At 21 years old, I (Doug Parks) became the youngest owner/operator in Chick-fil-A history. Maybe the reason they gave me a shot was because the particular restaurant they allowed me to steward was losing money before I took over.
There were a lot of easy fixes in the beginning. Cleaning the restaurant. Removing rotting food from the display case. The basics. I went on to win the Symbol of Success award, and the work taught me how to build teams, run operations, and lead with discipline.
Then God called me into ministry. I spent seventeen years as the Executive Pastor at Canyon Ridge Christian Church in Las Vegas. Those two chapters, Chick-fil-A and executive ministry, shaped everything that eventually became Intentional Churches.
For a long time, those chapters felt separate. When Bart and I started IC, both chapters showed up in the work, but the Chick-fil-A years stayed in the background of my story.
Then recently, IC coach Bill Brown started a conversation with WinShape Leadership, which grew out of the WinShape Foundation started by Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy. That conversation led to a partnership. Bill, fellow IC coach Melissa Sandel, and I will be presenting at WinShape’s Executive Pastor Collective on October 27–29 in Rome, Georgia. It’s a gathering designed for XPs leading churches averaging 1,000 to 3,000 in attendance, and it’s the first of what we believe will be several partnership opportunities between IC and WinShape.
I could not have predicted any of this twenty-five years ago. But the story God is writing is always longer than the chapter you’re standing in. If you’re in a season right now that feels disconnected from where you thought you’d be, keep going. God has a way of weaving chapters together that you cannot see yet.
When I was learning the proper way to batter and bread chicken for a Chick-fil-A sandwich, I never dreamed I’d end up living in Las Vegas, leading a church of seven thousand, starting Intentional Churches, or partnering with the foundation built by the company that taught me how to lead in the first place.