When Obedience Leads to Loss: Finding Home After the Fire: w/ Mark Casto

Hey, Caleb Hanshaw with the Finding Home Podcast. We have another wonderful episode for you. I have a friend of mine named Mark Casto. Mark has a history in pastoral ministry. He helped lead many different ministries, and his career rose to the top very, very quickly at a young age. Then a sudden shift happened in Mark's life where he finds himself kind of in a wilderness season, learning new things about Yahweh and what he has for his life. I'm excited to have him on to talk about business, business creation, the way that God views business and the church. Mark has actually helped coach me, and we've had many one-on-one coaching calls, and he has been influential on helping me format my business going forward. So I'm excited to share his knowledge with you. I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. Let's jump in. Well, Mark, thank you for hopping on the Finding Home podcast. It's been a while since I've seen you and talked with you, but it looks like you're doing really, really well. Um, I think the first thing that I would like for you to share with the audience is kind of what you're doing right now.

That's a good question, man. I don't, I don't know if I know what I'm doing right now. Um, man, you know, literally, um, we for the past 2 years have found ourselves in a place that I never thought I'd be, which is really pioneering, at least for the community I've been connected to in the entrepreneurial journey. And so I've given my past 2 years of really believing God to start like this entrepreneurial revolution with Kingdom thought leaders. Like, man, there are so many people in the Kingdom that have amazing wisdom, experiences, even knowledge, and they don't know how to assimilate that in the online platform. And, and so one of the things I really felt called from the Lord to do was let me be a guide. I don't want to be a guru. I don't want to give you like, hey, if you follow my plan, you're going to make $40,000 a month. I've, I've, I've been coached by those guys and I just don't want to do it that way. I'm like, if you can honestly, sincerely make an impact, money will come. Like, the income will follow impact. And so I've really changed my, my, my tone on that because I was trained to go money, make money, create wealth. And I still believe in wealth creation, but I, I've realized over 2 years of doing this, man, when you just talk about money, you attract people that want to get rich quick scheme and they don't want to commit to the long path of building something that has an impact. And so I've been giving my life 2 years to that, and now I'm launching a media company, man. I'm doing a podcast, The Mark Casto Program, revamped The Family Table podcast, and I really feel like media is becoming our thing. So that's what we're doing, man. Digital products, showing people how to package their God-given wisdom, and we're doing the media thing as well.

Awesome. Yeah, I've watched all of your podcasts so far. Love the one with your wife, the candle, God is Light and So Am I. Uh, the one with Jimmy Lovejoy that you just released is really, really powerful. I really suggest anybody to hop on there and listen to it because I've been impacted by your journey personally. Yeah, I did some, some one-on-one coaching and found out we had some similarities. And you're from West Virginia, correct?

Yes, I am. Yes, you and your wife, both of us from Kanawha County, man. So we, we were, uh, I was in Nitro, she grew up the Sissonville area. And, uh, so yeah, man, we're all West Virginia people.

Burned a couple couches in your day?

Uh, no, but I've seen them. I've seen them burn.

Well, um, so you're doing Long Path Publishing.

Yep, yep.

You also have an itinerary where you're going to speak and preach at places. I think you're very involved there in Alabama. With your local church, teaching students there with Union University. So there's a lot going on, a lot going on. It didn't start that way, and I kind of want to peel back the onions just a little bit. And I hope that this interview is a little bit different than the ones that you've gotten before. I've watched them, I've done my homework, and you're going to give me a grade at the end of this. Um, but you started very, very young, at a, at a young age. I think you just grew up in the church as a PK, correct?

Yep, I sure did, man. I was a, I was a Pentecostal PK, so that's even— that's, that's a whole different ball game.

Yeah, yeah. So not that you were groomed for ministry, but it's kind of hard not to be when you're in that atmosphere and you have a gift of communication, you have a gift of connecting with people, but you also have the heart to want to help people. So Can you think of like the moment where you were first drew into maybe I'm going to continue this ministry life beyond, you know, high school?

Yeah, man, I mean, I certainly wasn't following the Lord in high school, um, middle school, high school. I wasn't following the Lord. I hadn't had a real encounter with Jesus yet. Yeah, I grew up in the church, but you know as well as anybody, man, you can grow up in the church but still not have an encounter with Jesus, still not have a changed life, still not really know who you are. And so like middle school, high school, I kind of was like, I'm never going to do what my mother and father do. I've watched them love on people, be hurt by people that they loved on so well. Like I watched the kind of drama and trials and things that they had to walk through and was like, I'm never going to do that, you know? But I went to college for 3 days at West Virginia State University. For day 1 was picking my classes. Day 2 was getting my books, and day 1 was English 101. And I walked in the room and the teacher was like, all right, here's your first assignment. It was like a term paper for like 7,000 words. And I'm not saying the Holy Spirit said this. It was probably all Mark Casto. I literally heard this voice in the inside of my head go, you don't have to do this. And so I literally like raised my hand like, hey, I got to use the restroom. And I walked out and never went back. Wow. And, um, and so I did 3 days of college and I was like kind of like, what am I going to do? So I went and got a job at GameStop in Southridge, right there on Quarter G, Route 119, out there in Southridge, um, and got a job at GameStop. That was my first job. And then my dad was planting a brand new church in, uh, St. Albans, West Virginia, and I thought you know what, my dad's doing so much work on that church, I could just go help him, uh, when I'm not working. And I just had a desire to— even though I hadn't had a real encounter with Jesus yet, I grew up in the church all my life, so it just made sense, like, that's a good thing to do. And so, man, one Sunday morning when my dad was preaching, it came a crazy snow, one of those West Virginia snows where it snows about 2 to 4 inches in about a 2-hour span of church. And I was like, you know what, I need to go shovel. Uh, and granted, I'm not having an encounter with God. I don't feel anything. I'm not being moved by anything. And, uh, but the one thing I felt was go shovel the snow so that the old saints don't fall when they go to their car. And so I go out to this little shed. I get, uh, I get a little, uh, snow shovel start shoveling snow, start throwing down salt. And brother, while I start shoveling, I felt the love of God come on me and, and the presence of God come on me so strong, tears started flowing down my cheeks. And I used to say that that's when God called me in the ministry. I realize now, again, being quote unquote groomed in the church as a PK to be in ministry, you think that's what that is. But that was really my first encounter that drew me to him. And so I would say probably a year outside of high school, uh, after being a 3-day college dropout, helping my dad at the church, is when I realized, okay, God's hand is on me. And I still didn't know what that meant, but I definitely could not deny his presence had touched my life. And that's what probably— that, that really was the encounter that began this whole journey of, I want to serve God, I want to love God, and I, I think I'm supposed to preach.

That's interesting because like you're facing two paradigms that are very normal to think about. It's either you grow up in the church, you enter into the ministry, or you graduate high school, you go to college, and you get a job. And you kind of face both of those paradigms at the same time. And then thankfully, by the grace of the Lord, an encounter led you into the right spot. Yeah, that's incredible. So you started in ministry, you're actually pretty successful, like very, very quickly at a young age. Could you talk just a little bit about that time in your life? Because I know that that was a really important piece to this whole puzzle, uh, and there were things that you learned that again we'll talk about later in the episode, but I just want people to know just what we're talking about, because we hear it all the time, like, I had a successful ministry back in the day and you had like 90 people and half of them were your cousins. Like, this is not what we're talking about. Like, you catapulted very fast, which makes you think like, hey, this is the hand of the Lord, right? This has to be the favor of the Lord.

Yeah, you know, man, um, it took me a while from that first encounter to really figure out like what it meant. I always tell people, I'm like, I'm pretty sure, um, I got tossed into the ministry before I realized what salvation actually was. Like, I just had a gift to communicate. I love to preach. I love to watch people get touched by the power of God. But man, I was still working out what it meant to be a young man. Like, I didn't have— my dad was involved in the ministry, um, but at the same time, we didn't have like deep conversations. He wasn't really teaching me, you know, how to be a man. It was just like, you figure that out on your own, you know. That's kind of the culture I was raised in. So it took me a little while to figure that out. But man, towards the end of me living in West Virginia, I had this, um, I had a friend of mine take me to Columbus, Ohio, to a massive gathering there, um, in, in Columbus. And I saw a man while I was there by the name of T.L. Lowry. And, uh, Dr. Lowry was one of the speakers that came in, and he did like an impartation for all the young people, and it was a really powerful moment. Well, fast forward about 2 months after that, the Lord spoke to me and he said, remember that man you saw in Columbus, Ohio? He's going to call your dad. Like, he's— you and— you and— or your dad and him are going to connect, and he's going to come to your dad's church, and when he does, he's going to ask you to travel with him. Dude, before Almighty God, my dad has a dream and he sees two words in the dream: spiritual impartation. Well, dude, at that Columbus gathering, this man, Dr. T.L. Lowery, had a sign out front where his book table was, had two words on it: spiritual impartation. I said, Dad, wow, I've only seen that word, those two words together in one spot, and that was this man, T.L. Lowery. And my dad said, well, Maybe I should call him. So my dad ends up connecting with him, and I— and I— so Dad calls him, and he doesn't come to the church. He actually invites my dad to come to a conference in Kingsport, Tennessee. Dude, when I realized there's a real connection happening here, I'm like, I probably should tell my dad that he's going to ask me to travel with him. He's going to come to our church. And so Dad gets back from this conference in Kingsport, Tennessee. And he said, Mark, he said, it was an amazing gathering. And he said, I, he said, I'm, I think I'm going to ask Dr. Liar if he'll come to our church. And I said, well, Dad, let me tell you what the Lord said. I said, the Lord told me that Dr. Liar is actually going to reach out to you and he's going to come to the church. But here's the catch, Dad. When he comes, he's going to ask me to travel the world with him. And my dad was like, now, son, I don't want you to get your hopes up. Like, he's being a good dad. Like, he's trying to to, to give me realistic expectations. Like, we're a little, no, little tiny church in Charleston, the west side of Charleston, West Virginia. We're at the rough side of town, bullet holes in the side of the church. Like, it's like, you, Dr. Lowery, you don't want anything from us, you know? Dude, it wasn't 3 weeks later, the phone rings at my dad's church. It's Dr. Lowery, and he asked my dad if he could come. And my dad says, when would you like to come, Brother Lowery? He said, this weekend, dude. He came this weekend. He came that very weekend, flew in. We got to the— we get to the gathering. My dad said, would you like to meet him? I said yes. And I said, Dad, I want you to remember what I heard. And he said, I know, son, I know. I walk into my dad's office. Dr. Lowry's there. He had his foot propped up on the desk because he had gout in his foot. And he was 78 when this happened. He was 78 years old. And I walk in and, man, he pulled his foot off the desk and stood up and he said, you're the reason why I'm here. And he said, you're going to travel the world with me, brother. That was on Sunday. I was in Cleveland, Tennessee on Tuesday and never looked back. So fast forward, I did about 3 and a half, almost 4 years with Dr. Lowery. And in the meantime, I connected with another minister, man. We started this ministry in Cleveland, Tennessee called the Omega Center International. And brother, that thing exploded. And next thing you know, we're buying 100 acres of land. We built a $23 million church facility. 200 families moved from 26 different states in like 2, 2 years span. And the very first youth conference we had, we had 4,000 screaming teenagers all over the place. And dude, every conference we had from that point forward was just by the thousands. Like, fire marshal comes in, we're getting shut down.

Yeah.

And, and on top of that, I'm traveling 42 weekends out of the year and 6 weeks out of the country while leading that ministry. And so I— and I got tossed into that, dude, between the ages of 22 to 25. And when all that stuff was happening, and then I did that till I was about 28. And that's when the— when the change came was in 2015.

That's amazing because I remember when I turned 18 And I thought, you know, I know a lot about a lot of things. And then as you get older, you start thinking, man, the last 10 years I had no clue what was going on. So just to think about that happening in your younger 20s, yeah, it's unbelievable. And I believe I was in a couple of those events. I know I was in at least one.

Yeah.

And I heard you preach a message called, uh, Misfits To Kings was the—

oh yeah, man.

Oh yeah, it was rocking, man. It was absolutely rocking. So I guess this leads up to, to my next question, because something happened, and it really— this is what birthed our ministry with what we're doing now, was we were in ministry as well, not at the, the height that you were at, um, thankfully, probably because we would have been pretty abusive Um, but there was this halt moment. Um, it wasn't like a violent halt, but it was like, I hear someone speaking, and if I don't quiet down, I'm gonna miss this whisper. And once we started to listen in, Yahweh was telling us to leave everything. Yeah, to the wilderness and plant a garden. That was our whisper.

Wow.

Something really significant happened to you as well. People just have to understand though, like, this was at the height. Like, if you look at everybody's, you know, man of power for the hour stories, you're following in, in the, the track. Like, you're, you're getting ready to really boom, let's go international, let's go bigger, let's have our own, you know, TBN special that comes on every Wednesday. So something happens, and I think it's so significant because we just talked about you being in business right now. So there's really long journey that I want to get through, but I think this, this piece is very, very important.

Yeah, man. Well, golly, man, there were so many things that happened. I think, uh, it was like a perfect cocktail, if you will, of events that happened that kind of led to me going, I'm not sure I want to do it this way anymore, you know. Um, and you're, and you're exactly right, like when we left that world, what I would call, uh, the trail of that was headed to Christian, being a Christian celebrity, if you will. Um, I by no means was that at the time, but we were on the track. And, um, I would say that, you know, number one, I started having really bad anxiety and panic attacks that were, that were pretty rough. I can look back now and tell you exactly why that happened. That is the byproduct of a legalist gospel, which is not good news at all. I hate to call it legalist gospel. It's, it's legalism and religion. And you put that on top of performance in ministry without knowing who you are. And brother, that thing will pin you to the floor. And so like, I think between the legalism and religion And then not knowing who Mark Casto was apart from my gift to preach, uh, created this really wild cocktail of like, not only do I don't think I want to do this anymore, I don't think I can do this anymore. And then you couple it with like, you couple it with sitting in a green room. I tell this story on podcast sometimes. Is when I, when I feel led to, I'm sitting in a green room with two guests that we had in, and they're talking about their life, their marriage, their family. And, and these are not good stories. And these are two men that are leading like global ministries. Now, I'm not talking about anybody I was connected to. These are men that came in to be guests at our conference. And these men are talking, and I'm sitting there, and to be honest with you, Caleb, I'm like going, how are these guys like reaching the world and losing their family? Like, I'm, I'm like judging them in my heart. And brother, I heard the Holy Spirit say, Mark, you better not judge those men, because if you don't change what you're doing, 20 years from now you'll be telling the same story. And brother, when I, when I heard the Holy Spirit say that, I can tell you right now The anxiety was one thing, the panic attack was, was another thing. But when I realized that America's version of Christian success was win the world, lose your family, I chose my wife and kids, man. Like, in that moment, I'm like, I'm not— like, my family, my wife, my children are not go— like, the world's not going to get my best and my family getting my leftovers. Like, my— if it— like, and dude, I started reevaluating my family. And dude, I started jumping into verses like where Paul talks about if you want to give yourself to the ministry like that, then you need to be single. And I started realizing, oh my God, our current version of ministry has perverted family. And like, we are taught that success in ministry is give it all for the gospel and your family like literally gets put on the altar. And that's not— that's a price that the Bible does not give us permission to pay.

Yeah, and let's talk about that real quick because there's this misconception of the story of, um, Abraham and Isaac. It's a very popular story that you need to lay your Isaac down. I'm sure there's some old gospel song that's won a Dove Award because of that. Just pull that back and give people some context of what's going on, because this is a very relational transaction that happens between Yahweh and Abraham that I think is very misguided. Um, I know that going— and correct me if I'm wrong, but the context is Abraham has one, let go of the promise of Yahweh in where he forced something to happen, and nothing is addressed until this moment where he forces Ishmael to come out. He's then asked to bring Isaac. And to know a little bit about Abraham's past is that he comes from a family of idol worshippers, and a lot of those gods would require child sacrifice. So he's speaking a language that Abraham really understands.

That's right.

And then when he goes up there, he's now realigning when he provides the sacrifice instead of Isaac. He's realigning what they had talked about beforehand when the promise was given. Like, you need to really understand who I am. You really need to get a grasp of what this relational thing is. Can you add a little bit to that?

I mean, I— dude, I think you said it perfectly. I mean, the reality is there are versions— if you look into the life of Abraham and the story you just brought up, God will always speak to us at the level, at the place where we are in the language that we can understand. And he'll put us right in the middle of that, Caleb, to reveal that that's actually not the way. Like, you know, the man that I call my spiritual father, Damon, calls that God acquiesces to us. And, and like he comes to us in a way that we understand and then interrupts our current version of understanding to show us how it actually works. And dude, I can tell you that that is exactly what the Lord did to me in that moment was I thought this is the price you pay to be in ministry. I thought this is the price that you pay to be successful. And I realized, man, I'm doing ministry in a way that only a single man is allowed to give himself in the ministry. But my first and primary ministry is my wife and kids. So I think the Lord takes us up the mountain to quote unquote worship. And then we go up the mountain doing it the only way we know how. And when we get to the top of that mountain, then he reveals how it actually is. So no, man, I can't really add to it. I think you said it perfectly. But I can— what I can add is, is my part to that is we all come into it with preconceived ideas of how God is and who God is and what he expects from us and what he wants from us. And man, I can say that he took me to the top of that mountain of success in ministry. And I realized I was paying a price he never asked me to pay. And, and when you pay a price he never asked you to pay, it can come with devastating consequences. And, and so, like I said, man, the Lord, he put a ram in the bush in that moment for me. And, uh, told me, you don't have to do it this way.

Yeah, I, I loved what you said. I think you coined it the legalistic gospel, and we'll say legalism. That's why it's so— it could be so abusive and so dangerous, because I believe it's how you view the Father's rod. Yeah, and for sure, learning in, in agriculture, learning as even a shepherd, the word used for staff and rod are very, very similar. They both have the same root word. And the rod is used to guide and to protect, not to punish.

That's right.

You can't punish your flock. And I believe we've gotten caught up in this story of— I get asked about it all the time, and it's, it's now bleeding over to where we actually prefer it because it's safe. I guess it's safe to be in, in, you know, shame and turmoil and um, almost this victim mentality. I'm, I'm driving down the road, I'm trying to listen to, you know, Joy FM, right? And all these Christian songs are saying like how broken I am and how this and how— I'm thinking, man, I have to turn it off because I don't want my kids to hear it. And I'm not hating on Christian music, you listen to whatever you want, but the gospel is so much more than just trying to make it, trying not to step outside of the lines, and you're missing this— the dance, the funness, the wonder of this relationship with Yahweh. I feel like even in business, even in, in Christian entrepreneurship, I lived this for— and you know this— just waiting on the, on the starting point and never launching and never going for it because I was afraid and frustrated because that place felt comfortable. Because I was in control of her. Yeah, so this— there's this, this legalistic thing that on the outside of it— and I think it was very similar with your— you and, and my journey of hearing the whisper from Yahweh, like, hey, let's come out of that. But during that process, man, I know for me— and I'd like to hear your experience— like, the first year that I left the ministry was probably the hardest year of my life.

Oh yeah. Yeah, man. I mean, I mean, dude, I remember leaving Cleveland, moving to the middle of nowhere, South Carolina. And I remember literally going like sitting in a chair and my— and, you know, I'm bouncing my knees and bouncing my legs. I'm twiddling my thumbs and I'm sitting there going, what am I doing? Like, and dude, I'm talking about that year was so difficult because again, and when you hear the call to come out, like, come out of the system, come out of this, and, and I'm going to show you who you really are. That's the Abraham journey too. When he says, when, when he tells Abraham, leave everything that you know and go to a land that I will show you, in the Hebrew it means, it doesn't really mean go find a land. The, the Hebrew can be a wordplay that means go find the real you. And so like, dude, everybody's like, I'm, I'm going to be my most authentic self. Well, here's the part that you don't want to hear. The journey to finding your authentic self is having to get the false version of yourself filleted off of you. And, and that fillet is that filleting, that peeling away of the false version of you is a, a season of like, especially stepping away from ministry where you're like, I don't know who I am apart from my gifting. I don't know who I am apart from the microphone, the pulpit. I don't know who I am. So I'm sitting there in South Carolina like, have I made a mistake? Did I do something wrong? And so like, I remember we bought a house and I'm like sitting there like, got to have something to do, you know? And so there's like a part of our backyard that has not been touched by the previous owners. It's got weeds as tall as my outbuilding out, out back. And I'm like, I go to Ace, I buy all the tools, I buy a little tractor. That tractor didn't even work half the time. I bought this little tiny tractor and I bought trimming shear. I bought everything you could get. And brother, I'm like, I'm going to tackle this yard. And, um, so I go after it, dude, and I mean, I'm sweating, and I could feel the Holy Spirit after like 3 days of just like crucifying myself out there going, hey son, um, hey, ministry probably wasn't really your issue, busyness was. And dude, you want to talk about like realizing I was addicted to busyness I didn't know what it was like to sit alone. I didn't know what it was like to, like, just be. I was a doer. So to a lot of people are like, man, I would love to just give my life to the word of God in prayer. I'd love to just sit still and have a year away from the ministry. No, you wouldn't. No, no, you wouldn't. It is the most difficult thing, Caleb, because we not only are trained in the church this way. We're trained in our culture this way, which means the culture's probably impacted the American church more than the American church has impacted the culture, you know. But the reality is, dude, like, we are trained as doers. We are what we do. But when God pulls the rug of doing out from under you, where you have to rely on being, brother, you're asking— you're asking for a difficult season of finding out who you are. And brother, I walked that path and I can tell you right now, um, it was the most difficult and yet necessary part of my journey. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, but I found out who Mark Casto was. I found out who Mark Casto wasn't in that season. And, um, and, uh, it's not for the faint of heart, I'll just say that.

Yeah, it reminds me— I'm going to say the word and don't roll your eyes, but the word deconstruction comes to mind. But it's not that. It's— and I'm, I'm going to give credit to Damon for this— when he went into a really life-changing teaching on being unbraided.

Yep.

And when I had left, I found my identity in what I did, exactly what you said. I found my identity and be able to connect with people, being able to speak, sing, do all that stuff. Now, not only could I not do it, but I forgot how to do it. I even went into a process of my personality is different. I don't know how to even connect with people. And of course, there's this fine line of going into this reclusive state and, and being a hermit and not putting yourself out there. But when you said fillet, I mean, there's things— because, because if you have found a bit of truth in who Yahweh is with what you've done with an untruth, he has to separate the two. You have, you have to be unbraided because you can't carry that untruth. Because when you're built back up, everything, all the attributes that you have in Yahweh they have truth attached to it and not just this conceived idea of maybe if I just play longer, if I'm a better singer, or maybe I've got 16 people to raise their hand and pray the prayer, then I'm successful in what I do and what I've been called to do. So when Damon kind of— I felt like I was being walked through that from afar. Yeah, allowing it to happen, because it— when you said when people like, I would just want to find myself, my It is hard. It is hard because it's scary, because you don't know, like, you don't have an end date on that. Like, how long is this going to be? I'm just going to sit here. I remember trying to read the Bible and I stayed in John 1 for 7, almost 7 years. I couldn't get out of John 1, just trying to, to, to get out. I couldn't. I was like cemented to, to that chapter. So there's something happened, and if you want to talk a little bit more about that, but there was some, some breakthrough and really some healing moments for you in South Carolina, um, that did lead you to, to hear another whisper, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I'll tell you, I'll tell you two different, two different ones. I mean, golly, I could tell you so many stories about my time in South Carolina. One of those was learning to rest. And I can remember, like, just— well, let me back up and tell you the first encounter that happened that led to the one I'm about to tell you. And if I forget to say, hey, dude, don't forget the one about the recliner. Okay. Okay. So first thing, man, the Lord tells me to cancel my full itinerary. No more traveling, no more speaking. I just want you to sit still. So like, I'd given up the leading the ministry thing, the pastoring thing, if that's even what you want to call it. But I gave that up. But I was still, you know, traveling some and doing, uh, meetings and, and things. And the Lord said, I want you to cancel your full itinerary. And I'm like, man, this is crazy. And people have heard me tell this story. So like, I was hoping some of the fathers in my life would be like, don't do that. But they were like, no, that's exactly what you're supposed to do. And I'm like, crap, man, like, what the heck? And so, um, end up canceling the full itinerary. 3 days later, businessman calls and he pays my salary, period. It's this wild thing. So now I'm like, okay, so if I didn't think that that first version of slow down was enough, like, imagine slowing down even further, and now I'm literally getting paid. And this businessman knew this. I'm getting paid to sit still, pray, and receive blueprints from the Lord, which those blueprints are still alive and well in me today. Like, that season of my life will mark me for the rest of my life. But it gave me the ability to do nothing. One of the first things that when I sat down with Damon and had a conversation with him, the first thing that he said to me was, Mark, you know, in John chapter 5, the Jesus said The Son can do nothing of himself except for what he sees the Father doing. And he said, but I want you to pay attention to the first part of that verse. The Son can do nothing. And he said, I want to ask you a question. Can you do no thing? And I was like, well, um, I don't know. I don't, I don't, I don't know. Uh, and the reality is I did know. I, I don't know what it is to do nothing. And so I can remember like, um, going into my office and I, and I set up this office in my, in my home in South Carolina. Desk, two rock, like two recliner rocker chairs that were amazing. It was one of the coolest offices I've ever had. Um, and, um, dude, I would get in that recliner to open my Bible and pray and I would literally wake up Like, I would get in that chair and I'd fall asleep. And dude, I would feel so terrible. I'd wake up, Lord, I'm so sorry, I was supposed to spend time with you today. I was supposed to read the Bible, I was supposed to, you know, like journal, like all the religious devotional things. Like, I was supposed to do that. And dude, I went through this process for like a week, and finally the Lord was like, stop it, take a nap. Like, And, and that was like the first time the Lord like really spoke to me and was like, no, your rest matters to me. Like, you being able to untether from what you do, it matters to me. So much so, you know, and one of the big revelations of the Lord like paying me through a businessman to just sit still for almost 4 years is he said, Mark, I'm doing this to prove to you that I love you for you and not what you do for me. And dude, so like when you hear that from the Lord, like it causes a settling to come in. But that settling, I was still trying to work through the legalism. Like I'm taking a nap, my body is catching up from 10 years of burning up the roads and leading a massive ministry and doing television and, and writing books. And, and like my body's just like, you need rest. And, and the Lord had to speak to me so that I could give my body that rest. And dude, I started resting. Then what happened though, man, is in the resting, in the slowing down, is where I inherited my born again, again experience. And I love what you shared like a little bit ago. And I know I'm talking a lot here, but I'll kind of finish this part with this is, dude, like before I could inherit the whisper, I had to, I had to slow down. And it's like, we want God to show up in the hurricane, in the fire. We want him to show up in the, in the, in the earthquake. But just like Elijah, man, he comes in the still small voice, and he will not— he will not try to— especially when you're, when you think you're be— you're being busy for him, he will not compete with the chaos. He will not compete with the noise. He makes you slow down. And I, I'm telling you, man, there are many people probably watching this podcast— pastors, leaders— that the only reason why they haven't inherited the gospel yet is because they haven't slowed down long enough to hear it. And the reason why they won't slow down long enough to hear it is because if they slow down, they'll have to be confronted with who they really are.

Or fidget.

You'll, you'll be bouncing the knee and you'll be twiddling the thumbs and you'll go buy all the yard material, you know, all the yard supplies that you possibly can to, to clean out your yard, only for the Lord to say, would you just stop? You know? Um, and so yeah, man, like, there was some significant moments of just like rest and getting that major financial breakthrough to sit still and pray and be with God. And, and dude, even in that, I still struggled, you know. Like, I remember Saturday mornings when I normally would speak at the big conferences that, that we would host in Cleveland, and I'd be in the living room doing nothing, uh, except for playing with my kids, like Legos in the floor. My kids were young. And I'm sitting there and, dude, I remember my mind going, I could be standing in front of like 4,000 people right now and I'm in the floor playing Legos, and I could be over there preaching at the conference and those 4,000 people go and change the nations. And the Lord would take moments like that and go, yeah, but if you look into the eye of your son, you'll see a nation. Wow. And if you learn that, that you preaching isn't the holy stuff and you playing with your kids the secular stuff, you'd actually find out what it means to be a kingdom man.

Hey everybody, Caleb Hanshaw with the Wild Country, and I have an announcement. We have launched the Wild Country online community, uncensored. What's the uncensored mean? Well, we get to talk about anything. Anything and everything, things that may get flagged or things you won't be able to see on YouTube. What are you going to find on this community? You're going to find online workshops on how to homestead, how to design your home, how to build your community, how to be entrepreneurial. Maybe you just need some mentorship. We're going to have weekly Q&As where you get to ask your questions, get the answers that you're looking for. My favorite part of the community is when we all just get together We'll hop on a Zoom and hopefully some in-person events in 2026. So if you think that's for you, look at the link in the show notes and we'll see you on the community.

And so the Lord had to completely like dismantle, um, and I'm not afraid of the word deconstruct by any means. I, I don't love that word, but I understand it like I— because I went through it like, um I like— he had to take me through those moments and redefine success, redefine rest, totally dismantle and deconstruct the, the, the, the holy and, and secular divide that we create, and, um, that, that sacred and secular dichotomy that we create in our mind. Like, dude, that whole time of learning to be He was hitting me with left and rights of that kind of stuff. What is success? What is, what is, what is union? What is holy and sacred? And can you see cooking a meal for your family in the same way as preaching a sermon to a group of people?

So yeah, it's, it's amazing because I don't know how you felt, but when we made the decision to leave everything, our we, we just started a ministry school. It was our second year, and it was like, oh man, like, we're, we're doing this thing. We have this big revival that breaks out in West Virginia around 2016, 2017 that we got to be heavily involved in. And I remember that whole time just being this swirl, like there was a lot of things that were just driven by momentum and emotion and sacrifice and how many times you can get to the building. And I remember one specific moment, the man of power for the hour shouted like, Yahweh wants to hear you scream, shout, almost like a March of Jericho type moment. And I heard the whisper of the Lord said, I hear you when you whisper. And I was in a room of people just shouting, veins going out of their neck, and I said, I hear you when you whisper. And that's what kind of started this little shift that maybe, maybe this life is not what I want. Maybe he knows really what I want before I even put words to it. Because I was a, I was a terrible husband. I didn't beat my wife. I didn't do any of that stuff. I loved my wife when I was home, but it was when I was home. They, they got the leftovers. And I, I keep thinking like, there's, there's this world that Yahweh invites us into and we, we lay it down, right? I laid it down, I left. I thought that because of my decision, how heroic and how courageous that I left the ministry, that Yeshua would sit at my dinner table every night and we would just talk about things that would change the world. And that did not happen because— and I, we can go even to the book of James— that there is a perfecting of your faith.

That's right.

And certainty doesn't perfect faith.

That's right.

Having something show up in the burning bush moment that we all pray for, that doesn't help your belief or your faith. So when you go into this, this swirl of the wilderness where there's not an end date, where you finally have to quit fidgeting and wonder how this is gonna look, you begin to trust. Yeah, it's, it's the gateway of trust that we read about in Song of Solomon, that we'd pass through the gateway of trust with our beloved. And you don't trust someone that you know facts about.

It's, it's—

you really have to put yourself in such a vulnerable place to where you can hurt me here.

True.

You can really wound me here. Like, I can put— will I be put to— I remember asking Yahweh, like, will I be put to shame for doing this?

Yeah.

I don't know the thoughts that you had, but it's— it was probably times a million, you know, a family asking you, like, Mark, dude, what are you doing? Oh, you were on TBN, Mark.

What are you—

what are you doing? And then there's this, you know, inner world that Yahweh— golly, Yahweh will not put his hand on. He refuses to put his hand on those questions so that your faith and your trust can be perfected in those moments of uncertainty. And so good, that's what perfects your faith.

That's right, you're exactly right. Yeah, man, I mean You're exactly right. People don't realize, like, I, I was just like you, like, I'm on this journey, I'm about to encounter God, it's going to be fire on the mountain, run boys, run, you know, like, it's going to be, uh, like, it's going to be amazing. And, um, I did have amazing encounters, but those amazing encounters had a lot of in-betweens. And those in-between moments, man, were like what I needed, you know? And, and like, um, I remember, you know, of course you travel, you build ministry, but dude, I was so like— my evangelistic ministry, um, was a little different than other people's evangelistic ministry. I feel like most evangelists in like the church I grew up in they had the red-hot sermon that was going to come in, God's man of power for the hour, and a bunch of people were going to get born again. Church could possibly go into some extended meetings, and then it'll be over whenever it's over. I never, I never really, like, I think people thought that I thought this way, but it really wasn't my heart. Like, I never went into a church to showcase Mark Casto's gift. Um, I, I really went in with a heart for pastors, and this would literally be my prayer, Lord, like, help me go in and confirm what this pastor is saying to his people. Help me go in and confirm the word of the Lord, encourage what God is already saying to this house, so that when I leave, this pastor has a leg, has, has a good foundation to stand on, and his people realize, hey, our pastor is hearing from God, our pastor is in the flow, like I didn't go to show off my gift for a crowd. I really went because I had a heart for pastors. I watched my dad as a pastor growing up. I know the trials, the tribulation. I don't mind using that word that pastors go through. So I always was in that mode to help people. But dude, I built such amazing relationships, Caleb, with pastors all over America and even other countries. But when I left the Christian success path here, dude, they dropped me like a bad habit. And to this day, I've been out of that religious system for 11 years, and I may have heard from 5 pastors that I preached for, um, during my whole evangelistic ministry. And some of these pastors, I would go into their houses 2 or 3 times a year to encourage their people and bless their people and to to strengthen their ministries. And dude, I would sit there and go, not hear from these pastors and be like, Lord, did I make the right decision? Um, I had well-known ministers that would call me and literally jump onto me. What are you doing? I hear this whole wilderness garbage that you're doing. Like, there's a— I remember one pastor telling me, you're letting a generation go to hell while you play in the wilderness. And I'm sitting here going, play in the wild? I'm over here getting smashed. I'm over here getting transformed. I'm, I'm encountering the gospel. I'm literally actually leading people to the Lord on my walks to the gym. Like, I've actually inherited a union that, that people that were demon-possessed in my town would find me as I'm walking to the gym, and I would cast a devil out of them and pray. And we would pray together until Jesus overtook their life. But these pastors and these people have expectations of you, of what they think you should be doing. And so you add that on top of your own insecurities, you add that on top of you feeling like you missed it. And like that, again, even though he's redefining success, you still have those thoughts in the back of your mind. Well, success still looks like, you know, things back there. And dude, I'm telling you, it is a grueling process. But here's what I'll say: that grueling process will bring you to the goodness of God. And, and if you can say yes, um, your path may look different initially. You may not be reaching all the people that, that you thought you were going to reach. Um, there will be a time that you feel like the same God that ordered you to take the steps up onto the platform is now taking you down from the platform, and it'll feel like a demotion. But here's what I can tell you. Today I'm 11 years into this journey. My wife has a twinkle in her eye and we have an amazing marriage. My kids are burning for Jesus, and my 16-year-old son is not dreaming about moving away when he turns 18. He's dreaming with me about how to build this media company with me.

Amazing.

My kids want to be involved in everything that we're doing, and I'm sitting here going, we win.

Yeah, we win. For, for me too, it's because I did find validation in service, in ministry, in stages. And, you know, I also want to encourage those that are listening, like There, there's a love for people that won't go away. You'll still want to love and serve people, but your, your number of people that you're influencing really doesn't matter. For me, it didn't matter, and it did matter before. That's why I didn't do what I'm doing now, because I was afraid I wouldn't have the impact to validate what I was doing. Now I get to serve my kids. And I believe that this is what Yahweh is saying. It's like a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. When we live in this life with Yahweh, this union with Yahweh, people will see it and they will be attracted to it. When you said my 16-year-old son wants to, to do life with me, that— my heart jumped out of my chest. Those are the things that people are— they want. And if they just had the courage to talk about it I, I believe that would bring a lot of freedom in that, man. I, I wanted to, to go over, you know, your time in Covington. I really wanted to spend a lot of time there, but this conversation's kind of gone a different way. But I still wanted to hit it just a little bit because, sure, you know, this season for you of wilderness came to an end, um, and then you heard another whisper.

Yeah.

To go to Covington, Georgia and plant a church called the Shepherd's Tent. I remember that was the first video I saw. I don't know if you realize this, but you preached the message on building barns, and I sent you a message like, man, yeah, I was pacing in my living room just like— it was a good fidget, right? I'm like, he's on it, he's on it, he's speaking to me. I sent you a message like, we got to connect. You probably like, who is this crazy dude trying to connect with me right now? But I just couldn't help it. It was infectious hearing you talk about it. So kind of go about, you know, when did that season kind of change? And we'll hit it very quickly, but I want to go over that and kind of the exit out of Covington.

Oh man. So super, supernatural way that we got to Covington. Salary still paid for, house that was built for us to move into before we ever got there. Actually got the keys for that house on my birthday and had a family that built the house, said, hey, Mark, you guys can live in here, plant the church, stay as long as you need to. Eventually found out, you know, that it had been communicated like we were going to be given that house and it was like amazing. And so like, dude, we went into that city and built family and had this amazing group of people started gathering. And, and then COVID hit. And dude, I'm telling you, looking back on Covington, dude, we got hit like, you know, I wrote a book called Liar in 2017 about myths and spiritual warfare, brother. I feel like Covington almost made me believe in warfare again. Warfare like I used to, brother. 2020 COVID, 2021, my wife miscarried a baby. 2022, we lose our salary and get kicked out of the home that we thought was ours. 2023, then our church built burns down. And then, uh, you get into 2024, and brother, we realize we can see the writing on the wall. This wasn't going to work. People still love church, they don't want to be the church. And, um, and I— and that's not everybody that's in that story, um, that, that feels that way. Because man, there's still some people that we walk with, absolutely— well, we love everybody we walk with in that season. Um, but, but not everybody had that heart. But man, I really like tried to lead that church, um, as with as much prophetic integrity as I possibly could, and lead us away from the traditional church model back into the book of Acts relational blueprint that I believe really represents where the church is headed. Like, the church is leaving the building and becoming a family. Again. And nothing wrong with buildings. I go to one every Friday night when I'm in Mobile. Um, but I'm saying it has to go beyond that to where we get into Romans 12 type of relationships where we are doing life together, trying to outdo ourselves in love and honor for one another. And, and that we have such a loving community that we don't have to evangelize. People just want to be a part of that lifestyle. And so like I was really trying to make the turn in that. And man, we just kept getting hit one time after another. But after the church fire happened, it just became clear, man, like no shame on anybody, but people love what they love and we default to what we know. And we really tried to go, hey, let's open up our homes, let's lead, let's— and also tried to do it in a way where we gave even people permission. Like I would meet with my leaders every week and go, if this is not for you, don't do it. You know, like, you, you can bow out if you want to, uh, because I understand, like, leaving a church building and leaving a church building and then opening up your home, that's a big ask. And so I never demanded that people did that, but that's what I saw the Lord doing. And at the end of the day, I think I realized, like, I don't think anybody made this decision, uh, in a malicious way or rebellious towards me as a leader or anything. I think people just know what they know and like what they like, and we just couldn't make the turn. And I'm not mad at anybody for that. I love all of my leaders that served with us there, but we love— we like— we still love what we love and like what we like and do what we know. And, um, and, and dude, the Lord brought the word of the Lord to us, like, and this, this is what I'll hone in on the Covington season. God knows how loyal I am to like what he tells me to do, that it was going to take a prophet, but not just a prophet, two prophets to speak to me before I would leave. And so, dude, when we got in that season, I really was doing everything I could to— knew to do at the time, and I'm sure I didn't do it perfectly at all. I'm sure I made a thousand mistakes in the process, but I was doing everything that I knew to do to keep that thing flowing and going. And when I realized it wasn't going to happen, a prophet called me and he said, Mark, I was praying for Covington today. And he said, this is weird, but I saw a question mark over your city. And he said, I heard the Holy Spirit say, I'm praying whether the Castos can remain in that city or not. And he said, and it would be based on the people, not the Castos. And do people want to walk with me or do they want to go to church? Do people want to do this lifestyle with the Castos or do they just want to find their way into ministry success? And I think there were people around me. I don't, I don't know this for sure, but I think there were some people around me that were waiting for me to pull the trigger and let's build something great and let's build something big. And at times, I'll be honest with you, I wanted to do that because that was— I knew how to do that. That's way easier, right? And so for me, um, it's, it's one of those things where like, um, I just, I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't. I wanted to. I even talked about like, let's bring in a certain person, let's do this, and and the Holy Spirit would not let me do it. Long story short, that prophet calls me then, and he said, and he said, and you'll know because there'll come a time you'll just know when it's time to wipe the dust off of your feet. So I was like, wipe the dust off your feet? That, that, like, that doesn't sound good. And, and, and then context of scripture, what I know, that means you got to leave. Yeah, dude, we go to this prayer gathering in another state in another place where nobody knows what's going on in Covington. And this girl jumps up and she's like, hey, I feel like I got a word for you all. And she said, I, I know this might sound crazy, and she— I've never given another person this word before, but she said, the Lord wanted me to tell you it's time to wipe the dust off of your feet. And I was like, what? Like, what are you talking about? And it really bothered me because I realized in that moment, Caleb, that I had no theology for failure. Mm-hmm. I had no, like, I had no Bible verses. I didn't think I had Bible verses at the time for, like, failure. And, and, and this is what the Lord said to me. He said in that season, he said, Mark sent doesn't— being sent doesn't guarantee success. Sure. And that's when I went to Luke 10. He sends them out two by two, and he, he says, and as long as those people will receive you into their home, you can stay there and preach. But the moment that they reject you, the moment that they— the, the peace of God's not on this, then you have to leave. And dude, it just became obvious that that's where we were. And so like You want to talk about a trying time? Like, it's one thing to leave the system, but I'm, I'm, I'm gonna say this. It's probably the first time I've said this publicly, uh, anywhere I've talked, preached, whatever. I look back now, 5 years in— almost 5 years in, uh, South Carolina, 5 years in Covington And I feel like what the Lord showed me looking back is your first 5 years was getting you out of the system. Those— the next 5 years was getting the system out of you. I still had stuff in me, Caleb, that was the residue of the old thing. I still had a hybrid way of thinking about the church. And, um, and again, like I said, I'm not blaming my leaders. I'm saying I did things where I'm like, you know, I so desperately wanted people to find family that I lowered the standard of pursuing the presence of God. Um, that's a mistake I made. And so then when it came time to correct that, people got mad at that. Yeah, you know, like, I, like, I know I made mistakes in, in the process, but the Lord was working the system out of me. And so like Covington was extremely challenging because I realized like you can leave the system, but the system can still be in you to a degree. And the Lord used Covington to help get that stuff out of me.

It reminds me of Israel leaving Egypt and taking 40 years to get Egypt out of Israel.

Yeah, that's right. And that's exactly what happened to me.

There's, there's two things. The second one is a question. The first thing is just, I think there's this misconception of a prophetic word and being sent. Like, if, if someone is giving a word— because I, I followed the Shepherd's Tent, man, it was awesome, um, hearing some even the prophetic words that were given and the opportunity to partner with Yahweh and see those things come to pass. That's the key though, because love is involved. There's an ingredient called love where people will disagree with what Yahweh wants to do, and Yahweh will then say, dust your shoes off and move along.

Sure.

And still use it for your good. Yeah, you'll use it to get you where you're supposed to be. Ultimately, now who knows where you'll be in 15 years. I hope you're doing the same stuff you're doing now, but yeah, I don't think there's a prerequisite in your heart. I have to be doing this in 15 years. The second part was because I've never heard you talk about this. I've heard you share this story, and then hearing, you know, what Yahweh asked you about business and media, and we'll get into that and we'll kind of try to land the plane and do some practical business stuff. The second part is when the fire happens.

Mm-hmm.

I'm not trying to interject myself in the story, but knowing, you know, the backstory of where you've been and where you were at, I just want to talk about the feelings, like the immediate feelings that you had. Like, for me, I would have been really, really angry and so confused and feel like, well, I just completely missed this whole thing? And maybe I'm— and I, I don't know how many times I had the conversation with my wife during our wilderness season is, are we outside of, of the favor of the Lord? Or, or, um, why is everything so hard? I think that was one of the, the topical questions. So I just want to peel back that onion a little bit because I've never heard you share just in those moments what was happening, man.

I mean, it's crazy because if you look back, like, um, we just prior to that, several months before that, Damon's coming in, we're having revival meetings that are amazing. Um, then he goes to Mobile and, and he's, he's planted there, sent there. And so we're, we're stewarding what the Lord's doing there in Covington. And dude, we were legitimately talking about like, where are we going to put all these people? Like on Sunday mornings, man, we were putting out more chairs and like this thing was growing. So like, and then, you know, I've told the story of 7 days before the church fire, the Lord's like, I want to talk to you about media and business. So I had that word, but I didn't think anything would change. Like, like I just thought, okay, media and business is coming down the road. I didn't realize like I like was going to step into that much sooner. And so like in my mind, I'm like, there's so much good things happening in Covington. I love my leaders. I love our people. I love our culture. Like it's growing. People are starting to get like— I look around the room and there's 18 nationalities in the room and I'm like, this looks like heaven, man. Like this looks like it's a small world at Disney and I love it. Like Let's go. Like, it's, it's happening, man. And I'm so excited about what the Lord is doing. It was on my birthday when the fire happened. So think about this. We had bought a new home finally, or not a new home, but bought a home. It was new to us and we're celebrating my birthday. So we've got literally a family of ours that we love dearly cooking us tacos. We're having a Mexican-like birthday party. We got a mariachi band on the property that our good friends had. Gotten for us for the birthday, and they're taking it full tilt for us. And dude, we feel so loved and honored. It was awesome. And while the night is over and there's just a handful of us on the back porch is when I got the call that the church is on fire. And we had this running joke even about the building. The building was always hot. It was always like in the summertime, that sanctuary would literally be 81 degrees. We could never get it cooled down. So we had just done spray foam insulation, had our first Sunday where people got cold in the summertime. We were like, yes, finally, like it's growing. We're getting breakthrough. Somebody wrote a check for us to do all of that. It was like incredible, dude. That fire just crushed me. My good friend Bobby Limley was with me. Him and Jesse, they were there. They stayed with us extra days and walked through us through that process with us and Man, like, golly, dude, he— the encouraging thing he said, I just feel like your office is untouched. Because I was thinking, God, I've got all my journals from leaving the system. I've got all my special things, like my whole— every journal, notebooks, books, like everything that I had was in my office. And he said, I saw the angel of the Lord come and cover that side of the building. All that'll be untouched. Brother, when we got in inside that building, that place looked awful except for our sanctuary and my office. And literally, I preserved all of my journals, all my notebooks, all those things. That was probably a little bit of the light there that was like— but dude, I was still dealing with the fact like we were growing. Yeah. Then I had to deal with like, um, churches not— they didn't really want to help us have a regular gathering place. And then if you did use their building, it came with all these stipulations, and you felt like you were walking in a room full of fine china, and you didn't want anybody to mess anything up. You just never felt at home. Um, and so it came with a bunch of challenges, and I'm just like, Lord, we've gone through COVID, the miscarriage, losing our salary, now the freaking fire. Like, what is going on? Like, I did the— like, I gave everything to leave the system and come here and help steward a new wineskin, and it's just falling apart. And yeah, man, in those moments, like, I think those are the moments that get the system out of us. Because I told our people, I'm like, God delivered us from a building so he could reveal his body. And like, I did everything to encourage myself, encourage the people, and, uh, dude, it just didn't work. And it's very easy in those moments to question what you learned in the first 5 years and what you learned in the first 8 years, you know. Um, and you have to settle the, the reality, like, I am still loved by God even though my circumstances don't speak that. I still am the righteousness of God even though my circumstances don't speak that. And I'm still loved by God even when the assignment didn't work out. And, and like the fire. And then, and then when, when things are not going my way, then relationships get weird. And, um, people that you've never had a problem with ever before, all of a sudden things just start getting weird. And you're just like, these are people that I love, I still love. And, and, and some people that I, I'm not even walking with today and don't even know why. Um, I still love these people and would walk with these people today. But when the Lord's done, he's done. And, you know, my prayer in all that, like you said, 15 years from now, I'm still doing the same thing, preaching the goodness of God, doing something around the kingdom. That's my— that, that was my saving grace, was realizing I'm loved by God, but so are these people. Like, I want to be a good shepherd, but he's their good shepherd. I want to lead them well, but he's going to lead them well. And I have the Holy Spirit. They have the Holy Spirit. And, and so like, yeah, man, it was a mix of emotions. It was definitely hard. Like when it came down to it, I realized that we weren't going to continue moving forward in Covington. Like lots of tears, lots of moments of me and my wife just looking at each other going, what is going on? People that we— people that we invested so much time, we let people live with us, stay with us. We fed them, we paid people's mortgages. We, like, you know, kept them in their house, made sure that they didn't get kicked out, bought their kids Christmas, had their— hosted their birthday parties, took them soup and food when they were sick. Like, you give everything and all of a sudden it's just done.

Mm-hmm.

Dude, that is so painful. And so what that did is I'll talk about a season I've never talked about before was we had like about 4 or 5 months where we, we didn't see anybody, didn't talk to anybody. I think maybe 2 people from the church saw us. We're living in the city, still doing our life, still living in our home, and saw 2 people from a church we had led for 5 years. And, um, and dude, we would be in the house just looking at each other going, what did we do? Um, and, and dude in that moment, if I'm being honest, you think about every mistake you made, how you could have done this or how you should have done that and, and all of that. And then at the end of the day, dude, the Lord just comes in and goes, you know what, Mark, you're human and, and you're trying just like everybody else is trying. And, and I have the propensity, I want to fix everything. I want to go get everybody. I want to reconcile with everybody. I want to make sure everybody's good. And at the end of the day, some people just don't want to do that. And so you're even frustrated with that and you're going, I can't do anything right, you know? And, and so those are real emotions. But man, can I tell you that today I found a love, a trust, a grace, a forgiveness, um, even moments where the Lord had to make— had to, to wake me up and deal with bitterness. But he's done that in me, and all I can say is whether it was South Carolina or Covington, God used it all. And I pray this is for everybody, whether you're involved in South Carolina or Covington. What if you will allow it? He'll use all of it to help you grow in love. And I've become a better person because of all of it. I've learned more of what to do and what not to do. And now my goal is, man, how can I love people better and honor people more and You know, just take, take love to the next degree because I still believe in the dream of family. I still believe in the dream of kingdom family. I still believe in the dream that the church can be the Acts 2 church and the Romans 8 church, the Romans 12 church. I still believe that we can be that. I'm not deterred at that at all. We just, we got to be put in the test lab before other people did too.

Hey everyone, it's me again. I want to personally invite you to Homesteaders of America 2026. It is October 9th and 10th, and it's going to be at the Warren County Fairgrounds. For more information, go to homesteadersofamerica.com. Check it in the show notes. Listen, I want to come in, I want to hang out with you. I'm speaking at the event. I'm sharing on how to find land. How to find your perfect homesteading property. Maybe some of you are just feel stuck in the mud about where you want to live, where you want to raise food. Visit the Homesteaders of America website, but you want to hurry. Tickets will sell out. You cannot buy tickets at the gate. This is one of the best homesteading events that you will ever find. It's worth the drive. Come to Rare Table.

We'll be there.

We'll see you there. Yeah, and there's, there's an interesting thing too, because people would say, you know, you can judge them by their fruit. And looking through a very humanistic lens is they see Mark goes, loses everything, goes through the season. Well, he's not doing the will of the Lord.

Sure.

When in fact the fruit that's being produced in you, you just said like there was love produced in you, there was the characteristics of Yeshua produced. That's the fruit that he's talking about.

That's right.

We have to really redefine what it is to succeed.

That's right. Yeah, I mean, like, that's what Covington did for me was, you know, first 5 years he's redefining success, the next 5 years he's still redefining success and what, what that looks like. And at the end of the day, man, I'm going to be led by the Spirit and I'm going to be willing to be misunderstood to obey what the Holy Spirit says. Because at the end of the day, I'm not like whoever would consider me a spiritual father. I'm a father, but I'm not the father. And whoever considered me to be their pastor, I'm not the Good Shepherd. He is. And whoever, you know, whatever people, titles, opinions, whatever they had of me, Um, at the end of the day, I put them in the care and trust of Abba because he is ultimately who they belong— they don't belong to me. I want them to be with me. I want every relationship to be reconciled. I want everybody to be good. I want everybody to be more mature and more full of love on the other side of it. Uh, but at the end of the day, I still have to obey the Lord, and I've still got to follow his whispers. And, and I can say before the Lord that by the grace of God, me and my family have done nothing since me and my wife got married almost 19 years ago. We've done nothing except for what we believe the Lord has said for us to do. And sometimes that means you're misunderstood. Sometimes that means you're lied on, rejected. People create their own opinions of what happened or why they think something happened. And, uh, you just have to give all of that to God and just, uh, I always say it this way: I have no enemies. I have some people who think they're my enemies, but I have no enemies. They're all family that either don't know it yet or they've forgotten.

But I'm a freeing place to be in. Yeah, dude, there's nobody that I have an issue with. If we're in the same room, there's not one person. And that's a free, freeing place to be. I It reminded me of the feelings I had. It was a sore spot for a long time because you're used to following momentum. You go into the wilderness and you start seeing like, oh, there's light at the end of the tunnel, something's going positive, and then you get let down. And then, oh, there's this other thing that comes along, there's some momentum, something's going positive, this is finally the time, right? Boom, let down. And then it happens so much where there's this fear and there's this these walls that I put up from really launching into anything because of letdown. But what ultimately happened was that was healed. Yahweh wanted to address that.

Be—

so if we start Wild Country and it just plummets in 2 years, I'm gonna be fine.

Yep, that's right.

It's gonna matter where I'm at with Yahweh, how I'm loving my family. I'm not going to be destroyed. 5 years ago, I would have been destroyed.

That's right.

So it's almost like there's still that little piece of religious system where we're used to move on, you know, numbers and success and that, that worldly definition of what success is. I think it's that freeing feeling that you're talking about. We get to that point where there's nothing that's that from the outside that can affect the internal world and the internal garden. That's freedom.

So yeah, it is.

That gives us permission to, to to do business, to do homesteading, to homeschool, whatever that might— may be. And that's really— I know we're running close, close to time, but this was going to be a business podcast, right? We're branching out, talking about business stuff. So this allowed you to really do something very, very unique, and we'll try to speed through it the, the best we can because I know you got a long drive ahead of you. Um, but I do want to touch that a little bit. So the Lord was talking to you 7 days before the fire and released this word. Can you go a little bit into that and then what that looked like, um, even up to now?

Um, you know, 7 days before the church fire, the Lord said, Mark, I want to talk to you about media and business. And I said, Lord, the church is doing amazing. I've got to really keep my focus on what's going on here. I know that's the assignment you gave me. And dude, for 45 minutes I went back and forth, and the Lord said, I want to talk to you about media and business. So 7 days later, on August 24th, 2023, our church fire happens. We get displaced from the building. I wake up about 4 days later, and the Lord— I'm walking in my backyard where he spoke about media and business, and he says to me again, now do you want to talk about media and business? I said, yes, Lord, I do. And that's what started the journey. Um, I didn't know what that was going to look like. I didn't have a clue. But what that led to was me going to a church service, and a lady in the church who I deeply respect, and we have a relationship with now, but before then didn't have a relationship at all, um, she, she called me over, super quiet, um, person, and she said, hey, I've been praying for you and your family, and I feel like the Lord spoke to me and told me for you to connect with a certain individual to see what they're doing. Dude, I end up reconnecting. It was somebody that I knew back in the day when I was doing the church conference stuff. Amazing worship leader. Connect with them. They teach me digital products, brother. When I got started in digital products, I put— I went, I went all the way in for 2 months. Within my first 90 days of launching, we did $30,000, which is amazing. I'm so thankful for it. What that did though was light a fire in me, and I was like, man, there's a real opportunity with social media, with AI, podcast, YouTube, like, um, digital products. There's such an opportunity for kingdom entrepreneurs right now. Like, as kingdom people, we should be the most creative, the most thoughtful, the most intentional, um, and we should have wisdom that could really become solutions for even global problems. And so we've got this amazing opportunity where you don't have to wait to be on Fox News to have influence. You can create a 60-second video that can reach millions of people in no time. I know that because I've had a video that we did about a year and a half ago that went to 26 million people in like, in like 3 weeks. And so like, I know what, what that's like to experience that. And, um, and see the power of media. And I end up launching this business called— and we call it now Long Path Creator Academy— where I'm teaching people how to package their God-given wisdom into a digital product business. And, um, and what the Lord's done in that is I've learned a lot about marketing, I've learned a lot about sales. People think this is like a get-rich-quick scheme. It is not, man. It's work. It's a job. You have to actually work it. You have to actually do it. But it's beautiful and rewarding in that it really is one of those things that if you invest and do it the right way, you, you get off the time for money grind and you can create a digital product once and sell it over and over again. And so what I've been able to do is create a digital program that walks people through this stuff, and I can show up for you know, a few hours a week and have like a really serious income. And so for me, money's not really the goal. For me, the goal is, is impact. The goal is I want to show thought leaders that you don't have to burn up the roads and leave your home and leave your wife and kids. You can do this from home. My passion is to see fathers restored, restored to the home, families that are not divided and sending their kids off to a school they don't really want them to go to. Because mom and dad have to go to work. It's like digital products does so much more than just save you time and, and money. It gives you presence back, presence in your marriage, presence in your relationship with your children. Like it's a, it's a, it's, it's a platform and a way to, to make income and, and impact in a way that we've never had before. And I want to wake kingdom people up to that. So I've spent 2 years going deep And I'll tell you this one and I'll, I'll kind of end with this is recently though, I got introduced to the bad part of digital products that I never thought I would experience. And that was, I had, I made a massive investment. I finally had a breakthrough month and I was like, you know what? I want to take the business to the next level. I want to reach more people. I want to make a greater impact, dude. And I knew that greater income would come. I invested in this program and Caleb, it did nothing. We went all in on it. Every dime we had, it produced nothing. But the Lord said to me, this can be a $40,000 mistake or it can be a $40,000 lesson. And what I learned is there is a side of digital products where these gurus get up and they say, if you'll do this, if you'll do this, you'll make $100,000 a month. If you do this, you do this. And it's all— you can almost catch them. It's money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money. Don't really talk about the impact. They just talk about wealth and money and whatever. And did you get in there? And basically they're teaching you how to take NLP, which is neuro-linguistic programming, which is a form of communication, partner that with human psychology and manipulate people through sales. And when I got in there and saw that, I'm like, I'm not going to do it that way. I refuse. You either want this product or you don't. You either want me to help you do this or you don't. But I'm not going to sit here and learn how to trigger somebody to pay me an astronomical amount of money for people that only a small percentage of them are going to actually do the work to create the results. I'm just not going to do it. And so like, I'm at a place now, Caleb, and you don't know this because you— because you've— when you and I were working together was probably about a year ago. But like in the past 4 months, man, I've totally recreated my business. I took my $5,000 course that I was charging. I'm giving it away for free, and I'm actually creating content now where anybody could come in and create these 4 pillars that I talk about, which is niche clarity, having a long-form, long-form podcast or YouTube channel, using social media as a feedback loop, and then building one digital product, an online community. I'm showing people how to do that for free so that they can make their first few dollars online. And what if they will follow those 4 things? They will literally, on the long path, uh, version of that, they will start creating real wealth for their family. Like, give it a year and it will change every— the way you do life, uh, because it's, it's changed for me, you know. And so I'm doing that for free, and then if people want Uh, we've created software now where people can run the entirety of their business and I'll do group coaching on top of that. So they get the software, they don't have to pay for 5 different things. They pay for one thing and I coach with it along with a buddy of mine who's an expert on that software. And then if people want to work with me one-on-one, they can do that. And there is a fee for that. Um, but we're changing the model, man, because I believe the body of Christ is being called into an entrepreneurial revolution. Everybody's trying to be a preacher, and— but I want to remind you, we are kings and priests before the Lord, and wealth creation, being an entrepreneur, uh, is essential in this hour. But just like the church has got to go through a reformation, we have to go through a reformation. And there are many people who still, uh, they have an entrepreneurial gift in them, they have wealth creation in them according to Deuteronomy 8:18. Mean, but they don't know how to tap into it because they've been trained since elementary school to think like an employee. And God is restoring wisdom back to his people. And I believe that we are stepping into a day in the body of Christ where we will create wealth like Solomon, where he doesn't have to work by the sweat of his brow. He gets to make money through the brilliance of the wisdom of his mind. And I believe that's where we're where we're headed.

Just because of how this podcast has gone and we kind of introduced this new world of business and digital products, and you hit it a little bit there before, but I want to pay more attention to if someone asks you, like, Mark, you know, I've always thought I'd like to do a business, but I want to serve the Lord. What, what do you say to those people?

Business is how to serve people. And anytime you are impacting somebody's life with a solution, you are doing the kingdom of God justice. Like, business is one of the greatest ways to be intentional about serving the Lord because business is about serving people. And so like, I don't know how those things have become mutually exclusive. They're not. They're totally integrated. And I believe the greatest impact we can have is in the marketplace, in the business space because you get to be intentional and take your wisdom, your giftings, your skills, and be able to provide a real solution. And I hear it all the time in our community. Like, we have people in our community that have launched anything from, uh, a cooking online business, uh, to a trucking, uh, a Trucking Digital Product where he shows— a guy in our community shows people how to launch their own trucking company. Like, but here's the crazy part. They teach that, but they end up shepherding people, speaking prophetically over people. They end up birthing a ministry through their digital product business. So I'm like, if you want to serve the Lord, maybe instead of trying to vouch for somebody's pulpit or become a parking lot prophet, maybe start a business and go change people's lives. That's ministry too.