Building Lasting Kingdom Impact: Insights from the Built to Last Podcast
In this episode, Joshua and Lisa Delp introduce the vision behind the Risen Project, emphasizing the importance of authentic leadership, discipleship, and strategic communication for ministries, nonprofits, and kingdom-minded entrepreneurs. They explore how to build enduring organizations rooted in biblical principles, intentional leadership, and effective storytelling.
Main Topics Covered:
The origin story of the Risen Project and their entrepreneurial journey
The interconnected pillars of discipleship, leadership, and communication
How inside organization health reflects externally in marketing and outreach
The importance of authentic leadership and emotional intelligence in ministry and business
Practical strategies for content creation, event planning, and digital marketing
Cultivating a community committed to building lasting kingdom initiatives
Upcoming programs including online cohorts and mastermind groups for growth
Resources & Links:
The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzaro
Connect with Joshua and Lisa:
Instagram: @the.risenproject @joshuadelp @lisasdelp
Facebook: @therisenproject
Upcoming Programs:
The Risen Project Membership - launching Q2 of 2027, details coming soon
Discipleship resources and community for men and leaders
Strategy and coaching packages tailored for organizations aiming for lasting impact
Final Thought:
If you're passionate about creating kingdom-centered initiatives that thrive for generations, this episode offers practical wisdom rooted in faith and leadership. Stay committed to inner growth, authentic communication, and strategic action to build something that lasts.
Note: All links are provided for resource purposes and to connect with the hosts, fostering a community dedicated to kingdom-building and leadership excellence.
Episode Transcript
Joshua (01:47)
Well, welcome to the Built to Last podcast. This is the podcast of The Risen Project. My name is Joshua Delp. This is my lovely wife, Lisa Delp. And we are here to introduce to you both the Built to Last podcast and The Risen Project. And so with that, what is The Risen Project?
Joshua (02:29)
Just a bit about us. One of our values is authenticity. A bit of background about me: So we both grew up with entrepreneurial parents. We've both been in business—corporate and small business.
Joshua (02:56)
I was in full-time ministry for the past decade and hit a season of burnout and just we moved back to my hometown of Jacksonville. Lisa in 2020 when the world shut down that was when we went on our first date but that is also when we both launched our own businesses. She launched, I'll let you tell them about it, I launched Rising Leadership, my leadership and strategic consulting and coaching business. and she launched Mettle Marketing.
Lisa (03:37)
Mettle Marketing is a digital marketing agency. We work with nonprofits, governments, and small businesses to help you get the word out. Most of the time that is through social media and email, but we also do paid ads, website design, event management, graphic design—things related to digital marketing and communication.
Joshua (04:06)
I've been passionate about leadership since even before I felt the call to go into ministry, I got saved January 21st, 2007, and I started leading stuff almost immediately, even though some background about me, I had a pretty broken upbringing, I stuttered very badly growing up. And so, like, on paper, you probably wouldn't say, this guy's a leader. This guy's gonna help build other leaders, it is just how my mind works. I believe that's what the Lord's called me. All of my spiritual giftings are the leadership gifts. And so... Rising leadership was just born out of this passion. I felt like the Lord released. I just saw in life, both through my experience and then working with many different organizations is people would hit lids in life. And I guess because like I had a stutter, I knew what it meant to be held back by something that you couldn't quite break through. so Rising Leadership was born out of a passion to help people become their best for the glory of God, help leaders and organizations break through those lids that we inevitably all hit and work with some amazing groups, some amazing companies from a nuclear weapons agency to a state home. So really there's all sorts of stuff I do. But what we found was...
Lisa (05:53)
Well, I feel like we've got to also talk about blog. Yeah, so when we got married about, gosh, three months later, I think, we were blessed with a blog. At the time, it was called The Daily P.S. and we took it over.
Joshua (06:08)
was a blog and a podcast. The blog was called The Daily Paradigm Shift and the podcast had been rebranded just because its founder, our friend is just that one, he's a podcasting expert, but he's also a great... business mind he switched the name to The Good Christian Podcast because people would just search a good Christian podcast and so he had done it. That was brilliant.
Lisa (06:40)
So we were blessed with that right after we got married. So all three of those things have been in our ecosystem for.
Joshua (06:50)
for ministry, Rising Leadership, Mettle Marketing, and the blog and podcast, which we ran the blog and podcast. The blog specifically, we grew it from, I mean, it was.
Lisa (07:08)
So it was about 20,000 people a year were reading the blog when we inherited it and as of last year it had about 150,000 people.
Joshua (07:17)
And at one point it was almost we were on track to reach over 300,000 that was like 2023 I think 24 um, but then we honestly just with a challenging season And we had our first baby. We decided that the right call was to move back We just lost vision for like how all these pieces fit and I mean it's been an ongoing conversation for like.
Lisa (07:49)
We had three separate pieces that we knew they could work together. We just didn't quite understand how. We didn't have vision for it. And honestly, for a while there was a bit of a frustration for Joshua. And I.
Joshua (08:03)
I'm the strategy guy, I'm the leader, so I'm like, has to be, you do not get anything done by diverting your energies, right? Like the serial entrepreneur thing, I think is a bit of a myth. You focus on one thing and it has to align. And so at least that's how I see it in my brain. And so it was like, I tried to kill the blog five times.
Lisa (08:32)
times and it kept coming back to us.
Joshua (08:34)
And it kept growing and so like, okay, the Lord is clearly on this. Yeah, so.
Lisa (08:43)
So we have these three things and we moved back. So we were living in Albuquerque for the first couple years of our marriage and we moved back here to Jacksonville to be closer to family for a bit more of a support system with our son. We kept seeing, Joshua was going to go into this a minute ago, we kept seeing that my marketing stuff, I would be in conversations with the... the organizations and I'm finding, okay, your marketing is doing well now, but your internal stuff is going to eventually sabotage the marketing that you're doing and you're not gonna get the results that you want because you're not able to sustain it or you're not able to hold it up, your values are shifting, your culture is shifting, like all these things. So I'm like, you need to work with my husband. And then.
Joshua (09:34)
I'd be working with a group or an individual and it's like, hey they've got a strategic plan, they want to grow this business or this ministry and they've got a pretty clear vision or they're okay we're getting your team performance going but you have nothing coming in the door you have no way of getting the word out you have no way of actually building the business and so what we found out I was like yeah she They would do great if they would work with my wife. And so we just felt like the inside and the outside has to work with integrity together. And so over several... frustrating conversation, really months, it was months. Trying to figure out what are we called to do? And I'll share this as well. In ministry, a lot of people, you do ministry and then you've got your life and your marriage. And I remember reading this book, The Emotionally Healthy Leader by... Peter Scazzero and one of the key principles he talked about leading an emotionally healthy ministry and leadership was lead out of your singleness or your marriage, i.e. ministry, your calling, it wasn't separate, it wasn't a thing you do, it was an overflow of your life and if the... your calling was separate or competing with your marriage, well you see how that has gone. And so my heart has always been to live an integrated life and we're gonna get into a bit of our vision about yous here in just a minute but integrity, authenticity, think are two.
Joshua (11:38)
cornerstone if you can't too but anyways your fundamental priorities and values that like we're in our office there's a baby sleeping upstairs she might start screaming any minute you saw my wife put the lipstick off of i mean it's just i think in a we have seen what happens when you wear a mask and perform to get a result. Like it erodes the soul, it erodes what it means to be human. And so all that to say is we just, as we became more one, you know, hey, here's a light bulb moment. Like we're Christians, in case that hasn't come through yet, but. And we believe like when you get married, you're becoming one. That's the idea. And that doesn't happen overnight. And as we become more one flesh, I believe the Lord's been slowly revealing how we are to actually... live called out of our marriage, not just our individual callings. And that was hard for me, just as a man, I was a single pastor for nine and a half years. And so to really like, I think I'm stubborn. And so I think the Lord slowly had to like wrestle it out with me and her, you know, cause she was doing her thing. They didn't seem to really align. But the more we worked together, we saw, there is alignment there. There's natural complement not just in our marriage and our individual giftings but actually like our calling our skill sets. And so what we landed on was The Risen Projects exist to help ministries, nonprofits, and kingdom-minded businesses build what lasts.
Joshua (13:48)
through the key pillars, through strengthening the key pillars of discipleship, leadership, and communication. We played around with those words a bit and we really feel like those are the words. We were playing around with the word character instead of discipleship because we were like, we, you you know, if we use discipleship that may... alienate non-believers and I think we're okay with that. We will work with anybody who wants given it a grow, has values and ethics. But we feel like this is a calling from God to help the body of Christ flourish. we, I played around with strategy and leadership, really it's leadership because I believe strategy is an aspect of leadership. And lastly, we're gonna just go with marketing. But really it's more than just marketing. It's about getting the word out.
Lisa (14:52)
Whether that be in your organization's announcements, your emails, in your events that you're doing, or even just internally in your team.
Joshua (15:00)
So why those three pillars? One, if you're gonna be a kingdom leader, whether in business, non-profit, even ministry, like oftentimes... those things you're calling your endeavor, your business, your ministry, it becomes a thing you do devoid of who you are. And I can just speak from a ministry standpoint, like it's easy to fall into the trap of ministry is about what you do and you can...
Lisa (15:37)
You can kind of shut off the...
Joshua (15:38)
Yeah, you can start to not focus on your own discipleship, your own walk with God. am like, and as I've been back in the business world the past two years, it's no different in the business world. You've got Christian business leaders who are doing all this. business work this, you you know, you're doing your sales, your business development, you're going the thing, you say that you want it to be a God-honoring endeavor, but really there's areas of your character that still have... Rooting to grow, we'll say it like that. We're all being transformed into the image of Christ. And I think sometimes we separate our spiritual life and our endeavors. it's like, church does not just live on Sunday our faith, does not just, if that's the only time that you are really engaging and walking out your character, your Christ-centered character, if it doesn't spill into everything, do, you're missing the mark. And we all do it. There's all we all have room to grow. And so discipleship, building the Christlike character and not relegating that to just a spiritual practice, but born out in everything we do, that's gotta be the first pillar. Second is leadership. Not only do you have to be a Christian worth following and to be a great witness in your work, but you've gotta actually be able to lead. And this is a passion point of mine because...
Joshua (17:23)
I've seen leadership make and break things. You you know, I've been a part of some really amazing organizations. We'll get into those later. And I, you you know, I've seen several pastors just blow things up. I mean, it's an all too common thing. And, you you know, 95 % of businesses don't make it five years.
Joshua (17:50)
5 % of churches, church plants don't last. So it's the same thing, right? It's a building a thing. And 99 % of churches never break 100 in a congregation. So why is that, right? It's it, believe, I don't agree with.
Joshua (18:14)
John Maxwell on everything, but what do I know? But he says everything rises and falls, everything rises and falls on leadership. And I've just seen that to be treated like leadership is the lid on your calling, on your organization, on your ministry, your endeavor, whatever your calling is, nonprofit, for-profit ministry, leadership is make or break. And so obviously you can see I'm pretty passionate about it because And but I've also seen what happens when a leader unlocks the potential within their mission or Team their organization and see just the thing just exploded and know and thrive and so That's a passion of mine to see folks and lastly you've got to get the word out and then digital saturated world It's easy to just think it's okay We've got to be on social But it's not just that.
Lisa (19:14)
Right, most people have come to me in the past for my company's services, just wanting social media. And I find that... they don't necessarily have a brand yet or a strategy or anything like that. And I think those all kind of go into each other. Most people think brand and they think logo. They think colors, they think fonts, they think what your website looks like, but really a brand is your voice. It's your values, it's your mission. It's like all those things that come together that help you identify who the organization is just at a glance. And when you don't have your leadership in place and you don't have your discipleship continuously refining you and making sure that you're staying on top of your values and your integrity and all of these things, it shows up in your marketing because your marketing starts to look like chaos. Your communication starts to feel like chaos.
Joshua (20:13)
which is usually an outward expression of what's going on inside the organization. And if I could just say, I think that is where we started to see where we really work together. The outside reflects the end, the inside shows what's going on outside as well. And so it's like, that's what we see is like, just like a life has to have the inside and the outside working well, a business, a calling and endeavor in ministry, everything's got to be kind of firing all cylinders and you can build it out into more than those three pillars and we will break things down in smaller chunks but really if you've got those three pillars strong, you, the way you lead and the way that you get the word out, you're gonna build something that lasts. And so that's how hard is that.
Lisa (21:11)
We want to help you build something that actually lasts because
Joshua (21:14)
We want to see the kingdom come, we want to see it will be done. I'll say this as well, being in ministry for 10 years and being on business on both sides of it is there is a bit of a secular sacred divide. And I don't think that's true. Being in business again after being in ministry for a decade, it was hard for me. took me a lot, the Lord had to rewire some of my thinking a bit, but like work is worship. And I lost my train of thought. What that?
Lisa (22:02)
I don't know where you were going.
Joshua (22:06)
no, I lost it again. Okay. Well, I mean, that's, that's, that's kind of the longish sort of it. I mean, so what do we do?
Lisa (22:23)
Yeah. So what do do? So, I'll start. so as, as we said, we have these, we had these three ecosystems that we, we had. as you heard, we, we established them into discipleship, leadership and communication. And, so we've kind of got this, I wish I could like draw a picture, but you're listening to a podcast. like, you're not going to see it anyways. but we've got this like, imagine a circle that's just like got arrows and you're continuously going around and. The discipleship goes into leadership, goes into getting the word out, slash communication, which goes back into discipleship. It's this continuous like circle that just like, it's never ending. You're always going to be working on something and it's always going to lead into the next step. So we, starting with discipleship, we have put the blog under the discipleship pillar and this blog will house, I mean, right now it houses almost 1600 blogs.
Joshua (23:23)
So great.
Lisa (23:24)
which is wild to think about. And all these blogs are biblically based. have great value to add to help disciple you in your own journey. Joshua has started Risen Men community specifically for men.
Joshua (23:40)
If you're a man looking to become the man that God has called you to be, if you're wanting to grow as a man, as a follower of Jesus, this is a free Skool community that you can join. There'll be other opportunities for coaching, leadership and mentoring, I wanted to, I mean, I feel called an investment man. mean, how much do you want me to go in Risen Men? Yeah, I mean a resin.
Lisa (24:14)
think that's you want to dive in more, you can go to our website. We've got a web page up. And then on top of that, we're eventually hoping to do some real actual studies that you can purchase. That's not right now, but it's coming.
Joshua (24:31)
There come... We've got a ton of content already there that just have to be put together.
Lisa (24:39)
And then this built to last podcast. We're hoping that this can be something that will help disciple you, help...
Joshua (24:46)
grow leadership, grow your skill set and getting the word out growing your own endeavor. And lastly, launching Q2, I say Q2. I'm gonna put some fire in there, but we don't have a name. We'll just call it Therism Project cohort online mastermind. It's gonna be just an ongoing weekly coaching call. and community yes that this one will be paid and really it's like you're gonna get us investing in you weekly all three
Lisa (25:17)
It is paid.
Lisa (25:27)
in all three pillars.
Joshua (25:30)
So just say, you you know, just have this constant input in an area to sharpen and grow, grow yourself, your leadership, grow your endeavor. And that's where we're most excited, like to really work with people. And well, if you want us to work directly with your organization, can, that'll be there as well. But like, we're excited to build a community around this whole idea of being built. to last.
Lisa (26:01)
And there will be a webpage up on that. As he said, Q2 though.
Joshua (26:05)
We got two small babies at home. It's emotional full-contact sport in the Delp household.
Lisa (26:18)
Would you consider that under discipleship? I was going through the pillars.
Joshua (26:23)
It’s the whole thing.
Lisa (26:34)
So going back to our circle, not to confuse you, so we have the discipleship that leads into the leadership aspect, which is where Joshua does some consulting, coaching.
Joshua (26:52)
strategy. If you're looking to grow as a leader, if your team is underperforming, if you need to address some organizational health, need, you know, growing as a leader, I found emotional intelligence, conflict, strategy. Those are actually some of the three pillars. Also just like most leaders are always giving out and they're not getting anything put in. And so just having someone in your corner that's outside of your organization who can lend a strategic mind, mind that... And I was... I was in a ministry role, a large role, and I was spinning my wheels. I was just like working hard and then I just wasn't getting the results I wanted. And so I actually reached out and got a coach. But I do interview like half a dozen because most of the coaches out there were one, they're pretty woo woo and or they're very corporate. And lastly, many of weren't Christians, so they didn't share my values. They didn't understand my worldview, and they certainly didn't have a true understanding of my faith. faith and that everything I was doing was for the glory of God. And so I finally found just a credible man who became a mentor, Dr. Kocher, who was a devout, strong man of faith, but also just a brilliant, really, mean, he's extraordinary, but I will.
Joshua (28:44)
going to all of his gifting. So I got certified in his LifeThrive system, emotional intelligence, but I'm also naturally a strategic builder and an encourager. And so oftentimes I find is... Leaders are doing it alone. They actually need people in their corner and they're honestly like men Which is why I have Risen Men leaders are some of the most prideful creatures on earth and they don't want to admit that they need help and I know because I've been that guy and but luckily I think because of my broken past I've never had the illusion that I've got it all together. It's very I'm only where I am because of the grace of God and putting myself in the right environment so I can get the investment, the knowledge, the encouragement, the equipping I need. And so that's my heart if you're a leader and you're like spinning those wheels you're kind of hitting a lid your organization is kind of wonky you're doing great work but it's like man we are not firing on all cylinders that's where I can really come in work with you and your team, work with your church, and catalyze health, change, new growth. That's kind of like just, no one ever trained me to do it really, like I just, it's what I do, man. And so you get me in an environment, we're gonna grow, you're gonna be strengthened, and we're gonna build. And so that's the leadership piece, and we've got, I mean, I've got definitely a lot of different.
Joshua (30:32)
packages but you know all that stuff but i don't like that word i've got a lot of tools that we can leverage for your betterment and then the marketing communication i'm sorry see we shifted that word
Lisa (30:41)
communication.
Lisa (30:45)
So then the communication aspect is we've got marketing in there and then you've got
Joshua (30:51)
Built in if you want like a lot of folks are at the place where depending on their organizational size They actually would want done-for-you social media management digital marketing because we've got a team So for a company that's at the one to ten million dollars, they can't bring on a whole team They don't have the brand expert They don't have the digital marketing strategy expertise. So done-for-you social media management digital marketing is one of our offerings. That's not for everybody, but it is one of our key offerings.
Lisa (31:33)
Right, so, communication...
Joshua (31:39)
So what is communication beyond marketing?
Lisa (31:48)
Yes, so communication. You've got everything from marketing, communication, events, that marketing gets broken down into many different aspects. You've got digital, you've got physical, you've got all those things. We really specialize in the digital side of things, but I would say, and I said this earlier, brand is one of my passion points and that would be probably the The common denominator behind it all is communication under The Risen Project is to help you get the word out for your brand in an authentic and an effective way. And we do offer done-for-you marketing. A lot of businesses reach the point where they can't necessarily hire a full team in-house, but they can't... do it themselves either. They just don't have that capability. And so that's when we come in and we do it for you. Eventually we try and help you get to the point where you are doing it yourself and we'll help you put the systems in place to do so.
Joshua (32:59)
What about branding during like a well branded and well done thought through event? Right. So where does that landing come in?
Lisa (33:08)
That is true. So a lot of people wouldn't wouldn't think of events as being something that's part of communication but commute but Exactly an event really does communicate about you. I went to an event last year That kind of kind of spurred a lot of this on honestly for my aspect of things. I would say at least the the
Joshua (33:15)
does communicate about you.
Lisa (33:32)
messaging, the branding, marketing that was like all leading up to the event was honestly pretty great. It was very loud. was very... It showed a certain theme and got me really excited about being there. And then once I was there at the event, the event itself didn't even feel anything like the marketing. And I was like, I feel like I'm at the wrong place. So part of my background is events. I don't know if we said that earlier. I actually got my degree in hospitality management and I was a wedding planner. to large corporate events. I even put on concerts. did the whole shebang.
Joshua (34:17)
Likewise in ministry, mean it's basically event planning. There's always a next event. Even Sunday morning worship is planned as an event. You have a run sheet, it's an event. And then we would do large events for outreach events. Our first...
Lisa (34:43)
first encounter together was running an event. Two single people there.
Joshua (34:46)
running a marriage and then after church and then there's this moment where it's like turns to your spouse and
Lisa (34:56)
He didn't even say turn to your spouse, he said, “Turn to the person next to you because he assumed everybody, the person next to them was their spouse.
Lisa (35:07)
Tell them the three things that you love about them.
Joshua (35:09)
And like she would you know love disclosure here my wife's younger than me so like she's 14 years younger so at the time I was a pastor she was younger than me and I just got up and walked out
Lisa (35:23)
We both did. We both did. We did.
Joshua (35:26)
Lord it was I was like yeah, but anyway, so like from the get-go we've been helping craft events that serve a mission and a vision
Lisa (35:39)
And they look like you feel like you sound like you they like get your get the message across in an authentic and effective way as I keep saying
Joshua (35:49)
And galvanized action. A lot of folks don't realize like we were speaking with a ministry and they're really wanting to re-envision, like relaunch their vision with a different... Direction and so and a well done event can be a vision cast it can be a Action stuff it can raise funds that can I mean really build your base I mean, it's so powerful how much you can communicate with an event and so all that to say more is gonna be coming we've got to wrap it up because the baby just woke up and she's screaming and so What do you want to say to wrap it up?
Lisa (36:36)
I'd say stay tuned for the flagship offer that's coming that wraps together all three of the pillars and gives you an all-encompassing ecosystem.
Joshua (36:52)
Way to grow to build what lasts. I think lastly I just want to land with your say if you're a follower of Jesus you're not just saved and called there's a scripture Timothy that says you've been saved and called with a holy calling and this is about if you feel called to something if you're growing a thing if you're building the thing if you hope to do that one day even this is a place where you can come to grow sharpen and you're gonna get actionable take away stuff to build the kingdom of God Lord well and we want it we're builders and we want to help God's people build build it to last, and we want to see people thrive. See we don't want to see gods people struggle because of a lack of knowledge. It can be hard to find a trustworthy solution out there or sources, because you're bombarded. So we hope that this can be a place of integrity that you can trust. You're always gonna get us. not gonna be, I've got no ability to wear a mask or a stutter. Like, I can't lie. And so we pray that you would stay, that you'd like and share and subscribe. Do all the things.
Lisa (38:15)
in the show notes so that you can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, whatever your social media platform is of preference. And we hope that you'll join our community via our newsletter that we send out weekly and you can find that on our website again.
Joshua (38:32)
TheRisenProject.com. I'll sign off the same way I sign off all my emails. We're always in your corner. Thanks for listening to Built to Last. Bye.
Lisa (38:44)
Much love.
Want to learn more about the work we're doing at The Risen Project? Explore our Strategy Intensive and how we help Kingdom-minded leaders build what lasts.