1/10/24 - 2024: A Pastor with No Pulpit

Jim: You've tuned into iWork4Him, the voice of collaboration for the faith and work movement.

Martha: We are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg, and our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Well, let's find out right now.

Jim: You know, as Christians, we get caught up with titles. In Christianity, we tend to celebrate the title of pastor, pastor's wife and missionary above all other titles. We, in fact, put the name pastor in front of the name of the person who preaches on Sunday.

No other profession does that, except for maybe doctor. I sold insurance for a number of years. Nobody said, hello, insurance agent Jim. They just called me Jim. I think however, instead of being caught up with the title, we should focus on the role. A pastor's role in a believer's life is very important. We all need a shepherd in our life.

Maybe more than one. Some of us are a little more difficult than others, but have you ever had a pressure washing pastor? Today we're going to talk with Joshua Brown from pressure washing pastor. com. Pressure washing pastor. com. We're going to hear his story and how he's training up pressure washing pastors nationwide.

Joshua Brown. Welcome to iWork4Him.

Joshua Brown: Yeah, that was a beautiful job. Well done. I love the introduction.

Jim: Tell us a bit of your growing up story and then we're going to hear your Jesus story.

Joshua Brown: Yeah, absolutely. First, thank you guys for even having me on with your viewers today and I'm honored to be here.

But with my story, it's a, it's a little bit of a long one. I know we only have a few minutes to, to maybe look at it, but for my story, I like to start off with my mom because it plays a huge role in who I am today. Is it okay if I start there? And so at the, at the age of two, my mom was adopted from Kalamazoo, Michigan into a house in Madison, Tennessee, which is right outside of Nashville. It's kind of a ghetto area in Nashville. There's a Hooters in her front yard, basically, and a Waffle House in her backyard, if you've ever been in that, that area. And some people when they're adopted, they have a great story with a mom and dad who love them that may have not been able to have kids, but my mom did not have such great luck.

Her mom was addicted to pain medication and alcohol, which, if you've ever met anyone that was in an addiction like that, it completely rewires who they are, where they're not even processing properly. And then her dad would go off to prison by the time she was 13 for the things he was doing to her inside the home.

So to say my mom had a tough upbringing is maybe even an understatement a little. And then by the time she's 15, she gets pregnant by a 21 year old. And when he finds out that she's pregnant, he tells my mom at 15, I'll pay for his abortion, but I won't be in his life.

I don't know why she made the decision. You know she made the hard decision. She said, okay, first, and then a week went by and she said, I can't kill this thing that's in me. She gave me life, and we grew up on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee. We lived in projects, government housing different dudes that she would live with.

We'd move around from place to place, cars, fellowship halls, different spots over the course of time. For whatever reason, today I'm a little bit emotional telling this story, so just bear with me. By the time I'm 17, I'm a drug dealer, pothead, high school dropout in Winston Salem, North Carolina which makes a lot of sense. When you don't have a father figure growing up, you really don't know who your identity is.

And when you grow up poor and on the streets, you usually get connected to the people who accept you or who you sit at their, their lunch table. And for me, it was you know, those who might listen to Dr. Dre, Eazy E, Snoop Dogg, N. W. A. Those were my mentors growing up. Gangsta rap music, things you probably haven't, you know, listened to a whole lot.

But for me, that was my, my community and my, my system of who I looked up to be. My mentors or father figures were people that were far away because I didn't have anybody nearby. And by the time I'm 19, I get in a really bad car wreck. I'm following a friend of mine. I'm about to smoke up before going into work.

I had a friend named Pookie. He, he was driving a 3000 TT Stealth, taking a left on a yellow light. And I followed him taking, running the red light, but there was also a, a Ford Ranger that ran the light from the other side. We met in the middle. Two wheels came off the car, looked like a banana. And it was inside of the neighbor's yard.

And I remember sitting on the corner, looking at my car. I denied medical attention. I had, you know, drugs in my system. And I remember just looking at my car and looking at the faces of people that were looking at my car. And they didn't know I was the guy that was in it. And from that moment, I believe God started speaking to me.

And it was, it was specifically inside of a Tupac Shakur song. A month or two months later, I would be driving around. And I would just have God reminding me of that image of that picture of this lady looking at my car and kind of just nodding her head. And this is what God was speaking to me. If I died in that car wreck, I was making an impact on nobody's life. My life was meaningless.

Within about a month or two, I end up showing up at the last night of what's called a revival service. I don't know if they have those anymore, but back in the day, you'd have week long revival services, and then you'd invite people that were far from God. And I showed up on the last night of revival, and I sat there in the back with my girlfriend.

And I heard the Lord speak to me. He didn't say that you're an idiot. He didn't say I'm a loser. He didn't say I was going to hell. The only thing he said was, Joshua, I love you. And at that moment, I looked at my girlfriend and I said, I wish the pastor would quit preaching, open up the altar, so I can give my life to Jesus.

And he finally quit, and he, opened up the altars, and I went down, gave the pastor my pot, and God my heart. And that was at 19 years of age. And that began the story of, of my journey. Went back to school, got a GED, pastoral ministries degree, Christian counseling, served for 22 years in the church.

About six years ago, opened up a side hustle. And that side hustle now has become my new ministry. So that's a quick overview, and I think I took up more time.

Martha: That's so powerful, because I can only imagine that we have listeners that, you know, they think, there's just so many questions that they ask about where they're at in life and to see what we're going to walk into this conversation together.

I want the listeners to stay tuned, but you've, you've shared very intimately where God brought you from and we're going to talk about what He has you doing now that is making such an impact. And, you know, I love that you, you know, you were questioning, you know, if you had died that day, What would the impact have been? And now, God is using you in a mighty way, and we're going to talk about that a little bit.

Jim: And I wanted to know what kind of car you were driving.

Joshua Brown: I had two vehicles at that time. I had a Jeep Cherokee and I had a Honda Prelude. And back in the day, Honda Preludes, especially for teenagers, were super cool. It had 5 percent tint, 4 tins, mids, tweets. It was dropped, and I was pretty much a gangster.

Jim: So that's what you were driving that day?

Joshua Brown: Mm hmm. A Honda Prelude, yeah.

Jim: Yeah, because if you'd have been that Jeep, you'd have rolled. You wouldn't have gotten bent in half. But the guy with the 3000 GT? Yeah, they were great cars.

But the story, I am grateful that you just took time to say, you know, Jim, I'm going to do it this way. Because every story is unique, but God specifically rescued you so that you could introduce Jesus in one of the most creative ways that we've uncovered in the country, and we're going to talk about that next.

But first, as we talk about 2024, we know that it's off to a great start. It's just begun, but we're excited for what God has in store for each one of us. And we're, and if you're ready to kickstart your year and focus on being transformed by God, I encourage you to get a copy of our book. iWork4Him.

In fact, with any size donation to iWork4Him, we'd love to send you a copy of the book for free. Go to iWork4Him.com/donate and put the book title in the notes when you donate. And thanks for joining the movement. We'd love to have you walk alongside us as we walk alongside thousands of others around the country.

Martha: So Joshua, you said that you were inside of the church for 22 years as a pastor. What transpired? Where did this idea come from for you, for a pressure washing pastor? And, and then how, how did that unfold?

Joshua Brown: Well, it's not as, as simple as like a, a letter in the mail or a phone call from God. I would say it would have been a journey.

My Ministry experience rolled from seven different churches over the course of that 22 year period. And although I had many good experiences, I want to keep in light the fact that I was a, a radical kid far from God who God saved. And I signed up. I basically went to the pastor when I was 19, and I said, I want to be discipled.

I didn't know that was the word, but I said, hey, what, what do I need to do now? Like, how can I live? And I didn't necessarily need to be sent to a Bible school, but it seems like that's what my journey landed me on. It was almost like you either go to Bible school or you become a missionary. And within a few months, I ended up teaching Sunday school class and then going to college and then I got hired. And so I think after 22 years of ministry I started to feel like I didn't sign up for small groups, service teams, attendance, tithes , events. And I have felt like - and I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with those things. I love the church. We're part of a great church - but it felt like for me that I was this radical kid that gave his life to Jesus, I just wanted to be a disciple so I could make disciples.

And I ended up finding myself just running events and programs and it just became, I didn't sign up for this. And I started thinking about how would I provide for my family if I wasn't inside ministry anymore? And so I actually Googled top five businesses to start for 5, 000 dollars or less. And I wasn't about to start taking pictures of people's cats, but

Jim: although you'll see now that if you'd have done that on Instagram, there are 5 million pictures and videos of people's cats.

Joshua Brown: Yeah, I would have been rich and doing it on my own, you know, if I did, but pressure washing was on there. And a friend of mine started a pressure washing company and he was, he was a pastor as well. And it was kind of like a side business for him. I went and worked with him for a half a day, and he made more money than I had ever seen in four hours - legally.

He made like 800 bucks in four hours, and I was like, dude, I've got to deliver pizzas and work for Uber, you know, all week to try to make 800 bucks. And so, that is where the pressure washing came in, is I was like, I can provide for my family through pressure washing if I wasn't in ministry. And so I started to test it and I opened up a side business in 2016 after church camp and we used high school students and some college kids and I just started growing the business. We did two hundred and twenty five thousand in 2017 over four the next, over seven hundred the next, and almost a million dollars in four years. And after four years, which took me to 2020 of December I ended up leaving vocational ministry. And at that time, I didn't know that I was still a pastor.

I left ministry thinking I was no longer a pastor. And so when you ask the question or your listeners say, Hey, pressure washing pastor? What's that? Well, I didn't know that there was a thing to be even called a pastor. I didn't know you could open up a business and be a pastor. I thought pastors were limited to the pulpit that you had to have an ordination or you had to go to college.

And it was, it was a journey. But six months after leaving ministry, I was in a secular venue. It was called the BBB, does not stand for Better Business Bureau. It stood for bourbon, BS, and business. I don't drink bourbon. I'm Nazarene background. I try to always tell the truth as best as I can.

But business was something that I needed all the help I could get because I didn't have a business background. I had a pastoral background. Well, inside that group, they ended up saying, Hey, that's the pressure washing pastor right there. So they nicknamed me. And when they said that, I said to myself, I didn't say it out loud. I'm not a pastor. I left ministry. I'm not a pastor anymore.

About a year, year and a half goes by. Last year, God said, Joshua, I want you to do for others what I've done for you. And I'm like, well, what does that look like? Well give them a brand, a blueprint and coaching and call ministers into the marketplace through pressure washing.

And then it's like, well, should I call it? Well, pressure washing pastor. And I'm like... that's weird, you know, but I started reading these books that were written by shepherds, pastors and I come to find out that pastoring is not a vocation, it's a calling that God puts on different people's lives.

And for many people, I believe we're all called to pastor in some sort, whether it's your, your spouse or your children or your family. It's like who's not called to guide, to lead, to protect, provide? Like, is that not the role of a shepherd? And so, for me, I came to the conclusion that who I was, was who I was, wherever I was.

And it didn't stop because I was no longer employed or working at a church, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Jim: Oh, it makes a lot of sense. On this show, we talk about that all the time, Joshua. As we talk about there's no tiers in the kingdom. There's no special dispensation just for pastors and missionaries.

That we all have a calling. We all are on the same team. We're all on the same level in the kingdom, but we all got different giftings. And there's no biblical basis for, well, that's a long story in a very large soapbox, but to say that you've been given a pastoral spirit and you're now applying in the pressure washing industry is no different than somebody that used to pump gas at a gas station or somebody that digs ditches for the, you know, power lines.

If you've got a pastoral spirit, it applies no matter where you go. We met an air conditioning guy years ago who said, you know, I worked in a church for 25 years, but I do more ministry today as an air conditioning repair guy than I ever did within the four walls of the church. So it's fantastic that God released you and unleashed you on the marketplace.

Martha: And I love to hear how, I mean there's there's so much to your story. But you talked about the growth and how year over year you've seen it expand, and you know, that you're ministering to the people that are working with you and the people you are working for.

And a lot of companies, they set goals and they set missions of what they want to accomplish by the work that they do. There is a company that we love that has done just that, and that is Patriot Mobile. And they are the only Christian conservative cellular company with a focus on faith, family, and freedom.

And Jim and I actually recently switched to Patriot Mobile, and we have great coverage. And we love knowing that our monthly bill helps support our values. In fact, when you use PatriotMobile.com/iWork4Him, you directly support the work of iWork4Him and you help more believers see their workplace as a mission field. So, listeners, I just want to encourage you today to switch today by going to PatriotMobile.com/iWork4Him. That link will be in the show notes and you can know that your dollars are actually going to follow your values.

Jim: Same service, same towers. Usually less expensive, or at least equally, but your money is going to places that are making an impact.

Joshua, in this last segment of the show, really want to just take time to tell people how they can get involved. What the process is like to get involved with Pressure Washing Pastor. How they can become a Pressure Washing Pastor in their town. I mean, just, what's the process look like? I mean, you've been doing this now for a few years.

And you've just, you've just unleashed a few weeks ago, a video that talks about this. What's the process? Tell me, tell me where God's got you now heading into 2024.

Joshua Brown: So March of 2023 was the first time that we revealed that we're going to be turning this into a franchise or a licensing relationship. And so this is very new. And so I went to Exponential, which is a church planting growth conference in Orlando in March. And I put up a little booth and I was voted the most interesting looking booth there. It said, Pressure Washing Pastor and people would come and just stare at it. I wasn't, you know, selling children's curriculum.

I didn't have lights. It wasn't music. It wasn't anything that they were really used to seeing. But what was interesting is that the missionaries from other countries would come and say, this is normal in my country. That every pastor has a side hustle or a business. And so what I really feel like is that we need to call more people who love Jesus, mission minded, kingdom minded believers into the marketplace and use it for the purpose of creating jobs, making disciples and serving the city.

And so if anyone was interested in learning more, I've got a great video on up flip, which is a video that just came out in late 2023. That shares my story for Brown's pressure washing and then actually go to my website at pressure washing pastor dot com.

There, you can see a little bit of what we've done, what we're doing, and how you can get involved. And then there's an application, and our applications are very much like a church planter's assessment to decide whether or not someone would be a good candidate. And then we end up, you know, finding out that they're qualified to be able to open up in their city.

Martha: You know, I just love this concept. I've said for years to Jim that, you know, we send missionaries with the business as mission model, where they're going to go have a job and, you know, they're going to, they're evangelizing, but they're discreetly disguised as a you know, leather maker or a, whatever their job is, accountant, whatever it is.

And that's really what you're doing, is you're saying, I'm intentionally sending you out as a pastor under the outfit, under the equipment of a pressure washer with that mentality. And that is how each one of us should be actually approaching our each one of our jobs. But I love the intentionality behind that.

And I believe that there are listeners today that are saying, Huh, I could get behind this. I love this approach. And you really have nailed down what it takes to make it happen, having that kind of an application. That's more of the mindset and the character That's beautiful. So I love it.

Jim: Joshua, I got a couple questions So first of all, so pressure washing can be done when it's above freezing. Otherwise, you're creating snow Well, it's true. I tried it. You know, I mean, I've been on ski hills and that's what they do. They take a pressure washing head and put it on a big tall pole and they blow it out and it just creates snow.

So what do you do in the off season for those people that live in Northern climates?

Joshua Brown: Yeah, you can get creative and find some other services to offer. But when you're a farmer, it's good to sow in certain seasons and reap in other seasons. And so if you enjoy hunting, maybe you do some hunting, maybe you're recovering and resting a little bit, spending more time with your spouse, your kids, because In the warmer seasons you can be so busy that you don't have as much time or as much balance And so I like to use it for time of rest and recovery and then also planning for marketing and scaling and planning out your next, your next move as you grow and scale your company. And build relationships. Really the the whole concept of a pressure washing pastor is - It's not about the pressure washing.

It's about building relationships with your community that you're in so use the winter to join some different business groups or some community groups and get to know your property managers, contractors, real estate agents. That's what you do during that time.

Jim: You quit your job as a pastor to go work in the marketplace to support your family.

Most people in the marketplace think they need to quit their job so that they can have significance in the kingdom, so they could go work in ministry. Talk to those people who think they need to quit their job, so their job makes a difference.

Joshua Brown: Yeah, whether you need to quit your job or not might be a different question, but when you think about an impact, I want to point you to maybe two or three different pieces of Scripture.

One of them is in 2nd Corinthians 5 18, where it says that those who have been bought by the blood of Christ or have been reconciled by the blood to God through Jesus has entered into a ministry of reconciliation where it's as if God is making an appeal through us to others to be reconciled to God and he's given this ministry of Reconciliation. Check it out there and just spend some time between 18 and 21 of 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

It's a beautiful piece of scripture that basically says that anybody that's been reconciled to Christ is now called to be a minister. It's not limited to a role or to a document or a piece of paper or to an organization. It is a, it is a imputed upon us as those that have been called children of God.

And then I want you to think about when Jesus was, was looking at his disciples on the shore. and they're inside of a boat and they're trying to catch some fish and Jesus ends up yelling out and saying, hey, throw your nets on the other side of the boat. There's a lot of churches out there catching a lot of fish and some of them aren't catching any fish anymore.

Why don't we start throwing our nets inside of our community, inside of our jobs and start catching fish in other places? Instead of just always thinking that it's limited to a church. And so you can do it, spend some time in the Word and you'll see that God wants to use you right where you are, not necessarily where you have to go get ordained or start teaching a Sunday school class, which those things are excellent to do, but man - to live out a missionary lifestyle seems like it's the whole point of being saved to begin with.

And I wish someone would have told me that at the beginning, is that I could be a business owner. I could be a teacher. I could, I could be a janitor and be a pastor. It doesn't, it's not limited. It's a calling. It's a ministry that God has given us to reconcile all things underneath the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Jim: I love that. But God showed you. Yeah. You know, the great commission we've, we've had it interpreted in English, translated in English to go ye, therefore, or however you wanna put it, it's always go. Whereas in the actual Greek, it means as you go and you have figured that out with pressure washing pastor.com as you go, pressure washing pastor.

Pastor your community. Joshua Brown, thank you so much for bringing PressureWashingPastor. com to iWork4Him, for sharing your story, and for inspiring thousands of future pressure washers to come serve the Lord through cleaning up their city. Love it, Joshua. Thank you.

Joshua Brown: Amen. Thank you for having me as your guest.

Jim: You know, there's so many wonderful believers out there living out their faith and work and creating podcasts to share their stories. How do you find them? Go to one place, awakenpodcastnetwork. com, awakenpodcastnetwork. com. Check out the network that we've created to make this easy for you to find faith and work podcasts all in one place.

Over 150 podcasts gathered in one place. And to subscribe to some new podcasts for you to listen to in 2024. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers, our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him. ​