Sent from the Seats: Groundbreakers, Not Lifers Christine Sepulveda | Season 2 Episode 6

The planters you're looking for are already in your church. The Church Planter Scouting Guide shows you how to spot the one: https://multiplyproject.org/church-pl... Christine Sepulveda was on track to run a multi-million-dollar company's U.S. operations. She walked away at the peak — not out the back door, but off the top of the ladder. Here's the line that took her there: "If I only have this one life, what am I gonna do with it? I'd rather exhaust my life for kingdom than for an ROI that'll only last on the side of heaven." For twelve years Christine helped scale her family's bakery business — Los Udrinas / Sedrina's — from one regional client into a nationwide operation, baking alongside store workers at 4 a.m. and negotiating with Walmart, Kroger, HEB, and Publix. She won sales awards. She was the primary breadwinner. And the whole time, she was planting churches on the side — until "on the side" stopped making sense. This is a conversation for two kinds of leaders. If you're a pastor who keeps looking past the entrepreneurs in your church — the driven, restless, high-capacity people who don't fit your volunteer slots — Christine names what you're missing. "You're either gonna express your gifts in the church or out of it. If leaders aren't willing to get creative, you are wasting a lot of potential." The doors-and-greeting jobs aren't the ceiling for these people. They're the insult. And if you're the marketplace leader wondering whether the restlessness you feel is a calling — she's been exactly where you are. She names the fear, the financial reckoning, the slow death of self-sufficiency, and the surprising truth on the other side: "There is nothing more entrepreneurial than starting churches." Christine also hands the church world a category it's been missing. Not every planter is a senior pastor. Some are groundbreakers — pioneers who start something, hand it off, and go again. "We plant a church, become the senior pastor, and die at that church. No — there are other ways. We need groundbreakers." Paul didn't stay. He went wide. So does she. Craig and Jeff sit in the tension with her: the drive that gets rewarded in the marketplace and reined in by a healthy church, the burnout, the boundaries, the difference between a lens of readiness and a lens of potential. If you've ever looked across your church and wondered where the next planter is — start here. Grab the Church Planter Scouting Guide — it shows you how to spot the one God already planted in your church. Name and email, and it's yours: https://multiplyproject.org/church-pl... Not sure your church is ready to multiply yet? Take ten minutes and find out the honest truth — the Readiness Assessment: https://multiplyproject.org/readiness... Know a marketplace leader who can't sit still in their volunteer slot? Send them this episode before the day ends. 00:00 — "I'd rather exhaust my life for kingdom" 00:20 — Meet Christine: disciple-maker, wife, former executive 01:32 — Scaling a family bakery from one client to nationwide 04:18 — Business and church planting, side by side since 2013 05:30 — Bivocation vs. co-vocation: the integrated life 07:10 — Winning in the marketplace — and leaving at the peak 09:43 — The itch you can't ignore: how she knew it was time 11:41 — Who saw the potential in her first 13:08 — The conversation at home, and the slow letting-go 16:13 — Burnout, the hospital, and learning boundaries 19:24 — Why the drive that gets rewarded has to get reined in 22:03 — What she had to unlearn from corporate 23:28 — The marketplace superpower ministry needed 24:53 — Baking multiplication into the DNA 27:05 — Immersion: how it got in her 28:57 — The stories that made it worth it: Justin and Allie 31:40 — Seeing your congregation's professional lives differently 34:20 — The "what" vs. the "who": some people plug in, some get sent 38:11 — What to say to a pastor wondering who's in their church 40:39 — What to say to the marketplace leader who's afraid to leave 44:18 — Groundbreakers, not lifers: a category the church is missing 46:42 — The ten-year vision: saturating Florida, sending to the nations 49:55 — Under-the-radar faithfulness and the church that won't give up