In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ sit down with Shawn Maxwell (Chief Operations Officer of Church of Eleven22) to talk about what it takes to scale a 35,000-person-per-week organization, and why the institutions doing the hardest community work may also be the key to solving America's workforce shortage.

 If you care about community, workforce development, manufacturing, faith, or what it actually takes to build a city, this one is for you.

What we cover

• How Shawn went from pioneering broadband deployment at BellSouth and AT&T to running operations for one of the fastest-growing churches in America
• How Church of Eleven22 scaled to 16 campuses, 35,000 weekly attendees, 60 to 70K live online viewers, and 95 million YouTube sermon views annually 
• How AI is now converting Sunday sermons into Spanish content within days, and what that means for global reach
• Why Jacksonville's military bases and prison ministry programs are two of the most underutilized talent pipelines in the country
• Why strong community institutions are the missing ingredient in every reindustrialization conversation

Chapters

00:00 Global Mission Snapshot 

00:43 Meet Shawn Maxwell 

03:04 From Broadband to Church Ops 

07:11 Scaling Eleven22 With Tech 

19:11 Two Talent Pipelines Nobody Is Using 

28:06 What's Next for Church of Eleven22 

Guest: Shawn Maxwell, Chief Operations Officer at Church of Eleven22 

Find Shawn Maxwell: 

https://x.com/ShawnMaxInJax

[email protected]

Find Church of Eleven22: https://coe22.com

Find Matthew Chang:

https://x.com/MatthewChang

https://www.instagram.com/the.matthewchang

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewachang/

https://www.tiktok.com/@the.matthewchang

Find Colin Russ:

https://x.com/ThaaatColin

https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinruss/

Find Chang Robotics:

https://www.changrobotics.ai/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/changrobotics/

Follow ReForge

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-reforge-podcast/ 

X: https://x.com/thereforgepod 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereforgepod/ 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereforgepod 

Website: https://thereforgepodcast.com/

Want to be a guest or partner?

If you're building, funding, operating, or shaping the future of U.S. manufacturing, we'd love to hear from you. Email: [email protected]

About ReForge

ReForge is a podcast featuring conversations with the leaders reindustrializing America. This show exists to prove American reindustrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing. Hosted by Matthew Chang and Colin Russ.

Produced by Chang Robotics.