access more everybody. Welcome to the Dream Big Podcast. Really glad you're here today. I got two friends on the phone and it is Craig Cooper and Walker Hayes. How are you doing guys doing great? Thanks so much for having us. You bet. Hey guys. You guys have a bug. Glad you're here. Two unlikely friends breaking bread and fenced bread.

And fences. Tell us about it. Why that book and why you guys? What kind of mischief did you get into? Well, so Walker and I've been just great friends ever since January of 2014.

Our family moved from East NC to Nashville and we ran into them. We met them and we became fast friends. We had moved over to help plant and start a church and we were super excited about it.

We were meeting on Saturday nights in a rented facility out in the Boondocks south of Franklin and we were praying that God would just draw people to the church and also give us the opportunity to affect and change lives.

And it was really cool. We actually connected with the Hayes at basketball game on a Saturday morning where we met their families together. Our family was there. My son Joshua was playing basketball and then Walker and Laney and their family.

They were there and a couple of his kids were playing basketball as well. And our wives recognized each other from the neighborhood gathering that they've been a part of and my wife connected and with Laney's strike up a conversation and invited them to come to church that night.

And I would have met very, very briefly. He was holding locks at the time and we didn't really have a detailed conversation or anything, but they came to church that night and it was cool because sometimes you don't know, you know, when people say, yeah, I'm going to come.

You don't know if they're going to make it or not or show up, but they did. And when they walked in the doors, we were, we were just, you know, really grateful. They showed up.

And Walker says the first words that were out of my mouth were glad you're here. And that's actually a title of our book.

It's a name of friendship that really was the smile of God on both of our families. And we just did life together in so many different ways, celebrating together, rejoicing together and really walking through some difficult hardships together.

And throughout the whole course of it, you know, and Walker can share this. He came to faith in Christ. And so we're telling our story and then the story is really about Jesus and in his power at work through the gift of friendship.

I can't echo enough this idea. People loved to not only be part of friendships, but they love to see really good friendships. They love knowing that people are good friends and they're doing life together. Walker, tell us a little bit about your adventure.

Amen. That's a loaded question. But as it pertains to Craig and the book, glad you're here. When I met Craig, I was an alcoholic, an atheist, a singer, songwriter, with absolutely nothing going on whatsoever.

A lot of pride, a lot of anger towards Christians in general. I was a loud atheist. I thought I would have considered myself a pretty well, well read, studied, very certain atheists, you know, what I did not believe.

So yeah, Craig, Craig had his work cut out for him. Jesus had his work cut out for him. But yeah, Matt Craig at this church didn't didn't want to be there. I was above. I'm ashamed to say I was actually hammered when I walked into the church. I was a functional alcoholic and they met on Saturday night.

There was no way I was going to be sober by six o'clock on a Saturday night. And so I walked into this church and I'm really good. I was really good, especially at the time of letting my thoughts be written on my face.

And I was, I actually thought, honestly, that we were past the church hunting phase of our life. You know, I thought, Laney, my wife had kind of moved on. We had tried and failed so many times that I was really bummed when Laura invited us to church. I was like, oh, here we go again.

And you know, sadly, and I don't think I don't think I'm unique in this. That was a, that was a huge argument in our marriage was, you know, when we were when we had no kids, it was not.

Then we had kids and it was like, what are we going to teach them? And so I was very, you know, Laney would read in the Bible story and I'd be like, hey, let me tell you what I think of that.

You know, and so we would argue a lot. And so going to church that night, it was not a happy drive, not to mention their church met in the woods. So when we drove up, I was, I made the joke. I said, hey guys, we should call somebody before they kidnap us just so they'll know where to start searching.

But you know, we walked in and, you know, Craig, I didn't know it. But he had, you know, he had Christ in it. He was not judgmental at all. And look, I, at that time of my life, I was kind of used to be in everybody's project.

I was a guy. Everybody wanted to fix. I was a guy. Everybody needed to make more sense than I did as far as my life decisions, my career choice.

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