Let's be honest, most men drift. We wake up, we scroll, we work, and then we just rinse and repeat. And we know we're softer than we should be. That's why I built the 31-day resilience reset. This is not a devotional. It is a field manual for men ready to stop drifting and start fighting back. So, for 31 days, you'll train your spirit, mind, and body with scripture, prayer, and daily challenges that forge real resilience. Go to www.undaunted.life/31. life/31day to download this resource for free. That's undaunted.life/31day. Start your reset today. This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. The one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him. That's Proverbs 18:17. Keep that in mind today, guys. We're so thankful that you're here today and we're very, very thankful to our donors. If you're wondering how we can pull off the show and everything we do with Unal Life is because we have guys like you partnering with us. 10 bucks a month, 20 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month, 500 bucks one time, whatever. Everything you guys donate helps. If you go to undant.life/donate, you can hop on board and be a donor. And then also, if you have not left a fivestar review of this show, wherever you're listening to this, please do so. And don't keep it a secret. Share it with a friend. Now, a couple uh quick things that I wanted to talk about before we get into the main subject. So, the forging table, if you go all the way back to episode 9:15 of the forging table. I mentioned as part of the introduction that we have a new song for the forging table, right? So, we changed the show, like the interviews and my solo shows to a song by Void Awaken. And then I was like, hey, Impending Doom said we could use their song Christ is King. But if you listen to the episode, it's like, well, wait, that's not Christ's King. That's still Void Awaken. So, the long story short is, and I explained this on a later AMA as well, just in case y'all missed this one, but basically, we uploaded a video with Christ's King as the intro outro music. And even though that song is owned by the band Impending Doom, and even though we had express permission to use it, we got a strike from YouTube saying that there was copyright. So, every single episode from here on out until something changes will be the song Conqueror by Void Awakens. So, there's a little mixup. Also, speaking of forging table mixups. So, if you are a watcher of the show, I know a lot of y'all listen to this, but if you're a watcher of the show, the last few weeks of the forging table with the horn, Ryan Horn, you may have noticed a different look. And so, to give you a peek behind the curtain, we thought it would be funny for Ryan to wear a wig on one of the episodes cuz he has alipcia. He's been bald since he was a teenager. We just thought it'd be funny. And then we were like, "Oh, wouldn't it be funny if we didn't even refer to it? If we didn't even say anything. Wouldn't that be funny?" Kind of like an inside joke. kind of an Easter egg thing for the big fans of the Forging Table. Well, that turned into, well, let's do four different wigs across four episodes. And I thought it was going to be funny until I talked to my dad, who's a big fan of the show. He loves Ryan. He loves all the banter. And I'm talking to my dad on the phone and he's like, "Hey, is everything okay with Ryan?" And I immediately get concerned. I'm like, "Oh crap, did something happen that somehow he heard about that I didn't hear about?" And he's like, you know, on the show the last couple of weeks he's been wearing these wigs and you know, y'all haven't really said anything. So, I didn't know if it was like a joke or if he's kind of struggling right now. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, people think Ryan's going through a midlife crisis and he's wearing wigs to deal with it." And so, I'll just say, I thought it'd be funny. We thought it'd be funny, but sometimes I can push the funny a little bit too far. I think there's one more. Uh, he's in a wig next week. So, for those of you watching this on YouTube, but Ryan is just fine. I'm happy to report he's doing just fine. Everything's going great with him at home and here, you know, with him and Lady Horn and all the different things. We just thought it'd be funny, but sometimes you shoot and you miss. Hey guys, real quick. I know a lot of you train for very specific things. So maybe you've got a mud race coming up, a mountain hunt, a 5K, or maybe you just want to keep up with your kids or you just don't want to let the old man in. But for a lot of you guys, whether you're working out at the Globo Gym, or even your garage gym, you get there and you just don't know exactly what to do. And so you just kind of settle for the same old workout routine. Maybe some bench press, bicep curls, a walk on the treadmill, and you know, you're not really getting the most out of your workout plan. And I want you guys to stop wasting time at the gym. No more settling. It's time for you guys to get a guide to help you reach your fitness goals. And that's why I want to remind you about my good friends at Mountain Tough. Mountain Tough is a fitness and mental toughness app developed by military special operators and mountain hunters that's becoming a global movement for building mentally tough athletes on and off the mountain. Mountain Tough is a native app ready to be downloaded on all platforms. So that includes iPhone, Android, Apple TV, Roku, and there's more. Once you sign up and download the app or access the website, you immediately have access to hundreds of exercise programs, and literally thousands of workout videos, thousands. So that includes structured hybrid strength endurance programs, daily workouts, the full exercise library, mental toughness training, the Mountain Tough community, and accountability. And you can use it all on the go, online or offline, no matter where you decide to train. So, if you're just getting started, that's great. They have programs for beginners. If you have minimal or no gear where you train, that's not a factor. They have minimal gear and bodyweight programs. And guys, if you're wanting to get into or maintain elite level fitness, they've got you covered with programs for top tier athletes, too. And for a limited time, Mountain Tough is extending undaunted lifers like you an incredible offer. Go to mountaintuff.com. That's mtnuff.com and enter the code kyle when you sign up for a monthly plan to receive your first month free after your 14-day trial. So that's 6 weeks free to make sure this is for you. I'm sure it will be. That is six weeks free on the best-in-class physical and mental training app in the world. So stop wasting time. It's time to get real fitness results. Let my friends at Mountain the way again. Go to mtntuff. That's mountain.com, promo code kyle. All right, so we're going to start this episode with a question. Did the religion business expose Joby Martin and the church of 11:22? So, let me get to why I'm posing that question. In order to do that, I just need to back up just a little bit. So, if you're not familiar, the religion business is a media kind of/doccumentary brand that is centered on exposing abuse corruption financial mismanagement, dysfunction inside what they would, you know, you could just call it the church, but they would call it something like, you know, the modern megaurch industrial complex or they refer to it as the machine or the system, if you will. So, the founders are a couple of guys named uh Christopher Aub and Nathan Appfell. So, a lot more on Appfell here in a minute, but attached to the religion business is a tech app component called Broken Shepherds. So, it's supposed to be a transparency technology platform that allows donation tracking software for people that donate to churches, right? And I'm sure it could expand out from there, but the entire point is to reform church finance and governance by providing more of a nonprofit style accountability infrastructure that we see with non-church 501c3s. That's at least their claim. Now, if you go to the website for Broken Shepherds, it says that this simple phone app is launching in Easter of 2025 and that, you know, reform is coming. But when you go to the app store, right, I went to the app store on my phone. There's only about 18 reviews, right? So, typically the number of reviews can kind of correlate to the number of people actually using the app. I personally have never heard of anyone actually using the app uh since the launch last year. So, it seems like there was not the market saturation for this tech company or app yet. And then we have Christopher Aub. He seems to be, you know, the business and money guy behind this whole thing, whereas Nathan Afel is more the public face of this movement that they're at least trying to get off the ground. Now, you might actually be familiar with the name Nathan Afel because he has appeared on some really big podcasts somewhat recently. So, he did the Shawn Ryan Show, got millions of views on that. He did the Tucker Carlson show to name just a couple. And you've likely heard about him or you've at least heard about something that he produced if you haven't even just seen it yourself. It's called The Religion Business. It's the same name as their company. It's a seven-part docue series that you can get online, and we'll get more into that here in just a minute as well. And to be honest, I recognized the guy's face, right? I knew I had seen it somewhere, but I'd never really consumed much of Nathan Afel's content. I didn't watch his interviews with Shawn Ryan or Tucker Carlson. I hadn't watched the docky series. But on May the 6th of this year, he certainly got my attention because on that day, Nathan Adfell made a video on the Religion Business Instagram account, and he tagged a couple of other accounts going after Joby Martin and the Church of 11:22 and their retreat center. And then he made another video 2 days later on May the 8th where he talked about the reform needed in the modern church. And he started the video with a picture of Joby. And then on I I believe it was May the 16th, uh he made another video directly attacking Joby in the church of 11:22. And he went as far as to really claim some financial impropriety by the church. And guys, I got lit up with DMs and emails and text messages from tons and tons of people sharing this content with me. And there were a lot of people that were angry that someone would, you know, dare take a shot at Joby in his church. Uh, but there were some people actually that were really concerned that what Nathan Afel said on his post that they were actually true and that this would have to change, you know, how they feel about Joby, how they feel about his ministry overall, how they feel about the church of 11:22, really all of that. And so, here's the thing for me, as most of you know by now, if you've listened to the show for any length of time, I'm a balls and strikes guy. Okay? So, I will call balls and strikes with people that I like, with people that I don't like, with people that I know, with people that I don't know. And even though Joby is a really good buddy of mine and a mentor of mine, as I mean, as you all know, he comes on once a month. You see the ministry work that I've done with him in the past. Any claim that is made about him or made about his church, my default mechanism is not to defend. I mean, it's it's really not. I mean, it's to listen. It's to evaluate the claim because what if the person making the claim has a point? What if there is there there right? What if they're right? What if Joby and his church are doing things that are not in step with the Bible and potentially immoral? I mean, potentially illegal, right? So, I would be concerned if something like that were to come up, I would be interested in that and I, you know, think that you should be as well. And just just if you don't believe me, you know, as I talked about for a long time, Matt Chandler is like my favorite preacher. I've listened to him since I was in college. Well, go back to the first time that I had him on the show. Here I am in his studio, right, in his office or whatever, uh, by his house, and I'm showing him and asking him about what he said at MLK50, right? I'm asking about some of the critical race theory and some of the, you know, standpoint epistemology and some of the race stuff that really got him in hot water. And even when he came on the show, what, a month ago, uh, he mentioned some of it in his book. I brought it to his attention again. So, if I just default never wanted to challenge somebody that I liked, you wouldn't see examples like that. And I mean, the other thing about it is I personally don't have an incentive to defend Joby, nor the church of 1122. I'm not an employee of the church. Never have been. The church of 1122 does not donate any money to me or my ministry. Uh Joby is just a good buddy of mine and I go to 1122 a few times a year to partner with them in ministry activities. So, like last year, I went to Beach Baptism. I went to their men's worship night, men's conference. I went to this hunting thing that they do. I went to saturated this year. It looks like I'll be able to just get down there for their hunting encounter and for saturated. So guys, at most the church of 1122 might reimburse me for my travel expenses to come out and help them with whatever whatever ministry stuff that we do, which is basically what any company, what any church would do in that circumstance. And so I need to get back to the original question which is did the religious business the religion business excuse me expose Joby Martin in the church of 11:22. So let's take a look. So I want to play the first video that Nathan Afel posted. This was from May the 6th. So let's go and go to the video here. So what does hunting have to do with church? Allegedly for Pastor Joby Martin and his church 1122 in Jacksonville, Florida. Quite a bit actually. There's a multi,000 acre wildlife management area known as Cabin Bluff in Woodbine, Georgia. This entire area was open to the public until 2020. An LLC called Woodbine Acquisition acquired four parcels totaling 3,217 acres of the approximately 11,000 acre wildlife management area for a cool $12,750,000. This acquisition made those 3,217 acres of public land private. Ironically, news outlets in 2020 were saying that the church 1122 bought the property. So, who manages this Woodbine Acquisition LLC, a Delaware-based company, and we can't find out. The Brunswick News stated the potential uses for the land include wildlife viewing, fishing, hunting, kayaking, and nature photography. It sounds like a dream for a hunter, a once public hunting area, now private. What's even more interesting is that in 2023, Woodbine Acquisition LLC transferred all 3,217 acres of the now private hunting land into the hands of, you guessed it, Church of 1122 for a grand total sales price of $0. The stunning Cabin Bluff Outfitters sit on 3,217 acres and it's now called the Retreat Center on Church 1122's website. But the Retreat Center is yet another LLC called the Retreat Center LLC. This LLC is lumped into the annual church financials as just an operating expense for the church. Yet, they charge congregants to go find quote encounters with God. Personally, most of my greatest encounters have been sitting alone reading scripture and praying. I didn't know we needed a private 3,217 acre hunting ranch to encounter God, costing congregants a sweet $12,750,000. That's quite the expensive encounter. on Church 1122's website regarding generosity. Money reveals the heart. Money isn't our idol. Money reveals where our idols are. So, that presents a serious question for Church 11:22. If you're buying land purchases and LLC's and then moving the assets around and turning it into a quasi private hunting ranch with a few costly encounters for your congregants throughout the year, could that mean your congregants money was used to build an idol? All in the name of encounters and hunting? And right below that, our hope is eternal, not on earth. Okay, so why spend over $12 million on earthly land assets that went from public to private? We've got a second video dropping this Friday about this because in a roundabout way, I'm going to present how taxpayers bought part of this land for Joby. I mean church of 11:22. Wait, wait, I mean Woodbine Acquisition LLC. Wait, I mean the Retreat Center LLC. Christ said in Matthew 6, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where the moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart is also." So, that's pretty dramatic, huh? I mean, those almost sound like allegations of impropriy, and you know, he's kind of doing the I'm just asking questions thing. But here was my initial reaction to the video because again at this point I'm watching this video. I think there's only going to be one. He signals that he's going to do a second video but we don't know if that's going to happen. And I said this in the comments. I was like how is it possible to say so many words but then forget to make a substantive point. Like Nathan what exactly is your point? Like do you think that all land should be public land? Is that the point? like are you against private ownership of anything including land and property? Like he doesn't really say. I mean, so I'm just kind of left to speculate what he actually believes because again, he's just kind of like throwing out things to see if it sticks. And if you're going to say it, and obviously I I try to live this out. If you're going to say it to make a claim, then say it with your chest, okay? If you're going to make a claim, just make your claim, attach your name to it, and stand by it. Like I remember every time there's like an anonymous feedback form, whether it's for a class or for another employer or all that, I always sign my name to it. Always. Because let's say there's some positive or constructive feedback or something that maybe was a little bit ambiguous and they want to clarify, you can't clarify with an anonymous form, you know, readout page. You can clarify with the person. And so if we go back to the video, Afel starts the video with a question. What does hunting have to do with the church? So he poses the question as if the question in and of itself is proof that it has nothing to do with the church and could not serve a ministry purpose. And I was just thinking through it. It's like, okay, churches all over the world do potlucks, right? Where people have to pay for the utensils to serve the meals and for the ingredients to make the meals and for the homes or buildings where the meals are served. And so based on this guy's thinking, would it be fair for me to ask, what does doing a potluck have to do with the church? Huh? I mean, it's categorically the same thing. Again, he's not going forward and making an actual claim, but there's the implicit claim that hunting couldn't possibly have a ministry impact or purpose. And then he makes the claim that the Cabin Bluff property used to be public and that it's now private. And so, that's that's actually not completely true. So, it was a private lodge that the Nature Conservatory or Conservancy and the Department of the Navy partnered to secure. and it put covenants and restrictions on the property to limit development and preserve nature. So people should really be a fan of that. And then what they ended up doing is they split the parcels and listed them for sale. So the Church of 1122 did purchase 3217 acres back in 2020 and that's now called the Retreat Center. But the remaining 8,000 acres is now wildlife management area open to the public. So it's it's literally a nature reserve. So this like oh man it used to be public and now it's private. It's just not true. But then he also keeps bringing up LLC's in this video, right? You know, LLC's are limited liability companies. That's what it stands for. But he brings it up as if it stands for like Lucifer's Little Children or something like that. Like if you're doing a purchase inside of an LLC, it's literally one of the most common things in all of real estate. Like he kept bringing up LLC's as if it's some sort of like shell game with nefarious intentions. So, I don't know if he's like woefully ignorant about LLC's or about real estate dealings or if he's being purposefully obtuse, but LLC's again are limited liability companies. So, as any smart business person would do with their property or with they with their business that they put under an LLC, they're doing it because, wait for it, they want to limit their liability if something happens on the land or if something happens in one of their buildings. Like, it's just good business to do that. I have LLC's. My wife has LLC's. Like, we're attached to dozens and dozens of people that own LLC's. It's just good business. And then he talks about how the church charges for encounters with God. And then he makes, you know, this little sly comment about how encounters with God should be free and how his best encounters have been free and all that. So, here's something that Nathan Afel likely doesn't know or that he, you know, knows but purposely does not want to disclose. Almost all of the retreats hosted by Church of 11:22 at the retreat center are free. Almost all of them. I mean, we're talking like the church charges a a fee for less than about less than 10% of their retreats are charged. And so, if you go to the Church of 1122's annual report, right? And so, and all this stuff's available online. I I don't have any secret knowledge. This is all stuff that Nathan could have found online before he did his video. There are about 2,000 attendees to 11:22 retreats at the retreat center every year. So since the purchase of the retreat center, that's over 12,000 people that have gone to the retreat center. And almost all of them, right, or the overwhelming majority you could say, of them went to the retreat center and participated in something for free. And so what Nathan Adfell's commentary reveals here, I guess in addition to that, is that I think he's abysmally I think his understanding of human psychology is abysmal. Like it's like he doesn't understand what motivates people. Because y'all heard me talk about this before in reference to my Dominion coaching and disciplehip program. But people treat things that are free or cheap cheaply. They treat them as if they are unimportant. So, I thought about this the other day cuz a buddy was showing me his watch and he had a Rolex that he saved for and invested in and the entire point is so he can pass it down to his son and if his son has a son so that they can continue passing it down and he paid a good amount of money for this thing. Compare that to if I had handed him an old Casio watch for free. He he would very likely be thankful and he would say thank you and he would be appreciative. But the level of investment literally and figuratively in that watch is not nearly what it was for the Rolex that he purchased. That's just basic human psychology. I mean, even back in college, uh this group that I we would do programs around campus for different events and we would do these movie nights inside the university center. And so the very first one we're showing the movie Troy. It had just been out in theaters like this is this is a big deal, right? This is going to be awesome. It's free movie night. And we go in there. There's about five people there in this entire auditorium. There are five students. There were more people like me volunteering for this event than there were actually in attendance. And someone I don't know who got this idea. Hey, what if we charged a dollar for tickets to the next movie night? We're like, well, the whole point is so it would be free and blah blah. It's like, yeah, but nobody showed up. If we charge a dollar, maybe people actually show up. So the very next one, I don't remember what movie it was. We charged a dollar. It was full. It was full. And it wasn't because the movie was that much better. I don't think anyone wanted to see it more or less than they wanted to see Troy. It was that they had purchased something for a dollar and they knew if they didn't show up, they were wasting it. It's just basic human psychology again. And part of the reason why you would even charge for a retreat in the first place, you know, when the church could just absorb that cost within their own operating budget is because you want people to value the experience. You want them to come into the experience with an expectant heart that they will have an encounter. Like you want them to take it seriously. One of the ways that you can kind of like sus out who's serious and who's not is by making them pay. And I guys, I'll just be honest, like I'm I'm a business guy. I'm a capitalist. If it were up to me, I would flip the equation completely in the other direction. Like I would have about 90% of the retreats be paid and only about 10% of the people to be on scholarship or, you know, to be able to come for free. I mean, that's what I would do. And then at the end of this first video, he refers to the scripture about not laying up your treasures here on earth, which leads us some questions that I have. What does Nathan Atll own? What kind of treasures does he have? Like how does he spend his money? Because if you go look at his post online, he does a lot of hunting. I saw he did like this Sitka hunting event. For a lot of you guys that are Sika people, how much does it cost to outfit yourself from head to toe in Sika gear? It's over a thousand bucks to go head to toe. And then a lot of you guys are like, "Okay, well I have this one if I'm hunting up in the mountains and I have this one if I'm hunting in the woods and this one if I'm more of a desert area and this one if I go for, you know, a Canadian snow hunt to go get some, you know, obscure sheep or something like that." So we're talking thousands and thousands of dollars. Then we get into the tags, you know, the rifles, the scopes, the ammunition, the bows, like the the broadheads, all this thing. That's a lot of money. Why should he get to own that kind of stuff? Like, why does he get to own nice things? Then also, if you see some of his posts, obviously he's a documentarian. He does these these, you know, very well done and shot uh documentaries. But there was a picture of his a setup for one of his cameras and there was a guy that kind of looked at the camera setup and it's like this is like a 30 or $40,000 camera setup for one camera. And I'm sure that's not the only camera he owns. So he has tens and tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment. So the question for Atfell, you know, it's a question that a lot of people have asked and I just want to turn it back on him. How many poor people could have been helped with the money he spent on his hobbies and his work? Like, why were his cameras not sold for tens of thousands of dollars and given to the poor? Does that question sound kind of familiar? Because it should. Most of you have read this. John 12, we'll start in verse one. 6 days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at the table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas the Scariot, one of his disciples, he who was about to betray him, said, "Why was this ointment not sold for 300 dinari and given to the poor?" He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and having charged having charge of the money bag he used to help himself to what was put into it. Jesus said, "Leave her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me." So Judas, the betrayer, the son of predition, the one who helped coordinate the arrest of Jesus, took the position of chastising a woman for using her funds to do something in order to worship Jesus. So is that the position that Afel wants to take? Is that the perspective he wants to bring into this argument? From the first video, it seems like that's the case. But then he posted another video on May the 8th. So, let's actually uh go to this video. So, if you're only listening to this, it actually starts with a picture of Joby Martin. Let's go to the video here. >> Here's a premise. Today's pastors making a full-time living off the church as a lifelong career will eventually be eaten by the system. No matter the good intentions and original passion to save souls, your purity, your ethos, and your message die to the demands of the modern machine. I've said this on lots of podcasts. So, what is the modern machine? It's not the body of Christ. It's an unregulated crony capitalistic business model that we now call church. The business and the body are not one and the same. Joby is a great order. He's also built a very large institution with an annual nut of $74.9 million. All religious institutions in America play by the same legal rule book. And I'm going to use 1122 as the example. They've got a $75 million a year burn that generates 91.1 million in revenue. The majority of which 79 million is given by generous individual Christians via offering in tithes. It is not liable to the state or fed in regards to filing an annual form90. What does this mean? It means a church can consolidate financials of a $91 million a year operation onto a single 8 1.5 by11 with no external accountability sources. It means salaries are unknown. It means organizations can hire auditing firms. But the problem with this is there's no legal document the auditing firm can use to reconcile if the financials that were given to the auditor are actually accurate. The auditor has to work under the assumption that what the corporate church has given them is in fact accurate. In the last video I said in a roundabout way taxpayers paid for part of this 3,217 acre almost $13 million property. So I want you to think back to co remember those PPP loans? The loans were used to help keep employees on payroll during the economic shutdown. One of the most common forms of PPP fraud was mismanagement of funds. Basically claiming economic hardship when that wasn't true. So, let's go through some interesting dates. Job's church 1122 received a $1.73 million PPP loan for payroll in April of 2020. 7 months later, 1122 acquires a 3,217 acre property for 12.75 million in October of 2020. A few months later, the government forgives 1122 of the 1.73 million PPP loan in 2021. Forgiven PPP loans are paid by our government. So that forgiven 1.73 million from Job's church, 1122 is now a burden on the American taxpayer. On 1122's website, its core value is biblical integrity, knowing right and wrong according to God's word. Placing debt on the American taxpayer under the opice of financial hardship as 1122 enjoys tax-free benefits without the requirement to file a 990 as you acquire a 12.75 million property at the same time does not sound honest, truthful, or right. So, I'll say it again. Pastors that make their full-time living off the institution as lifelong careers will eventually be eaten by the unregulated crony capitalistic business model that we now call church. No matter the good intentions and original passions to save souls, your message, your ethos, and your purity will die to the demands of the modern machine. It is time for reform. All right, so this video is an absolute mess. So we need to unpack it. So the video begins again for those of you just listening to this. It begins with Job's image and then he has a bunch more images over the next, you know, 17 18 seconds of pastors, you know, a lot of which that you wouldn't recognize, but he had Joel Ostein, uh John, I think it's HGY, Mike Huckabe, who's not a pastor. Carl Lince, Brian Houston, Mark Driscoll, Jesse Duplantis, Greg Lorie, Tony Evans, Jim Baker, Sean, I don't know how to pronounce this guy's last name. It's a guy with the curly blonde hair. Fo, I don't know. Ed Young, Bill Hibbels, Robert Morris, John MacArthur, Michael Todd Creflo, Dollar Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, Rick Warren, Kenneth Copeland, Paula White, TD Jake, Steven Ferdick, and many, many others. So he puts all these people in line, right? Just picture to picture to picture to picture. And he just makes them all in the same category. Like he's literally broadbrushing this entire group of people as if they're all essentially the same, which is kind of nuts. And he makes this claim that if a pastor is making a full-time living off the church that he or she, if you, you know, claim that some of these women in this video are pastors, that he will eventually be eaten by the system, which sounds really nefarious, right? And then he talks about the machine. And he draws just shockingly a direct line from somebody making a living from the church, like a pastor, and somebody that is no longer concerned with saving souls and shephering sheep. as if it's just a one plus one equals two kind of a situation. And then inexplicably he takes a takes a hard right turn into something completely unrelated and he talks about something like the form 9990. Oo churches don't have to do a form90. And so this is where he really starts to go off the rails and it starts to you can really kind of see his cards a little bit. So, if you don't know form 9990, it's just, you know, a US uh IRS service or Internal Revenue Service document. It provides the public with information about a nonprofit organization. So, it's also used by government agencies to prevent organizations from abusing their tax exempt status. It's a very, very basic form. So, he talks about how churches do not have to fill out a form 990, but he brings it up as if it's some sort of like enormous scandal, right? But the whole reason why churches don't have to fill out a form 9990 is to protect those churches from unnecessary government oversight and to give those churches authority and to maintain their religious liberty. Okay? This isn't some sort of evil cabal that came up with this idea. Now, does that mean that no church will ever take advantage of this to their financial gain? Of course not. But that's not the point. If churches if churches were forced to fill out a form 990, it would turn the IRS into a church regulator. Okay, the IRS would be able to exert bureaucratic leverage on the church. There would be political weaponiz weaponization, you know, depending on who's in charge of the White House and in Congress. There would be ideological pressure forced down on the church. They would have some issues of of doctrine and ministry operations, you know, being decided on or approved by the secular government. I mean, it'd be a really, really terrible idea. So, I'm just wondering, Nathan, like, is that what you want? Is that what you want? So, like, filling out a form 990 is not the government simply saying, "Yeah, we just, you know, we just want to see your numbers." This is the government wanting all the information on your governance, the compensation of your employees, the official and unofficial leadership structure of your church, if there's any political activity that is part of the ministry, your attachment to other nonprofit or for-profit organizations, and it just keeps going on and on from there. And here's the other thing about the 990 form. Churches are not like other nonprofits. That's why they're not categorized the same because churches don't derive their legitimacy from the government. The rights of churches to exist far pre-exist the United States government. And churches operate under the constitutional protections that are unique to religious belief and practice. And if churches were forced to fill out a form 9990, this this form90, it could lead to donor information being released, which basically no nonprofit on the planet is a fan of, by the way. This could lead to even more targeting from activists. This could lead to direct harassment campaigns, thrust at pastors, church staff, elders, church attendees. It could lead to political retaliation depending upon the party affiliation of the local magistrates where that church resides. I mean, a lot of conservative commentators have talked about being debanked, couldn't get loans, couldn't even deposit their money anywhere. That could start to happen to churches. Like, this isn't just some sort of simple thing, but he just throws it out there so flippantly. And look, we all know this to be true. Government programs and government involvement in the lives of Americans never retracts. It only expands. Right? So, right now, it would be, yeah, just, you know, fill out the 990 so that we can make sure everything's on the up and up. and then it would eventually just bubble out from there because of what we have seen even in recent history. Would it be any surprise if all of a sudden the United States government had some DEI compliance requirements for churches across the board? How about monitoring of speech from the p pulpit to see if it's vaguely political and you know try to change that and move that around? What about scrutiny over gender policies or whether or not they'll allow gay people to be married inside of their buildings? What about hiring processes and, you know, the freedom to choose the employees you want for a certain position, right? What about the ideological hoops that the churches would all a sudden have to jump through in order to keep the government happy? Sounds like a regulator, right? And this reliance, his argument really hinges on this 990 form, but it neglects to realize that churches typically already have accountability structures in place because apparently he thinks unregulated means ungoverned. But that's just not the case. Obviously, it's like he's never set foot inside of a church and even knows how one runs because good churches have elders, don't they? Churches have individual members of the congregation that are a check on the leadership. Many churches have oversight from whatever denomination that they represent. There's oversight from donors. A lot of churches pay for independent audits of their books every year. Every year. Most churches don't want the bad PR of financial impropriety. And there's also there's civil laws. There's criminal laws that keep a lot of the chicainery at bay, right? Make people not want to dip into the cookie jar. And look, if the church or the members of the church or, you know, anybody anybody inside of it commits embezzlement or tax evasion or fraud or does anything criminal like that, then they go to prison if they're convicted. Like there's not some special carve out for churches and pastors and people that work at churches. But apparently Nathan Atfield doesn't know any of that. Or he does know it and he purposefully doesn't bring it up because he knows that it will undercut the very weak argument that he's making. And so actually there's a a good buddy of mine that is an auditor. Okay? So he actually does this stuff day in and day out. So he actually watched the second video and he reached out to me and he sent me this. It's a long quote but I think it's very very valuable to our understanding here. I have audited more than 100 nonprofit organizations in my career. I have never reconciled them to a 990 ever. Audit standards don't even require it. This guy is suggesting that the audit can't be relied upon because it isn't reconciled to the 990 which isn't required. In fact, most 990s are prepared based on the audit report. Our firm builds out a 990 entirely from the audit report and gathers more information as necessary. That is how all of them are done, not the inverse. This is important. In the cases where the 990s are filed before the audit report is done if the audit finds an error in the financial statements that require correction, the 990 would be modified in the subsequent year as a result of this error. In other words, I don't make the audit match the 990. The 990 matches my audit. So if 1122 is audited and has a clean opinion with no findings, then what do we do with that? Also, keep in mind, the Southern Poverty Law Center raked in over 100 million in revenue and filed a 990. So, maybe filing those isn't the beall endall of behaving ethically. I have dozens of stories of fraud and unethical behavior from organizations that file 990s, but this guy thinks that the form 990 is some magic wand of accountability. Not even close. Auditors have never worked under an assumption that the information provided to us is accurate. Never. In all evidence provided, auditors are required to exercise professional skepticism in the e uh in the evidence obtained. Essentially, I assume what they provide me is BS unless I get convinced otherwise. We obtain information, apply procedures under professional skepticism, verify the information provided, agrees to that which was recorded, and move forward. So guys, this is a man who has built his career, my buddy, on auditing things and getting things exactly correct. And that just flies in the face of everything that Nathan Appfell said in his video. But if you don't know that, if you weren't familiar with the 990, if you're not familiar with auditing practices, if you're not an auditor yourself, you would miss that entirely. And I think that's what Nathan was baking on. And here's something that I know. Since 11:22 was founded, it has done an independent audit of their books annually, every single year. So, the fact that they don't fill out a 990 is nonsense. It doesn't mean anything. And I know we're spending a lot of time on this video, but it's so egregious some of the errors that he made or some of the purposeful mistruths he put out there because then he switches from 990s to the PPP loan process. And he talks about how fraud was one of the biggest issues with that program, which it clearly was. He's 100% sp, you know, on the money about that. But just like with his first video that I showed you and with many of his videos, I'm wondering what is your claim here exactly? You know, I'm listening to you say all these words. Do you have a claim? Do you have something that you would like to claim happened or didn't happen? Because he alludes to fraud in financial impropriy. And the majority of the subject matter of this video is centered on Joby Martin in the church of 1122. But then he stopped short of making an allegation, an exact explicit allegation that the church or Joby participated in illegal activities. And with the PPP loan process, there was always a lot of accountability required to even get the loan. It didn't make it impossible to do fraud, but it was more difficult than people really understand. So, to to obtain a PPP loan, you had to show the following if you were a church or religious organization. Okay? Churches are automatically treated as 501c3 organizations under IRS code 508 and do not need to file a form 1023 to be taxexempt. So, that status allowed them to fit within certain nonprofit organizations eligible for PPP under the CARES Act. That's very important to understand. and you were eligible if you had less than 500 employees in operation on February uh 15th of 2020 and paid employee compensation. Okay, so those loans were forgiven only if used for eligible payroll and limited non-payroll costs during the covered period. Also, faith-based guidance for federal funding stresses that religious organizations cannot be excluded from programs like PPP solely because they are religious. But public funds cannot be used for sectarian worship, instruction or procilization. So, inherently religious activities must be separately funded and voluntarily for beneficiaries. Okay? So, all small businesses, excuse me, had to give a detailed account of what the money would be used for. That information was given. This is what happened in 2020. That was given to outside accountants, banks and lawyers. The loan had to be approved by the SBA, the Small Business Administration of the US government before approval. And future forgiveness would not be considered unless all that was done. Okay? And look, PPP loans were only refunded if they were not eligible in the first place. And so that's, you know, they weren't in business on February the 15th of 2020 andor over 500 employees. So that's why so many people on social media got burned and had to repay these loans because they started their businesses after the date with the sole purpose of getting the loan, right? Basically defrauding the government, right? And also they wouldn't get the funds if they didn't submit the application. They wouldn't get it if the organization failed to meet forgiveness conditions for any portion of the loan. For example, uh if proceeds were not used for qualifying costs like payroll or or mortgage interest or rent or utilities, uh required staffing levels that were not maintained or required salary or wage levels that were not maintained. So that portion would not be forgiven and remains a loan that must be repaid. So I I know this for a fact as well. I know all that to be a fact because in my past life as a financial adviser during 2020, many of my clients and my co-workers clients who were business owners had to go through the PPP process to keep their operations going during 2020. Like they really didn't have any other choice. And obviously everyone that had any attachment to the Church of 1122 already knows this, but back in 2020, the entire church and Hope's Closet, their little uh like clothing thing that's by their St. Pablo campus, they were shut down for weeks. And and the only reason the church did this and and frankly the only reason why any business even entered into the PPP loan process is because this was completely uncharted territory for anyone involved in the United States economy. Like we had no idea how long the shutdown was going to last, whether or not CO 19 was nearly as bad as what our government officials were saying it was. We didn't have any clue. So, I point this out because if 1122 operates like most churches, the land would be purchased from the building or plant fund, but also if they used the PPP loan funds to buy land, they would have had to refund the money. They would have had to repay the loans back. Okay? And then Nathan Afel plays this whole we have some interesting dates game, right? He runs down these dates and that's just a furtherance of my previous point. He plays this game with dates, but then he doesn't make an explicit claim. Like, he alludes to it, but he doesn't make an allegation. And I'm like, "Bro, if you're just going to say it, say it. Just make the claim. Say that they defrauded the taxpayer." And and you definitely know this, right? I mean, this is the Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens where, oh, you know, I'm just asking questions and I should be able TO ASK QUESTIONS AND LIKE THIS is what I'm doing and I had a dream and so I have secret knowledge. Like, it's that kind of a thing. like it's, you know, blah blah blah blah blah. Isn't that so interesting? I don't know, Nathan. It might be interesting. Do you have a claim or something that I can even see if it's interesting to begin with? And guys, with all this again, we have to come back to the main focus here, which is the church of 11:22. And from the moment of of its founding, the church of 11:22 had oversight from elders from day one. And the church of 11:22 was also planted by Beach Church, right? Which also had oversight from elders. And there was even still at the time another layer of accountability because Beach Church at the time of the planting of 11:22 was affiliated with a denomination, the United Meth Methodist Church. So they were affiliated with them right up to the point where the United Methodist Church basically went, you know, affirming and apostate and all that. But again, as I mentioned earlier, every year since the beginning of the Church of 11:22, they have been subjected to a financial audit of their books. They they've had elders. They've had oversight. And every time 1122 has applied for a loan, guess what happened? They had to go through underwriting. And with underwriting, you think the bank just goes, "Uh, I think we trust you. We're not going to do any underwriting. We're not going to check and make sure that you're being accurate with all the things you're claiming on your application." So again, I have to ask Nathan Afel, are you making a specific claim here? What precisely is your point? And again, guys, we're still here on the second video because he had yanked the car off the highway and then he rips the wheel back to the left to get the car back on the highway. He somehow tries to connect his diet tribe about form 9990s and PPP loans and, you know, is playing with the dates game to attach to his original point. His original point is that if a pastor makes money and gets his full-time compensation from the church, he will eventually be eaten up by the machine or the system or whatever he calls it, and that that pastor will no longer be concerned about saving people's souls and shephering sheep. So, the video in and of itself was just really confusing, right? The beginning and the end did not attach to the middle at all. The middle was absolutely convoluted with a bunch of stuff that's just not true. And the beginning of the video and the end of his video had essentially nothing to do with the point he was making. if you could even surmize a point. And then he ends the video with this vague message of it's time for reform, which sounds nice. It's easy to put on a bumper sticker or a t-shirt, but it's just like someone saying someone ought to do something. You know, there's a mass shooting or something somewhere and you have a leftist anti-gun person be like, "Someone ought to do something." Like, okay, it's time for reform. What do you mean? Okay, but now we need to get to the third video. So, we really need to focus on this last one here because in this one, he seems to make claims that are a little bit more pointed. Okay? A little bit more like actually pointing to the fact that there might actually be financial impropriy at the church of 11:22. So, let's go to the last video here. This one was uh released on May the 16th. We find this Walmart and I think we spent somewhere around $5 million to renovate it. Oh, you know what they could have done with that money? that could have fed the poor. Instead of primarily feeding the poor, what we did is we invested. We just obeyed Jesus 17.2 million a year. 17.2 every year after year for the last 13 years. The church exists to the glory of God. And and the best way to glorify God is make disciples. And uh so check yourself man. >> Joby, we agree. Christ told us to go make disciples. So the big question is what's a biblical disciple? A biblical disciple is a learner and follower of Christ who commits to live according to his teachings and examples which transforms our character so we live in obedience to Christ by loving others by loving our neighbors. >> Today we sponsored 30,000 children with Compassion International because we didn't make meals. We made disciples primary. >> Mhm. >> And disciples feed poor people. See Matthew 25 cuz disciples obey. 17.2 every year and that doesn't even count. We give away 10% of our operating budget at least to outside ministries. They just don't honestly the critics just don't know the Bible. >> So they pick a verse here there. >> Joby, this sounds amazing. 10% of your 91.1 million a year in revenue is 9.1 million plus your 17.2 million to compassion and international equates to 26.3 million a year in missions and more. Houston, there is a major problem. The financials stated on the podcast are mathematically impossible. It's not even close per the 2025 financial statement. So either the 2025 financials are wrong or Joby and his friends misspoke. Nowhere does it state almost 20% of their budget goes to Compassion International. Nowhere does it show an additional 10% plus going outside the walls of the church. Religious institutions are businesses and not-for-profit public businesses need to be ran with full transparency and external accountability. So what leadership says confidently on podcasts like this is proven in the management of donor funds and assets reflected properly in their financials. Until then, as the Christian apparatus continues to become more expensive while selling the name of Jesus, corruption, mismanagement, and abuse within the machine will only continue to tarnish its reputation. I've got a follow-up video for this dropping tomorrow. It's a banger cuz it asks Joby and 11:22 and all Christian leadership out there, one very straightforward question. So, the banger video with the one very straightforward question was apparently never posted or was posted and taken down. So, he talked about the follow-up video, but then when I went back to his page as I was preparing my notes for this, it looked like there was a video or two that were missing. I really don't have any idea what that's all about. So, I don't know that he ever posted any big hurrah thing to Joby or to everybody else. But, this this video is just egregious. It is so egregious because he's again he's kind of making more of a claim. And then he's like, "Well, either their financials are wrong or they misspoke." The word he wanted to use was lie, but he knew that that could get a little pnikity for him cuz now we're getting into the liel territory, right? But as I'm watching this video, it's like he doesn't know how words work. So again, he sets up this whole big long thing where he basically says without saying, which is kind of his emmo, that the church of 11:22 is playing shell games with their finances. He talks specifically about the $17.2 million to Compassion International uh international figure that Joby quoted on that Deepen podcast. So now just as a side note, I thought that Joby should have been more explicit whenever he was on uh Deepen in his rebuke. I think he should have named Nathan Appfell in the religion business personally, but that's not really Joby's style. I mean, whatever. He's not a pastor, you know, or I guess he's a pastor, not a podcaster, right? So, I kind of get his approach, but I would have obviously gone about it a little differently. But as soon as I watched this video, I just start busting out laughing. Like it was just ridiculous because this guy is trying to create this drama around these claims. Again, this one was a little bit more pointed and he kind of finally sort of makes these things finally these claims. And then he puts figures on the screen as if they're evidence, but then it's like he forgets that he has to use words to make sense based on that evidence. Because anyone with a functioning prefrontal cortex that is attached to their ability to hear would have heard what Joby actually said. He didn't say that the church of 1122 sent 17.2 million to compassion international every year. He used the word we to describe the 1122 members and you know many of whom were created by the work of church of 1122. They became disciples there. It's the members of the Church of 1122 that gave what total $17.2 million to Compassion International and do so on an annualized basis. He never made the claim that the church members donate it to the church and then the church just acts as an intermediary and then donates to Compassion International. He never said it. Again, Joby says this basically from stage every week, but the church of 11:22 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. That's their entire reason for existence. Because of that church, and we'll get more into some of these numbers here in a little bit, a bunch of people have been turned into disciples of Jesus Christ. They have discovered their relationship with Jesus Christ. They have deepened their relationship with Jesus Christ. And because of that, they have become the hands and the feet of the gospel around the globe. And one of the ways that they do that is they donate their personal money to ministries like Compassion International. And somehow someway Nathan Appfell just missed that entirely. And guys, to be honest with you, I think that calls into question his journalistic credibility because there there's really only two explanations for how he missed this. One, he literally just completely missed the point of a very simple argument that Joby was making, which hey, we're all guilty of missing the point sometimes, even when it's obvious. Or the second thing is is he purposefully missed the point so that he could make the point that he wanted to make a point that was not made or based on the evidence. And either way, it makes me question any claim that he has made on previous videos and in his seven-part docue series because if he's incapable of understanding and picking up on very very clear points, what else has he said that is baseless? And one of the core things about Nathan Afel and the religion business is that they seem to be very very concerned about numbers. And look, I'll admit I care about numbers as well. So, here are some numbers concerning the Church of 11:22 that I think Nathan Afel needs to reckon with and that I'm pretty sure he's unaware of. And all this information is public. It's in the annual reports. It's in Job's like vision statements that he does. He could have found all of this if he had chosen to dig even just a little bit. So, let's start with that Compassion International stuff. So, the members the members Nathan of the Church of 1122 sponsor around 30,000 compassion kids. That is more than any other church on planet earth. And second place is not close. So that means that because of the disciples at the church of 11:22, over 30,000 children around the globe have food shelter education clothing and medical care. And beyond that, one of the things that uh this money allows them to do is they're actually planting churches in the areas where they're serving these children. So these children and their families are getting the most important thing possible to a human being, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, let's go to some other stuff that you can see again from the 2025 annual report for the church. You can find it online. It's super easy. 4,335 salvations, 3,89 baptisms. And by the way, I would assume that both of those numbers are trending up significantly for 2026. They haven't released the numbers yet, but I'm assuming they're trending up. Just during beach baptism a couple of weeks ago, the church baptized 2552 people in one day. In one day. Again, I love numbers, so let's keep the train moving. The church of 1122 has planted 779 autonomous churches around the globe, and they have a goal of totaling 875 by the end of this year, the end of 2026. They have 952 defined disciplehip groups with close to 10,000 participants. And those are just the numbers from last year, so I'm sure those are way higher now. The church funds 85 full-time long-term missionaries that are getting the gospel to the ends of the earth. They had 843 mission trip participants in 2025. They have campuses in 16 different communities with two more launching in this this year 2026. And I don't have the exact numbers on this, but I know for a fact that there are thousands of children, thousands that attend their services every week. And they have thousand of thousands of youth that go through their kids and student camps every year, every summer. Now, let's talk about some numbers that have to do with the pro-life cause with protecting the unborn. So for years now, the Church of 1122 has partnered with First Coast Women Services there in Florida to fight against abortion and to care for their moms, to care for their kiddos, to increase fostering and adoption, all that kind of stuff. So during the 1010 life, which was uh the 1122's 2-year initiative that I wrapped last year, some something like that. First Coast Women's Services, they decided to do an estimate of during that 2-year period because of 11:22, how many babies were saved? that because of the donations that came directly from the church and then the donations that came directly from 1122ers those are different things Nathan and because of the volunteers most of whom were just church members these were not 1122 staff this is what first coast women's services estimated that 4,123 babies were saved from the abortion procedure I'm getting chills just saying that just think about that which makes me wonder how many babies have been saved because of the religion business. Now, I know that's a a loaded question. That's an unfair question, right? Because if that's not the focus of your ministry, you can't be evaluated based on something that is someone else's mission, right? But 11:22 can draw a direct line between what they do as a church to the saving of human lives. Same thing's true for Undon Life, right? I help out the Hope Pregnancy Center that's here in Oklahoma. Uh we hope to announce something soon that will help lead to a bunch of lives being saved because of our generous donors and because of where we've decided to focus as a business. So how many people has he saved? How many babies can he say that he has saved because of what he do what what he does day in and day out? And also Joby and the church of 1122 were integral in getting amendment 4 struck down in the state of Florida. So estimates are that because that was struck down by Florida voters, a lot of whom attend the Church of 1122, around 40,000 babies every year will not be slaughtered and sucked through a vacuum tube into a trash can via the abortion process. 40,000 babies will not be aborted on an annualized basis in the state of Florida. So Joby and the Church 1122, they were so integral in this process that they were given the William Wilburforce award by Florida Family Voice. Again, Joby accepted it individually, but he immediately went to his church and said, "Y'all got this." Right? I was a spearhead. I was a shepherd, but y'all did this. So, back to my original question. Did Nathan Appfell and the religion business expose Joby Martin in the church of 11:22? Did they shed light on him and the nefarious dealings of his church? No. Not even close. And here's the thing. It goes back to the scripture that I quoted from the very beginning. Proverbs 18:17. And the one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him. And in the social media world that we live, the sound bite world, you have someone that gets on Instagram, makes a two or three minute long video, people repost it, they share it around and it's like, oh my gosh, this guy must have a case. He's using, you know, flowery language and he's making these accusations and he's got these pie charts that pop up on the visuals on the video and then he has this consiliatory tone, but then also a little bit of snark in there. And man, this guy seems believable. And here, I'll just be honest with you guys. Here's a little peak behind the curtain. So, everything that you've heard up to this moment was recorded on Sunday afternoon. Okay? I figured that Nathan Atfell did these three videos and then he decided for whatever reason to move on to somebody else or something else. So, the last 30 minutes or so of what I recorded on Sunday afternoon, which was yesterday, I'm recording this Monday. To be honest, I was giving Nathan Afel in the religion business the benefit of the doubt. So, I decided in that video to take the posture of assuming that his motives were pure and, you know, pure for the most part, I guess. And I was doing my best to try and help him redirect his attention and redirect his energy at people and entities that are being fraudulent, that are being immoral, that are being sinful. And I actually ended the video with an invitation for Nathan Adfell. So, at the end of my original video, and I didn't pass this by Joby or his staff or anyone in 11:22, I assumed that they would make it happen, but I I don't know that for sure. I offered to fly Atfell to Jacksonville to do a sit down with Joby. So, I offered to pick up the tab for his flight and hotel and even pick up the tab for dinner so that he could sit down with Joby manto man one-on-one and clear the air. And I even, you know, made a joke. I was like, "Hey, I'll pick where y'all are going to have dinner so you can't complain about how expensive the steak was or whatever." But I I just wanted him to get there in person. But then on Monday morning, Memorial Day morning, on a day where women and children all over this country are lamenting the fact that they have to spend a federal holiday without the presence of their fallen soldier, sailor, airman, or marine, Nathan Afel decided to post this video. >> This video today is uh for Joby Martin and the church of 11:22. I am in Florida. It is warm. Yesterday was Pentecost. Uh we went to a Catholic mass to celebrate Pentecost. Uh it was awesome. Well, that's one thing that that I like to do is when I travel, I like to just visit any type of church, whether that be charismatic, non-denominational, uh Methodist, Catholic, uh Orthodox, you name it. And I would encourage everybody else to do that, too, cuz it's it's a fascinating experiment when you get outside of your denominational structure, cuz then you get to experience kind of the kaleidoscope of Christianity. I'm about five hours from you right now. Uh I have a podcast tomorrow, but I would gladly sit down with you, Joby, for a public discussion and so we can talk about all things hunting ranch, thrift store, church, wood, buying acquisition, God, Jesus, salvation, the role of a pastor, you name it, I'm down for it. So consider this my public hello uh anytime over the next couple days. And after I saw this video, my posture and my read of Nathan Affell, the religion, business, and their motivations changed entirely. So, in my original video, I said that I think that Nathan Affell got, you know, 5 to 10% of the story and then just kind of filled in the rest with his imagination and decided to run with it. Okay? I said that he had taken so many shots in his career and hit so many targets that he was bound to shoot and miss at some point and that he had clearly just shot and missed when it came to Joby Martin and the church of 1122. And I posed the question of whether or not I agreed with Nathan Appfell and what the religion business is trying to do. And in that original video, I said that in general, yes, I do agree. I did that under the assumption that Nathan Atfell's motives were pure. I said that if you were to look into his work and the stuff that he does with the religion business that you would actually come away similar to how I had thrilled that he was going after the people he was going after going after the likes of Kenneth Copelan who is literally a wolf in sheep's clothing. You got Paula White who's a nonpastor, right? I can't believe she's got Trump's ear. You got Brian Houston and Carl Lince who are disqualified former pastors. You got Robbie Zacharias who allegedly was a tremendous sexual deviant while he was still alive and had almost no accountability around him. and he goes after many, many other people, right? So, he's attacking and exposing things and people that I have also attacked like I don't like celebrity Christian culture. I think when pastors insulate themselves from true accountability, especially lead pastors that don't have elders, they don't have an elder board, but they have a board of directors that they actually fill in with their best pastor buddies from around the country, right? I think that's a big mistake and it leads to sin and corruption for sure. I I still stand by that. I hate the idea of churches being run by a cult of personality of the lead pastor. So, as long as the lead pastor is funny and engaging, then the church continues to grow even though there's no gospel in their message, right? And I originally said that I loved that he was seemingly trying to fight against people in ministries like that. I also posed the question about whether or not I believe Nathan Afel's heart is in the right place. I said that I couldn't possibly know for sure because I don't know him, but that my hope was that his heart was in the right place. But the video that he posted on Monday morning tells me just about everything that I need to know about Nathan Appfell and his motivations. So remember, I originally was offering to set up a one-on-one meeting or dinner with him and Joby, but Affell is not interested in that. In that video he posted on Monday, he said that he would gladly sit down with Joby, but his next words give us his real motivations. And to be honest, I missed it the first time I watched the video. First time I watched the video, I was like, "Oh, that's he's in Florida. That's interesting. I wonder if they're going to connect." Then I'm like, "Wait a minute." What did he say? He has no interest in a one-on-one sit down. In my original video, I talked about how they should sit down with no cameras, no recording devices, no assistance, just two men talking through their opinions and their differences. But that's not what Nathan Atfell wants because what he said next, which was this, that he wanted to sit down for a public discussion. So he wants Joby to sit down with him with all the cameras, with all the lights present so that he can try and trap him, so that he can try to like corner him, right? To make him look like a fool, so that Nathan Afel can create more content, and so that he can do what he ultimately wants to do, which is to further his grift. So he doesn't want to clear the air with Joby and see if they have common interest or common cause, because he won't be able to monetize it. And he ends the video by saying, "Consider this my public hello." Well, here's the interesting thing. Nathan Athell fancies himself as a journalist right? Do you want to know what one of the most common things in journalism is? When you're going to do some sort of expose or story about a particular person or organization, you reach out directly to that person or organization and you ask them for comment. This is something that you do directly, not publicly. You just do it directly first at least. Nathan Afel has not done that. He has not called the church of 11:22. He did not email the generic inbox. He didn't try to find a contact on LinkedIn. He didn't send a single DM. It's because he doesn't actually want to get to the bottom of what's going on at Church of 1122, if there's any there there. Because I bet you Nathan Afel inherently knows that if he were to get the full picture, as I elucidated by going into all the details that he got wrong in his first three videos, it would completely undercut everything that he has said publicly up to this point. And he just can't have that. If he genuinely wanted to meet with Joby Martin, he wouldn't be pulling, you know, uh, the call out and putting it on Instagram. I mean, it's not hard to get in contact with the Church of 1122. It's a few clicks on their website, right? He could have coordinated this via email and probably actually gotten somewhere, but instead he's trying to virtue signal by putting out a public plea that he knows for a fact will not get a response, which is actually what he wants. Like remember, you know, when I was talking back on a previous episode about these people that appeal to this they and the secret knowledge, it was when I was talking about the crisis of discernment. I brought up former Minnesota governor and WWF uh professional wrestler Jesses Ventura. He had this show back in the 201s or whatever where he would go around. thought it was about conspiracy theories. And so he would drive up to these fences in the middle of the desert, right? There'd be this area that was like blocked off. There's a lock box. There's a little like recording device or whatever or a little communication box. And he would hit it and he'd be like, "Hi, I'm Jessie Ventur and I would just like to come inside and tour the facility." And the person on the other end's like, "Well, you don't have access. Like, we're not going to open the doors to you." He's like, "Well, I just have some questions." Right? Like that that's kind of his thing. And then, of course, he would not gain access to the facility. And then he would, you know, drive down the road a little ways and then he'd put the camera out on the side of the road and he would kind of say,"Wh won't they just let me inside? It's clear that they're hiding something." Right? That was his whole thing. That was the entire show is they must be hiding something. But let me just put you in a scenario. Let's say someone came to your house. They came to your porch and they rang your doorbell and you opened the door and you said, "Hey, hi. How may I help you?" They said, "I demand to be let inside. I have some questions for you." Well, if someone were to do that at my house, I would probably respond like, "I need you to get off my property. I need you to get away from my wife and children if you would like to stay physically intact, right? And you would do well to do the exact same thing." That is not the time nor place nor scenario to do your questioning, right? But Nathan Afel put this out there because he knew the church would not dignify it with a response. So maybe by the time this comes out, but certainly at some point this week, he's going to do another video. Well, hey, I was in Florida for a couple of days and I put a public announcement out there that I would like to sit down with Joby Martin and they didn't respond to me. I wonder why. I wonder if it's because I exposed their LLC shell game or because I exposed Joby as a charlatan or because I blah blah blah. He's going to go ahead and do that thing. He's going to claim victory even though he's got nothing to prove victory at all. He's done nothing other than make himself out to be a fool. at the very least a terrible journalist. He doesn't even ask for comment. He doesn't do apparently a modicum of research beyond the stuff that's just basically on the surface to quantify or qualify or dignify everything that he's saying as truth. So is Nathan Afel's main goal with the religion business to actually create more accountability for churches, for ministries, for pastors so that the bride of Christ can be preserved and protected? No. Now, I could have made that argument before he posted this video on Monday morning, but that's clearly not the case anymore. I originally said that I think Nathan Appfell has taken so many shots, as I said earlier, hit so many targets, he was bound to shoot miss, and that he had just flat out shot and miss as it pertained to Joby in 11:22. But now, I don't think he was even trying to hit the right target. He wasn't trying to strike the bullseye. He was trying to strike a nerve. He wanted the church of 11:22. wanted Joby to do a public response of some kind to his nonsense claims. They wanted him to work it into a sermon, work it into a deepen podcast, work it into one of his guest spots, all those types of things. Nathan Afel was trying to strike a nerve so that he could drive clicks and drum up more content for season two of the religion business. And guys, for a man that seems to be so focused on financial governance inside of churches, he seems to be completely okay with making money for himself. So, let's talk about season one of his docue series, The Religion Business. So, one of the things that I find really interesting is that you cannot access the religion business docue series for free. Hm. That's mighty interesting. If you go to the religionbus.com, you can spend $19.99 for it on Apple TV, $19.99 on YouTube movies. Not to be outdone, $19.98 on Amazon Prime Video. Save that penny. You can also make a donation to the Religion Business website and watch it for $14.99. Or you can donate to a couple of other places that he is directly affiliated with and access it. And he's going all over the place on all these different podcast advertising that they're working on season 2. They got season two of the religion business coming up, which I'm sure you'll only be able to access if you pay for it. So, I guess my question is why does he get to trade his time and talent and work for money, but pastors don't? It's an interesting question, right? He also has a store on his website where you can spend 60 bucks on a hoodie and 32 bucks on a t-shirt and you buy coffee mugs and all this stuff. And I've ran stores before and I'm assuming that those prices by those prices that he's making a decent profit. There's a decent margin on those. So, why should he have the right to profit off of a merchandise line? Also, he's currently in the process of trying to get his fledgling app, Broken Shepherds, up and going. So, here's the thing about free apps, right? There's nothing that's actually free about them. So, if you're not aware of this, I just you it's kind of easy to surmise, but if a tech if a tech company is giving you an app for free, this is what it means. The application itself is not the product. You are the product. You are. So, you know, those terms of service, that box that you have to check before you can basically use any app on your smartphone, embedded in those terms of service that no one reads, is the allowance for that company to use, bundle, and sell your user data. Guys, how do you think all of these companies that make free apps come to be valued at millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions or billions of dollars? How are Bible apps that can be accessed for free run by companies that can build enormous multi-story office buildings to house their staff and pay for everything in cash? How do you think that happens? And here's another complicating factor. Nathan Afeld publicly claims to not be a huge fan of capitalism. So, here's actually a quote from his recent appearance with Tucker Carlson. I would actually argue, and this is a bold statement, uh, the Democratic Republic is the greatest government experiment in the history of humanity. I I I would >> I've enjoyed it. >> You enjoyed it. Yeah. So, we enjoy it. We love I love America. You love America. >> I do. >> Capitalism should not be anywhere near Christianity. You think >> Christianity is more and I don't like the word socialist with the with the the weight it carries but Christianity and it's is socialism at its core >> non- athoritarian. >> It's it's a it's the marker to build social capital. You look at that early church of acts and it transformed Rome within a couple hundred years the greatest superpower of its time to where Constantine was like I'm a Christian hanging out with these dudes. They had no money. They had no buildings, but somehow the love of their neighbor transformed the greatest superpower of its time. That's dangerous. Christianity is socialism at its core. So, this is absolute nonsense. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this, but I do need to respond to what he said. There's a tremendous difference in what we see described about the early church in the book of Acts and socialism. The biggest difference is that the Christians in the early church were voluntarily giving of their personal capital and property to aid the local body of believers. I mean, we see a derivative of that with the church of 11:22 voluntarily giving of their own personal capital in order to support compassion kids. That is in no way, shape or form reflective of socialism. Now, he doesn't really like the stigma of the word socialism. you know it comes with a lot of baggage but there's a reality and it's because socialism has a definition and comes with a lot of baggage. So a very basic definition of socialism is that it's an economic and political system in which the means of production. So think you know energy, health care systems, major industries, factories, natural resources that kind of stuff they are owned or controlled collectively rather than primarily by private individuals or corporations. So think about it in a nutshell. Ultimately, production, resources, and wealth should be used to benefit society as a whole, not just for the benefit of private entities for the reasons of profit. Okay? Now, that sounds pretty amazing, doesn't it? But here's the reality. There's nothing voluntary about socialism. The socialist government confiscates property and profit. Socialism does not create money. It can only take it. And here's another reality. Socialism is just communism light. Like socialism is communism without guns and balls. And the only way for socialism to work, because we've heard, oh, it hasn't worked right. They haven't done it right yet. The only way for it to work is if it is enforced. And all of the enforcement mechanisms are ultimately at the threat of a gun. It starts with just changing tax policy. You know, we're just trying to spread the wealth around and we're trying to make things more equitable. and won't you just be reasonable and give us more of this money? But eventually it lands with you behind prison bars guarded by people with firearms. And again, Nathan Afel and his business partners stand to make a lot of money varist system if they are successful in their business endeavors. I guess we're just really not supposed to notice that. I can't help but think about how rich, no pun intended, it is for AFL to chastise people for making money off of the church when he himself is profiting off of the church by making it the target of his work. He thinks that you can't be in an entity or represented by something for that long without being consumed by it, right? The machine, the system or whatever those things. What is he doing? His coverage of it, he lives this day in and day out. Can he not be consumed by this same machine? And in my original video, I posited several questions that I think he should answer, like whether or not pastors should be paid. Shawn Ryan thankfully actually directly asked him that question during their interview and he just skirted the answer. He just went back to his normal line about I don't think you can be in a system long enough or for, you know, for your entire career and make money off of a system without being consumed by it. You'll notice that's not actually an answer to the question, but he should answer that question. And if they should be paid, how how much? What is the appropriate amount of salary that a pastor should make based on the size of their congregation and the tenure that they've been there? What's the maximum size that a congregation should be? How much should pastors be able to keep of their book sales or their book deals or the profits that come from that? Should they be able to get paid to go speak and preach at other places or conferences? How much real estate is it okay for a church to own? Like, he should be able to answer these questions. He probably won't, but he should be able to. But honestly, guys, he's not interested in any of those questions. I don't think any of those questions actually apply because I don't think he would even suggest answers to those simple questions. I think that he wants to tear down the bride of Christ. In my original video, I posed the question of whether or not Nathan Afel is a net positive for the church. I said in that video that I and you know I maintain it now with even more fervor that no I do not believe that he is a net positive for the church because the only reason he's getting any publicity or attention right now is because we live in a postcoid post2020 world where institutional trust is at an all-time low. I'm just going to tell you I I think people that hate the church and hate Christianity overall love the work that this guy is doing. And I also think that the odds that his efforts will positively reform the church pale in comparison to the odds that Satan will use Nathan Afel's efforts to drive people out of the church and keep non-believers from the church. That seems way more likely. And here's another thing. It seems pretty clear that Nathan Adfell really enjoys operating with absolutely no accountability. like he's so incredibly concerned about holding pastors and ministries and churches accountable, but he is not subject to accountability himself because it doesn't look like he's the member of a local church and he's not submitted to the leadership and authority of a local shepherd nor a group of elders. So why does he feel like he is exempt from accountability and oversight from a shepherd and elders? He did some video where, you know, he had kind of been called out on this to where it's like, "Hey, where do you go to church? Like under whose authority do you operate?" and he goes, "I'm under Christ's authority." So, he's just kind of doing this tongue-in-cheek thing. But here's the reality is the the we are commanded to meet together as the church. And so, for me, Undaunted Life is not affiliated with any denomination and it's not directly subject to a specific local body of believers or a specific shepherd or elderboard. But Kyle Thompson, me as an individual, I am I am subject to the authority of my shepherd, Pastor Mark Hitchcock at Faith Bible Church in Edmund, and the elders of that church. And if I do something publicly that is immoral or sinful or damnable, then they can do some corrective action with that, and I can be put under church discipline because I'm a member of the body. And look, some people, you know, that hate the institution of the modern church will point to, you know, early churches not meeting in big buildings. You know, Nathan's done that. But what they neglect to realize is that those early churches weren't meeting in big big public buildings because Christianity was still outlawed in the Roman Empire. It was only after really the conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity that Christians were able to gather in large groups in public without threat of violence, which required that they gather in much larger spaces. Does that mean that we all need to go to churches that are in 40,000 or 50,000 square foot buildings as opposed to someone's living room? Like, no. Doesn't mean that at all. But it certainly doesn't mean that you can't and that you shouldn't attend a church that just so happens to hold service in a large building. And I can only speculate here, but I'm assuming that Nathan Afel doesn't submit himself to authority, the authority of a local shepherd or elders, because I'm pretty sure they would call into question his tactics and his moral authority to make claims about the bride of Christ. I mean, from where does he derive his moral authority to make such claims? So, if you go to Internet Movie Database, because this guy, he's created stuff that's that's put out there in kind of the film, the small screen world and all those types of things. He's on there. And in 2014, he directed and wrote a film called Chicks Dig Gay Guys. So, the film was about a guy that was pretending to be gay so that he could ingratiate himself with straight women and then eventually take advantage of them sexually. So, this film again that he directed, I've not seen it because apparently there haven't been that many people that have seen it. It's incredibly graphic. Lots of nudity, lots of sex scenes. Again, even the subject matter is deplorable and despicable. Now, to be fair, for all I know, he wasn't a Christian back then, right? That was 12 years ago. Maybe he's embarrassed that he was part of that project. Maybe he's become a Christian and he's like, "Oh man, I wish I had never done that." But the project is still tied to his name. Does he stand by his work that he did there? Should I be happy and satisfied that he is making moral pronouncements and judgments on pastors and churches when he himself has used his time, talent, and effort to produce pornographic filth? And just to think about how lowbrow is again, you're appealing to the lowest common denominator. You're making a film that's all about sex. It's all about deception. And you make sure to put a lot of boobs and sex scenes in there. And even because I'm assuming only two or three women have ever seen this film, but for the dozens and dozens of men that probably did, this is like a 3.5 out of 10 on Internet Movie Database. And it's like you put all the stuff in there that that audience is supposed to like and even they thought your film was terrible. And also I think if Nathan Appfell were submitted to the authority of a shepherd and elders that he might be challenged on what he thinks the best way to make and grow disciples is because he seems to be very concerned with how other churches make and grow disciples. Again, he doesn't seem to be a member of a local body of believers. So how does he go about evangelism? How many people have been turned into disciples of Jesus Christ because of his ministry work? Does he even think it's possible for a big church with a big building, a big parking lot to effectively evangelize and then effectively disciple those sheep? I mean, this goes back to the a lot of you heard the story, but Joby and I first met uh because his publisher reached out because of his first book was coming out at the tomb is empty and you know, we traded numbers and all that and then a few months later he just calls me out of the blue and the first words out of his mouth is, "Hey dude, what's your problem with big churches?" And I just so happened thankfully to be in a great mood that day. I'm like, "Whatever do you mean, kind sir?" And he basically said, "Every time you talk about big churches with big parking lots, you just have this assumption that disciplehip is not happening there and you're just flat out wrong about that, man." And in that moment when whenever I would, you know, normally have a, you know, some sort of ego like, "Oh man, you don't understand, blah, blah, blah." I was like, "Holy crap, he's right. He's right." That is what I was communicating. Now, I didn't mean to communicate that. That's not how I actually felt. But then whenever I looked into my words and really reflected on what I was saying, I was like, well, yeah, any reasonable person would come to that conclusion because the size of the building does not determine whether disciplehip is active and happening because it can happen in a big building, medium-sized building, or an arena. Disciplehip is something that can take place. But I was just painting with too broad of a brush, something that Nathan Adfeld does all the time. So here's what I think all this boils down to. I think that Nathan Appfell and the religion business have two main goals. The first is for the United States government to remove the nonprofit status and protection of churches. And the second is for he and his partners to become mega rich. So let's go back to the first one. For the United States government to remove the nonprofit status and protection of churches. So the roots of churches having taxexempt status go way back before the United States of America. Okay. So if we go all the way back to medieval Europe, churches were generally exempt from taxation by their local magistrates and local government because they were seen as being under the authority of God more so than their local king or ruler. And so also the churches acted as stabilizing institutions for the surrounding society. The churches served a very important function in society because of public charity and public morality. In the original American colonies, they carried that same ideology through because they knew that churches would and did care for the poor, that they would educate children, provide community order, reduce the financial burden on the local government to do stuff and just basically they would work out from there. And these things still happen today. Churches provide massive social benefits. churches all over America. They establish hospitals. They create food banks. They provide foster care support, disaster relief, counseling services, education, addiction recovery, assistance for the homeless, prison ministry, all kinds of stuff. And just look at the sociological data. Everywhere where the church is free to operate and does what it's supposed to do, you know, the hands and the feet of the gospel, there are lower crime rates. There are stronger family stability structures. There's more charitable giving. There's higher volunteerism. The communities are cleaner. Right? It's just a better place to exist and live. And then we have the first amendment. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Now, that is not where we get the concept of, you know, separation of church and state. So, that was from Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptist. The phrase separation of church and state does not appear anywhere in the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights. And here's what most people neglect to realize with that concept. The fear was not that the church would infiltrate the government. it was that the government would try to infiltrate and control the church. So essentially that they would try to dominate religious institutions. And that really is the biggest argument here. If a government can tax churches freely, then the government will have enormous leverage over religious institutions. And the taxation never actually stays financial, does it? Because the government can burden churches with regulations supervisory and conditional control. they could even start to enforce their own top- down ideology onto the church. Talked about that a little while earlier. And another critical point, the federal income tax did not even exist until the ratification of the 16th amendment to the constitution in 1913. So what was happening before that? Before that time, churches were already widely exempt from property taxes and other forms of taxation. So this idea that churches were later given some sort of special carveout is nonsensical. It's not based in reality. So if Nathan Athell and his partners got their wish, which would be to remove the tax exempt status and protections of churches for the sake of transparency, there are some incredibly negative downstream consequences of that. The government would try to exert even more control over religious institutions, especially if Democrats were in office. We may actually be seeing that coming down the pike in 2026 and then in 2028. Most small churches in America would have to close their doors. They wouldn't be able to make their budgets work. And this would mean that the only churches left standing would be the churches that Nathan Atfell hates the most. The ones with all the money, the ones with the donor base, the ones with the real estate, right? And most pastors would actually cease to become pastors at all. Now, I would hope that Nathan Atel realizes this, but the majority of pastors in America do not make a very good living. They they make typically below what the medium income is for the area in which they represent and reside. like some of them are on government assistance, many of them work side jobs or full-on second jobs in order to make ends meet so that they can continue doing the work of ministry. And that seems to be what Nathan Afell wants. He wants that to happen. And the second thing I talked about, the second main goal and motivation is for he and his partners to become mega rich. So everything that Nathan Adfell in the religion business is doing, the docue series, the podcasts, the interviews, the social media posts, it all circles around the same drain and ends up in the same place, which is ubiquitous use of their Broken Shepherds app. That's what all this is for. That is the target that they need to hit in order for all of this to be worth it. And look, I'm a mega capitalist. I love capitalism. Capitalism is literally the best system ever invented, best financial system ever invented because it incentivizes talent, hard work, and literally there would be no middle class without capitalism, right? And if Appfell and his partners create a big app that does good work and people like to use it, then in general, because I am a capitalist, I think that they should make money. I think that they should be compensated for their time, talent, and work. Also, one of the amazing things about capitalism is that we can root for the success or failure of companies based on our feelings towards their motives. We don't just have to be agnostic about their motivations because we like or don't like their product or service. And with that said, let me be clear. I personally, and I believe that all of you should root for their downfall. You should root for broken shepherds in the religion business to fail, to go belly up. We should root for them to bet the farm and then lose because it's clear at this point by the public meanderings of Appfell that they don't really want reformation. They want people to use their app and there just aren't enough people doing it right now. and they're happy to use Sean Ryan and Tucker Carlson and all these other people that are going to help elevate their profile to try to get more people to use their app so that they can bundle the data and then sell it. So, let's be clear, Nathan Afel is a conscious nefarious actor. He's not an evangelist. He is an activist. He's not a reformer. He's a grifter. So, Nathan, I call on you to repent. I call on you to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. And I would like to remind you that in the future, you will give an account to God for every word that you have spoken and deed that you have done. Thank you everyone for listening to this episode. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five-star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@undded.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook. And check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming. www.undaunted.life. The music on this podcast is the song Conqueror by the Christian metal band Void Awaken. Be sure to stream their music on Spotify, Apple Music, and wherever else you get your music. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah. Heat. Heat.