Skip to content From Tech Founder to Global Prayer Movement - Interview With Matt Potter Jun 16 · 29 min ...more
From Tech Founder to Global Prayer Movement - Interview With Matt Potter
June 16, 2026 · 29 min
Series Pray TV June 16, 2026 · 29 min · Pray TV
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0:00 Hey, guys. This episode with Matt Potter of pray dot com is gonna blow you away. I love this man's entrepreneurial spirit. I mean, he gets it done. 1 of the founders of pray dot0:12 com as they are sweeping the country with prayer, with connection to God, with amazing Christian content. They are partners with us for America Reads the Bible,0:24 and and yours truly is on pray dot com now. I know. Awesome. Right? Our shows are on pray dot com, and we're so excited to partner with them. Stick around for this amazing, in0:36 interview as Matt talks about his life and talks about the beginning of this ministry and where they are today. Here at Christians Engage, we are on a0:47 quest to see every American Christian take stewardship of their life, their nation, and this generation. Can you imagine a world where every Christian in this country0:59 did 3 simple things? Pray, vote, and engage. And what if we did those ongoing? It would totally shift our nation. That's what we're doing here at Christians engaged.1:12 Over the last 5 years, we've built a standing army of Christians that are saying, I want to pray, vote, and engage ongoing and be leaders in my community. We're just getting started, folks.1:24 Here at Conversations with Christians engaged, join us every week as we take you in-depth in interviews with government officials, ministry leaders, subject leader experts to awaken and1:36 empower you to do those 3 things ongoing. I'm Bunny Pounds. I'm the president and founder of Christians Engaged. I spent 16 years in political consulting working for members of congress1:48 and other candidates before starting this ministry. And my cohost, Ben Quine, our biblical worldview expert and our vice president. Come on a journey with us every week. We're here to2:00 help you pray, vote, and engage. Matt, Matt, Matt, I am so excited to have you on Conversations2:11 with Christians engaged. This is where Christians around the country come to engage, and you are engaged, brother. You're engaged. So I mean, to pray, vote, engage. But seriously, you have2:23 built with a whole bunch of other amazing people, 1 of the founders of pray dot com. I am so excited about this platform and being on the platform and you guys partnering with us for America Reads the2:35 Bible. So for everybody who has not experienced Pray dot com yet, tell us a little bit about the platform first.2:43 Yeah. Pray dot com is the number 1 app for daily prayer and faith based content. So we have the largest content library of faith based content in the world. And, you can come on and come and check2:55 out some of our daily devotionals, our sleep content, bedtime bible stories. You can hear James Earl Jones reading revelations to you if you want Darth Vader reading revelations,3:07 or you can come listen to bible in a year. We have a ton of content over 1000000 pieces of content in pray dot com. So that's what you can find. Also the top pastors and3:19 leaders, including bunny pounds in pray dot com. So, yeah, it's incredible. And we have over 25000000 people that3:31 join us on pray dot com over 7000000 a day, which is really cool.3:37 It is really amazing. And we are just so thrilled to be a part of it, Matt. So you have a very extensive background starting so many apps. Like, how did you get3:49 into the technology thing in the beginning? And then how did you think my Christian faith connects to technology and this could be a benefit for the body of Christ?3:59 Yeah, great question. So for me, it goes all the way back to a 15 year old girl walking down the street going to an abortion clinic on her way there. She actually stopped in at a church to talk to the4:11 pastor about the biggest decision she was going to make in her life up to that point. And, the pastor was a new pastor. And so he was a little nervous because he had never met the girl or her parents or anybody.4:22 And he just asked her to sit in the lobby, and he went in the back and he called his friend who planted a little 20 person church in Los Angeles, who was another pastor. And that pastor said, you know, it's Providence4:34 that you called me today. I've been counseling this married couple who just joined my little 20 person church plant. They've been trying to have children for 10 years and couldn't. Why don't you4:45 ask that girl if she'd be willing to give her baby up for adoption? And so I was the baby the girl brought into the church, and I got adopted because of these 2 pastors that were friends. And my4:57 adopted parents raised me in sunny Southern California. And then 2 years later, they had my brother. My dad was the head elder of our little 20 person church. And over the course of my life,5:09 that church grew to 1 of the largest churches in Los Angeles, which is amazing. And, yeah, I got the unique opportunity, Bonnie, to meet Steve Jobs when5:21 I was a sophomore in high school. And, during that meeting, I ended up starting to look up Steve Jobs and follow his life after that, and I realized he was also adopted. And5:33 so that's what got me into technology at a young age. And then my senior year of high school or, sorry, of college, when Steve Jobs launched the App Store, I said,5:45 wow, apps are gonna be the next big thing. And I dropped out of school and started a company that built apps and ended up learning how to code the first version of our5:56 app, not pray dot com, my company HomeStack, and we built an app product for all the major real estate companies in the United States. So we built apps for Coldwell Banker, Century 21,6:08 Sotheby's, Angle and Volkers, Keller Williams, Pinnacle Estate Properties, many, many more. And so over 10 years, I built over 10000 apps in the App Store6:21 stores, and it was super fun. I felt like God was just tugging on my heart to do something bigger for the kingdom. I was coming to work every day and the company was doing6:33 great. Customers were happy, but I just felt like I lost my purpose a little bit because everything was going so great and we had automated a lot of the business and I was just, you know, felt like I lost my6:44 purpose. I wanted to do something bigger for God. And so I called my pastor, asked him how I could help and give back. And he said, why don't you be a campus pastor? And I said, I don't know. I'm6:56 not you know, I'm an introverted tech entrepreneur who didn't go to seminary. That sounds terrifying. And he said, you know what? Pray about it. And so I prayed about it. And the next day,7:09 I ran into my good friend, Steve Gatina, and Steve had just lost his business partner in a tragic plane crash, and he had just become a Christian. And we were at this coffee shop and he7:21 walked up to me and he said, Matt, I wanna build the digital destination for Christians online. And I bought the domain pray dot com. And I said, Steve, I'll help you. This is a providential7:32 meeting. You don't know what that is. You just became a Christian like yesterday, but I'll help you. I'll do it for free. So I stepped down as CEO of HomeStack and took a chairman of the board position,7:44 linked up with Steve and our 2 other incredible co founders and we started pray dot com at July ninth at that coffee shop 20 16 and it'll be 10 years,7:56 July, this year. So really amazing. We have, over 25000000 downloads, hundred and 68000000 shares8:08 of the app and the gospel across the world, and over 3000000000 listening minutes, which is unfathomable because it ends up being over8:20 1700 years of content consumption, which is crazy. So it's really just been an amazing journey. And if I were to sum it up, it's when God8:31 gives you the opportunity to merge your passion with your skill and you know you can do it with excellence, jump in with both feet. And that's what I did in that moment. And it's really hard to do,8:45 especially when you have a great thing going and you're doing great. It's hard to follow God's plan for your life, but you do it and it can turn out8:56 absolutely remarkable, right of a lifetime.9:00 Well, and it's a perfect example, Matt, that, you know, we think about ministry in these boxes. Right? What ministry is. You are you are doing ministry at Homestack. You're doing9:12 ministry at pray dot com. It looks different. You don't have to be behind a pulpit. You can take your skill set and it and proclaim the gospel to the world and help the Jack Grahams of the world and9:24 the Bunny Pounds of the world and all these people do what we do best to the glory of God. What you guys are seeing with Pray dot com is I want you to tell a few stories because9:36 the stories of people that find the app or on the app, I mean, I know you guys have some dramatic stories of people that have reached out and said, this changed my life. Give us a couple of those.9:48 Absolutely. I mean, 1 woman, reached out to us early days. We had, you know, the the phone number you call, it would go directly to the 4 founders of the company, in like a round10:00 robin. And I picked up and she couldn't log into the app, and she wanted to log in. And we had a bug that we had to fix, and she was the last surviving member of her family.10:12 She had just dealt with stage 4 cancer, and she's dealing with it for the second time. And she was in the chemo chair, and she wanted to listen to our daily devotionals,10:24 and she couldn't listen to them. And it was frustrating for her. And so we gave her the entire app for free. I talked to her for about an hour. She had me bowling10:36 on the phone, and I'm not 1 to turn to tears very easily. And so it was just an amazing moment to help this woman out in what, you10:48 know, could have been her final year or 2 years. And later that year, I was speaking at churches across the country. And11:00 she was in the audience of 1 of the churches and came up to me and gave me a big hug after. And that 1 just got me. But there's so many stories. Police officer11:12 in Ohio who's gonna commit suicide and his friend shared him the pray dot com app in that moment, and he decided to choose life. A woman whose 16 year old daughter11:24 got in a car accident in the middle of the night, and she's, you know, her daughter's in a coma and she's listening to pray dot com to help her calm down in those moments.11:38 A girl who a woman in her thirties, her brother got in a really bad car accident and, the11:50 EMT gave the sister, his phone and, he passed away And the push notifications on his phone12:02 were from pray dot com and she got curious and she started listening to the app and became a Christian and she emailed us and thanked us. And she feels more connected with12:14 her brother because she was listening to what her brother was listening to. Those are just some of the stories we know about. There's so many, you know, there's12:26 millions more of the people that have been affected by my co founders and I just following God's plan for our life. We don't take12:38 credit for any of these. It is God. It is God. Right? God made those moments happen. We're just following what he set before us. So12:50 it's really cool to see and to hear the stories. I mean, most apps in the app store, people write reviews where they're mad about, you know, an update. We get some of those too, but the13:01 majority of people, it's thank you for helping me in this moment. Thank you for changing my life. Thank you for this or for that. And it's not us.13:13 We didn't do anything. They're just also following God's plan for their life by connecting with their creator, with their Lord and savior.13:21 So it's Way to go for for seeing the trends and realizing, you know, that we need to be salt and light in all these spaces. You know? If radio is not gonna13:32 be I mean, I love my friends in radio, but radio is not the way that everybody's getting their content anymore. Right? Different things. But we we have an opportunity with apps and and pray dot13:44 com to make a difference. And thank you for for pioneering that, Matt, and for giving us a way forward because, you know, we're kind of behind. A lot of times the body of Christ is behind, and it's13:56 good to see us ahead for a change.13:59 Always used to be that way. We were the pioneers, and, you know, Christian monks were the inventors, and we gotta get back at it again. You know?14:08 We do. We do. I yeah. Christians engaged, we started December 20 19. I had an idea of we've gotta track every election, and we've gotta get Christians out to vote and stop talking about Christians voting,14:20 but actually mobilize them like a campaign. And, you know, we're we just hit 1000000 Christians, that we serve now. That's amazing. God is so good, and we're just getting started. And we're14:32 believing that 20 26, we're gonna double again. So let's go. Wow. But, you know, it just takes a a spark. It takes obedience. It takes being diligent14:44 and not giving up. And so when I brought to you the idea to 1 of your cofounders, Michael Lin and you, hey. We are doing this crazy thing called America Reads the Bible. We're gonna have14:56 400 and we're up to 475 people now reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, April 18 through 25. Guys said we're in. So,15:08 yeah, pray dot com is our reception sponsor and will be there at our opening celebration, April 18, and you guys will be putting up readers in all of the mix. But you guys said, hey. We15:20 wanna be a part of that. Why? Why was this important for you to do something like this for the 2 fiftieth?15:27 You know, I just I view things like this as a historical event. Like, we we launched a podcast called bible in a year, and, we thought it would do well, and it hit 10000000015:39 downloads. So when you came to us with this great idea of Americans reading the Bible, from Christians engaged, I just I had to say yes because I just think it's such a15:51 great idea. And we, you know, reading the Bible, it allows you to reconnect with your Lord and savior. Right? It is called the holy16:03 Bible for a reason. Right? And it puts you into a different mindset. It allows you to meditate on God's word. And I just think it's so important to see leaders16:14 reading the Bible and set that set the stage for other people, right, to know, hey, the most popular Christian song right now is,16:26 get the dust off your Bible. And I agree. Right? Like, let's let's do that. Let's start reading the Bible more. And I just loved the mission and the vision that you had. And I think we16:38 absolutely should do that. Whether you're reading the Bible through your favorite app or, you're reading your physical Bible, I think it's just an amazing thing, and it's gonna change and make a huge impact in the world16:50 from people seeing all of these incredible leaders reading the Bible.16:55 Yeah. So, guys, you can stream the opening celebration, April 18, in your church, in your living room, in your community group, in your office, right, for all your employees. And then you17:06 can have the Bible being read for 7 full days, 9 a. M. To 9 p. M. Eastern Standard Time for 7 full days as we celebrate the 200 and fiftieth birthday of America together as 1 body of Christ.17:18 That's another reason I love Pray dot com, Matt, is you're getting people from different streams and different denominations, different flavors in 1 space because we believe17:30 that the body of Christ has to come together. America is at a crisis point in a lot of ways. We are living in a post Christian world. We all know this. We can look at the polls and the surveys17:42 and see what's happening. But we have issues that we all can easily unify around because they're biblical issues. And we we let so many things divide us. What are you believing17:53 for in the next 10 years of the body of Christ? How how do you believe that God wants to move in America?18:00 You know, and I said, I talk about this often, not on podcasts is probably the first time, but the world does not see the differences18:12 in Christians that we see. Right? You may you may have 1 specific view on old earth or young earth sprinkled or dunked when it becomes to baptism.18:24 You know, there's all these different things that we can disagree on, but nobody you know, the world does not see those differences. They they all see us as Christians and Christians18:36 unifying and coming together, I think is what we're going to see and what we need in the next decade. Because, you know, the people that are getting killed in Northern Africa because they're Christian, they don't ask18:47 them, are you Methodist? Are you Presbyterian? Are you Baptist? Before they kill them. They just know that they're a Christ follower, that they're a Christian. Right? And so we do need18:59 to come together because the world doesn't care. They don't care what you what your academic theology preference is.19:12 And so we need to probably stop fighting about things internally and be more unified for the greater purpose, for the greater vision.19:23 Amen. And the word of God by itself has power. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And That's right. I I think that's what's so significant. We think,19:36 you know, inspirational thoughts. Right? Or I mean, we we can talk about all the plethras of podcasts out there and noise that's happening and self help tell tools19:48 and all that stuff. But what's different about pray dot com or America Reads the Bible or any of our projects that we're doing is if it's centered around scripture, God20:00 speaks because he's alive. He's a real this is what we forget. Let me go off for a second, Matt. We forget that Jesus is resurrected from the dead, and he's a real20:12 person that's alive and speaking by the Holy Spirit through his word. Right?20:17 Yep.20:18 And that's what makes this so powerful. So when people, which you should go right now to America Reads the Bible, and you should sign up to come to DC with us. Come, come, come, come, come, come. And you should also,20:29 like, turn the livestream on. And you should also go to AmericaReadsTheBible dot com and go to our discipleship resources and find Pray dot com and sign up right now with the discount that they're gonna give you. When20:41 you do that, what happens when the word of God gets inside of somebody? Matt, what happens?20:48 Oh, I mean, you see massive change in people's lives. We're studying that at pray dot com. Most people think science and faith or science and religion is oil and water, but we're21:00 literally studying it. We've done clinical trials and the of prayer in your life. I'm sure there are also studies being done on reading the Bible, massive change in21:12 people's lives, not just their spiritual life and their eternities, which we know changes as Christians, but their physical bodies, their brains, the gray matter21:23 density, the it's just incredible to see when you actually meditate on God's word. When you pray, it's completely different than secular meditation21:35 where you internalize and it causes rumination on problems and you instead of giving it up to God, giving it up to your Lord and savior, you21:47 can track it with science and God invented science. And so we can show, wouldn't it wouldn't it be crazy to think, Bunny, that you connect with your Lord and savior through prayer21:59 and that affects your physical body and God created you? You are God's creation. Right? We are showing that and it's amazing to see the same22:11 scientists behind Oura Ring and all these, medical devices are helping us show the science of prayer and how it actually affects your life and how it changes people,22:23 not just their eternities, which is the biggest thing that changes. Right? But also their physical bodies, how they treat other people. It's just amazing.22:32 It is amazing because we're body, soul, and spirit. We forget that we're a spirit that connects with God and it affects our soul, our mind, will, and emotion, and affects our bodies. Right? And, man, the Holy22:44 Spirit is alive, guys. What we forget too is that we think that we have to just do religious things. Right? But it's the grace of God that empowers us to live the Christian22:56 life, that empowers us to be like Jesus, and that comes only grace comes through faith in his word. And when we hear the word of God proclaimed, when we hear the word read23:07 and taught through pray dot com and other ways, man, God changes us from the inside out. Well, Matt, tell everybody number 1, let me go back. Everybody go to America Reads the23:19 Bible dot com, click on discipleship resources, and pray dot com's got a discount for you. Okay? So you wanna go ahead and get over and get that. Okay? Get into23:31 Pray dot com. Matt, tell everybody why they need to come to DC with us and why they need to connect with America Reads the Bible.23:38 Oh, they gotta come and and hear 400 and what now? Because before it was 50. Where are we at now?23:44 Now we're at 75.23:46 475 leaders reading the Bible. I mean, it's incredible. In Washington DC, in the heart, in the capital of the United States of23:58 America, you gotta come. It's gonna be amazing. It's gonna be remarkable. It's gonna be something that you tell your grandkids 1 day when they're sitting on your lap. So24:08 Amen. So everybody go ahead and get your tickets. Come see the Dead Sea Scrolls that are there while we're there. Come experience our private art gallery of Mindy Oton's 66 paintings of the Messiah showing up24:20 in all books of the Bible. Sit in. Be blessed multiple times. You can buy multiple day tickets if you want. You can come as many times as you want, but you get an access to the whole museum when you come to the Bible24:32 reading. So come experience it in the room. Join the livestream. Plan on using the livestream in your community, and connect to Pray dot com. Okay, guys? Connect right now to Pray dot com, either24:43 directly, Pray dot com, Pray dot com, or go to America Reads the Bible and click on Discipleship Resources if you want a discount. Okay? Thank you, Matt. We appreciate you guys24:55 so much. Thank you for your partnership. Oh, 1 last thing. Tell us about America Praise because you guys are leading the effort with the White House for America Praise. I forgot about that.25:05 Yes. With Freedom 2 50 and the White House, we are putting on the largest prayer event in the country called America Praise. We're gonna be getting 100000025:17 people a week praying for our country and our people. We are so excited about it. So if you wanna sign up to get the daily devotionals and pray for America25:29 every week, just go to America praise dot com. It's free and it's really cool. We're doing a big event, May seventeenth. 5 Christian artists are going to be there playing25:41 incredible speakers. Again, it's going to be amazing and let's pray for our country. We need to unify as Christians. We need to pray for our country. Let's let's get that cadence25:52 every week for America praise. It's really cool.25:56 It's really cool. And I love how the White House is connecting with us in the faith community and pray dot com and working with you guys on this as well. It's amazing. So pray America prays, pray dot com,26:08 America reads the Bible. You got all those websites, guys. Right? You got it all. We got a lot to This is a monumental year for the country. Let me just say this again. We will never have this moment26:20 again in our lifetimes ever. So let us all take this moment in time, this 200 and fiftieth birthday, remind people how thankful we are26:31 that we live in a country that gives us the freedoms to worship, that gives us the ability to know God. Right? And may we be leaders for the next generation of26:43 America. That's what we're believing for. We're gonna have an Ezra moment, and we're gonna raise up a generation of Nehemiahs to impact this country for years to come. We love you so much. We'll see you back next week.26:59 Thank you so much for joining us for this incredible program today. We are so happy to be in your life. Have you shared this? Have you subscribed? Have you reviewed our podcast? Please share27:11 this with other people and help us get the word out that Christians are getting empowered around this nation. Step 1 to join Christians Engage is take our pledge to pray, vote, and engage on our website at27:23 christiansengaged dot org. Every week, we'll teach you how to pray for government. We will send voting reminders around every election, and we'll help you engage more for America. Step27:35 2, take 1 of our classes. Have you taken our on ramp to civic engagement or biblical worldview or the leadership of Nehemiah or biblical conduct? We have so many classes including a27:47 full campaign school that you can plug into right now on our classes page. Step 3, hey, it's time to get involved in campaigns, advocacy, registering more Christian27:58 voters, activating your church. Every Christian needs to get off the sidelines and make a difference. We are here to mentor you into your place of leadership. That's what we do every day at Christians Engage. So reach28:10 out to us for help in any of those areas. And lastly, everybody listening to me right now can help fund a movement of millions of Christians that will pray, vote, and28:22 engage ongoing. We're supported by people just like you that every month or every year invest in this ministry, their hard earned dollars, their treasure, their heart. We thank you so28:34 much. Please be a part and give at ChristiansEngage dot org. Thank you so much to our partners at The Stream. Thanks for sharing this podcast every week. We so appreciate you.28:46 Also, Edify app with Christian Post. Thank you for having us part of your podcast ministries. Christians Engage is a ministry of Family Policy Alliance Foundation. And together around28:57 the country, we are mobilizing Christians to pray, vote and engage. We love you. We'll see you back next week.
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