About
In 2006, I had just graduated from seminary and was serving as the youth pastor at a church. Around that time a new site called YouTube popped up, so I started uploading videos of my girlfriend and I hanging out, going to dinner, the park, and playing video games. Today we'd call them vlogs, but back then it was just being awkward in public with a camera.
Then other people started watching, which freaked me out, so I started digging into how YouTube worked. My girlfriend and I got married, moved to another church, and continued to make YouTube videos on the side.
By 2011, I became the first creator to start training other YouTube creators. My company, Video Creators, became featured by FOX, Forbes, BBC, and YouTube itself. My team helped thousands of clients organically earn over 20 billion views and 100 million subscribers, including brands like Disney, eBay, Warner Brothers, HBO, and more. I sold the company in 2022.
Today we live in Cincinnati, Ohio, with our seven children. We homeschool, do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu together, and are learning what it means to run a fruitful household of nine people.
Back in 2014, one of my little kids said, "Dad, I feel like our family only does fun things together when we make YouTube videos." That hit me hard. I realized I was building an audience and neglecting the people in my own home. That tension led me to start asking different questions about family, management, and business.
That's what Elder My City is about.
I spent years writing about seemingly disconnected topics like family, business, marriage, asset management, leadership, faith, and more, before someone challenged me to summarize it all in one word. That one word came to me almost immediately:
Eldership.
Not the old guys who pass offering-plates. Not the Mormon missionaries at your door. No, the kind of eldership where men are known at the gates of their city, governing with wisdom, managing assets faithfully, leading their households well, and guiding other families to do the same.
Scripture lays out a progression most men have never been shown.
It starts with father in the home: "He must manage his own household well" (1 Timothy 3:4).
It extends to elder in the city: "Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land" (Proverbs 31:23).
And it culminates in ruler in the Kingdom: "Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities" (Luke 19:17).
Each stage builds on the last.
This means your daily work as a father is connected to the eternal. When you decide how to allocate your household budget, you're developing the wisdom to govern assets. When you navigate conflict with your wife, you're learning the patience required to mediate disputes. When you teach your children to think biblically about money or marriage or what it means to be a man, you're practicing the shepherding skills you'll one day exercise over broader spheres. Fatherhood is both the proving ground and the training ground. And Jesus says those who acquire fruitful skills now will one day rule over cities in the Kingdom.
That's a bigger vision than retirement and golf.
I'm not writing as an expert. I'm writing as a dad who's trying to figure out how the daily work of leading a family connects to fathering my city, and one day, responsibility in God's Kingdom. Regardless of whether or not I ever hold the official office, I'm aspiring to the noble task of eldership (1 Timothy 3:1) and I'm inviting other men to wrestle alongside me.
Father in the home. Elder in the city. Ruler in the Kingdom. That's the progression. I'm still at step one.
If you're feeling that there’s more to fatherhood than just being “good dad” and want to approach your household and city as the Kingdom training it actually is, subscribe below. I'll send you new posts as I publish them.
Together we’ll wrestle through Scripture, share what we’re learning, and challenge the passive approach most men default to.