Well, we’re back safe and sound. Jesse Carey, Adam Smith and I took to the road
this past week and headed up to The Call event in Nashville. (It was an awesome event: 12 hours focused on worship, fasting, prayer — and no hype. For my personal take on it, check out this past week’s “850 Words of RELEVANT” newsletter.) We then headed up to Adam’s hometown, Owensboro, Ken. We ate barbeque and blew up vegetables with fireworks we bought in Tennessee. Glorious times.
From there we crossed the state, dipped into Indiana, and made it up to the new Creation Museum in Cincinnati (for our review of that, check out the new edition of the RELEVANT Podcast), down to Atlanta for a big Christian industry trade show and then back to Orlando. It was a lot of time in the car, but luckily we had a laptop with entire seasons of 30 Rock, The Office and other hilarities to keep us entertained.
The Mailbag
From Chris French: I’m 23, married and working in corporate America. God has given me the vision and drive to get a company/ministry started, however, I was hoping you could offer some advice on how you got Relevant started back in the early stages.
Cameron: I get asked quite a bit how we got Relevant started, and unfortunately it’s not something I can answer in an email. I started on the business plan when I was 19 and finally launched the magazine when I was 27. It took a lot of time, a lot of debt and countless 20-hour workdays. I would say read every possible business book you can get your hands on. Start your company at night in your spare time while paying your bills with a real job. Let it grow naturally and in its own time — don’t rush things. That’s the biggest mistake people make; they dive in too quickly without laying the groundwork, establishing the relationships and having 157 plan B’s in case things don’t go as originally planned. Things will change and won’t go like you think. So just be patient, be adaptable and if God is in it, it’ll happen.
From Josh Spilker: Thanks for printing your review of The Call in the 850 words email. I didn’t attend, but it was great to hear about the spirit of the event, especially where so many Christian conferences seem to be about copying some other strategy or networking, or lobbies filled with companies trying to sell cool video clips to use in children’s ministry. Or like at one conference I attended, held in a suburb of a very large city, where all the for-profit “business for ministry” groups got to be inside the nice air-conditioned building, and all the other ministries that focused on giving food or water to others were stuck outside in a tent. It’s good to know there is an event that doesn’t focus on individuals but on the Holy Spirit and the collective spirit of the church.
Cameron: Josh, you have an absolute talent for saying something nice about one thing while mercilessly slamming another. Well done!
From Rosalyn Rhodes (a.k.a., Squidjerky3000): I’m a subscriber to your podcast (which is awesome for the most part), BUT then I heard you guys explicitly express your dislike of the tasty aroma of squid jerky (a.k.a., dried prepared cuttlefish). I totally disagree! As a matter of fact squid jerky is not only considered a food group in my home; it also has honorably served as my screen name and email for many years. Please try to speak more kindly of my namesake in future podcasts or… I’ll…..um……I’ll be forced to yet again protest the defamation of this marvelous snack! P.S. Feel free to send me the remaining portions — a good bag of squid jerky is a terrible thing to waste!
Cameron: First, I think you should change your screen name to driedpreparedcuttlefish3000. Nice ring to that. Second, unfortunately, we can’t send you the squid jerky because we fed it all to the stray cats and hobos that live out back.
The Links
Jared Thomas: Thought you would like this website … it changes your text upside down. Maybe your next staff email should be like this? You could see who all reads your emails by looking at all the people doing handstands.
Damon Sexton: I saw the Pennyfarthing World Tour in bicycling magazine and thought you might enjoy it when you weren’t riding bicycles around the office.
Be part of The Mailbag! Write Cameron here.
