Interview with Ryan Beck: CTO of Pray.com

welcome back to another episode of

christian natural health today i am

excited to have ryan beck with us ryan

is the co-founder and chief technology

officer of pray.com the world's number

one app for daily prayer and faith-based

audio content pray.com is driven by a

mission to grow faith cultivate

community and leave a legacy of helping

others beck brings experience in

computer science software engineering

and theological studies to his role as

chief technology officer he helped start

pray.com in 2016. welcome ryan thank you

so much for joining us

thank you so much for having me dr

lauren i appreciate it and i'm looking

forward to the conversation yeah me too

so you have an amazing testimony of how

you found the lord i hope that you could

start with that

yeah i'd love to thank you for giving me

the opportunity

uh my life uh i wasn't raised christian

uh i was raised by a single mom i

started off in norwalk california which

is just uh there in los angeles

and um my mom uh moved us out into the

suburbs uh a thousand oaks nice area

rated number one number two safest place

in the u.s many years going she wanted

to give me a better opportunity than she

had she had a relatively rough

upbringing in a relatively rough

neighborhood and so she want to give me

a better opportunity so when i was young

we got a chance to move out there and

you know she raised me to have uh you

know to be kind and nice good work ethic

and um you know we lived in uh

you know

in a relatively low income area

in that and so she did what she could to

provide usually we're just renting rooms

and stuff like that from other people

because that's all she could afford as a

single mom and um

you know during that time uh about going

from junior high to high school

i started

um having a lot more free time you know

i didn't go to after-school programs my

mom she couldn't afford them anymore and

they weren't there wasn't anything

really that was provided by the city

that i that i could go to anymore

because of my age and so that was

similar for all the kids in our area and

most of us were

products of broken families and most of

us had single moms that worked all the

time to support us and so we're just a

bunch of kids running around

you know trying to figure out how to be

men in the world without that guidance

and we made a lot of dumb decisions and

most of us ended up in gangs and drugs

unfortunately and so

uh in high school we got involved in

gangs and drugs

and um

at 18

i was actually arrested

for

sales and transportation of narcotics

that was a very traumatizing time for my

mom obviously and uh

for me it was kind of what i expected i

you know i was i was forming my own path

i was trying to figure out how to be a

man in this world and this just seemed

like

a

a

practical outcome

not something that i was trying to avoid

of what i was doing and is giving me

street cred is making me

tough um but it was it turned out to be

one of the best things that could ever

happen to me during that time i got to

um

i got to reflect i got to contemplate on

my life choices and i was very fortunate

to go into jail

and be surrounded by

older men

who looked at me and said what are you

doing yeah why do you want to end up

like us

you have your future ahead of you um and

someone asked me this they said do you

want to be a big shot on a golf course

or a big shot in the pen

and when he said that

i

said i get what you're saying i don't

like golf but i get the point

right and so

i i really took that to heart and i was

very fortunate because a lot of these

guys were some of them were christians

some weren't and some of them were

giving me scriptures to read and god was

stirring in my heart i was curious to

learn uh about christianity about jesus

who he was i didn't necessarily believe

in jesus

and

it was one night i remember i was

reading some scripture and i was praying

i said god

you know my heart's heart i just don't

believe in jesus i you know and that

that's very christianese language if

you're familiar with uh the christian

culture

i wasn't engulfed in it at the time i

didn't ever use that language but that

was the language i used at that time

yeah and i woke up the next morning i

had this this profound confidence

uh hard to explain

but i knew jesus was the one i was

supposed to follow

and from that moment on god continued to

through his providence direct me uh

through interactions with new friends or

old friends that he had actually

transformed

and helped it develop me into the person

i am today

i was released about two weeks after

that three weeks after that

and

my neighbor

she she was my mom's age she she saw all

this going on the cops raided my house

it was is a big deal it was you know

they tore it upside down as

is traumatic for my mom and she saw all

that happen she saw all the hoodlums

coming in out of my house but she she

had a stirring on her heart and she

asked me

you want to go to church

and i said you know what i've been

looking for a church and

when you're when you when you're

released from

jail it's very common that you go back

right because you go back to what you

know you go back to the friends that you

have and it's not like the friend you're

better than your friends and you're

the same mess together you're all trying

to figure out life together and it was

because she asked me to do that she she

gave me an outlet outside of what i had

known to be normal

and i started to develop new friends

started developing community at church i

started running into old friends

and so

i i had the amazing opportunity after

serving at the church just through

volunteer activities to go to bible

college

that church is pastor pastor rob mccoy

actually sponsored me to go to bible

college uh so i went there two years and

uh the the deal was i would work two

years in the ministry so i did that i

trained to be a minister i really loved

it it helped me lay

uh a a foundation of virtues and ethics

that i didn't play uh as an adolescent

and so i had to i got to lay this great

framework i served in the ministry loved

it i i realized being a pastor is not

for me i'm not necessarily called to be

a pastor

and

as much as i love the church i had the

opportunity to actually go and finish a

degree in computer science and

philosophy

love philosophy one day

i'll get to you know hopefully retire

and just just philosophize but in the

meantime i'm putting the computer

science degree to work

i've had the amazing opportunity to

connect that skill set um with my

passions and my purpose uh with faith

and i did that with mission india

at the beginning

uh out of college and then i got to

reconnect with my my friend and now

business partner steve gattino is the

ceo of pray.com back in 2016. uh he was

he was all-american i went america's

most wanted um

so

yeah we but we got to reconnect we went

to

yeah yeah uh we went to junior high in

high school together so we got to

reconnect he told me about pray.com and

how he just was thinking about starting

this company and i said you know i'm in

let me know how i can help

and that was you know 2016. and now it's

20 22 the rest is kind of history we're

able to grow prey dot com from an idea

to the number one app in uh daily prayer

and faith-based audio content now so

super excited what we're able to do

i'm very privileged and uh honored to be

here and also to just be able to

tell the the story of how god has

transformed my life

and

also how he's helped me rethink

about life and how to establish inner

peace and mental wellness in my own life

and practice and how we can actually do

that at pray.com yeah

that's so amazing i love how you know

god has all of these good works prepared

in advance for us and yet he had such a

long journey for all of us to get us

from point a to point b to actually

be walking with him at the point where

he can use us but he had all of these

things laying in place for you in order

to get you to where you are today that's

so encouraging i love it

and so tell us a little bit about your

vision for pray.com where are you at now

and how it's going to help specifically

you're mentioning a lot of the mental

health aspect of how that helps

believers to kind of have that resource

what's the vision for it

yeah so

at pray.com we're we're building the

digital destination for faith

we

we believe in helping people grow their

faith and cultivate community

and

the way we do that is through a lot of

scriptural passages and we do that

through audio content video content and

and reading material and we just

released something called god's wisdom

uh 31 days of proverbs

and what that is is a a new format on

timeless wisdom basically uh it's

written in um spoken word poetry uh it

so it's developed in a modern format

by um a a pastor named zack

schalleberger out of southern california

here in santa barbara

amazing guy

and he

what he's done there is taken these

timeless wisdoms written them in spoken

word poetry to help us uh contemplate to

meditate and to connect with that that

spiritualness inside of us but also to

utilize that wisdom uh of proverbs to

form that relationship with god and so

one thing that i find very

promising about a lot of our content is

we

we are

we are enabling people

to

form a relationship

with god

with their phone and so people can be on

the go they can open it up read the

bible but listen to stuff meditate on

the word of god and form that

relationship and

as we as we exit hopefully the the

physical pandemic we're still in the

midst of a mental health pandemic right

that is plaguing us um there's a

statistic that came out that in january

of 2019 to june 2019 11 of us

experienced in the us

some sort of anxiety or depression

it jumped to 41

according to the study

in 2021

we've seen a drastic increase and this

is what i love about proverbs

because proverbs tells us in in proverbs

3 it tells us about how the wisdom of

god

brings peace inner peace

amongst turmoil whether it's external

turmoil or internal turmoil and so

proverbs helps us to navigate life's

challenges

and helps us

maintain mental wellness i love the

mental illness maybe we can get into in

a little bit there's a book by dr lisa

miller out of columbia university called

the awaken brain i think it's a

phenomenal book and she goes into

spirituality and the impact on mental

wellness um but yeah that's that's kind

of how i see

uh our our content uh helping us with

mental health that's awesome and so you

chose proverbs specifically because it's

really practical right like so that

there's you know teaching people wisdom

and i think it's really interesting that

you were talking about in your story how

you didn't have a dad and you were

looking for these older men to kind of

pour into you and then once you got to

church you started laying the foundation

you didn't have when you were younger

and proverbs is like you know the

guidance of solomon the wisest man who

ever lived to tell us how we should live

our lives and that maybe had something

to do with what attracted you to that

yeah very cool yeah so so you have that

kind of content what else is on pray.com

so we have

we have

a range of biblical content um from the

bible so bible in a year so if you just

want to go through the bible in a year

we have that with james earl jones which

is that's my favorite content so you get

darth vader uh you know reading you the

bible um i don't know if there's any

trademarks there um so james jones reads

the bible who also uh reads darth vader

um and so

i love that we have sleep psalms which

is a another way for you to meditate on

the word of god yeah to help you

deal with anxiety and insomnia to help

you fall asleep to the word of god and

we have kid stories for parents to uh

listen with their kids

and we have you know music

and then also one area in which we're

getting more and more content is

we have all these amazing teachers out

there

and what we're helping uh them do is

we're helping them reach an audience on

prairie.com so we have amazing teachers

coming onto the platform

to give them messages we have uh

something called the sunday service it

sounds it is what it sounds like it's a

sunday service and we have teachers come

on every sunday and they teach a message

and we also you can go and you can

listen to tons of faith podcasts on

there as well fantastic that's amazing

and what kind of feedback are you

getting from the listeners

so i think the number the number one

feedback that we get is how it helps

people form a daily habit

this is very important

for the the christian is developing this

this daily rhythm this daily devotional

this daily habit

to communicate with god communication is

something so important with the

christian

and

uh

it's something that sets us apart from

other religions right we we have this

personal god who we get to communicate

with that's what prayer is it it's not

just you know simply meditating or

contemplating and connecting with the

spiritual

it's communicating with god himself the

triune god who's in constant

communication we get to communicate with

him tell him our troubles seek his

wisdom and so that's what's uh

i think the number one feedback we get

is how that daily devotional helps them

in their relationship with god but then

we get tons of feedback on how this this

content is really impacting um their

lives i'll give you this one story it

and it ties back to that last segment of

content i talked about the leader

segment the leader content

on sunday service this story is

an amazing story it's very touching

we got a call from our pastor pastor

adam mesa

who did a sunday service he said i want

to let you know something i got an email

from a law enforcement officer this

weekend

this law enforcement officer

listened to my message

on sunday service

and he was so inspired by it it moved

him so much he wrote me an email and

this is what he said

doc uh uh pastor adam mesa

your message changed my life

i've been going through a lot of

struggles

this weekend

i was about to commit suicide but then i

got a push notification on my phone

from pray.com

and it was your message and i clicked

that message

and i listened to that message and it

saved my life

and he wrote adam mesa that i had email

and

adam shared it with us

faith faith works love works it changes

lives it saves lives and we're able to

connect these amazing leaders

um with people of faith people who are

curious uh not even necessarily people

of faith i wasn't i wasn't a person of

faith but i was i was open i was curious

and

it was through faith that i found

transformation that i found inner

healing um to help me through uh some of

the struggles and trauma that i have

faced growing up yeah absolutely so

you've alluded a lot to how prayer can

help with anxiety depression mental

health issues but connect the dots for

us what is it about prayer that tends to

affect that for so many people

yeah so uh going back to that book that

i've talked to you about the awakened

brain

whether you agree with the

the uh the spirituality of dr lisa

miller or not i think there's a lot that

we can take from it as christians

and what she talks about is um she she

talks about spirituality as

the relationship with the spiritual as

opposed to religion

which is just a it's more about your

participation in a community of faith

and i think as christians we talk a lot

about this christian is not a religion

it's a relationship right we say that a

lot and so she talks about spiritualize

this relationship this personal

relationship and what they've found is

that

those people who have formed their own

spirituality this relationship with the

spiritual

have up to a 90 percent

pre uh they have they've

formulated a mechanism by which they can

protect themselves against anxiety

stress and depression by up to 90

as opposed to those people who do not

participate in spiritual practices

um this is this i mean that's that

that is amazing

so that's why i think um

what we do as christians prayer is a is

is a weapon is a weapon that we can

utilize a tool that we can utilize to

fight back the anxiety and the

depression but it's something that we

have to formulate through a relationship

with god yep yep absolutely and so as a

naturopathic doctor when i see mental

emotional health issues i always kind of

go through in my mind there's there's a

spectrum of possibilities there could be

a neurotransmitter imbalance there could

be a hormone imbalance there could be a

problem in your circumstances or there

could be a problem in your thinking and

sometimes it's not any it's not always

just one it could be a combo but so many

people will come in and think it's just

neurotransmitter imbalance and there is

a chicken or egg aspect to that like as

you start creating bad ideas you're

eventually going to have your

neurotransmitters follow that and it

becomes a habit but you can also reverse

it any other way and not only is so much

of it possibly the way you're thinking

or maybe the the circumstances and god

can lead you to get out of that maybe he

can also leave you if there's if there's

a problem in the physical end he

promises to give us wisdom too to figure

out where exactly

either give us the information we need

or lead us to the people that we need in

order to help us come through that yeah

so absolutely i love that i love that

what have i not asked you that you want

to make sure that you leave with our

audience

you know i think that

you've asked a lot of great questions

and i would say that

you could say there is nothing

it's all right

yeah i will say you know what that i

think you've asked a lot of great

questions around this this topic um

actually you know what here's one

question what are what does the future

hold for prairie.com and mental health

all right uh well there's there's some

actually uh cool things that we're doing

um we have i'm not gonna announce the

name

but we're we're in talks with and we're

getting close to deal with uh someone

that i think will be really really fun

for the audience and really helpful for

the audience to engage with on mental

health

and so it's a celebrity person a lot of

people

everyone remember who this person is so

stay tuned and then we're also working

with um

some universities

we're working with biola

harvard and uh hope college

to do clinical trials and research on

the effects of the prey app

on mental health and so we're super

excited about this uh what we're going

to find there

and how we can actually utilize the prey

app to help people uh clinically and

that's not to dismiss you know all the

all the amazing benefits that psychology

and psychiatry has given us

and so you know hopefully prae.com will

be utilized as another tool in the

toolkit uh to help people overcome some

of these mental health challenges that

we face yeah yeah fantastic i love it

that's super exciting so where can

people go to learn more about you and

about the dot com app by

assumingprey.com but if there's anything

more specific

yeah you can go to prairie.com meet the

founders

that is a page where you can read about

all the founders stories and how we

started and how prey.com started

fantastic well i will link to that in

the show notes and thank you so much

ryan this has been fantastic and i'm so

inspired by what you're doing

well thank you dr lauren i appreciate

everything that you do

are you looking for a holistically

minded healthcare practitioner who truly

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