Obedience Over Comfort: A Courageous Conversation with JC Risewick

In this episode of the Courageous Crossroads Podcast, Jeff Johnson sits down with JC Risewick for a raw and thoughtful conversation about courage, obedience, identity, and the hard choices that shape a life. JC, a lifelong Iowan and former president of his family’s 50-year-old company, Seneca Companies, shares how the most courageous decision he ever made was choosing to sell the business his father built and stepping into an uncertain new chapter out of obedience to God.

He opens up about navigating identity loss, learning to listen, and following God’s lead even when it runs against comfort or pride, from giving up alcohol to turning down a prestigious leadership role on the Iowa Board of Regents to uprooting his family and moving to Colorado. JC is a devoted husband and father of three, a strategist by profession, an outdoorsman at heart, and a man grounded in faith who is committed to serving his family, his community, and the call he believes God places on his life.

Thank you for listening! We hope you feel inspired and encouraged by our conversation today. If you did, be sure to share this episode with others.

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See you in the next episode! Be blessed!

Full Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, a look into what motivates us to step out and courage, and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson.

Jeff Johnson: Okay folks, buckle up. It’s Jeff, back with another installment of the Courageous Crossroads podcast. My next guest is another dear friend of mine, JC Risewick. You are absolutely going to love this. He’s recently sold a business. He’s had some life transition stuff. He is a man of great experience. He reminds me again of that quote, “the man that has an experience of God is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.” And JC has got a lot to say about Courage. He and I had a beautiful discussion. So buckle up. Here’s JC. JC, I’m so glad that you finally came on the Courageous Crossroads podcast. I’ve been begging you for how long?

JC Risewick: A little bit of time.

Jeff Johnson: For a long time. Okay, our guest is JC Risewick and JC and our dear friends. And I am impressed with this guy and I’m grateful to have him on the podcast. So for all you listeners out there, I hope this doesn’t turn into a big hug fest between me and JC. But anyway, JC, thanks for coming on.

JC Risewick: Yeah, thanks Jeff. It’s awesome to be on. I probably was a little reluctant because I just didn’t feel like I have a good story to tell. But I’m excited to be on and happy to tell it.

Jeff Johnson: Well, wonderful. Okay, for the benefit of our listeners, give them a bunch of background. I could sit here and slobber all over you and tell you about your background and all that kind of stuff, but put yourself in context before we talk about Courage and all of those subjects there and who are you? Where are you from? Family, et cetera.

JC Risewick: Yeah, sure. So I am from Des Moines, Iowa. Born and raised here, live several places, but I’ve been back here since 2009. Been married for 16 years to a lovely wife and then we have three kids together who we have a freshman in a seventh grader and a third grader and they’re just awesome. Super blessings. We love to go camping and hang out and sit in the RV and go sit by campfires and travel all over the country and see great stuff. We spend a lot of time in Colorado too and that’s my family side on the professional side. My family ran a company called Seneca companies for a little over 50 years. My dad started that in 1972 and then I took over as the president in 2017 and ran that company until we successfully sold it to a private equity firm back in 2024. So after that, I still am employed by them. I am the chief strategy officer for the larger entity. So I do that work for them and also a little bit of a transitionary period to kind of see what’s next.

Jeff Johnson: So wonderful. Wonderful. So what I’ve seen enthusiasm just going back to that is camping outdoors. You’re not a dorsi guy.

JC Risewick: Yeah, I mean anything that I can do with my family. And we all seem to like that together. But yeah, being in the outdoors is just an awesome, awesome thing to do and mountains kind of draw me to it. I like the ocean too. I grew up racing sailboats as a kid being for Iowa. That’s a weird thing to say that you did. But there are lakes and rivers and things here that you can do that on.

Jeff Johnson: Well, there’s a lot of courage and sailing then. Have you been on big bodies of water?

JC Risewick: Yeah. A long time ago I went through a class to get a captain’s license down to Florida and I lived down there for a while and I would take people out on boats that they buy and they just wanted to—they didn’t know how to drive them or they wanted to just have you take a round look at houses or go do stuff. So that’s how I got started in the ocean stuff. And then my wife and I decided to take her hand in getting on catamarans and monohulls and do more stuff like down to the Bahamas and the BVIs. I’m actually leaving Saturday to go down to St. Martin with my family over Thanksgiving. And we just do it all ourselves and it’s like an RV on water.

Jeff Johnson: How fantastic.

JC Risewick: Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: Do you have to have some kind of—I mean how big of boats?

JC Risewick: Like 50, 55 feet usually and big catamarans. So yeah, they’re big boats.

Jeff Johnson: You have to have some kind of license to rent a boat like that.

JC Risewick: You have to have the experience. You don’t necessarily have to be formally licensed unless you’re going to do it for hire.

Jeff Johnson: How do you show people that you have the experience when you go rent their boat?

JC Risewick: They interview you so they know if you’re full of it or not.

Jeff Johnson: You’re dumb.

JC Risewick: Yeah. And then you kind of self-report your experience. But they know if you, there’re charter companies that you consistently spend time with. So they know that you’re, if you’ve rented from them in the past or chartered from them in the past, they know that you have time with them too.

Jeff Johnson: Okay. Does your wife sail? I mean does she have that kind of credential that you do?

JC Risewick: Not as long term. So we actually met racing sailboats when I lived in Minnesota for a period of time. We met a sailing regatta there. She was on the same boat that I was on. We had a mutual friend and they’d put a crew together for this weekend. And we were on the same boat for a whole weekend together. So, but she started when she was in college and I started, you know, obviously I kind of want to—I could walk.

Jeff Johnson: But take a big trip sometime. You know, General Patton, when he rented a boat, I said, I’m assuming he rented a boat. I guess I shouldn’t speak in absolutes. But he went from California to Hawaii. I remember reading a biography about him one time and he took his family. And I think it was arduous. I think they got into some trouble. But he went all the way from California to Hawaii and a sailboat.

JC Risewick: Yeah. I mean, are you going to take a big trip like that sometime? That’s on the radar, but I’m not sure. It’s not in the near future.

Jeff Johnson: Well, we’ve talked about that doing something like that kind of fun. Like going over to Greece or the Middle East or even Jordan. That’s kind of a new new spot that we would be kind of really good to do.

JC Risewick: Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: Okay. You’re a courageous guy. So, I want to ask another question about your business. You said that you recently sold your business.

JC Risewick: Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: And but you’re still employed there and you’re still part of that. How is that from a courage standpoint different being a hired person versus having it be your business? It’s very serious about people that sell their companies.

JC Risewick: Yeah. It’s from a courage standpoint. Geez. I guess it, I would say, it feels less courageous actually. Somebody else is taking the risks. Somebody else is, you know, I’m not the top person anymore. So less of the difficult decisions fall on me than they used to. But that being said, it still takes some courage to kind of step in there and be accountable to somebody else.

Jeff Johnson: So I would think that would take a lot of courage having not been, I don’t mean not accountable to somebody you’re accountable to yourself and your family and, you know, shareholders and that sort of thing. But in a different sense, I would think that would take a lot of courage.

JC Risewick: Yeah. Different expectations, understanding what those might be. And then having to perform for somebody else based on us. So it’s a little bit different. Having been used to being the person at the top and running the thing to now having to answer to some other folks is with different priorities.

Jeff Johnson: Interesting. Congratulations on the sale though. That’s wonderful.

JC Risewick: Yeah, thanks, yeah.

Jeff Johnson: Okay. Tell me a little bit about your mind around courage. How do you define it? What does courage mean to you?

JC Risewick: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think as I’ve gotten older, it’s changed a little bit. Back when I was younger, it’s, “hey, that looks like a really cool cliff there. I’m going to go ski off that,” you know. Just if I survived great, that was courage, you know, or a mountain bike. “I’m going to go to that looks like a really tough trail.” Like I do both of these things, you know. So that was always fun and that, that feel that was courageous. You know, now I think it’s something that’s a little bit more calculated, but in it’s maybe less fanfare, you know, to me, you know, I’m a, I’m a believer Christian. And lately it’s been more about obedience, you know, not doing this stuff that God doesn’t want me to do. Or if I hear, feel him calling me in a certain direction, my flesh is saying go this way, that’s what you really should do. Working on being obedient and going towards God is really just open a floodgate of all new type of experience and new paths for me, but are really more challenging me than I think they even ever did when I was running running our business. So I think it’s being for me, it’s being obedient to God, but then I’ve heard it said, there’s no safer place to be than to step off into the void holding God’s hand, you know. You can’t see anything around you and you’re going to step off a cliff and have no idea what’s going to happen.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: But there’s no safer place to be. But boy, does it make you scared when you do it?

Jeff Johnson: Right, right.

JC Risewick: Feels a little bit lonely.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: Stop your heart a little bit.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. Okay, so discernment is a courageous thing. Knowing what to say yes to and what to say no to is what you’re talking about.

JC Risewick: Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. Figuring that out. I agree with that. I think it’s Leonard Ravenhill. It’s either I quote the most, either C.S. Lewis, Leonard Ravenhill or A.W. Tozer. I’m always with those three guys. I think it’s Leonard Ravenhill that said true discernment is knowing the difference between what’s right and what’s almost right. You know what I mean? Do you agree with that?

JC Risewick: Yeah, I do. Yeah, and I’d say I beat myself up over trying to make it perfect. And you and I have even had discussions about this, right? I spend a lot of time trying to make sure I don’t get it wrong.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: So I feel like if I get it wrong, anything less than perfect is a failure. I’ve learned to understand that that’s not true. If I’m seeking wise counsel, I’m praying and listening to what God has to tell me, it actually becomes super clear. It’s just that I start to say, I don’t really like that. Could you have made this an easier path for me? Where I’d rather go this direction. I don’t want to go that direction. So then I start to try to justify my mind. “Well, let me get some more information. Let me think about that some more.” And I’ll try to make it perfect or be afraid that what if I make a mistake in this decision? What if I didn’t hear God right? Before I was just two and two into my flesh and this just sounded too good. But I think the thing is you can get caught up in that and then paralyzed where you actually not making a decision. To me, there’s nothing courageous about that. Just sitting still when you know you should be moving. Sitting still is okay. But if you’re being tugged to move and do something, you should do it.

Jeff Johnson: I like how you talk about obedience and that that’s kind of the root of the courageous act. But still it’s courageous because it’s scary or unknown or different than like you said, different than what your flesh wanted.

JC Risewick: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think our pastor has said several times that in the church we attend here in Des Moines, he said, he goes, “the scariest prayer you can pray is to say, ‘okay, God, I’m yours, use me however you want me to use me.'” Right. Because if you’re serious, he might actually do it.

Jeff Johnson: Right. Right.

JC Risewick: I’m comfortable doing everything that I’m comfortable doing. This is a way that I like to put it.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: It’s stuff that I’m uncomfortable doing.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah, I’m a little. But okay. I think I’m going to jump right in with you, JC. I’m really curious. JC Risewick, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?

JC Risewick: Yeah. Gosh, it… When I thought about this question, I thought, boy, I know a lot of people have done some really courageous things. My answer to it doesn’t sound courageous, but I really do think it is because of where I am now. But it is, in my opinion, it is making the choice to sell our family business in ’24. So we sold in January of ’24, but there’s a long process leading up to that. And it wasn’t just, we woke up one day and said, let’s do this. You have a 50-year-old plus family business. We only had my dad, my mom, my brother, and I were involved in it. So we didn’t have 20 or 30 people that we had to engage in this process. But we all love this thing. It’s like Grandpa’s Pocket Watch, right? This is priceless. We don’t really want to get rid of this thing because it means so much to us. But it was the right time. It was… The industry conditions were perfect for it. My parents were getting to an age where I wanted to make sure that they were taking care of my brother and his family. My family would be taking care of too. And there was a lot of potential headwinds heading down the road too. And we were just in a spot where it made a whole lot of sense. And I think I read a book once that was talking about the rightful owner of a thing. And sometimes that might not be you. Sometimes it might be somebody else. And the author gave the example of, I think it’s the Lord of the Rings books, Tolkien’s books, where he wrote those gazillion years ago. And they were owned by the family the story rights were. And they kind of sat on the shelf for a long time until who was the guy that made the movies, the Lord of the Rings, Peter… Jenkins? Oh. I’m having—

Jeff Johnson: Peter Jackson.

JC Risewick: Yes. I think that’s right. Yes. So, he approached them and said, “I want to make a movie out of these books,” right? And the family would never have the ability to do what Peter Jackson did. So they had a similar decision and said, “boy, like we have to sell somebody else that writes this as our family jewels, right? These are the crown jewels.” They sold the rights to him and look what happened. You know, the legacy of Tolkien grew even further into the next generations because those movies were made.

Jeff Johnson: Right.

JC Risewick: And those stories got to get told all over again in a whole new way. So I kept thinking about that going, “you know, sometimes maybe we’re not the rightful owner for this. Maybe it’s somebody else at this point.” But boy, going through something that you have so much attachment to, it’s almost literally your identity. And you don’t… I didn’t realize it for me until we’d actually sold it. And then I had to grapple with, “whoa, wait, I’m not making the decisions like I used to. This actually falls with somebody else. And now I’m accountable to somebody else. Who am I if I’m not the president of this company? Who am I if I’m not involved in the community in these ways?” So it was… That was pretty tough to get through. But it was tough to deal with… To get my family on with this too because everybody… It wasn’t just me that was dealing with those things. It was… My dad, he started this thing out of the trunk of his car when he was 21 years old. And man, he did a hell of a job. And you know, it’s all of a sudden… Yeah. And the person anymore is pretty tough to go through. So… But you know what though? It was an act of obedience to that led to a whole bunch of other things. I mean, it’s led to huge blessings, right? But as it piles on, you know, I did little other acts of obedience and then more things started opening up. But I found myself now… My wife and I are actually moving to Colorado next June. We wouldn’t have been able to do that if we hadn’t… hadn’t sold the business. Not financially, but just we would have to have stayed here.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: And so it didn’t have anything to do with really the finances. That makes it easier to do that. But I would have had to have stayed and run the company. I couldn’t do it from Colorado. So as it frees up the opportunity to do that, we think God’s calling us to do some cool stuff there. So we get to do that. Boy, and then you just… It’s almost like light speed now, how fast some of this stuff feels to be going. So…

Jeff Johnson: I’m not going to miss you moving to Colorado. I’m not going to miss you moving to Colorado because I’m going to come visit you all the time. So it’s kind of like I would welcome Colorado.

JC Risewick: Yeah. That’s exactly what it feels like. Yeah. You should come in once a month. I think.

Jeff Johnson: Well, can I… I want to interrupt and ask you a question here because I like what you said that that act of obedience that was hard for you. You know, it had some tension around it. You know, the history and the identity and all that stuff. But that act of obedience turned into a domino effect where you’ve been obedient with a lot of other things. Did that surprise you that that untapped more courageous acts?

JC Risewick: Yeah, I think it did. You know, I think I heard a couple times when I was praying about it, “JC, it’s… If you can’t be obedient here, I can’t use you in other places.” So it’s like, “wow, here’s a roadblock. I might be comfortable, happy, you know, led a great life, raised great kids, been a pillar of the community, all those sorts of things. But man, I would have never found out what God had in store for me next, you know, and what potential things He would have laid out for me then.” But yeah, it surprised me. It actually made me want to pay attention more, be discerning on where He wanted me to be obedient. So another example, I don’t think this is so much courageous, but boy, I want to be obedient here. But, you know, after that process, you know, struggling with identity, who I am, all the stuff, and there’s a natural process as a head, you know, I’ve got an opportunity here. I want to be a better dad, a better husband, right? I’ve got a little bit more time on my plate than I did previously. So how do I, you know, how do I do that? What do I keep doing? And I kept hearing, you know, God going, “hey, I want you to stop drinking.” I didn’t have, I wasn’t passed out on the bars every other night or anything like that. It was fine, but, you know, I just kept hearing that.

Jeff Johnson: Oh, sure. Okay.

JC Risewick: You know, “but when I go to business dinner, I’m still going to have a glass of wine or two or whatever. When I do this, it’ll be fine.” And I kept hearing, “no, you need to stop doing that.” Okay. Fine. After like the six through seven times, I was like, fine, I’ll do that. What does that look like for me? So I did that. And man, I mean, it turns out to be one of the best decisions ever because now, again, it wasn’t a problem where I was, you know, about the head to jail or anything like that. But what it did was my kids actually asked me, you know, “hey, you know, what’s this? I thought you weren’t drinking beer.” “Yeah, it’s an NA beer,” you know. “How come you don’t do that anymore?” And or I’d go to a business dinner and I’d be the only one at the table who wouldn’t order anything. And that happened a couple times. And then I got to be known as the guy who doesn’t drink, you know, and then I get made fun of a little bit and one of our mutual friends who also doesn’t drink… He said, “well, JC, you know,” I was kind of lamenting about this and he goes, “well, what would you rather be known the guy who drinks or the guy who doesn’t drink? Because there’s a difference.” And I was like, “yeah, that’s a good point.” So then I’d get asked at business dinners, “you know, how come you don’t drink?” And I’d say, “well, because I—it’s better for my health. You know, I’ve got high blood pressure, you know, I eat terribly if I do whatever.” I’d start making that stuff up. And then in my quiet time is when I was praying in the morning, I’d hear, you know, God say, “hey, how come you didn’t—how come you didn’t tell him really why you stopped?” And I’d hang my head and go, “because I—now I’m really going to get made fun of because I’m going to say, ‘because, well, God told me not to.'” And so it almost feels a little courageous, you know, to sit at a business dinner. But so I did that, you know, next time I get asked, I’m walking me down. I said, “well, yeah, I’m a believer. And, you know, I went through a tell—tell a little bit of backstory, but you know, God was just on my heart telling me not to.” And the weird part about it was I thought they’d look at me funny and then never talked to me again. You know, and that I just be shunned and put in the corner. “This guy can’t hack it. He’s not going to—” actually what the opposite happened. They leaned into it more and wanted to hear more about it. And then I’m sitting at a table, if I get around people and everybody’s looking at me wanting to hear more about my story. So now I’m talking about Jesus in these business dinners or in circles that I never would have thought that I would ever be talking to people about this stuff. And now I have more discussions about my faith in the work environment than I ever did before, only because I listened to God and said, “fine, I won’t drink.” It wasn’t a major impact on my life, but I was just afraid of being viewed as the dork or the guy who doesn’t. This is what you have to do. So that’s one act, right? And then another one, you know, I love that. Hey, I want you to… my wife and I have been spending a bunch of time in Colorado since about 2018 and a second home we’ve had there for a while. We love this little church out there. We love the community out there. And we just feel—like, man, we just feel God calling us there. And I was great. We love Iowa too. So we’re like, man, we’re torn. Feels like what God’s telling us is, “look, you’re in two communities, right? You got one foot here, one foot here. Your kids are in one foot and one foot here. I want you to be effective in this one.” Okay, well, which one? You know, it feels like Colorado is more that way. And it’s a small little mountain town. It’s, you know, it’s a little—actually feels more like a mission field because it’s, you know, it’s more dark spiritually than where we are here in Iowa.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: There’s, there’s some drug use underground. I mean, it’s a beautiful place you never know, right?

Jeff Johnson: Right.

JC Risewick: It’s a vacation destination. People love going there. But the things that happen with the locals behind the scenes, the divorce rates are higher than even the national average there. The, like I said, the drug use is an issue. People worship crystals and other things.

Jeff Johnson: Right.

JC Risewick: And so, Anne and I just feel—as my wife, she and I feel like this is—this is—we’re called to be there. And then you tell people, “yeah, we’re called to go to this really beautiful—” right? “It’s a beautiful place, you know, yeah, so am I, you know, I’m called to go sit on the beach and, you know,” but it’s a little different. We’re—we’re going to be in the community. We’re going to be a part of that. And it’s more not called to just go be recreational or leisurely here. So it does feel like this is a mission field move for us, moving our kids into a place like this where they’re in a beautiful school here. It’s a great community. They’re well cared for. And we’re going to upend and uproot all that. And I still don’t know where that’s going to end, but we’re going to be obedient there. I do believe that all these things lead up to that, right?

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: And then another—then at least to another obedience decision, which I was talking to you about before we started recording here was I—I’ve been a member of our Board of Regents, which is our governing body for our three public universities here in Iowa; Iowa State University, University of Iowa, and University of Northern Iowa, which includes the University of Iowa hospitals and clinics. So it’s a capstone appointment. The governor personally appoints you to a state senate and confirms you. And you’re in charge of billions of dollars. You’re in charge of the strategic direction of all these universities. There’s a hundred thousand students and teachers and staff, billions of dollars worth of real estate. It’s a massive economic engine. It trains all the people coming into the state. So it’s a capstone appointment of sorts. And that’s all, it could also be a sense of pride, right? Like, “hey, man, I’m really important. I’m really, really important. I’m really important.” Or at least worthy of being in a position like this. So I’ve been doing that since 2022. It was reappointed last year for another six year term. This is something I actually really enjoy doing. I love education. My wife was serving on our kids’ school board also. So we’ve been advocates for education for a long time. Really, really enjoyed pouring my heart into that thing.

Jeff Johnson: You guys got a heart for service. I know that about you, yeah?

JC Risewick: Yeah, and it’s awesome. And I love doing it. It wasn’t about the accolades, right? It wasn’t about that. But it’s certainly there in the back of your mind if you’re not guarding your heart real well. So I had the opportunity to become the next leader of that board, but we’re moving. So I was wrestling with this for a little while. When we finally decided we’re going to move, I was asked by all these important people to take that role. “Well, are we moving or are we not moving?” So it really kind of forced that decision. We need to “skierfully,” right? I use that analogy. It’s funny because like, “well, are we going to ski? Or are we going to flee the mountain, right?” So when we ultimately decided that, I went back and forth to go, “okay, well, maybe I can do this remotely. Maybe I can do this X. And I really want to try to do this.” Your friend, Justice, who’s over in Nigeria, has been some time talking to him about. He’s an amazing guy, by the way.

Jeff Johnson: Now, there’s an example of someone who’s doing something courageous. Our very first interview on the Courageous Crossroads program.

JC Risewick: Yeah. For your listeners, go listen to that one. It’s an amazing story, too. But I got to spend some time with him and you down on this deal plant. And boy, he told some great stories and he talked about how important Western education is to the rest of the world. And boy, I really struggled with that one, too, because I thought, “man, well, God’s put me in this position and how important Western education is to freedom, really. And here I am in this really important position, going, okay, what do I do?” Talking with my wife, you know, is she on board with me trying to continue doing this, is she not? That’s always a good litmus test. She kind of would call out some of the potential ego roadblocks or some of those things. And I really appreciate that about her that she’s willing to call me out. And I really want her to. And sometimes I get a little mad. I’m like, “no, you’re not supposed to tell me that.” But so she was like, “you know, are you sure this isn’t like a flashy thing? You know, that this is a little bit of ego. You get to be the leader and all these important people want to talk to you and all that stuff.” I said, “no, I don’t think so. I mean, Western education is really important to the freedom, to the rest of the world.” And I wasn’t so sure, but then I went back and, man, I just got super convicted. I have got to—I don’t think this is it. I don’t think I can do this. So I recently had the conversation with the folks that said, “I have to bow out, I can’t do it.” And boy, did my flesh just say, “that’s a dumb, dumb move. You should keep doing this.”

Jeff Johnson: Wow.

JC Risewick: But I feel really at peace with the whole thing. I’m not upset about it. Neither are the other people that were asking me to. I had the opportunity to do it. People believe that I could. That’s really all I need, right? And God’s saying, “you can’t do what I want you to do when you guys are moving to Colorado and these other things that I put on your plate right now. If you do this role.”

Jeff Johnson: Boy, this is so good for people to hear this, JC. Two major endeavors here of courage. In being obedient, taking your hands off of a 50 plus year old business that’s got your family’s name and fingerprints all over it to be able to let go of that because God’s telling you to do that. And then to be in this very public position and being affirmed to be a figurehead there once again. And to know that it’s just not what God wants you to do right now and to put that down and to move on. That’s very impressive. So here’s what people are gonna want to know about that. Here’s what Jeff wants to know about that. How do you know that God wanted you to let go of that business? And the time was right to move on. And how do you know that you shouldn’t do that? You said, you might be fun of by some people. If you say, “well, God told me to.” Answer that question for the folks.

JC Risewick: Yeah, as far as selling the business boy, I mean, that was such a long process. I would say when I first took over in 2017, one of the things that I did was reinstate our family meetings. And that was easier for me to do, any annual family meetings. We hadn’t done that for a long time. And I wanted to have open and honest discussions with my family if anything, like mainly my brother, my mom and my dad, his, my brother’s wife and my wife. And what I—so I organized them as such where I would, I had a—every, we do these every year, but every other year I’d have a valuation firm come in, a broker, or somebody come and tell us what the business was worth if we were gonna take it to the market. And then I created these exercises to go through with my family to just have these discussions. What would it be like if we sold the company? Is there a number? Is there anything else? And you know, one of them was the “grandpa’s pocket watch.” That’s what I call this exercise. You rated it on a scale of one to 10 as a family heirloom. How important is this business to you? Is it a zero—it’s not a family heirloom at all, or is it grandpa’s priceless pocket watch where you’re never gonna sell it? Doesn’t matter what it’s worth. And then we’d go through an identity scale and really get seriously evaluated. Each person would go read through the exercise and say, “well, who am I if we sell this company? What am I gonna do when I am not in this role anymore?” And they would do that independently and then bring that to the meeting. And then we just put the fish on the table and we’d all talk about it. I mean, it was some of the best discussions I’ve ever had with my family. There was crying, there was hugging, there was—”I had no idea you felt that way. I didn’t know it was this important to you. You know, I’ve always wanted to tell you how proud of you I am” or something, you know? But then we more importantly though as it pertains to down the road. Okay, like we dealt with a lot of those really tough conversations and what would it be like if we sold this thing? What is a number, right? A hundred cajillion dollars, we’ll sell it for that. Okay, well let’s say we get that offer. Would we really do it? And we’d have those discussions every year and we’d have someone come in and tell us, “this is what it’s worth if we were to sell it.” So leading up to the point of actually having to make the decision, we’d already done all the hugging and the crying and all that difficult stuff when we got there. So there’d been a lot of foundational work that took place to get there. I mean, some of that was courageous too. You know, we run a lot of the same circles and family businesses, the last thing anybody wants to do is bring their family into a room and have a meeting. We’re talking about stuff.

Jeff Johnson: Right. That’s a lot of the last thing that people want to do.

JC Risewick: But I would argue it’s the best thing you can do if the relationship for your family plus doing the right thing for the business. You know, and are we creating value here too, right? Or are we just happy with this, just being, you know, a thing that kind of helps us with our livelihoods? And are we treating our employees fairly? Are we the right owner?

Jeff Johnson: Whereas Peter Jackson, the right owner. Yeah. So those were lots of difficult discussions leading up to it. But it did lay a lot of the foundational groundwork to get to the point where we could make the decision to actually sell it. Now your question, how did I know? Well, a lot of it was how to do it. How did you hear from God?

JC Risewick: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of it was laying groundwork for all those years up to that point and going, “okay, like, this is—checked all those boxes. It really, do you want us to do this or not?” So all of the noise of, “is this the right number? Is this the right,” you know, all that? We agreed. This is them. They check all the boxes. So if we’re gonna do it, “okay, God. What do you want to do here?” And I think one of the best questions that—as I said, I spend a lot of time in prayer, you and I spent a lot of time doing it, in fact—and I think one of the best questions that I asked was, or in prayer, that you encouraged me to ask was, “are you done with me at Seneca? Have I done everything here that you wanted me to do?”

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: And I—I kept hearing, “yes, you have a little bit more work to do here, to see this through and to transition and all that stuff, but yes, I’ve got other things for you.” So at the very least, I knew that my time was done. And I’m not like a big fan of saying, “oh, I had this dream and that led to the rest of my life,” right? It could just be about bad indigestion or whatever. But I did have a dream that boy was pretty profound, where it was a nightmare—my wife actually woke me up because I was talking, rolling over and stuff. But I was—it was like a dark void and the only thing there was me and then there’s this house. All the windows are shut, and there’s lots of windows, there’s a big place. And I was like terrified because there’s all this stuff in the house, like evil stuff. And I’m terrified. I’m like, “oh my god, this is really scary, but it’s all locked up, it’s all in there.”

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: And then all of a sudden, like my grandfather—he passed away like 15 years ago, so I haven’t seen him for a long time—and all of a sudden, he’s standing there. And my grandfather was kind of the one who provided the seed money and kind of helped the encouragement to get this off the ground with my dad. And my grandfather was just super peaceful and smiling at me, you know? And I took that in a lot of different ways, but he took that one, like, “I want your dad to be at peace with this too.”

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: And his dad is okay with this. “Here’s all the things that you all are terrified about. They’re all locked up in this house. I’ve got it all taken care of. Grandpa’s okay. Your dad needs to know that grandpa’s okay, and you need to know that all of this is okay.”

Jeff Johnson: Wow.

JC Risewick: So, there wasn’t a single point where I ever heard, “no, you shouldn’t do this.” Every time I kept going, “yes.” And then eventually, I just felt really at peace with making the decision. But the road was super rocky leading right up to it.

Jeff Johnson: I think this is—see, this is again, what’s so valuable about this. What you’re talking about, the scriptures say that God is a God of order, not of disorder. So you’re talking about some common sense, a lot of common sense, you know, putting everything in—getting everything organized and getting yourself prepared for the time when it is right. And then you do get a little nudge from the Lord, a little push in the right direction, but a lot of it is just common sense. This is—this made perfect sense. And God owns that domain, absolutely.

JC Risewick: Yeah, for sure. And the emotion is where it gets all—you get all wrapped around the act.

Jeff Johnson: Right.

JC Risewick: You know. And so we’d had those conversations previously. I think that was one of the benefits we’re talking about it for all those years before we actually did it. But I’m not—that’s not to say there wasn’t a ton of emotion wrapped up around it. And then every little roadblock that came along, I mean, and there was a gazillion of them, right? Like somebody signed a contract that they shouldn’t have signed. They gave somebody else first right of refusal if we ever sell the company. And that’s a minor one, but like, there were hundreds of those things. And then there were other large ones where you’re going, “geez God, like, you know, I thought you were supposed to make my path straight here, you know? But this doesn’t feel very straight. Like, are you sure you want me to do this?” And every time I’d never hear “no,” you know? And I’d—sometimes it was, you know, I didn’t really hear much about—other time. And then the one question I kept asking though, was, “are you done with me here?” You know, “yes, yes. And once you get through with this, yeah.”

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. So we can go ahead and be hard. And there can be roadblocks. It’s affirmed all the way. So keep going in that. And that would stand a reason.

JC Risewick: Oh, 100%. You’re going to have trouble along the way. I mean, it was the same thing with the Board of Regents. Pretty, pretty similar, you know, one thing I would add to this, right? It was man—the anxiety going through this. I mean, I don’t know, I had to take any anti-anxiety medicine to get through this whole mess. Just because I was trying to make it perfect and trying to get it, you know, all the way across the finish line. So just the rocky road, you know? And I think—I think after praying about it, I don’t have to take this stuff anymore. In fact, I’ve been off of it for over a year, which is great. And that’s a sign of me, you know, the peacefulness of this decision and where God really wanted me to be. Because previously to that man, I was just always on edge, man. You know, “when’s the next shoe going to drop? When’s the—you know, when’s the mothership going to fly over and zap us all,” you know?

Jeff Johnson: Right.

JC Risewick: So, and I would say to that, like, okay, why isn’t the road straight or smooth all the time? You know, I did learn a little bit from that, right? Like, God doesn’t promise us just, you know, alfalfa fields as far as the eye can see up to our waist, right? He gives us just a little tuft of grass every day, right? And the old analogy: green pastures is not the giant alfalfa field for a hundred acres. It’s, “here’s a little tuft of grass. This is enough for today. Here’s the next day,” you know, “give us this day our daily bread” sort of a thing. So I did learn that, but I also learned that like—hey, the rocky road is like a gracious path because of all the learning that you do leading up to it and the preparing for something else. And I look back on it and I’m thankful that I went through all that actually, which was shocking to me because at the time, I’m like, “I don’t think you really want me to do this, do you? Because you’re throwing all these roadblocks and I’m on anti-anxiety medicine. Like, you know, it’s rocky relationships with my family and sometimes and oh man,” you know? But anyway, hindsight’s always 20/20, but boy, just the obedience to that. Like where my family is now, my relationship with my dad now is never better. My brother—the business is in a good spot still. It’s, yeah.

Jeff Johnson: So, but your question was—you were talking about the regents.

JC Risewick: So, no—

Jeff Johnson: I was, well, is the Board of Regents’ decision the same as the business decision, common sense?

JC Risewick: Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: Or was that more of—did you get hit by a bolt of lightning or did you, you know, wake up in a fever dream and something like that? You heard the audible voice of God or, I mean, what was the—not to make fun of that because some people will have that. People like—God can talk to us however he wants to talk to us, but I just love the common sense aspect of it.

JC Risewick: Well, I laugh because I have a story to tell about that.

Jeff Johnson: Okay.

JC Risewick: So, remind me and I’ll tell you about the audible voice.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: The decisions to not take on a leadership role of Board of Regents was very similar. You know, “okay, God, are you done with me here?” And I kept—kept hearing the same thing, you know.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: “Yeah. I can’t use you if you’ve got your time wrapped up over here with these things that I want you to do over here,” you know. “And you’re not gonna be effective living in another state. Plus, it’s a bad look if you’re not—I want you to move. So, you’re gonna have to not be obedient to that. And you’re gonna have to stay in Iowa.” So, I’m like, man, this is like a double whammy, you know. I’m not being obedient to things if I do this. And then, you know, I’m a big fan of seeking wise counsel. Right. So, other Christians that you trust and that can give you the clarity of making that decision who aren’t just gonna focus on, “well, do what makes you feel good. You do you.” You know, I think that’s the worst advice you could ever get.

Jeff Johnson: Right.

JC Risewick: So, but I’d ask other people and there—I couldn’t ever—I actually tried a thousand times to make this work because I really wanted to do it. But I could tell my wife just wasn’t on board. And I remember thinking, you know, if it is an example. And I got really convicted like—if I really love this woman and I want to be a good example for my kids, I can’t just disregard how she feels about this. I can’t disregard what my friends are telling me. And then somebody asked me a question, they said, “well, think of it this way. How do you want your kids to view this decision in five years from now, 10 years from now, or 20 years from now?” And that one hit me really hard because that’s the legacy that I really want to leave behind is, you know, kids that had—I’m the only one who gets to be their dad. Their biological dad. I’m the only one.

Jeff Johnson: Mm-hmm.

JC Risewick: And I’m the closest link to God, the Father, right? They view me as dad. I’m their earthly dad.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: God’s their heavenly dad. They’re making a lot of correlation there between me and him. Am I putting them first? If I say yes to this, we’re not moving, we’re gonna do this. So I’m putting my family first and my kids first. And how are they gonna view that decision that I made five, 10, 20 years from now? And I read a book—I like World War II history—and I read a book about, you know—I, Erwin Lutzer wrote it, it’s really good. I think it was The Broken Cross, like how the swastika was actually a cross that they just broke and turned it into a swastika.

Jeff Johnson: That’s interesting.

JC Risewick: And then they took it and, you know, they took over churches and other areas and then they hung a swastika instead of the cross—super fascinating book.

Jeff Johnson: Mm-hmm.

JC Risewick: Well, one of the things he talked about in there was after all of this was done. And they were clearing the rubble and, you know, German families were making a new life and coming out from underneath this. You know, how does a whole country get behind something so evil? Because not everybody was that way.

Jeff Johnson: Mm-hmm.

JC Risewick: Well, you know, families and parents were making decisions. “Well, we have to just get through this. We’ll do whatever they want us to do because we don’t wanna get thrown into these concentration camps. Have our kids killed, have us killed, have our businesses taken from us, our homes, whatever. So we’ll just—we’re gonna have to go along with it for the sake of our kids, for the sake of the state.” So best of intentions, you know, “I wanna save my family. So I’m gonna do what they want me to do.” When they went years later and interviewed the kids and the parents—and that’s what the parents said, “that’s why we did this”—the kids said, overwhelmingly, “I would have much rather had you lose our house, lose our business or have me thrown into a concentration camp than allow this evil atrocity to happen.” Like that struck with me. Now this—I’m not—this is not the right—it’s not a direct comparison by any means. That’s not what I’m saying. But how do you want your kids to view you in the decisions that you made five, 10, 20 years from now? And I thought—this actually—this is a courageous decision because I said no to something that I really wanted to say yes to. But what I really said yes to was my family, my kids and my wife. If I would have said yes to this role, I would have been saying no to them.

Jeff Johnson: Mm-hmm. The business stuff and the Board of Regents stuff are nuances, those are things that are very unique to you. But this—this courage of obedience idea, and this listening to God and pressing in and asking God in whatever fight you’re involved with, “have I done everything here that you want me to do? Is now the time for me to move on?” That translates into every single walk of life. Anybody who’s listening to this is gonna be able to apply those truisms to whatever their—whatever their life is.

JC Risewick: Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: So that’s super, super, super valuable. Do your—is your wife and your kids? How do I ask this question? Are you seeing repercussions of your courageous obedience in your wife and your children? I’m sure the answer is yes, but I want you to characterize that for us.

JC Risewick: Yeah, I think so. It’s still pretty early, you know? I think though, you know, those are one of the things—when he asked me originally to come on the podcast and like, “well, I don’t know if I—I don’t have an ending to the story. I feel like I’m just kind of just starting these.”

Jeff Johnson: You do, you do.

JC Risewick: Yeah, but, you know, I can see it with my—I can see it with my wife. Our relationship is really good. And she knows and I’m putting her first and she feels safe in that regard. So just our—just the health of our relationship’s never been better in that regard. My kids are—they’re still young enough where, you know, they’re still trying to figure things out. But I would say the example of setting this for them is really—I can see it for them and making responsible choices and doing the right thing as they see like a conviction from God or like, “this just feels like the wrong thing. I can’t—I can’t do it,” you know?

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. Do you think we live in a society where obedience—courage through obedience—is in a deficit or at a premium? I mean, do you see a lot of it out there or not very much of it?

JC Risewick: Obedience to God probably less so, just as a broader culture. I think we could certainly use more of it, right? I think our culture tells us, “do what makes you feel good,” you know, “be you.” Actually believe the lie, you know, that you can find peace in whatever thing it is you’re pursuing here on earth—in a career or a new car or a relationship or whatever it might be. But instead if we pursued God instead and said, “what do you want me to do here? With everything,” right? “Should I buy this car? Should I marry this person?” I mean, those are—”should I marry this person” is a big decision, but “should I buy this car? Should I—should I take this job? Should I volunteer for this gig they asked me to? Should I do that,” right? “How does this glorify you if I were to do this? How does this glorify my family,” right? And I think that some of that’s hard to really determine, but being with God and conversating with him on a daily basis is super helpful, even if you’re doing it for five or 20 minutes. So I think if all of us just did that for five or 20 minutes, it’d be great. How do you get to that point and then say, “okay, like I actually will be obedient,” you know? “Even though I really want this and you’re telling me no, or maybe you’re telling you want me over here—that actually seems really hard. I really like my comfort over here.”

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

JC Risewick: Yeah, I wish I could say it was more so in that regard. I just don’t think it is unfortunately. We’re taught to—

Jeff Johnson: Okay, I’m gonna ask you an unfair question. This is the last question I’m gonna ask you and then I’ll let you go and it’s an unfair question, but I’m gonna ask it anyway. So the scriptures talk about how man determines his steps, but God knows the way. You know, so we have our plans, but God is in charge and he knows. As long as we’re obedient to him, he knows. So that indicates that we’re supposed to do, you know, a day to day surrender, picking up a cross, walking with him, that sort of thing. But it also says that he teaches us to number our days so that we use them correctly. I wanna ask you a question. What do you think—what kind of JC do you think I’m gonna bump into God willing in 10, 15 years?

JC Risewick: Man, I really don’t know where I’m gonna be. I may still be in Colorado, I may be back in Iowa, who knows, I may be sailing somewhere in Greece or something. And I think you’re gonna find—what I hope you find—is someone who still has the conviction to follow God no matter what age I’m at. That my relationship with my family and my kids is awesome. I’m still putting those things first, but somebody who’s just—whatever community he’s in—has been giving back to that and that those folks, you know, that I made a difference wherever I was at, no matter how big or how small. And it’s interesting because the next thing that’s on my heart… we’re moving to this town that does a lot of like festivals in the summer and they have music festivals and they have film festivals and they have, you name it, there’s something. And it’s been on my heart to—I should say it’s on my heart, it’s just like—if I couldn’t fail, that’s another question, if I couldn’t fail, if I knew I couldn’t fail, well, what would I do differently today, right? And my answer to that question lately has been, I would start a Christian music festival in this little town in Colorado.

Jeff Johnson: Right on.

JC Risewick: And have it be, you know, not like your pop hits, but like just—it fits the culture of the town and the nature of it. And, but it’s Christian music and you have all these folks come there and there’s this two or three day thing and people are getting baptized in the river in town. And you know, that’s like if I couldn’t fail, I would go do that tomorrow. So maybe in 10 or 15 years, you’re going to find me at a Christian music festival in this little town.

Jeff Johnson: That would be awesome. I love it. That’s wonderful. JC Risewick, I could—I could number a lot of things that I absolutely love about you, but you’re a man of great courage and you’re a great friend. Thank you so much for sharing with us today.

JC Risewick: Yeah, thanks Jeff. It’s been a pleasure.

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