Scripture
“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.”
— Colossians 3:23
Reflection
In 2005, Tim and Kristy Turner started Subsplash as a small design and software consulting studio. They did excellent work for brands like Xbox, Microsoft, and Cisco, operating out of a garage (and for a season a butcher shop) with only a few people on staff. The company was solid—but it was not yet what it was for.
The turning point came when Tim approached his own church: What if we built you an app? The response was not excitement. It was a practical shrug. “We don’t have a budget for this. It’s totally up to you if you guys want to do it.”
Tim and Kristy prayed. They felt the Lord say two simple words: trust and obey. So they built it anyway—pro bono, before the App Store even existed, using the skills and limited resources already in their hands. The first church app launched in 2009, was downloaded more than 10,000 times in its first week, made the news, and opened a door no business plan could have predicted.
What started as one free gift to one local church became a platform serving churches around the world. Yet the deeper story is not simply “they took a risk and it paid off.” It is a story of humility and submission.
Tim explains that the name Subsplash was chosen from two core values:
- Sub — submitting to God and serving others (thinking of ourselves less)
- Splash — innovation
The biggest takeaway he offers is simple: “The Lord is in control, and it can be especially fun if we can be submitted to that.”
God rarely waits for the budget line to appear before He calls someone to move. He asks us to act with what is already in our hands—and to do so from a posture of submission rather than self-reliance. Tim did not have a polished vision for “church software.” He had a skill set, a small team, and a willingness to obey before the path was clear or funded.
Application
Most of us stand near a similar threshold: a skill God has already given us that He is quietly directing toward a new purpose, a door that looks closed only because no one has funded it yet. The temptation is to wait for the green light, the title, or the budget. Tim’s story points another way—obedience rooted in humility and submission.
You can:
- Offer a skill you already possess to your church or a ministry—for free—before anyone asks
- Build the small, unglamorous first version instead of waiting for the polished one
- Treat a “no” about funding as information, not as the final word from God
- Look for the person or organization right in front of you who needs exactly what you already know how to do
- Trust that provision and growth usually follow obedience rather than precede it
- Choose submission over self-promotion: “thinking about ourselves less and about others more”
Prayer
Father, thank You for the skills You placed in our hands long before we understood their full purpose. Forgive us for waiting on permission, funding, or certainty when You have already given us enough to take the next step. Give us the kind of humility and submission Tim and Kristy showed—willing to start small, willing to give the first version away, willing to trust You with whatever comes after. Show each of us the closed door in front of us that is not really closed, only unfunded, and give us the courage to build anyway, submitted to You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Challenge
This week, name one “no budget” door in your life—a door you have been treating as closed simply because no one has written a check for it yet. Ask the Lord what the small, unglamorous version of that idea would look like if you built it with only what is already in your hands and from a posture of submission rather than self-reliance. Then take one concrete step toward it before the week is out.
Discussion Questions
- Tim and Kristy had a profitable consulting business. What made them willing to risk that stability for something with no guaranteed return?
- How does the meaning of the name “Subsplash” (submission + innovation) shape the way you hear their story?
- Where in your own life have you waited for funding, permission, or certainty before obeying a prompting you already sensed?
- Subsplash began with one free app for one local church. Why does God so often start large things through small, unpaid, unnoticed first steps rooted in humility?
- What skill do you already have right now that could serve a ministry or a person in need—without any budget or formal approval required? What would it look like to offer it from a place of submission rather than self-promotion?
- What’s stopping you from starting the small version of that this month?