Sean Kouplen of Regent Bank
National Religious Broadcasters Convention 2024
Transcription completed by AI software, please excuse any misspellings or typos present.
Leray Heyne 0:23
Hello, I'm Leray Heyne. And I want to introduce you to the first Christian television network consecrated to tell the world what Jesus is doing the business. You may be thinking to yourself, What in the world are you talking about? Jesus is not involved in business. Business is one of the greatest problems this world has. And I get how that might be your Christian worldview. But for those of us who love the Lord with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength, and who had been called and gifted and sent by Holy Spirit to oversee companies in the public squares of business, we have a different Christian worldview. Jesus Christ GOTV, you will hear from Jesus's perspective what he is doing in business, you will hear from the perspective of Christian CEOs what Jesus is doing in business, you will learn how holy spirit is manifesting Christ in the mortal flesh of the Body of Christ, in business, and for you CEOs. You will be equipped on how to operate an authentic Kingdom company consecrated through Jesus Christ through you and your team's participation with God holy spirit's Governance. Welcome to Jesus Christ CEO TV, the first Christian television network consecrated and raised up by God holy spirit to tell the world what Jesus is doing in business.
Leray Heyne 1:48
We are back at National Religious Broadcasters convention, we are Jesus Christ CEO TV we are introducing our new virtual reality technology that will be going in our new studio in Orange County, California. And we are around looking for people who can partner with this ministry and what our mandate is our mandate is to tell the world what Jesus is doing in business. And now I want to introduce you to Sean Thank you, one of our team members roped you in or one of your team members roped you in
Sean Kouplen 2:23
Multiple multiple people. Yeah.
Leray Heyne 2:26
And you are what Jesus is doing in business. And so let's talk about that. Tell him a little bit about you and, and your business.
Sean Kouplen 2:35
Okay. Well, thank you for having me. I'm very, very impressed with your ministry. Very, very honored to be here with you. So I am from Tulsa, Oklahoma. I grew up in a very small town south of Tulsa on a farm. My dad fired me from the farm because I think I tore up too much farm equipment. I ended up in the banking business. I was president of a bank when I was 24, when I was 34, had the opportunity to buy a bank. So we bought a small community bank named region bank at a very small community in Oklahoma, on April Fool's Day of 2008. From that point, as I shared earlier, we had an amazing miracle that kept us in business in 2009. About eight years ago, I had an experience with the Lord that caused me to fully turn the organization over to him. And since that time, the organization has grown 37% a year. Wow, we're at now about 1.7 billion in assets. We have about 230 employees. We have a daily devotional prayer team faith in business events in our communities. And it is remarkable. There's really no other way to describe it.
Leray Heyne 3:54
Wow, you were telling me the story about when you almost lost the bank, share that miracle.
Sean Kouplen 4:01
I'll give a brief version of it. So yeah, as I mentioned, buying the bank in April of 2008. Everything was okay for about six months. And then the mortgage crisis hit that fall of 2008. We began to lose an enormous amount of money. We weren't in the mortgage business. But if you recall, the entire economy stopped the entire economy shut down. So our were a business bank and our business clients began to struggle. Well, by the time we get to February of 2009, we were our capital ratios were too low. We were in the danger zone ready to be shut down by the regulators. They had already shut down 400 and some odd banks. I was in church on a Sunday morning, and the band was singing the song healer. I believe you're my healer. I believe you're more than enough for me as I was thinking. This is the biggest bunch of below Only that I've ever heard. No healing was happening in my life. I was about two miles Arab, so you lose everything. And the Lord spoke to me and said, Do you believe I am your healer. And it was so real that I was on the front row of church. It was cool that day, I started crying, I could not stop crying. And I told the Lord on the very front row on my knees in front of everybody in my church that I helped found the church, that if we were going to save the bank, save the company, it was going to have to be the Lord because I didn't know what else to do. I was I had been working 20 hours a day, I had lost tons of weight, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. Tremendous stressed. Two days later, I was sending a letter out to our shareholders that said, we need $3 million. If we don't raise $3 million, by the end of the first quarter, we're gonna get shut down. Most of them had already told me no, but I thought, well, maybe that's the way the Lord is going to work this out. Yeah. My assistant is walking out the door with this stack of letters. To my left the phone rings, and it's the US Treasury Department calling for me. Wow. So I think well, we're we're, we're done. Yep. They're they've found they've seen our numbers. They know how bad we are. So I yell at Sandy. And I say, hey, Sandy, you need to bring those letters back. I said, I think it's too late. Yeah. So she brings the letters back, she's crying, I walk around, pick up the phone. And the lady on the other end says, Mr. Kouplen, you may or may not be interested in this, but you've been chosen for the capital purchase program through the US Treasury Department, we were like to invest $3 million in your bank. The money came into the bank that same day, wow, it was 1% interest. No dilution, no board seats, nine years to pay it back. It healed the bank, we paid it back the next year. And now we're 23 times bigger than we were. It was a miracle.
Leray Heyne 7:01
You know what I love about that story. You know, you as you said, you put all your money in, you know, you were all in. And I come from a background, you know, and building a kingdom under myself. So I took a lot of credit back in the day, right? And what I love about that is the Lord took you to your end, to where you could never, ever take credit for this. Right? You can't you did your efforts came to an end. And then he answered your prayer and brought the healing that you were praying for. So I love that.
Sean Kouplen 7:33
What I have learned what I have learned with our clients, and with my friends that are in business, the Lord seems to do this a lot. It's like he wants to take us all the way to almost the Joseph principle. You know, it's like he wants to take us all the way down to the bedrock. And help us know that it's not us, but it's him. And as soon as we realize that, and put our faith in Him and our trust in him and give him all the credit. He builds us back. Yeah, we bill back. And that has definitely been the story of my life. No doubt.
Leray Heyne 8:06
So you deal probably with as many business owners as I do, being a bank. Man, you said that. There was that day the Lord challenged you. You know, business owners, they want to be practical. What did it look like before because you were loving the Lord. He had done these miracles in your life. What was the challenge? You knew that and what did it look like? Different from just being that guy that founded a church founded a bank and serving the Lord loving the Lord watching miracles happen to when he says no, I need more?
Sean Kouplen 8:39
It was petrifying. So so here's what happened. I was we were we were a Christian business. So we were operating according to Christian principles, being honest, being generous treating people well doing the right thing, right. But I was in church one morning, a savory it's a very small church. I a lot of things happen to this little church for me. So I'm sitting there and the Lord absolutely calls me to start a daily devotional for my employees. Wow. And I dismissed it because I thought it was illegal. I thought that you couldn't do that if for some reason I thought it was similar to prayer in schools or something like that. And I said, Well, you know this this must be 1960s God because you can't do that anymore. And I and I ignored it. Thankfully, he stayed after me he stayed after me I began to research and I realized you can bring God into your business you you cannot force I cannot force you right as my employee to worship my way, but I can offer all day long Yes, I can. I can offer your Bible study prayer team, etcetera, etcetera. So, I stood up in our employee meeting I've been I've probably never been this scared in my life. I stood up at the end of our employee meeting and I said, Okay, guys. I really feel called to To start a daily devotional. So I said tomorrow at 815, we're going to start one, if you want to join me, I'm going to be in the boardroom, right. And for those of you that are in our other, we have seven locations. I've got one 800 number you can call. Next morning. There were seven people. Okay, seven people showed up. I thought so at the time, we probably had 120 employees. And I thought, boy, that was a bit of a letdown. Yeah. Okay, God, I did overs guy. I thought they'd be lined out, you know, to come into this deal. Well come to find out I had sent out the wrong PIN number. So there wasn't anybody on the conference call line was because I sent out the wrong number. So we went from seven to 57 the next day. Wow. Okay. Now, this is a years ago. We have now read we've now had 230,000 unique collars into this direction. Oh, I get a report every day. Yeah. This morning. We had 73,000 callers. So
Leray Heyne 11:01
you're here. You're you're traveling and you still you still lead the devotion? Wow. That's obedience to the Lord. Yes.
Sean Kouplen 11:07
And I have I have friends that will lead when I can. My friend Jim Schmidt, who is here leads on Saturdays and Sundays. Yeah. And so that just five days a week. So it's every day, by all the days it doesn't matter is that as well. So if anyone's interested, it's just you just call 888-630-4807. So anybody can call it anybody can call. Oh, wow, it's grown. That's how it's grown. So it's all word of mouth. It doesn't even really have a name. It's just word of mouth. And so that is when the Lord showed me what could happen if I really turn things over to him. So from there, it's been drastic, I've mentioned to you we have a prayer team that had 157 answered prayers last year. Wow. Documented miracle explained.
Leray Heyne 11:52
Explain that. So they know what happened there.
Sean Kouplen 11:55
This is this is very, very simple, but very powerful. I always get up early, I was in prayer spending time with Jesus. And I always just asked him for direction for the for the day. And I felt him say you you need to have a praying organization, it needs to not just be you. You need to you need to others need to pray. Yeah. So I'm driving in and I'm going okay, you know, what does that look like? You know, God, what, uh, what do I was that look like? And so I emailed out to our entire employee base and said, Hey, guys, I feel like, we need to have a prayer team, right? If you're somebody that likes to pray for others, you know, please let me know. We're going to pray for anybody that needs it. Our employees, our clients, our communities. And so today, it started out with about 20. Today, there are about 60 to 70 members of the prayer team. And we have hundreds of prayer requests. So again, we've gone public with it. Yeah. So anybody can send a prayer request to prayer request at region dot bank. Uh huh. And we we pray for them. So it's on the prayer team, it will pop up all throughout the day, the emails will come to us. We pray together on Wednesdays, the leader of our prayer team, who's our internal auditor, no less, on her own, decided to start tracking these prayer requests. And that's how we know there were 157 answered prayers last year. Wow. So it is it is it's beyond what I ever thought you could do in a company. And that's why that's what led to our 94x movement. Yeah, I try to teach other businesses how to do this. Yeah.
Leray Heyne 13:40
So talk about a little bit so you, you you got the devotion, you've got the prayer. What other things have you integrated into the business? It's faith.
Sean Kouplen 13:49
Of course, we have multiple Bible studies going on within the company at any given time.
Leray Heyne 13:54
How can I do that for the business owner that thinks I don't have any more bandwidth? How do you do that?
Leray Heyne 14:00
In a world where it is become fashionable to silence and D platform Christians due to our faith in Jesus Christ and His Holy Word JC CEOs Media is committed to building our own infrastructure. We believe this is divine wisdom from above to ensure until Jesus returns that JC CEOs Media is always able to create store distribute content that proclaims the good news of what Jesus is doing around the world and business. This is why JC CEOs Media is engaged in acquiring and constructing a studio and we will headquarters in Orange County, California. This beautiful facility will also be home to a few great Christian companies whose monthly lease payments will cover most if not all of the real estate mortgage. Praise the Lord Amen. We also are committed to excellence in all that we do and because of that, an undertaking like this requires considerable amount of financial resources. The state of the art virtual studios require not only cameras, equipment, software, data centers, gifted teams and media distribution and streaming platforms, but also actual brick and mortar buildings. It is for these reasons we are asking for your prayers to ask Holy Spirit, what would he have to give this ministry so that we can acquire and build our first of what we believe will be many JC CEOs studios around the world. Reaching the four corners of the world with the good news of what Jesus is doing the business is a god sized undertaking that will take the millions of dollars. I want to thank you for your prayers and your faithful obedience to what Holy Spirit tells you to give so that we together will proclaim the power and the name of Jesus Christ to all the world.
Leray Heyne 15:46
Hello, I'm Leray Heyne, the founder of windows of heaven and our Jesus Christ CEO ministries. Today I'm here at the Museum of the Bible, an amazing tribute to the Holy Bible. Teresa and I are honored to be founding members of the Museum of the Bible. And I'm here to encourage Christian business owners to enroll in our Jesus Christ CEOs Bible Institute. When you visit the Museum of the Bible, you will get to view biblical artifacts you will not get to see anywhere else is the same when you enroll in our Jesus Christ CEOs Bible Institute. As a Christian business owner, you will learn things you have not and will not learn anywhere else, as it relates to your holy calling as a Christian business owner. The Museum of the Bible is all about the Holy Bible, Jesus Christ CEOs habitually abide in the Holy Bible with their body, heart, mind, soul and spirit, business owners that are ready to do the same. Enroll today in our Jesus Christ seal Bible Institute. And together as authentic disciples of Jesus Christ, let's transform the nation's public squares of business with the Holy Bible as our manual for life. And our companies.
Sean Kouplen 16:54
Why do we have about 15 Different people leading Bible Studies? So it's now odd? I lead a it's a 94x Roundtable as part of our movement. So and we are studying a principle a day out of the book, we bet but we just have employees that will say, hey, on Wednesdays, in the in the in this conference room, I'm going to do a Bible study on proverbs. If you want to join me, we're going to do a proverb a week, right? Okay. And you might start out with three people, and then it'll end up with 40 people right now, and they have to move into the bigger conference room. And this is just well, what is happening is the the Lord is just taking control. It's not all we did was open the door to say it's okay. And by the way, we say that to all religions. Yeah, you know, we're not, we don't just say, Hey, you can do this, if you're Christian, we say anybody that wants to, you know, practice their faith in the workplace, you can do that. Now. Only Christians have done it so far. You know, my, my Muslim employees, they're welcome to do that. I'm not trying to suppress anybody. I'm just trying to glorify God, our God. So that is it. And so it takes a while we we pray after all of our meetings, we have a verse of the day that I send out to everybody. We have a Christian book closet, where people can go grab books, and they want to grab them. I mean, he just goes videos on it. We have faith in business events. So in all of our markets, we have a monthly breakfast or lunch where business leaders come and share their faith story, right? All I'm doing is and for for your business leaders out there. All you got to do is listen, all I am doing is trying to listen and obey. And when the Lord calls us to do something, we take the step. Yeah. And he is the one that takes it from there. There is no magic in Sean Kouplen or region bank or 94x. It's all being obedient. You know, and listening. Yeah.
Leray Heyne 19:07
Well, you know, you're my kind of guy, I love what you're doing. But I have some sit here listening to you. And I'm the average Christian business owner, maybe where you used to be. I'm thinking when do you find time to do business?
Sean Kouplen 19:17
But hey, you know, here, here's what's amazing to me. True story. 12 or 13 years ago, a friend of mine by the name of Frank Khalil came and sat in my office and said, I want to invite you into a discipleship group. I've got several of your buddies are joining. It's called the journey. We want to invite you to join. I said, Frank, I just can I said I would love to, but I said, I am maxed out. I can't do anything else. I'm so busy. And he said, you know, it occurs to me that any man does there was a men's Bible Bible group. He said, it occurs to me that any A man that doesn't have time for Jesus in their life must not have their priorities right. And I was offended. And I said, You know what? You don't understand my life, right? But the Holy Spirit got a hold of me and I ended up joining that group. Well, so So let's fast forward. So 13 years later, I've led a discipleship group every year while I lead the morning devotional, we have the faith and business event. It's I mean, all of these things. All I can say is that the Holy Spirit has made room for them. Yeah, I can't really explain it because I feel less busy now than I did back then. Yeah. When I wasn't following Jesus. It says if it No, and what I have learned in business, is that I can strive and strive and strive, right. I can work as hard as as anybody on the planet. Yeah. And I can get no results. Or I can turn it over to Jesus. And I can ask him to send his angels out to bring me business. Yep. And I can ask him to help me solve the problems that I'm struggling with. And I have results. Yes. Yeah. So I don't know that that for me. It is. It's really not an option anymore. It's like that. It's like, the ministry is the priority. Amen. And the business fits around the ministry.
Leray Heyne 21:31
Yes, amen. And that's the way I think the Lord designed it and sent us into this world to do. So now. Somebody handed me this book called 94x. You know, every time it's been around business, we hear the next great thing on how to grow your business. 100x 1,000x. Right. Is that Is that what this 94x is? So tell people what 94x Everything changes is? Let me add, so you can, here's the book right here,
Sean Kouplen 22:00
There it is. All right, I was probably the one that handed him the book, because I am handing them out to everybody. So 94x is not about growing your business, it's not even about growing yourself as a leader. The number 94x comes from 160, which is the number of hours that our employees work in a given month, right? divided by 1.7, which is the number of hours they go to church. And the thing the Lord showed me is I have my employees and my care 94 times more than those that go to church, that's only the ones that go to church,
Leray Heyne 22:35
I want you to see that again. That's not just you. That's every every every
Sean Kouplen 22:39
Christian business owner in the world, but in America, for sure. These are America, America statistics. Yeah, if you're a business owner in America, you have your employees in your care 94 times more than they walk in the walls of a church.
Leray Heyne 22:54
Wow, I love that.
Sean Kouplen 22:55
And so what the Lord showed me is the, you know, the Shawn, the reason that I put you in this position was and so you could make a lot of money, or make your shareholders a lot of money or get billions of dollars of assets or all ate it, it was so that you would be a shepherd, and you would show my love to your employees. So 94x is a it is a movement, but it is a very narrow movement. It is only designed to answer two questions. One, as a business leader, can I bring God into my business? Can I do that? Yeah. And the answer very simply is yes. I didn't think you could, I thought it was illegal. I was wrong. What is illegal is for me to force you to worship my way, right? But I can offer is I can offer to pray for you. I can invite you to a Bible study. I can invite you to a prayer group, I can do all that. As long as I'm not making you do it. Right. So then if a business leader says I am ready to do that I that I knew and for life for me. I knew there was more to business, I knew there was I knew there had to be more than just trying to beat the prior month's budget every month, every month every month or the prior year's budget. I thought there's got to be more if you're out there and you hear this and you say, Okay, I want more. I want to bring God into my business. Our entire largely digital ministry is to provide you with those resources out so our goal is to partner with JC CEO to do this in the future. I truly mean that. And what we want to do is we have tons and tons of resources while free on our website for business leaders at 90 Forex movement.com Well, that's all we do. So tell him the website again. It's www.94xmovement.com. So come check us out.
Leray Heyne 23:14
So we're gonna wrap things up. I would like you to do a couple of things. He is looking to Mike tell the business owner that has been afraid to really stay about faith and breathe. They know God's telling them to do it, but they didn't like you. They didn't know how to encourage them. And then if you wouldn't mind, would you just pray for Christian business owners?
Sean Kouplen 25:10
It would be my honor. Yeah. So if you are a business leader out there today, and the Lord is speaking to you to bring him into your business, I want to right now, dispel the fear that you have, I pray in the name of Jesus, that that spirit of fear that has been plaguing you would go away. Because that's all it is, the enemy does not want you to do this. The largest mission field in the world is the workplace, and your people are hurting right now. They need a greater purpose. They need the love of God. And so I want to encourage you even to start very, very small, just just even if it's, it's you went to people in a conference room during a Bible study, if you will just open the door, God will take care of the rest. So man, let me pray over your ministry. And all of those out there. Dear Heavenly Father, what an honor to be here with you in this place today. Father, your spirit is here. You are at work. There is a revival going on. And I want to pray for my friend and his ministry. JC CEO, I want to pray for a huge new building for them. Y'all want emigre for a tremendous platform, that they can share your stories of success and business all over the world. And for every business leader that watches this video, I pray that you would take them to a new level of impact for you that you would be the center of everything that they do in their business, and in their life. We love you so much. In Jesus name. Amen.
Leray Heyne 26:50
Amen. Amen. Thank you so much. What a pleasure to meet you.
Leray Heyne 26:54
Yes. Hello, my name is Leray Heyne. And when the Lord gave me the vision for the Jesus Christ CEO media, I asked him why he wanted a state of the art media ministry that would rival the best media organizations in the world. And Holy Spirit replied, I want to tell the world what Jesus is doing in business. I think you will agree. CBS is not Cindy 60 minutes to my door anytime soon asked me to do a weekly segment on what Jesus is doing in business. Amen. It is for this reason we are asking for your corporate government partnership. When your company gets to JC CEO media, you are given to a ministry that is committed to revolutionize the Christian Broadcasting with virtual reality filming studios at the core of our content creation strategy, our studios around the world will be immersed in cutting edge technology that gives JC CEO media professional capabilities for creating visually stunning TV shows, documentaries and movies that will tell the world what Jesus is doing and business owners with your company's faithful generosity. JC CEO TV will proclaim and 190 nations on seven continents, the power and good news of what Jesus is doing in their nation's public squares to business. So right now, we are inviting you to join JC CEO TV is a corporate covenant partner of the world's first Christian television network consecrated to tell the world what Jesus is doing a business. Thank you for your corporate partnership and made a grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. God bless you.
