From Marketing Executive to Micro-Farmer: How Rodney Brandt Discovered God's Deeper Call

Rodney Brandt didn't want to join Kingdom Factor. Not the first time Jim Lang asked. Not the second. Not even after two and a half years of polite declines.

"I thought it was a great idea," Rodney recalls of that first briefing in 2008. "I also thought it wasn't for me."

He was a marketing and public education professional in northwest Ohio, convinced of his salvation, comfortable in his church pew. Kingdom Factor seemed like something for other people — people who needed what it offered. Rodney cheered Jim on and kept saying no.

Until Jim changed the question.

"Rod, you don't really know about this group," Jim told him after years of gentle persistence. "I'm asking you to pray about it. Would you pray about whether or not God would have you be in this group?"

Rodney honored the request. He prayed. And before the prayer was even finished, he had his answer.

The Lord was saying, join the group, Rod. Join the group. So I did, out of obedience. And I'm so glad that Jim and the Lord saw what I couldn't see.

The Front End of a Journey

That decision in 2011 marked what Rodney now calls "the front end" of his spiritual journey — a journey that would take him places he never imagined. Not just into Kingdom Factor, but into preaching, pastoral leadership, and eventually out of marketing entirely and onto a half-acre micro-farm.

"The deep value, the richness of this group — it really permeates not just your business, but your personal life," he says. "It's really an opportunity for someone who loves the Lord to grow in their faith with fellow believers."

At the time, Rodney and his wife Laurie were beginning to pursue God more deeply. They knew their eternal destiny was secure, but they were discovering that God wanted to radically transform them at a much deeper level — what theologians call sanctification, what Rodney calls "being set free from bondage."

In Kingdom Factor, he started hearing other members' personal challenges, spiritual struggles, and business pressures. He watched people — including himself — go deeper in their faith, wrestling with hard questions and experiencing genuine transformation.

I saw how we were all going deeper in our faith. I started having a heart for wanting to see people set free from the bondage that they were in. Even though they were followers of Jesus, they were still dealing with so much that the Holy Spirit has a desire to free them from.

When God Rebuilds You

A few years after joining Kingdom Factor, Rodney was asked to serve on the leadership team at his church. Then came an unmistakable call: God wanted him to preach.

What followed was a difficult decade — 2010 to 2019 — marked by trials that Rodney describes carefully but candidly. "The Lord does His best work when we're desperate and we realize that we need Him," he says. "Laurie and I had some very trying times. But we came out of that blessed."

Today, when Rodney stands before his congregation to preach, he sees those years with clarity. "It is an immense privilege," he tells his church members. "I see how God had to rebuild who I was in order for me to be qualified to do what I'm doing now. I had nowhere near the deepness of faith required to lead people."

That rebuilding happened in community. Not in isolation. Not sitting in a Sunday pew. In an environment where there was accountability, iron sharpening iron, people challenging theology and asking, "What does the Word say?"

The Farmer Who Trusts the Seed

Three years ago, after nearly 40 years in marketing, Rodney made another radical shift. He became a vegetable farmer.

Today, he and Laurie run a micro-farm in Holland, Ohio, growing traditional field crops and microgreens on just half an acre — enough food for 250 to 300 people. Laurie was down at the barn seeding onions on the day of our interview. Rodney is preparing to hire his first farmhand, a high school student looking for summer work.

The career change seems abrupt until you understand what farming requires: the same radical trust that Kingdom Factor cultivated in Rodney over 15 years.

It requires a deep faith to be a farmer because you're trusting in that seed and you're trusting in that sun and that rain, and there's nothing you can do about any of those. All you can do is all you can do and then trust that the rest will happen.

Rodney never joined Kingdom Factor looking for business relationships. But God had other plans. Through the group, he met business partners who came alongside him in the farming venture — people he never would have encountered otherwise.

"I think that's part of me being obedient all those years ago," he reflects. "The Lord knew that he had this in mind. He wanted me at this point in my life to be running a farm in partnership with some other people."

Why He Keeps Showing Up

For 15 years, Rodney has committed four hours once a month to Kingdom Factor. Add preparation time and check-ins between meetings, and it's a significant investment for someone running a farm, leading a church, and navigating family responsibilities.

"I'm going to be really honest here and say it is a challenge most months," Rodney admits. "But here's what it comes down to: making a decision to trust God. If God has called me to do something, my job is to be obedient to it. He's going to bless me for being obedient."

Every month, he looks at his calendar the night before the meeting and asks himself: Can I afford to be there? The harvest season posed real constraints last year — crops don't wait for meetings. But in 15 years, Rodney has rarely missed.

What keeps him coming back isn't just the business insights or even the personal transformation. It's the investment — mutual, ongoing, sacrificial.

"I believe that I'm invested in their lives and they're invested in mine," he explains. "We pray for each other outside of the meeting. We get routine updates on prayer concerns. In the Book of Acts, the disciples devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles, to fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer. Aside from eating a big meal at our meetings, we're doing all of that."

The Environment That Changes You

Rodney has been shaped by Kingdom Factor's curriculum — studies on surrender, on being a better student of the Word, on applying faith in the marketplace. But the real transformation happened in the environment itself.

I would not have changed into the person I am in a vacuum. It wasn't going to happen sitting once a week on Sunday in a church pew. I needed to be in an environment where there was accountability, there was iron sharpening iron, there were people challenging theology and saying, what does the Word say?

Today, whether he's preaching at his church or having a conversation with a farm customer picking up their weekly vegetable box, Rodney sees every interaction as an opportunity for evangelism. And he credits Kingdom Factor as the environment God used to prepare him for this work.

"God uses circumstances in our lives. He uses other people. He uses His Holy Spirit and His Word primarily, but he uses all of those things to shape us for what he has called us to do," Rodney says. "For me to be successful at what He has called me to do, He needed to change me at a very deep level. I see Kingdom Factor as the environment He used to do that."

A Question for the Reluctant

When asked what he'd say to someone considering Kingdom Factor, Rodney doesn't pull punches.

You need to decide what you want. Do you want a little bit of Jesus? Because if that's what you want, you can go find a huge church where you can hide in the back row and that'll be enough. But if you want more, if you want to be what God has called you to be, if you want to go deep with Him — then find an organization like Kingdom Factor.

He pauses, then adds: "Be prepared that you will be blessed. I can almost guarantee that it will be nothing like what you imagine it to be, and it will be better. Give God an opportunity to change your life. You won't regret it."

Fifteen years ago, Rodney Brandt reluctantly prayed about joining Kingdom Factor. He obeyed when the answer came. Today, he's a pastor, a farmer, and a man who knows what it means to be rebuilt from the inside out — not in isolation, but in community with others who are surrendering to the same call.

That pivotal moment when Jim Lang asked him to pray? "I think it was a pivotal, pivotal moment in my spiritual development," Rodney says. The question is: what would change if you prayed that same prayer today?