The Power of a Quiet Life JACOB COYNE
Several years ago, my wife and I made a decision that surprised many people who love us. We left Washington State, the place we were both raised, and moved to Johnson City, Tennessee. Not Nashville— a veritable mecca of Christian music, publishing, and entertainment— but Johnson City, a small town in eastern Tennessee nestled in the Appalachian foothills that most people fly over on their way to Nashville.
Almost everyone I knew told me it would be wiser to move to Nashville or Dallas.“ If you want your ministry to grow,” they said,“ you’ ve got to go where the Christian scene is booming.”
The problem was that my ministry was already growing faster than I could handle. I was on the road more than one hundred days out
of the year and was posting up to three new videos a day on YouTube and TikTok. I worked all day creating, editing, and posting fresh content, camping out at coffee shops and empty classrooms at the church from morning until night. Then when I got home, instead of focusing on my wife and our two little girls, I was constantly online, checking my analytics, responding to comments, and tweaking my posts to get more shares.
Professionally, I was at the top of my game. But emotionally, spiritually, and relationally I was running on fumes— and had been for almost two years.
Then one night, in the midst of all the chaos, a pastor friend of mine called. I told him about
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