Life Surge is igniting a movement to empower Christians economically to create a lasting influence on expanding and fortifying the Christian community. Founded by Joe Johnson, the Christian business aims to equip believers with financial wisdom and practical tools to build wealth and use it for God’s purposes.
Johnson’s journey to launching Life Surge began in his youth. As a teen growing up in Ohio, he developed an early entrepreneurial drive, and started a lawn care business at the tender age of 13. “I had employees prior to having a driver’s license to the point that I had to hire a driver to take us around to mow our lawns,” Johnson recalls.
However, Johnson initially struggled to reconcile his business pursuits with his faith. “When I was 18 years old, I gave my life to Christ, and that was very important to me. But what I thought that meant was I had to kind of work in church in a full-time ministry role,” he explains.
Despite his ambitions and hard work, Johnson, still in his teens, went bankrupt, owing $330,000 in debt. “I came to the conclusion the primary reason for my bankruptcy as a young businessman was because of my sacred-secular dichotomy that I really did not see my business as the thing that God called me in terms of my ministry,” he says.
“Instead, I looked at it for church work and that’s where I spent most of my time. So because of that journey and because of that sort of trauma, it really shifted my focus and my thinking for the marketplace. And I really just developed a passion for people that were involved in business and that their business was a ministry.”
Life Surge emerged from Johnson’s desire to help other Christians avoid this pitfall. He wanted to pay it and pray it forward and developed what Life Surge calls the “4 W’s of kingdom impact: worship, wisdom, work, and wealth,” for believers to learn the path to surging their own lives.
Life Surge hosts large-scale live events featuring prominent Christian speakers and performers, from NFL footballer Tim Tebow to Soul Surfer author and shark attack survivor Bethany Hamilton, motivational speaker Nick Vujicic, and musician David Crowder, whose debut solo album, Neon Steeple, hit No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and garnered two Grammy nominations.
These gatherings aim to inspire, transform, and equip attendees to “serve your life God’s way,” particularly in business and finance. Johnson emphasizes, “We focus more on the stewardship practices, the practical implications.”
Life Surge events create a powerful atmosphere of community. “Especially if you come from a smaller church, you’ve never been with more maybe than a couple hundred people, and all of a sudden you’re surrounded with thousands of people, and you’re worshipping together, and you’re learning together, and you’re being challenged together,” says Rob Collins, Life Surge’s chief marketing officer. “That’s really powerful.”
Jeremy Nosek, chief strategy officer, explains its approach. “We’re very big on really understanding who our customers are and making sure that while we’re teaching strategies that may be applied to all of them, that they’ve got specific tools that help craft it for their specific situation,” Nosek shares.
Life Surge has experienced explosive growth, with Johnson reporting a more than 46,000% revenue increase over the past three years.
This success comes despite launching during the COVID-19 pandemic when many predicted the end of live events. Johnson saw an opportunity to reach even more people. “What used to be a red ocean full of competition is now a blue ocean with no competition because everybody overnight left it.”
Life Surge’s rapid expansion has brought challenges. “Our growth in terms of size and scale, our revenue growth, the number of events, the number of people that we’re reaching has been astronomical. And so being able to scale with that growth in an effective manner has been our number one challenge,” Johnson admits.
Johnson emphasized that Life Surge’s ultimate goal extends beyond the organization itself: “It’s really about the people who are attending Life Surge and having the opportunity to really change the direction that their family is headed and really be the one for their family that their legacy is built upon.”
As Life Surge continues to expand its reach and influence, it seeks to fill what Johnson sees as a crucial gap in Christian teaching. “Because a lot of church leaders have been silent on the subject of wealth creation, it creates a vacuum and a void,” he explains. Life Surge aims to provide biblically-based financial education and empower Christians to build wealth for kingdom purposes.
With its blend of inspirational teaching, practical tools, and community-building, Life Surge is positioning itself as a game changer for economic empowerment within the Christian community. Its growth and impact suggest it may indeed be sparking a movement with far-reaching implications for how believers approach work, wealth, and faith.
“We see a trend for Christians wanting to get on board with the Life Surge message just to reverse the direction that our culture is going,” Johnson adds.