Creating a Lasting Legacy Together – Interview with Troy and Shantel Brooks

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That’s E-V-R-E-E, and you’ll automatically get 10% off your order. Visit marriage after god.com/every and get 10% off your order today. Hey everyone. Welcome back to Know the episode of the Marriage After God podcast. Uh, today’s conversation is with Troy and Chantel Brooks. They’re the founders of We Are Sparts. What’s awesome about the name Spartans is it’s a mixture of spouse and partners. They love talking to marriages about working together, being partners together in a business. And so we talk a lot about that. Um, but the main theme that you’re gonna see in this episode, in this conversation that I have with this lovely couple who loved God, is that they f they stopped finding their value. They stopped finding their identity in what they were doing and what money they were making and where they lived and what status they had. And they started finding it in Jesus Christ. And after they started doing that, God started to shift and guide and direct them into what they’re doing now. And so I just hope that you enjoy this conversation I have with Troy and Chantel Brooks. It’s an awesome one, and I pray that, uh, it encourages you to draw closer to God and closer to each other, and to recognize that your identity is in Him and Him alone.

Hey,

I’m Aaron.

And I’m Jennifer.

And we’re the host of the Marriage After God Podcast. Our desire is to help you cultivate a marriage that chases boldly after God’s will for your life together.

We want to invite you to subscribe to our show wherever you watch or listen.

We are so glad you’re here, and we pray that our discussion truly blesses you and your marriage.

Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast,

Troy and Chantel Brooks, welcome to the Marriage After God podcast. I’m so glad to have you guys.

Thank you, Aaron. Thanks for having us, man. We are excited to be here.

Yeah. I think, um, the most appropriate spot to start would be to allow yourselves to introduce your who you are and a little bit of your background story and your marriage and how many kids and what you guys do so that my audience can get a little, get a little bit background on you guys.

Yeah. Yeah. Wanna kick

It off? Yeah, sure. Uh, so we are Team Brooks, uh, AKA Sparts spouses who are business partners. Yeah.

I like that name by the way. <laugh>. Thank

You. Thank you. Uh, God definitely bless this guy with

It. Yeah,

Yeah, yeah. Uh, but I’m sure we’ll talk more about that.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, so we are childhood friends. We met in middle school or junior high school. Yeah. Back in New York. New York.

Mm-Hmm.

<affirmative>. And we have been friends since. Uh, we each had our own individual journeys, um, both in our faith walk in our personal lives. Yeah. Professional lives. Um, but, um, 10 years ago we got married. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Uh, we were not, we were just friends and, you know, we’re just friends for a long time. Yeah. In our late twenties we reconnected. Um, got married, <laugh> and um, and we have two children. Sage in Phoenix. Uh, a little puppy dog. Oh, she’ll. Seven girl, baby girl. But she’s a little miniature schnauzer. And we are, um, in both the ministry and marketplace

Space. Yeah.

Uh, we do have our business, the TV effects. We are content creators. Yeah. Uh, we’ve been able to partner with brands worldwide, um, leveraging our platforms, our lifestyle, our family, uh, to truly help, uh, brands tell stories about, um, whatever it is that, that they have, as well as just bring our faith to life. And so we’ve been able to, um, make more than $500,000 in our content creation business and bring partnership deals. Um, and then we also have Sparts, which is our, um, our

Ministry. It’s our baby. It’s our

Ministry. Yeah. Our ministry business. Um, and that is where we work with couples and connect couples who are really curious about trying to do it together, work together, ministry life together. And they just don’t quite know how we help equip them with tools. Um, we are authors. We just released our first book, SPARTS, discover the

Value. Congratulations.

Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you.

Discover the value in your spouses business partner and enrich your marriage. This, this, uh, in summer of 2024. Yeah. Um, and most recently, uh, we are,

We are a pastor.

We’re a pastor. It’s, it’s still new to say.

Yeah.

Um,

I’m a guest experience pastor at Hope Chur. Um, hope I’m a guest experience pastor at Hope Experience Church. And she’s an associate pastor of what? Discipleship formation

Next steps,

Next steps, all yeah. Communications.

Yeah. Wow.

It’s been beautiful. You guys got a lot going on.

We do. We

Do. We

Do. We now have, we do men’s ministry, women’s ministry stuff going on. So, uh, we’re excited. We love to serve the Lord. Um, and we’ve just been so grateful about, um, grateful for how God has just used us as vessels, our mantra as a vessel to truly help enrich and empower, um, and bring the word and the gospel to other people.

Yeah. I I just say like when you, when you hear all this, when the audience hears all this, all the things we’re doing, it’s like we’re in a season where we’re, we’re not new believers, so to speak. We’ve, we’ve had, you know, years in the church and doing things, but God has truly just renewed us and we are just on fire. So we’re doing all these things ’cause we’re on fire for the Lord, and we’re on fire to let people know about his grace, his mercy, and the gift of salvation and how amazing it is to seek him. And how everything in your life will be whole and you will feel full. And any void is voids that people are just trying to fill with all the junk and all the things that society is pushing. Hmm. Nothing can fill that void, like the, the love of Christ. And it’s, we just wanna point people in his direction. So we’re on fire.

I love that. This is gonna be a great conversation because especially in a, in the, uh, every time there’s like recessions, you know, inflation goes, it gets outta hand, money gets tight, paychecks get tight. All these things. This is when, uh, people become entrepreneurs. <laugh>, this, this is when people are like, how do we get a little bit extra income? So it’ll be good to talk about this. ’cause I’m sure there’s a lot of my listeners that are trying to figure this out, trying to, they have their, their nine to fives Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And they’re trying to get some, do something together or even separately, but, you know, bring in a little extra income. So it’ll be interesting to talk about some of this business aspect, aspect of things that you guys are doing.

Yeah.

Um, which I’m assuming it didn’t, like you just said, a lot of things, it didn’t start that way. It didn’t start with like, you had all of this stuff. It was like a, it was probably littler steps, I would imagine in the beginning. But before we get into that stuff, I just wanna, it’s pretty amazing. It’s rare these days to find people that not only have been married 10 years, that, that’s sad to say, but that’s a, a rarity these days, um, to, for marriages to get that far. So congratulations on that. Thank

You.

But you also knew each other from childhood. Was that from school, from family? Like, how, how did you guys know each other? I just wanted to ask about

That. Yeah. Junior high school, Parsons Junior High School. Woo woo. Wow. Shout out to Queens, New York. Yeah. Um, we just, we’ve been friends since that time. That’s, that’s how we got to know each other. How that’s how great God is that he divinely orchestrated that. And we were able to look at where we are now. And even just point back to how he’s kind of had his hands on us and our marriage and has been anointing it even far before we knew because we didn’t like each other. I thought she was always beautiful, but she was taller than me. She just, I just, I just, you don’t even think about it. It just wasn’t a thing.

Is she still taller than you?

No, no. I got her, I got her As she puts on the right heels, she’s a little taller than me. And I’m okay with that. ’cause then I got my nothing wrong with that supermodel wife. So it’s awesome to have all of that. But, um, yeah, that’s, that’s when God put us together and we just grew and keeping in touch for years and years to come. And then, uh, I want you to tell this part of the story you tell our, she tells our, our love story really

Well <laugh>. So, um, yeah. And I’ll try to make it quick. Um, so, so yeah. So he, uh, we both were friends for a long time. Um, and he was involved in party promotions.

Mm-Hmm.

<affirmative>, uh, for New York City nightlife, and used to always invite me. I was definitely your party girl. You could catch me out on the weekends.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, and, uh, and so he would used to invite me and I’d always just like say, oh, next time, or just brush it off. Um, and then one day, um, you know, the emails started stopped coming or the chats, whatever they were called back then. <laugh>. And, uh, a friend said, Hey, like, I ran into Troy in la and so I was like, man, I haven’t seen him in a while. So I started to like Facebook stalk him to see what was going on in his life. And I saw that there were no other women Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. That he was, that was in his life.

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>,

Um, that he was a man of God that he was serving at his church. Yeah. Uh, that he was into fitness. Yeah. And also coaching in the fitness space. Um, that he also just loved to have a really good time, go out to eat and just enjoy life with friends. Mm-Hmm. And I said, Hmm. I’m, I’m seeing something different on him. So, come

On, God, come on, God.

<laugh>. So I asked him to train me. I did not need a train. Definitely

Didn’t need a trainer.

I said, Hey, why not? You know? So, um, so he started to train me. Yeah. And on our first training session is where we saw that I was no longer taller than him. So I was like, whoa, okay. Come on,

Come on. You got to him through his business. I like it. <laugh>.

Um, and by our, and by our second session, which he, he never did this with any other client, just to be clear.

Yes. Just to be completely

Clear, <laugh>. But we, um, we started dating and, um, and literally nine months later, we were engaged to be married. And I think our, I know, yeah. I know that the friendship that we had from our childhood is one of the top reasons that we felt so, okay. Yeah. With leaning into Holy Spirit to say Yes.

Yeah.

This is, this is the guy, this is the girl, and Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And to be fully transparent, um, you know, we each have our own individual faith walks. Yeah. Um, for me, I was definitely newer into my faith, starting like early twenties. Um, and so I didn’t have, at this age of, of getting engaged, I did not have the language, I did not have the intimacy. I did not have the knowledge, the wisdom that I now have. Yeah. Um, and so when we first, when I first looked at marriage, I just equated it to like, what my parents had. They’re still married almost 50 years. Like, it’s great. Um, but I didn’t really know the spiritual aspect, but I knew that. But I felt this, I felt something in me Yeah. That just said, you know what? This is your husband. Like, there’s no doubts about it. Um,

But his, his relationship with the Lord was something that attracted you to him.

Exactly.

Kind of like in the midst of you.

Yeah, because I was always seeking, I was seeking God. I got baptized in my early twenties, and so I wanted a man who was also involved in church and enjoyed serving people and had a heart. Mm-Hmm. Um, that, that, that was spirit led. And so, um, so I knew that much <laugh>. Um, and so yeah, that was definitely very captivating for me.

And I was like, like she said, like I was, I wanna be completely transparent with everyone. Like I was, I was a nightlife guy. I was in the, I was in the clubs. There were bottles, wor women, all the things. I was in peak shape in my life when we first got together. And I was training her, I was training her on Valentine’s Day because I didn’t want to take any of the five girls that I was dating out to dinner.

Oh,

No. Like, that’s, to be completely honest with you, this is like, I know I wanted to be with someone, but I was doing the process of elimination. I was dating, everyone knew about everyone. It was like, Hey, I’m trying to find someone to be with, so I’m, I’m dating, and are you okay with that? So that’s a gem. I was, I was telling people, I was very transparent about, um, where I was. But you know, when we, when we started to date, um, it just got God shifted something in me that led me to know, this is the person that I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. So I had to have some hard conversations, but all is fair and love and war. And, you know, if it wasn’t for God’s grace, I wouldn’t have done it. We wouldn’t be here today.

(12:47)
But again, just a testament to what he’s been able to do in us and through us. We were, we were, we were young, we were wild. I was in church. I was serving, I was doing all the things. But again, even then, I was baptized. I made an adult decision to get baptized, but I wasn’t truly seeking God’s face, his presence. I wasn’t spending time intimately with him on that level to truly know him and be known by him. I was kind of just one foot in, one foot out with my faith. Like I married her, you know, in my eyes, she’s beautiful. I’m ready to settle down. I wanna change my life. I’m looking for commitment. Long time. Like it wasn’t understanding biblically what our marriage is. It wasn’t understanding the covenant of marriage. It wasn’t understanding that through our marriage and, and we can serve God’s kingdom, we can, we can be a model. Like understanding that for some people, this will be the only Bible they’ll ever read. So when we think about moving and trying to be Christlike, it’s, it’s how we do that, you know? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I had no understanding of any of that. Yeah.

So your story is, uh, similar in some, some aspects yours? We started a little early, me and my wife. Um, I was in a season also where I was like, I’m not, you know, interested in like, you know, actual deep relationships, but I’m like, I’m gonna just spend some time. I’m gonna get to know some people, some girls. Yeah. And just, I mean, ’cause you have to give some time, you know, you gotta get to know ’em. You gotta see their personalities and ask ’em questions and, and no, and I was doing that and I was also friends with my wife at the time. We weren’t married of course at the time, but I was friends with her at the time, and I wasn’t in interested in her in that way. Mm-Hmm.

(14:26)
<affirmative>. But each one of those other women I was, you know, pursuing and talking to and, and interested in. It’s like the Lord was like, turning off this switch. It was like, no, no, no. And then it was like with my wife, he like turned it on and I was like, wait, I didn’t even see you this way before. And now I, now I’m, I’m done. I’m done with everything. I’m not, I don’t need to look for anyone else. And Yeah. Yeah. So that’s, that’s pretty cool to hear how, um, you know, when we have eyes open and we’re ready at that whole, that whole thing you just said that we’re like, I’m ready to commit. Like, I’m looking for a wife, not a girlfriend, not a, not a fling. And so, and then you, you found her. And,

And it’s

So cool that it’s a woman that you knew since you were in junior high. That’s, so I just saw that, I don’t know if you guys have seen this, but on social media, I saw this animated chart. Um, it was pretty depressing actually, but it was very interesting. It was showing from like 1950s until 2024 of like how people met their spouses. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And like, the top one by far was like family and friends. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Like, that’s how you met your spouse. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Everything else was like, almost nothing. Yeah. And then by today, it’s like online. No one meets anyone through their friends friend circles. No one meets anyone through their family circles, church circles, none of that. It’s just online, which is kind of sad. Uh, ’cause when I hear your story like this, this is how people used to

Yeah.

Connect was through friends and family and relationships with people wasted. Yeah. And affinity. The affinity of like real relationships, real people.

Yeah.

Anyway, so you, you get married sounds like, um, both of you are believers on some level. Yeah. But just like you said, one foot went out one foot in many believers are probably in that place, uh, kind of this term of like nominal Christian. Like you believe in God, you go to church.

Yeah.

You have a relationship with him. And, but you haven’t like fully surrendered

Mm-Hmm.

<affirmative> you haven’t fully stepped in and said, okay, Lord, what am I doing? Who am I? Who are you? But the, I’m assuming that that transition happened at some point Yeah. After you guys got married. Can you explain a little bit that, that dynamics of putting, you know, jumping all in, what, what was that like?

Sure. So, so yes. Um, for us, I think that like we, for the first part of our marriage, um, we really wanted to be good Christians. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, like

Do the right thing, the quote unquote good Christian.

Yeah. And so we went to church. We, we, we prayed, you know, every now and then,

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>,

Um, Troy’s heart is so hospitable and giving, like, so we were seeing the fruits of the spirit. Mm-Hmm. We had the fruits of the spirit we were living in, in the spirit, but we didn’t know. We were like, it was just who we, it’s just who we were. But we didn’t, again, have the language, our know. And so, um, we, when we had children, we would again, you know, talk about Jesus as best as we could. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, yes. As far as like what we do, again, we thought it was more like performance oriented. Yes. And we were really missing the relational component, the real intimacy. And a couple of years ago, uh, we went to a worship conference. And that, that night, uh, the first night of the worship conference, it was an amazing experience. Second day of the conference, we had to divide. He got to go. I had to stay with the kids. Um, but we were able to experience it. And by the end of the weekend, we both were in tears. Um, feeling so guilty, so shameful. So like, um, I hate to use the word like dirty, but just so, just

Like Yeah. We did, we did angry

With ourselves. We did. For being so frivolous.

Yeah.

Because we, um, were making really great income. Yeah. And just out here living their best lives. But tithing, like thou $50 a week was like, we were killing it when we were making way more than that.

If you’re making, if you’re putting $50 in autopay and you’re having $50,000 months, that ain’t ti that ain’t tied in the right way.

Yeah. So it was, it was horrible. But we didn’t, again, we didn’t, we didn’t like know better. Um, but all of a sudden,

Yeah.

Excuse me. All of a sudden after this weekend, we just realized how we need to like surrender, truly surrender and become truly obedient to God, and ask him to guide us and ask him to remove the things that were weighing us down, and to reveal the things that we, that, that we really need to see. And that was him. That we need to stop placing our value into our things, into our credentials, into our perfectionism, into our obsessions, into our friends, into our whatever. Yeah. We need to stop placing our value into all the idols that were really pulling us away from

Him. Yeah.

And, and we need to find and stand firm in our identity in Christ. And so once we, that weekend, we were just again, like, and that Monday we were like, we

Were literally, literally nauseous. If anyone knows what this, it was, it was horrible

And beautiful at the

Same time. It was, it, we were literally like mouthwatering, nauseous. And like she said, just all of our value was in such worldly possessions, literally idols. For me, it was like watches. If I put on these fancy watches, like, I’m awesome. And I like, my value was in all these things. And I kept buying things and getting things, trying to fill this gaping void inside of me. You know, when I, when I, I lost over a hundred pounds, I got the abs. I thought once I got the abs, I’d be happy. Mm-Hmm. I wasn’t happy. I had abs and I was still broken. We started making money. I thought That’d be happy. The cars, the things, all the things. And none of those things filled this void. It was only till we had this radical encounter with God that literally brought us to our knees, that we were like, okay, this is what it’s about. Lord, we fully surrender to you. And again, it’s not, nothing is wrong with any of these things. Having things is not the problem. But when the things have you, when there’s a stronghold, that’s the danger.

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

And, and we’ve lived a life full of hate. We, we’ve had it all, y’all. And guess what? It’s not everything that what you’re chasing is dangerous, but if you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all of the things will be given to you. So a lot of the things that we thought were great, that were a stronghold, God has given them back to us because we won’t mismanage. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Now we know how to steward properly. Now we know who our source is. And that is, that is what we want people to know. You know,

And I, and I just wanna add something real quickly about how, how merciful Yeah. Uh, Jesus is, is that, um, we didn’t just like walk into a random church one day. Um, we, we were we’re New York City natives. Yeah. We lived in New York for all forever.

Mm-Hmm.

<affirmative>. Um, the summer before this all went down, um, we were supposed to close on a house in Connecticut. Yep. It fell through two days before our closing date. I was eight months pregnant. We were eight months pregnant.

Yep. They had our money.

And, um, and we also had to get out of the place we were living in. Mm-Hmm. Long story short, God made it very clear that we needed to move to metro Atlanta, which is where we currently reside. And we’re like, okay. So two days later he went, and again, we didn’t have this relationship with Jesus at this time, but yet he made sure we heard him say like, go to Atlanta. It was very, like, it was wild.

So clear. So

Clear. And so he went, put an offer on a home. This is in middle of the Covid pandemic, where people were just crazy with their offers. We were not, we were, we were faithful buyers, but not, um, not, uh, competitive ones. Yeah.

Competitive.

Um, but we ended up getting a beautiful house. We moved here and then found a church that we, um, truly found Jo home in.

Yeah.

And then God started working on us. So was like, even there were announcements at church. We, we were just like, they were talking about tithing and we’re like, man,

Yeah.

We need to tithe ti better. Then they were talking about like, god’s, you know, just all the things that God’s doing and just announcements. And we’re like, man, we want that.

Yeah.

And so now come worship conference weekend, we walk in and God was already mixing, like already stirring us. He had to isolate us from where we were so comfortable. And we had community and friends and family. I mean, not to put quotation on friends and family because they are, but, but it was too much of a distraction for what God needed from us. So we truly needed

Yeah.

To, to leave. Yeah. Um, once

800 miles away from everybody.

And once we left, no. Yeah. ’cause we didn’t move to be with family and friends. Yeah. Like, no one, no one was without me. We

Moved here eight months pregnant with another baby that, you know, one that was already here, one baking in the oven, no friends, no family. 800 miles away.

Yeah. And

Only, only God.

So I, so I, I wanna just make that note. Yeah. Because for people who are listening who feel like they are teetering or they have two, you know, one foot on one row, one foot on the other. Yeah. Um, if they feel their spirit is calling them to, to move, to go. Yeah. Whatever that go is, it doesn’t have to be 900 miles away.

Yeah.

Um, but to go, or to, to get into some discomfort

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>,

Um, I encourage them to continue to prey on it. Yeah. And take that step of faith.

Yeah.

Walk by faith, not by sight.

Come on.

Because sometimes, yeah. The best way we grow is through discomfort. Yeah. And we need, and we need to be isolated.

Yeah.

Um, in order to truly hear what God is saying and calling us to do.

Well, often we, we only grow in discomfort. Absolutely. We actually, in, in comfort is when we Yeah. <laugh>, it’s when we get stagnant and our mus like, just biologically our muscles get flabby and <laugh>.

Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely.

Atrophy kicks in. Absolutely. Uh, well, I, I love about what you’re, you’re talking about is it, it highlights the beauty of, you know, you, you say, we didn’t have this relationship with the Lord at this moment, but you did have a relationship with the Lord that was him working in you. Whether you recognized it, whether you were perfectly faithful to it, you know, that God’s put His Holy Spirit in us. And what you’re talking about is a journey of maturity. You know, every believer’s got, there’s like, there’s these levels that we get to. And just because I’m, Imma like my children, like they’re my children. They’re not adults yet, but they’re my children. And they, and the level of understanding that they have in our relationship is going to mature over time as they recognize things. And then you become a, an adult, you look back and you’re like, man, my parents were Right. <laugh>. Yeah. You know, and you look back at those things. Absolutely. And, and I just, I see that evident in, in your story is that, that holy spirit continuing to work on you because you’re legitimate children of his

Mm-Hmm.

<affirmative>, you know, he says he disciplines those he loves. And that’s evidence of our ownership, that of his ownership of us. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> that his holy spirit’s in us. And so he was working in you, even though you, excuse me, may not have been faithful in certain areas or, um, listening in certain areas. Yeah. But he was still moving. And, and so you hear those little voice that that little still, that still small voice in you

(25:17)
Yeah. Or obedient to it. And then I also loved, and I just wanted to highlight this, that, um, that sorrow you were talking about that, that grieving, you were talking about that, you know, you had, you said, you called it shame and guilt, which that happens sometimes. ’cause when we get confronted with sin, idolatry, you’re talking about idolatry. Like, you know, these things in your life that you, you had Jesus. And you know, I have all these things. So here’s our identity over here, and we just, we sprinkle Jesus on top of all of it. Um, but in, in second Corinthians seven 10, it says, for Godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret. Whereas worldly grief produces death.

You

Guys weren’t experiencing worldly grief. Mm-Hmm. You know, this grief of like, oh, woe is me. I’m, you know, just terrible and nothing. And Yeah. And trash <laugh>, you know, you, you felt like, oh, what am I doing? I have this savior and he has something better for me. Yeah. Why am I holding these idols? Why are we worshiping these other things? Yeah. And that’s what the Holy Spirit’s Ministry is. And I just, I’m reiterating these things for the, our listeners to, to recognize what the Holy Spirit’s doing in your life. Because you, I don’t want them to compare their life, their story to your story.

Yeah.

Or the, you know, their, their, um, you know, mile one to your mile five. Yeah. Uh, but to listen to the Holy Spirit and say, Lord, are you trying to move me somewhere? Yeah. Maybe not locationally, but Yeah. Spiritually, like, are you trying to move me to the next step? Are you trying to get me to surrender areas of my life? And that’s literally, as the Bible puts it, as Paul puts it, it’s the circumcision of Christ. It’s Christ coming in.

Yeah.

And he and he loves you along the whole way.

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

And he’s, he’s like, well, here’s the next thing we’re going to, I’m gonna, I’m gonna, here’s the next room of your life I wanna enter into. And because he does, he, he doesn’t do it at all at once. He’s a gentleman. And he, he takes time. And imagine if he did. And to be honest, man, to to be honest, sometimes we wouldn’t even be able to see it. Oh my gosh. My table’s moving. Look at that. That’s <laugh>. That’s cool. There we go. Um, and I dunno, I just wanted to highlight that.

Yeah.

The idea of that the Holy Spirit was moving in your life and you were being sensitive to it. ’cause you’re his children. And that’s what we’re to do as Christians, is to not grieve the Holy Spirit, but to listen. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and surrendering. Yeah. And that’s something also that we need to get better at over time.

Yeah.

Over time is getting better at listening to the Holy Spirit. Do you desire to pray more for your spouse? Do you desire to pray more with your spouse? We understand that you may not know where to start, or maybe you feel uncomfortable praying, or maybe you don’t know what to pray. Or maybe you simply want to add something more to your current prayer life. This is why we wrote the Marriage gift 365 prayers for our Marriage. We desire that it would be used as a daily reminder and catalyst for you and your spouse to grow a dynamic and consistent prayer life together. This book is a compilation of 365 unique and powerful prayers that cover a range of diverse topics that every marriage deals with. You can read it alone, or ideally you read it with your spouse. Also, we hope that the topics that are brought up in these prayers would become a starting point for deeper and more intimate conversations with your spouse and a desire to seek God on these matters together. Visit the marriage gift.com today and order your copy and give your marriage the greatest gift, powerful and meaningful prayer. Visit the marriage gift.com today. So,

Absolutely. That was great. And since and since we have been on fire

Yeah.

Uh, for God, uh, we have walked so boldly in our faith. Um, we say it’s super evident when you look at, um, our social media pages specifically Troy’s, because he’s been the most public for the longest. And that is where our, our business platform stands. Yeah. Um, as creators prior to this encounter, you can see we were one foot in, one foot out. Like we never hid that we were believers, but we definitely weren’t proclaiming it from the rooftops. Yeah. And now when you look at our page specifically again, it’s like, oh yeah, these are like, you know, like we even got

Yeah. Your faith, your faith was like a subnote, right. Like, it was like

A Yeah.

<laugh>. We, we kind of even get like they’re the religious people kind of stuff sometimes. And of course that’s not what it’s about at all. But we’re putting that much of our spiritual journey out there that those that don’t understand this relationship with Christ are looking at it like that because we’re just that it’s that noticeable now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, we are not hiding. We are not shying away. We are doing our best to give him all the glory for everything we have and just be so thankful. And before, you know, it’s like you look back and you’re like, man, this was self-righteousness in it at its highest level. ’cause you know, as an entrepreneur, I’d say things like, man, I’m self-made, I I did this from the bottom. Like I got it from the mud. And it’s like, if you even look at any, anyone, even if you, if even if you don’t have that spiritual anchoring, no one is self-made.

(30:07)
Even if you started a business, someone has to approve the loan for the startup. Someone has to fund. Capital comes from somewhere, likes never just you. But in our selfishness, we, we say things like that, but it’s, it’s not so, like, for us it was like, man, we, we literally are out here taking all this credit. But again, he’s had his hand on us all this time. I can’t, I can’t afford to be one foot in, one foot out anymore when I’m this blessed and I know it, and I know the source of the blessing. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I can’t do it anymore.

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And it, and it really started showing up through our, our book. We had started writing Spartans before this encounter. Yeah. And it was very like, self-fulfilling. And then po encounter. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, we had to like re revise it

Yeah.

And put in all of the scripture that was really grounding our text. We’re like, okay, we, we keep like circle like, like beating around the bush. Like just say Jesus, you know, stop saying other things. Um, ’cause we’re very like warm trying to like, you know,

Don’t know we reach

Everybody. And so now we’re like, no, we’re speaking to believers. We’re speaking

To believers

And, and people who are curious about Jesus. Absolutely. Like, yes, this is for you too. But, um,

Yeah.

But

It’s been so amazing because literally since we, yeah. Since we said yes, gave God our full Yes. Yeah. Um, and fully surrendered since that day. God has just done such amazing things in our lives. Um, and that’s what brought us to even being

Absolutely

Real Spartans full time. That’s what brought us our ministry. Yeah. That’s what brought us this on this servant

Journey. Yeah.

Um, so yeah. It’s like, it’s like our pre and post. It’s so night and day different.

Well, this is a, a good spot to transition to that next question I had for you guys. ’cause you guys work together. You, so Troy, you’ve been an entrepreneur for Sounds like ever <laugh> forever. And then Chantel, you come into the picture, you guys have an encounter with Christ. I and it sounds like you already starting to work together before then.

Mm-Hmm.

And then God’s transforming your business perspective to like, wait, we’re gonna do this business, but we wanna do this for Christ. Just like you wanted to do your marriage for Christ.

Right.

What was that transition like, the, you know, what, what caused you guys to come together and say we’re gonna start working together? And then what was some of the challenges that came from doing that?

Well, uh, I’m, I’ll tell you, I’ll take this one on. So, um, just so we know, I’m the, that has been nagging Chantel to work with me and never to work for me, but to work with me. Um, I was running a successful fitness at that time, 2019. I was best fitness instructor in New York City, all that stuff. Great shape. Uh, building a social media platform through fitness and getting brand endorsements and deals and things like that. But didn’t really wanna get pigeonholed and marginalized as just being the fitness guy. I also think a lot of the fitness content out there gets boring. There’s only so many dead lifts and how to fix your kettlebell swing videos I can do. It’s like, what are you outside of just in the gym? So I wanted to focus on lifestyle, other stuff like how things in the gym, you know, kind of carry over into who you are outside the gym.

(33:19)
Then I became a dad. So here’s how to stay functional, fit to be a dad, how to be around with your kids and not just be the guy sitting on the iPad in the park while your kids are playing around. You know, just incorporating more lifestyle elements and not just being blocked in. Like, I wanted to show the world the wholeness of who I am as a father. And especially being, uh, especially being, uh, a black father. I wanted to make sure that I was putting out a representation of what it is to be a father and, uh, break some of the stereotypical stuff that’s out there and shatter some of these stigmas. Um, and our marriage, I wanted it to be this thing that’s like, Hey, the, the, the white picket fence home, which you think of a family can also look like this. So we just, that was like the change in direction. And we started getting more deals. And, you know, Chantel was an assistant principal, the breadwinner in our family, high six figure earner. She was our security. I was the wild card entrepreneur. And, you know, she was never thought like, I’d leave this thing for this. Like, she thought my career was a little bit of a joke until it started to, you know, you’re always on your phone. Like, what are you doing? I’m like, I’m doing stuff right.

Yeah.

And, um, you know, I, uh, she was helping me with one deal one day, and I was like, look at these camera angles. Look at the amazing stuff that you’ve done. Like, if we work together, this can be amazing. And at this point, like, you know, career shift for her, we’re down here. She’s, we are making enough money to come down here off of what I’m doing is starting to get serious. But she’s at that point wanting to do all the things. She still, she still comes down here like, I’m gonna figure out my own thing. I’m not joining you. I’m gonna be a doula or a trainer or a vending machine owner, or the other 10,000 things God help me. That I had to allow her to explore, um, before she decided to join me. And when she joined me, I’ll let her tell this story. ’cause I love eating up every moment of her. Realizing that realization moment of being a content creator and owning that business is so much more than just setting up your tripod, taking photos and videos and texting people. So, Mm-Hmm.

<affirmative>. Yeah. Keeping it. Yeah. Um, yeah. So, and so, like, just to be clear, I was in education for 15 years doing a whole sort of things. Um, and God made it very clear to me that the, that was no longer the season he needed to serve in. Yeah.

(35:38)
Um, again, I didn’t have like the language, the relationship, but that stirring of the spirit, it’s like, okay, I can’t fight this anymore. Yeah. And he made it so he made it so clear Yeah. That it was time to go. So when we moved down here, um, I again was all about like me, like, okay, well, okay. He took me out like, God, what do you want me to do? So I’m praying, I’m reading all these purpose driven life books. I’m just like meditating. I’m like starting to freak out a bit because I’m giving myself a timeline. I can’t be like, not working for Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> a year. So we gave ourselves, um, well I gave me a timeline. Yeah. And he’s just like, work with me, work with me. I’m like, no, I’m gonna do my mommy blog. Yes. Work with me, work with me. No, I’m gonna be my own influencer. Yes. Work with me, work with me. Like, no, I’m going to, and one day I’m sitting trying to do my thing.

Yeah.

And I realize, and I look, I look over and I see him playing with our, our little one, our baby. And I’m like, man, like this is kind of the same thing as what we’ve been experiencing the last 10. Like, I don’t even know how many years. But however, all these other years that we’ve had kids, it’s divide and conquer. It’s me and my silo, him and his us taking turns shifting. Okay, now it’s your turn to be with the baby. Now it’s my turn to be with the baby. So you could do your work. Okay. I got this meeting. Well then I have this meeting and, and I, and I, I just had this overwhelming feeling and thought and revelation that like, this is not what you’re supposed to be doing. There’s no longer, uh, I can’t no longer just like, have it be me and my thing. It needs to be our thing. So, um, so I told him, I said, you know what? Let’s, let’s give this a shot. I’ll work with you <laugh>. And, um, and wow. It was, it was really amazing because I mentioned nothing wasted before. Um, but when I was a child, I studied, uh, TV and radio production and got really good. Like, I loved production. I love taking videos, pictures. I love editing.

You did this as a child?

Yeah. I went to an awesome magnet school in elementary <laugh> Wow. In New York. Um, it was awesome.

Yeah.

And, um, and then studied it in undergrad before I shifted to education. Yeah. Um, but nothing

Wasted. But

It brought back, when we talk about this in our book, it, it reignited the passion that and, and that that I had as a kid. And, and I know

That like, there was something, there was something dormant down there that God.

Exactly.

Yeah. Whoa, whoa.

And I came to life. Yeah. And I was like, Ooh, this feels good. And then I also had to apologize to him because I def like, when I worked, it was so clear. I would have my work papers and like Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> pencils and computers. When he worked, he was just on his phone. And, and as he said, I really just didn’t respect the hustle or the work. And now that I was on it doing it with him, I had to apologize and say like, wow, I’m so sorry. And my appreciation for what he had to do from start to finish of a campaign to negotiating, to pitching, to, to looking at contracts. Contracts. Like, like not the fun stuff that you see front end, but all the back stuff is like 90% of the

Work. Yeah.

And so, um, oh

Yeah, I do all that. I get it.

Yeah, exactly. You get it, you get it, you get it, you get it. And I didn’t know. And so, um, so it just really built such a love appreciation, um, and appreciation for him and what he’s done, and now also for what we do. Um, so yeah.

Chantel, were you?

Yeah, man, I still, I still love to hear it because she, she thought we were, she thought content Issa was the joke man. And then she, she, now that she’s in it, and another thing that I’ll say is that like, I wanted her to work with me because I was, I was lonely, man. Like, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know, you know, most of my friends work nine to five traditional jobs. Like, they don’t have the autonomy that I have to just go have lunch whenever I want or pick up the phone whenever I want. So it’s like being able to get with people in the middle of the day, do things like, you’re just lonely. And a lot of people just like Chantel didn’t understand or respect what I was doing professionally. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And you feel alone, you feel lonely. You know, I don’t have a bunch of content creator friends. So when she joined me, and, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re negotiating contracts together. We’re going over stuff. We’re strategizing campaigns, we’re having meetings, we’re going out. We had this outdoor office that we created where we’re hanging out and having business meetings, setting up our hotspot in random beautiful places. We’re having awesome Mexican rooftop restaurant lunches, just doing things together that just felt amazing that we would’ve never been able to do.

You didn’t just gain a partner. You gained a friend.

Exactly.

Mm-Hmm. Yeah,

Exactly. Yeah. Reignited, you know, the friendship is there. But when she was working her job and, you know, I was doing my thing, she spent more time at her office with people that are getting to know my wife better than me.

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>,

You know, which is why we have the T-shirt. My work wife is my real wife, or my work husband is my real husband because like now I get the ability to spend time with my best friend. And over the years we’ve been able to peel back layers and truly get to know each other the way we feel God is intended. We spend the most time together. I know her strengths. I know it’s her area’s opportunity. The same for me. And now we’ve built this strong chemistry and dynamic that doesn’t just work well within our work environment, but a lot of the things that we do in business have carried over to have carried over to how we lead in our home. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> how we communicate effectively here. How we strategize, how we visioner, how we parent our children. The same way we have business meetings, we have family meetings the same way we have, you know, call times, we have dedicated prayer times on the count. Like we have things like we move with structure and organization and organ, like organizationally, you know, and we model, you know, some of the best organizations in the world, not, you know, and people like, you wanna work with your, you wanna run your marriage like a business. Yeah. Why do you think that’s a bad thing? It’s just what some parts of it for sure. <laugh>, what models are you following? You know?

And, and God has just been so, so gracious to us again, because he is really allowed our time of working together to almost be a, like an expedited of getting to be closer to one. Yeah. You know, like we’re all about really becoming one with your spouse. Yeah. And if you both are working your own, doing your own thing all day for most of the week

Yeah.

Then yeah. Like, is it possible for you to be ha have a strong relationship? Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Can you get, like, can you learn how to conflict, you know, um, resolve your conflicts more efficiently? For sure. You know, like your Yes. Will your intimacy build stronger, like a strong connection over time? Yes. But when you work with your spouse, it’s like on an accelerated mode,

Right? Yeah.

And

Yeah.

And for us, um, I say God’s been so gracious to us because he’s really allowed all this time that we have with each other Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> to really strip away at our egos to strip away at, um, at, at still the idols that we were still like

Fighting

To let go of, um, to strip away of the false narratives that we’ve been telling ourselves about ourselves.

Come on

To strip away from the baggage that we had Yeah. From the, the triggers and the traumas that we had had from working with others or even Mm-Hmm. Or just working, um, in different experiences and atmospheres. And so we’ve had to really deal with a lot of conflicts. I know you mentioned like something about like, how was that? Was it easy? Uh, not, you didn’t say easy, but, um, but it, we didn’t just like jump into having all these awesome Mexican, uh,

Meetings. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mexican restaurant meetings. We, it took time and, but because we are both so focused on Jesus

Yeah.

Um, we knew that what he was doing within us was necessary.

Absolutely. Yeah.

And so before, when I was the passive aggressive arguer, when I was the one who would just be like, I don’t wanna talk about this and just be gone to avoid it, um, I now am like, okay. mm-Hmm. I gotta sit here and listen. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and, and communicate. Yeah. I have to share how I feel.

Yeah.

Because we not only have to do this because I know God has this call on our marriage. Yeah. We have an assignment, but also we have a project due. We gotta get this done, so we

Gotta get done.

It’s helpful. It was very helpful for us to, to be able to like leverage and optimize both of these, these worlds of like, we know we need to do this for Jesus.

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Um, and the worldly thing of like, you and you have to like fulfill a deadline.

Mm-Hmm.

<affirmative>

Also helped us work through it and let go of the things that didn’t matter. Smart.

So

Easy. Yeah. I just wanna point out to all my listeners ’cause there’s probably a, a bunch of them that don’t work together. You know, either one’s a stay at home mom or dad, and then you have the Yeah,

Yeah.

You know, or maybe they both have nine to five jobs.

Yeah.

Um, but what you’re talking about is exactly the point of our marriages is like, so you could have separate jobs, but you still have to come together. And everything you’re talking about is the thing that we should be pursuing that unity, that oneness instead of like, I have my thing, you have your thing. And then sometimes we come together for things that we have together. No, no. This is our life together.

Yeah.

We are one.

Yeah.

And all everything you’re talking about Yeah. Like that expedition, you know, coming together to work together.

Yeah.

It reminds me of my, so my wife and I, when we first got married, months after we got married, we went to Africa to be missionaries for four months. And we lived in a, we’d literally slept in a four man tent for four months. Wow. And I always tell people that you, you grow like three years of marriage, <laugh> in like four months. You go sleep in a tent with your spouse. Right. Right away.

Yeah.

And you’ll, you’ll have like three years experience of, of

Yeah, absolutely.

Conversations, arguments, dis disagreements. And, but like what you’re saying, you, you come together to work together and all of a sudden you’re like, oh, we gotta, like, there’s some things we gotta work on how we communicate. Yeah. We gotta work on how we, you know, negotiate together. We need to work on how, you know, we solve these problems. Um, but that’s so true. Chantel, I just had a question for you. Um, because it’s, I would imagine it was a very difficult thing to transition to make that choice to step away from who Chantel is. You know, this is my identity. I am this educator, I am the breadwinner, I am all these things. You, you, you’ve said so many things about what you were pursuing, which were all commendable and like amazing things to, to accomplish. But you felt the Holy Spirit saying it’s time to change what you’ve identified as. Right? Yes. Was that, um, I’m a was that a painful process? Did it feel like you were in some ways losing something to transition to what you are now?

Yeah. What a great question. Um, and we actually talk about this too. Um, because so many people, women specifically, um, can feel like they’re losing a piece of their identity or what they’re supposed to be doing to just like, surrender and be submissive to their husband and just help them do what they wanna do. And like, my time will come. Um, so for me, I, I was anxious prior to committing. I definitely was worried Mm-Hmm. That I would be losing a part of me. Yeah. Um, and that I’d be missing the mark on my purpose of life. I put so much pressure on like this, this season. I didn’t see life as seasons. I saw like, this is the one thing I’m supposed to do forever. Mm-Hmm. Um, but, but once I was, but once I allowed Holy Spirit to truly like, reveal to me that my identity is within him Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And, and, and in my identity of Christ, I know that I am, I’ve been assigned to Troy and him assigned to me and our marriage. Just like I have, I have an assignment through our marriage. Like our marriage has an assignment to fulfill God’s work here.

Yeah.

In this,

It’s a ministry. Amen.

And so it wasn’t about what I’m losing, it was really about what I’m gaining. And so what I saw once we started working together, I was like, whoa, I’m, I’m, I’m gaining a, now a partner who values me, who sees me, who, who acknowledges me, who, who knows how to use my strengths. Yeah. Who knows how to communicate with me. Who knows when I’m taking on way too much and can just say like, your bandwidth can’t allow for that. No one in my office was doing that. Yeah. My office folks here

Do this. Yeah. More, take

More. No one was like really being so, you know, you try to compete PC in the office space, but he knows how to communicate to me, with me the, the most. And so, and, and, and for me in these spaces that I valued so much, um, I was always looking, my value rested in how other pe what I could do for other people. My performance, I was very like performative. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, I needed to have all the credentials, the degree, the things. Um, but with us it was so different. It’s like, okay, like God has called us Yeah. To work together for some reason. Yeah. And then he made it very clear shortly after that, once we, he made our marriage go from good to like, great and literally like Hmm. So quickly.

Yeah.

Because I was forced to, to communicate, to connect more, to become more intimate, to reveal my vulnerabilities to Troy. Um, and from there was when we heard like, now you guys have a mission. Yeah. You guys are supposed to help other couples realize that there is a value within any, within both of you to, to, to work together. Um, to be fruitful together. Yeah. To glorify me and to help your community. Cool. And so, um, so yeah, so it was a long answer to your question. I, I, I was anxious about what I

That’s a good answer.

But once I leaned in, I, I also learned that I gained so much. Yeah. And quite honestly, the things I lost were the things that, um, that actually were the idols that I thought mattered so much. So Yeah. I lost my title, but guess what title I have now?

Yeah.

Like, one of the best titles ever, which I think is a child of God. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, um, is a servant leader. Yeah. Is a proud wife and spart, you know, and someone who is not afraid to, to spread the, the word. Come on. And so I’ll take those titles any day over like, assistant principal of whatever Mm-Hmm. Or you know what I’m saying? So, um, well,

And, and what’s gonna be left, you know, I think about the, the parable of the, the servants and what, how they’ve built the homes. Like one built with straw, one built with,

You know. Mm. Yeah.

You know, and what’s gonna be left of, uh, you know, our legacy, what’s gonna be left of our life when we’re standing before the Lord one day? Is it gonna be like, look at, you know, this career I had, look at all the money I made, look at all. No, it’s gonna be, you know, how did we walk out our faith? How did we love, you know, as a husband, as a wife, as a father, as a mother, that, like, those are the things that we can bring into eternity. Because at the end of the day, I, I saw something about this. The only, the only people that, the only things that we could bring into eternity with us are people. It’s people. That’s it. Nothing else.

Yeah.

And so, what, what’s more important than, than the gospel and trying and doing everything we can in our life to not just present it in our marriage, you know, in the way we interact with each other and the way we work with each other, and the way we raise our children. But then also that me, that outward message from our home of like, you know, how speaking to our communities, our, our neighbors, our friends are the business associates when we’re doing business, as the Bible says, do everything as unto the Lord. Like whatever it is, you put your hand to do it as unto the Lord.

That was good, man. You think about you, you just went this way. And before you went this way, you talked about in order to go up and Mm-Hmm. What we always say is like, in order, we believe that in order to go up, that in order to go up there, we have to go out here. Mm. God has called us to be in good rela and right relationship with him, to love deep and live why with his people. And if we wanna have that great relationship, and we want to go into the, the kingdom of heaven and have those, those inherited treasures, kingdom treasures, it’s going to be how we steward and how we love and live and live deep.

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>

And live Why with his people here. That’s, that’s what it’s about. We are called to

Yeah.

Disciple and spread the good news and be fishes of men and point people to Jesus.

And, and, and not, and not do it alone. And not do it alone. Right. Like, we were not sent to walk by one.

It’s not good. That man should be alone. Yeah. How did he send out the disciples? He sent them out in pairs. We’re not called to do this thing alone. We, we got, you know, and our, and our spouses, those are our help mates. We are each other’s help mates. And

God’s God’s smart in that way. Huh? He knew. He knew. We <laugh>. We, we can’t, we’re not supposed to be, we’re not meant to be on islands.

We’re not, you

Know,

(51:57)
Um, it sounds like the, the, the trending topic, uh, that I, I’m encouraged by in, in your story is, I mean, ’cause everyone’s, everyone’s careers are gonna look different. Everyone’s, you know, incomes are gonna look different, everyone’s accomplishments are gonna look different. And all of those things are, should be viewed through the eyes of you in Christ. Like you kept going back to like our identities in Christ. Like I was able to do this because of my relationship with Christ. Uh, we, you know, what we do now is we’re trying to highlight Christ. And so at the end of the day, um, for my listeners, for us as believers, it’s not about what you’ve done and accomplished in this world. It’s about who you are in God. That in Jesus Christ, you are a son or a daughter of, of God. Yes. That you are redeemed, that you are made whole, that you are His.

(52:47)
And through his Holy Spirit, all of the things that we now are able to do with our times, our talents, our resources, our stories, our experiences, as you guys have, uh, shared, so generously we get to use those things with open hands. Yeah. For the Lord say, okay, Lord, here’s my life. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, here’s my career. Here’s my, um, you know, business. Here’s my entrepreneur spirit. Here’s my finances, here’s my home, here’s my car, here’s my everything, everything. And it’s all wrapped up in Jesus Christ. And this, and the testimony of what he’s doing in this world. And, uh, so I just wanted to highlight that for our listeners, because I whe whether or not our, our stories look like Troy and Chantelle’s stories, we can have the same perspective they have, we can have the same perspective of, it’s, it’s about my relationship to Jesus and, and how we’re f just chasing after him and allowing him to work in our lives. And, and often, like you said, you said yes to God in our book, the Marriage after God. Um, we, we say, we talk about this idea of like, it’s, it’s all the little yeses

(53:54)
That we say to God that build up into what we’re doing for him.

Mm-Hmm.

<affirmative>, you know, like you said, it didn’t start off with all these things. It started off with you said yes to this, and then you said yes to this, and then you said yes to this. And it’s, and now you’re here and then you know, who know, who knows what the next yeses are gonna transform your life and, and move you to. And, um, and that’s, that’s the point, is that we say yes to God because God knows best. Correct. I guess he just knows best for us. And Yeah. Um, but most importantly, I love that, um, the, the unity you guys have been growing in that you, like, I love the story you shared of, you know, seeing Troy playing with your, your, is it your

Son? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Yeah. Yeah. And how you’re like, wait a minute. Something’s, something’s missing here. Like, I’m over here and he’s over there. How can we be here together? And that’s a big, that’s a big thing that marriages need to recognize. Like whether or not they ever can have a crew together.

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah.

That, that same thing can be recognized. Like how do we be here together?

I, I’d love to speak to that a little bit if you don’t mind, because

That’s, go for it.

That’s really where my heart feels led to speak to, just thinking about the people who might not feel called to necessarily work together. And one thing that we always say is, you know, um, if you got a great job, keep your job. We are not telling anyone, quit your job and their nine to five. Get your pensions, get your, get all your stuff. But you know, even creating something on the side, a side hustle, some kind of business can just deepen and enrich the intimacy in your marriage because now you guys have something to do together a project. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> A hobby that can diversify your financial, financial portfolio. That could add,

Which is nothing wrong with that.

Yeah. Which is nothing wrong with that, Ken. Yeah, that’s good. Which could, you know, add to the financial part of your legacy and handing down a business. But more importantly than anything, the two of you have to come together to communicate. Mm-Hmm.

(55:45)
<affirmative> to strategize to visione year. Now your dates go from just like, Hey, what you do at work today to like, look at what we get to work together. Right? So we get to be that triple braided cord. It gets to be me, her Holy Spirit, and we are in agreement with God’s will working on something. And then what we also realize, um, because we do everything together. So as servant leaders in the church, that’s also business. That’s kingdom business. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So for those that might not wanna work together fully, what can you do in the church? Can you guys serve together? Can you, can you both give your time to loving and being the hands and feet being the body of the, of the church and loving on God’s people together. You gotta come together for that too. To, to strategize, to, to see how well you work together. And you know, the beauty of working together, like she said, is when we have deadlines and we have things, we don’t have time for ego, and we don’t have time to just be all in our flesh and be prideful. Um, but what happens is when we, because guess what I want people to know this. When you work with your spouse, you will argue just away in your marriage

What

You’ll argue. No. We, as long as you are married, you will argue. And there’s nothing wrong with confrontation and arguing as long as it’s healthy. And guess what we argue. But you know what we’ve learned from working together, we’ve learned how to argue better. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. We’re just more efficient.

Yeah.

We look at things now as the thing between us. So instead of me being at her and her being at me, we just look at like, what is in between us right now? And how do we attack that thing together to get it out of the way. Yeah. You know what I mean? So like, these are some of the benefits of working with your spouse, whether that’s in the marketplace or God has called you to do it in ministry, but we are called as husband and wife to, to, to be the salt and light of this, of this world and this earth together.

Together. Yeah. Amen. Well, tr and tell that was a beautiful, um, testimony to share with us and just what God’s doing in your life and has been doing and will continue to do. And I know he’s doing the same for our listeners. Yeah. He’s working in their lives, he’s speaking to them. ’cause when we believe in Christ and we love him, his holy spirit’s in us and he speaks to us and he guides us. And, um, it’s our job to, to practice listening to get better at listening that, that voice of God in our life. Um, so is there anything you guys can share about where people can find you guys? Um, it sounds like you had a book that came out. Maybe mention that one more time. I’ll put all the links in the show notes as well. Yeah.

But,

Um, yeah. Where, where can everyone find you?

Yeah. Um, we’d love for, for everyone to come find us on Instagram. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> you can go to at We Are sparts, uh, and follow us there. You can go to our website, troy and chantelle.com to learn about all of our services, book all the things. We also have a marriage, um, um, a partnership readiness assessment that you can take.

Yep.

Uh, it’s a free assessment that will help you identify if you are ready to actually go into business with each other or not. Interesting. And then from there, you get a 30 day plan tailored to your, to your answers. Yeah. Um, that will help guide you on your next step, um, to trying to build that relationship or that s partnership. Um, and then lastly, sparts connect.com, if you would like to get, uh, bite-sized pieces of information or advice on how to enrich your marriage and or business relationship with each other.

Yeah.

Um, and,

And the Spartans podcast, we have a podcast on all major dsc. Oh, cool. So we’re on all

The platforms. Yeah. And send each of those

Go

Ahead. And our book, and our book is called Sparts. Discover the Value in Your Spouse as a Business Partner, uh, that we highly encourage you check out on our website troy chantelle.com. Yes.

Yeah. Again, send me those, all those links. I’ll put ’em in my show notes for everyone to find you guys. Um, especially that 30 day, it’s like a free download or something.

Yeah, that’s,

That’s a great idea. I love, I our audience loves free downloads.

Oh, perfect.

Real quick, SPARTS is the combination of spouse and partner. Right.

I sit Spouse is a business partner.

There you go. Okay. Sparts. Cool. Well, Troy, it’s cheesy.

It’s so

Good. <laugh>. I, I, I like it. It reminds me of Spartans. It’s like this,

It’s like tough. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, well, Troy and Chinelle, uh, thank you so much for being on our show. I pray that God continues to bless you guys and, uh, move in your marriage and pray that you just get transform marriages. ’cause we need, we need more marriages working together for Christ. And so that’s Yeah. That’s what the Marriage After God podcast is about. That’s what it sounds like, what you guys are about.

Yeah.

So, praise God for you guys, thank you so much for being on our show.

Thank you. So us. Thank you.

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