a picture of The Call to Mastery on his feed and we were getting ready to – my family and I were getting ready to head to Florida for a vacation. I hadn't heard of you before that. But your books looked like what I wanted to read on a beach.
[00:11:32] JR: I love that.
[00:11:34] SL: I got both of them and I absolutely loved them. I read both of them that week. The Call to Mastery, that's something, it was reaffirming for me. It wasn't something necessarily new. But it was something that I had always – I've always really had a lot of mindfulness towards meaning, where do I find meaning in my life in my pursuit of God? What does he want from me while I'm here on this earth? And I think it was probably like your first chapter or so, you mentioned Bezalel from Exodus and that's my favorite portion of Scripture.
[00:12:10] JR: I love it. All right, let's go there. Because we haven't talked about Bezalel for a long time on the show. Bring our readers up to speed on this section of Exodus.
[00:12:18] SL: So, it's just a kind of a random, obscure person in the Old Testament, but it's got, some of the most powerful language is associated with this guy Bezalel. It says he was filled with the Spirit of God and wisdom and understanding and knowledge and in all manner of workmanship. So, he was a craftsman. He would devise these works out of gold, silver, brass, stone, wood, but the thing that resonates most with me about him, after it describes this person, it says, and God put in his heart that he should teach. That to me, is the calling that I feel in my life that resonates most powerfully for me.
So, there's just such strong language associated with craftsmen. Number one, in today's world, the trades can be even looked down upon a little bit. It's not a prestigious career path necessarily, but to work with our hands, you know, God's first act was that of a creator, creation. For us to have those gifts to be able to go down that path and then like for me, that I resonate with teaching that craft to others, so that they can mold a lifestyle that supports their families and fulfills them. I mean, that's just huge for me.
[00:13:47] JR: One of my most popular devotional series I've ever written was on Bezalel. I did like a four-week series on Bezalel on the Called to Create. You guys can find it at jordanraynor.com/twbw for my weekly devotional, The Word Before Work. I don't think I've ever caught that line in Exodus. I think it's Exodus 20 or 30 on Bezalel of being called a teacher. That's super interesting. But he did create communities. So, the context here is the Lord instructing his people to build the tabernacle, right? And interestingly, I pointed this out in Called to Create, Bezalel is the first person in Scripture that we are told was filled with the Spirit of God. The worksman, a craftsman. And go back to Genesis, this makes sense, right? The first pages of Genesis, the first page of the Scripture, before God tells us that he is loving or holy or omnipotent, is that he creates.
I hear pushback from some people a lot of times like, “Well, he didn't really work. He just spoke these things into existence in Genesis 1.” I'm like, “Flip the page to Genesis 2, God planted a garden.” He said he planted a garden with his hands on the east. He planted an orchard. We worship a God who gives great dignity to all work. But certainly, blue collar work and manual work.
[00:15:05] SL: Absolutely.
[00:15:05] JR: That's got to be incredibly encouraging. And then of course, like, Jesus comes and does manual labor when he comes to Earth. So, I'm curious, you share a vocation with our Savior, what does that mean to you personally?
[00:15:22] SL: I don't know that I really think about that in particular a whole lot. But I definitely ponder a lot just that, who is God? What is his character? And what does he want from us? And that the whole idea of creation and adding value into the world so that others can enjoy it and be blessed by it. I mean, that's what creation is. I think that that's one of the most truest forms of worship is for us to create something that somebody else can enjoy or benefit from.
[00:15:58] JR: That's beautiful. I think we could end the podcast, right now. That was it. When we were talking before on Instagram, you mentioned, I'm going to botch exactly how you said it. But you mentioned, kind of, this passion for excellence, specifically in the blue-collar trades, right? I'm curious if your faith is connected to that, that passion for excellence. You talk about creation is worship. If that's true, how does that lead you to that commitment to excellence in your trade?
[00:16:30] SL: Yeah, I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately. I'm trying to just really hone in on where does that come from? Because I do feel that it's always been a value of mine to do whatever I'm doing to the best of my ability. I think it just comes down to realizing that my outlook on life is that life is just a vapor. We're here for a short time, but it's just the beginning, and life is an opportunity to see how are we going to choose to spend our time on this earth? Are we going to live for ourselves? Are we going to live for others? So, to me that, I think you call it maybe the ministry of excellence, it goes without saying, it's a part of, I think my being, to do the best that I can and be the best that I can while I'm here for the good of others, like you always say.
[00:17:28] JR: Yeah, I actually think it's connected to what you said a few minutes ago, though, about kind of this trend of young people trying to do the bare minimum to get by. The opposite of that is, “No, I'm going to spend my life in service of others. This life isn't about me. This life is a rounding error in the context of eternity.”
[00:17:48] SL: And that is so huge. I was having a conversation with a couple people recently, one of the things I love about Instagram and YouTube is I rub shoulders with people of all walks of life, religious beliefs, cultures, who are very different from me, and especially in the political context that we have now, there's a lot of narratives being thrown around about being victims. I think of Joseph a lot. Another thing we share in common is I'm an adoptive father, my two sons are adopted.
[00:18:22] JR: That's awesome. I didn't know that. That's so cool.
[00:18:26] SL: Yeah. I look at them and I think of Joseph. Joseph didn't have it good at all. And he could have taken a victim viewpoint of his whole life. But there was something about him that trusted in the providence of God, that there was purpose behind everything, even suffering. And he, wherever he was at, he still sought to bring value to whoever he was around and he prospered from that. So, I think, wherever we find ourselves, trials, tribulations, suffering, even in the hardest trials, there's still purpose, even if we can't see it, and that's a Christian value that propels us forward, I think.
[00:19:07] JR: Yeah, we see it at the end of Genesis, Joseph saying God intended this for good. God was orchestrating these circumstances.
[00:19:17] SL: Absolutely.
[00:19:17] JR: These horrible circumstances in Joseph's life, for God's glory. And that's the point, if I have to suffer in order to be a vessel for that, that's okay. I'm glad you brought up the ministry of excellence. When I knew I was going to be hanging out with a carpenter today. I pulled open one of my favorite quotes of all time from Dorothy Sayers. She says, “The church's approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to telling him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours and to come to church on Sundays. What the church should be telling him is this, that the very first demand his religion makes upon him, is that he should make good tables.” That's the story of your life.
Hey, in your bio, you say, “Construction work is not just our job, it is our calling and applying this attitude to all our projects sets us apart from many in the construction business.” I'm curious, how so? How do your clients perceive you to be different than maybe others in your industry?
[00:20:22] SL: You know, the Christian values, and this doesn't necessarily always, obviously, confine itself to Christian values, but trust first and foremost, our word is our bond. If we say something, it's going to be the truth. There's a lot of lying that happens in business, a lot of manipulation, deceit and those things and those don't exist in my business. And I think that I work for a lot of builders and you have to be – I'm a subcontractor, they have to be able to trust me and trust my word, and probably most importantly, trust my intentions towards them and the house that they're building. So, if you know that you have somebody there that is working as unto the Lord, it's a whole lot different than somebody who's just saying, “How much can I get out of this for myself? How many shortcuts can I take?” It's just a completely different mindset that we approach the work with.
[00:21:23] JR: That's good. So, you talked a lot about excellence. I'm always interested in how people define excellence within their craft, because that's different for a carpenter than it is a writer or whatever. So, what does it look like for you to serve your clients with excellence as a carpenter? What does it look like practically? So, we've talked about trust, how else do you define excellence and serving your clients?
[00:21:48] SL: The big key word for me would be value creation. So, I want to create value for my client, whoever that is, and typically, in my scenario, that's, one, the builder that I'm working for whose home that I'm trimming, but also the homeowner who will move into that home and enjoy that trim work that I do for them, for years to come. So, I have to focus on what is going to bring the most value to that builder and homeowner, and some might say that doing work with excellence is executing perfect carpentry work. Obviously, I always want to do work that is as close to perfection as possible. But value is actually created in giving the client what they want, and that is a ratio of quality to price. So, I try to maximize their dollars and give them the best, most beautiful product that they can have in their price range. So, it's just about that one-word value for me.
[00:22:54] JR: That's good. That's a pretty darn good summary. One of the things I really respected about you, as I was reading about you before today's episode, was that you've been pretty intentional about resisting the pressure to grow, especially your team. So, how big is your team today? Is it just you?
[00:23:13] SL: It is just me.
[00:23:15] JR: I love this so much. Let's talk about this, because I'm sure you've had a ton of people telling you, “Dream bigger, train an army of carpenters.” Why stay small?
[00:23:26] SL: Yeah. I mean, literally thousands and thousands of messages. You have to take the whole sum of life into consideration when you make these decisions. For example, in my specific situation, a big part of my calling, like, yes, I'm running a business and creating value but probably even bigger for me, is the calling to teach other men and women how to excel in this craft of carpentry. So, I think a lot about that subject of margin in life. You have to have margin in your life to be creative.
[00:24:06] JR: Amen.
[00:24:06] SL: So, if I'm running, let's say, five employees, and I'm trying to keep work lined up for them and teach them at the same time, I would not have the margin in my life to be able to create YouTube videos and teach others. I just looked this morning, I do my numbers once in a while just to remind myself, and if I taught 40 hours a week, the leverage ratio is about 300 to 1 on the view time I get on YouTube, versus if I was just teaching 40 hours a week in real life.
So, I'm able to use technology to leverage my time and have an immensely bigger impact. And then if you even consider further than that, what I teach, somebody else is going to learn that and they're going to go out and teach. So, that kind of goes into that whole idea with the parable of the talents in the Bible, and just that using leverage for the good of others. So, resisting that whole idea of scaling my business has been really important because I have to protect that margin in my life in order to be creative.
[00:25:23] JR: It's kind of this recognition that what you're really world class on is one, carpentry, but actually is more and more becoming teaching. So, the choice not to build a big carpentry business is so that you have the margin to teach. Is that right?
[00:25:40] SL: Yep, absolutely. And there are other factors that go into, you know, personality and different things, too. I am through and through a hands-on craftsman. I enjoy business. I think I'm pretty decent at business. But if I couldn't go to work and actually build things with my hands, I wouldn't enjoy that at all.
[00:26:00] JR: Which that's the trajectory, if you build a big team and whatever. I've been thinking a lot about this lately, this idea that you can have opportunity to grow, and yet not feel the obligation to capitalize on that opportunity, right? Because I think a lot of people assume that, “If I have opportunity that's been given to me by the Lord, and I have to chase it down whatever that opportunity is.” I just don't think that's true. I think if we're going to serve people to the best of our abilities, we have to be discerning of those opportunities, and focusing our energy, like I talk about in Master of One, on whatever we can be truly world class at in service of others. That's kind of how I've been thinking about this. It sounds like that's similar for you.
[00:26:51] SL: Yeah. And that's taken a lot of soul searching over the last – really my whole life, but especially over the last handful of years. And even diving down that whole enneagram topic. The enneagram was great for me, because it realized my – I always say like, my weirdness, because I always felt like weird because I'm this guy who just – I’m always looking to learn things and I love sharing things, and to a lot of people to have this random carpenter dude walking around inside a new construction home, sharing these videos, that's weird to a lot of people. But that's who I am. So, embracing that.
I think you had on a recent podcast, someone said, I don't know, “How does a horse give glory to God? By being a horse.” You just got to be who you are and who he's called you to be.
[00:27:46] JR: That's a great line. I can't remember who said that. But I do remember that. It's really good. I've been thinking a lot about this with my own journey. So, I spent my first 10 years of my career as a tech entrepreneur, and now see myself more as a content entrepreneur. But even within that bucket, I'm spending less and less of my time doing entrepreneurial things, such as building the budget, hiring, setting OKRs, and goals for my team, that's increasingly being done by other people. So that I could focus on what I think is becoming a more focused expression of me, which is just creating content. That's what I feel like God has put me in this world to do. But to do that, to your point, it is a creative act, you need margin.
So, I want to go back to what you said, because I think there's a big idea here, this idea of having margin to be creative, something I've been thinking a lot about, what does that look like for you? Do you actually have just blank space on your calendar to just explore and dabble and figure out new things? What does that look like?
[00:28:50] SL: Absolutely. There's a lot of different buckets in life that we can put our time into, and then there's the huge subject of personal finance also. I think that's one of the biggest things, for a lot of people, you work because you simply have to work. Your lifestyle is so inflated, that you have to constantly keep going in order to pay your bills and support yourself.
So, a huge thing for me was, I worked my tail off, and I got everything paid for in business, no mortgage. And that created a huge amount of margin financially. Even going back years to be able to buy those video cameras that I needed to start making videos and invest that money because obviously you don't make any money just starting out on YouTube because you don't have any views. So, there's a margin requirement for your finances and your time. But then a huge part of my business is as a one man show, I trim these big houses, but then I get time in between houses, and I golf a lot. I just go golfing whenever I feel like it and that's rejuvenating, and kind of creates that margin and that mental space to then be creative. So, then I'll make some YouTube videos and all those things. But if you're constantly maxed out, I feel like your creative capacity is much lower. And then even if you have creative ideas, just having the ability to execute on those ideas isn't always possible, because you just don't have either the time space or the financial space.
[00:30:38] JR: I love this. So, I've never thought about this, the connection between financial margin and margin with time, and time to be creative. But obviously, there's a connection there. So, thank you for calling that out. Secondly, I have been thinking more about being more intentional with building margin for creativity in my schedule. In fact, just this past week, I blocked out a couple of hours each week to work on something not related to my OKRs, my goals for the quarter, right? It's just time for me to work on something fun. It's work related, so it could be a new product that I'm working on, or a new content format I'm thinking about, but that time has been so reenergizing to me. Just to be able to dabble and not have to have anything come of it. Just to plant seeds is really fun.
So hey, you read Master of One. You know, in the book, I talked about these three keys to mastery, right? Apprenticeships, purposeful practice, 10,000 hours of purposeful practice, and then just discipline over time. I'm curious which of those you found to be most critical to you in your own career?
[00:31:48] SL: I think for me, the biggest key habit or personality attribute that has moved the needle for me, looking back over half of my life now, was being a learner. I think that the idea of apprenticeship, it can be a little misleading because it kind of implies that somebody is giving something to you, and you're just the receiver. But the most successful people, and I look back even, I've been blessed to have some mentors in my life, who were people who I've never met in person. And that was because I went out in this gift of the internet and engaged with those people and shared what I knew, and then that reciprocates. So, that idea of apprenticeship, no matter what stage you are in learning in your craft, I think the idea, always be giving back value and you'll find that that value is reciprocated. And to really grow exponentially fast, I think that that is really key to be a self-starter and a self-motivated learner is huge.
[00:33:02] JR: Yeah, in the book, I talk about the difference between a direct apprenticeship, which is typically what we think of when we hear that word. I go work for somebody, and they give me direct feedback, and this idea of this indirect apprenticeship, which what you're talking about, just go find somebody to learn from online. The internet is a gift, right? It's also a curse, but mostly a gift. And we can go out there and just learn these things. But it's this posture of humility, and learning and recognizing that we don't know it all. It's probably the most common thing I hear on this podcast from our guests. So, I love that.
Hey, what does your day look like typically? From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, what is the typical day in the life of Spencer Lewis look like?
[00:33:41] SL: So, we touched on it a little bit. It's very sporadic. I'm not a super structured lifestyle. Whenever I'm getting ready to start a huge new construction home with a really high-end trim package, and during that time, I'll be leaving home at 6 AM and get home between 5 and 6. Those are long days, working hard. But then after that's done, I usually give myself, it might be a week or two of breathing room where I'll catch up on whatever I want, go golfing. Sometimes I have a shop at my home. Sometimes it's get up in the morning and go out and work in the shop. There really isn't a super set schedule for me. But I just kind of have that – some people need that structure to go to work and I love what I do so, my default is naturally to always gravitate towards work. So, if anything, I have to try to make time for the other things.
[00:34:44] JR: I love that. What are some of your spiritual disciplines?
[00:34:49] SL: Oh, well with the enneagram five, I'm always contemplating, never cease to be thinking about what God is trying to teach me in life and really just looking for truth in life. So, I wouldn't – obviously reading the Bible and prayerfully contemplating truth past that, just trying to do the best that I can every day with the timeline given to meet these different callings. I think a lot of pressure is put on us as men to be so many things for so many different people, you know, as a member of a church, as a husband, as a father, as a worker, and then obviously then as our higher calling in life of, what are we actually here to contribute to the world? It's hard to balance all those things out. So, I guess I'm just a guy stumbling through it all, trying to do my best every day.
[00:35:48] JR: I think that's all of us.
[00:35:48] SL: Yup.
[00:35:49] JR: Yeah, dive a little deeper in this contemplation issue, because I think a lot of us read the word, we pray the word, but I think very few people truly contemplate it, meditate on it, and allow the spirit to connect the word to our work and everything else that's going on in our lives. So, what does contemplation look like for you? Do you journal? Does that literally look like sitting in silence? What does that look like practically?
[00:36:17] JR: I think for me, it's just living life with a mindset of discernment and awareness. Behind me, I have a bookshelf loaded with Christian books and I really put a lot of emphasis on the head knowledge early on in my Christian walk. And you go through life, and after a while, you realize that life is just a lot more complicated. There are a lot of gray areas and the more you live life, you encounter hard things and hard situations, and you just realize, for me, how much I don't know, and how much I have to learn. So, I'm just always trying to learn from life and learn from other people.
Obviously, I put a lot of thought into this, just as far as having this large platform on Instagram and on YouTube. What does it look like for me to share my Christian faith? And for me, I don't want to try and shove my faith down anybody's throat. To me, it's more just being on this path in life, kind of like what I'm talking about, and just trying to discover truth and do your best and encourage other people on that path towards our Creator, and for them fulfilling their calling, and being all that they can be for their families. So, just encouraging others on that path, and for myself, just trying to keep moving forward.
[00:37:48] JR: It was episode number one of the Call to Mastery with my good friend, Graham Cochran, who is also a big YouTube celebrity. Got, I don’t know, half a million subscribers, something like that. And Graham and I were talking about this on the show, just this idea of – and sometimes he does talk about his faith on his YouTube channel. But it's pretty rare. He's like, “Listen, I want to serve these people through the ministry of excellence.” And it's funny, not funny, it's God working sovereignly. Frequently, Graham will get messages from his audience, like, “Hey, what's up? There's something different here. You have a joy I don't understand.” And we just got to trust the spirit to work in that way. I'm not saying we shouldn't share the gospel explicitly. Of course, we should. But not all the time, not everywhere, not in every context. I think just by serving people well, and loving our neighbors as ourselves, we can trust the spirit is going to bring opportunities to share that more explicitly.
So, you mentioned this big bookshelf behind you. You know I always ask this question. I love this question. Which of those books do you tend to recommend or give away most frequently?
[00:38:54] SL: This is a hard question. I don't know if you've ever got this answer or not. Have you heard of the book, it's called The Second Mountain?
[00:39:01] JR: No.
[00:39:03] SL: It is by David Brooks.
[00:39:06] JR: I love David Brooks.
[00:39:07] SL: Okay. It's probably the best book that I've read. The idea in that book, there are two mountains in life. And we, as men especially, tend to be climbing the first mountain for most of our lives, and we're just trying to kind of reinforce our ego. And we're not necessarily going through life with the right motives, and we tend to fulfill all those things that our ego desires, and we get to the top of this first mountain and we realize how empty it is. So, then he proposes this idea that there's the second mountain, and it's a lot different than that first mountain, and it's just a really good book that will make you think a lot and I'd highly recommend that one.
[00:39:53] JR: I love David. I've always been curious about where David's at spiritually, because a lot of his stuff really centers around this idea of idolatry, and cultural idols even though he's not using that language. So, that's interesting. I'm definitely going to read that one.
[00:40:08] SL: In the book, one of the things I love about the book is how honest he is about where he's at spiritually. I think he describes himself as a maybe like a confused Jew and a wandering Christian.
[00:40:22] JR: Yeah, that's interesting.
[00:40:24] SL: He's just kind of in between. But the thing I loved about it was it was just a very honest conversation and that's what I think we need in the world today.
[00:40:33] JR: I love that. Well, you guys can find that book right now at jordanraynor.com/bookshelf. Alright, Spencer, who do you most want to hear on this podcast talking about how the gospel influences their work?
[00:40:44] SL: Well, this is another doozy. I was going to say Ian Cron, but you had him already.
[00:40:52] JR: Yeah.
[00:40:53] SL: I think, one of the things that I struggle with a lot is we would like to maybe think that Christianity is this perfect life, and it really isn’t. There's a lot of messiness that comes into life as Christians and in churches and in families. And a person that I follow that I really appreciate is Alison Cook. She's on Instagram @alisoncookphd. But she's a Christian counselor, and she blends psychology, theology, faith, personality, and trauma all together in just a way that's very real. I've got a big appreciation for anyone who can blend all those things together and have a real conversation.
[00:41:42] JR: That's a great answer. I got to check out Alison Cook. I like that. Alright, last question. What's one thing from today's conversation that you just want to reiterate to our listeners, or just re-highlight before we sign off?
[00:41:55] SL: Oh, I would say just that desire to stay on the path and encourage others and their path, whoever it may be, whatever background, culture, faith. I mean, that's my desire, is just to do good work for the good of others and at the same time, just be a human, that would inspire other people to keep walking towards God.
[00:42:19] JR: Man, I love that Spencer. I just want to commend you for just the exceptional God-glorifying, Jesus-like work, in a very practical way that you do every single day. Thank you for serving your clients, your viewers, through the ministry of excellence and just reminding us that we worship a God who works with his hands and the God given dignity of the trades.
Hey, you guys can find Spencer on Instagram @insider_ carpentry. And on YouTube at Insider Carpentry. Did I get that right, Spencer?
[00:42:51] SL: You did.
[00:42:53] JR: All right. Good. My team did a good job. Spencer, thank you so much for joining us.
[00:42:56] SL: Yeah, appreciate you, Jordan. Have a good one.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:43:00] JR: I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Hey, if you did enjoy this episode, make sure to follow The Call to Mastery on the podcast app of your choice, so you never miss an episode in the future. If you're already following the show, take 30 seconds right now to go rate and review the podcast. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to The Call to Mastery. I'll see you next week.
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