When most people think of “big vision,” they picture speed. Launch fast. Scale fast. Prove it fast.
But what if the project God has trusted you with is not a startup in the worldly sense, but a cathedral in His?
On a recent Corral Call, our friend and brother in Christ, Luc Lagarde, shared his journey of leaving Geneva for Orlando, carrying a God given idea, and learning that giving birth to a God project has far more to do with obedience than with timelines, shortcuts, or visible success.
This is that story.
Luc grew up in Switzerland with deep spiritual roots.
His grandfather was a country pastor, the kind of shepherd who did not scold farmers for missing Sunday service. Instead, he put on his coat and walked from farm to farm, taking communion to them, in all seasons and all weather.
That quiet faith shaped the atmosphere of Luc’s family.
One of his earliest memories is standing on a mountain with his mother at age five, praying in tongues as clouds rolled in. The presence of God was so real that he did not want to leave.
“My mom said, ‘We have to go, the weather is changing.’ I said, ‘No.’ The presence of God was so thick I did not want to leave.”
His mom replied, “Then you pray.” So little Luc did.
He commanded the clouds to go.
They cleared in front of his eyes.
That moment became a picture that would follow him for the rest of his life. God is real. God is close. God listens. God moves.
As Luc grew older, he wandered, like many of us do.
He never denied God. In fact, he defended God even in the middle of nightlife and parties. But he knew he was not living as a follower.
“I would tell my friends, ‘I am a believer, but not a follower.’ And it made all the difference.”
He describes that season like Adam and Eve with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They already had the good. The only thing left to discover was the evil.
Eventually, that “discovery” became too heavy.
Luc spent three years crying out to God for strength to truly return.
When he did, God met him with visions and dreams about the future.
Some of those dreams looked suspiciously like his life today.
God started nudging Luc and his wife Dina toward a country that did not yet make practical sense.
He served as a youth pastor in Geneva at a church called Church for the Nations, a vibrant community of 300 people and more than 60 nationalities, where English was the common language. They were pouring into young leaders and watching them grow.
At the same time, God was drawing their eyes outward.
In 2012, the family took a prayer road trip from New York to the Florida Keys with their kids, asking week after week:
“Lord, what do You have for us?”
Two years into that process, while simply walking upstairs at home, Luc heard it clearly.
“Put the house for sale.
You are moving.”
He walked back down, looked at Dina, and said, “We are going.”
They sold the house, shifted their lives, and stepped into a long journey of visas, legal structures, new culture, new relationships, and a new city: Orlando.
They did not have the full picture, only the next step.
Like Psalm 119 says, God’s word was a lamp to their feet, not a stadium floodlight. One step would reveal the next.
Luc shared a picture from his hometown in Geneva. When the builders first planned the cathedral, they did something that makes modern minds cringe.
They planted trees.
Oak trees that would take forty to fifty years to mature before they could be cut and used for beams and structure.
The builders knew something we often forget.
Some of God’s projects will not be finished in our lifetime, yet we still have the privilege of sowing into them.
“When the idea of building the cathedral started, one of the first things they did was plant the trees for the wood. That is a picture for how God works. Long process. Generations in mind.”
For Luc, America was the soil where those long planted seeds would start breaking the surface.
The idea for his current venture, PocketStream, did not come in a boardroom. It came at the dinner table in a moment of laughter.
His family was joking about how everything in the modern world has become so “convenient.” Someone mentioned those short electric escalators that carry people three steps up to the gym.
Luc joked, “Imagine a cup where you press a button so you do not even have to tilt it. The drink comes to you.”
Everyone laughed. Then they paused.
“Surely someone already invented this,” they thought.
They checked.
No one had.
That silly joke turned into sketches.
Sketches turned into designs.
Designs turned into prototypes.
Prototypes turned into a full patent and a production ready product.
Along the way, God revealed practical applications they had never considered:
What started as a humorous picture became a helpful solution.
PocketStream is now fully engineered and ready for mass production. The design uses an air pump that pressurizes the cup and pushes liquid out, instead of pulling liquid through a pump that is hard to clean.
Interestingly, that shift did not come from clever engineering alone.
“I tried different designs with my electronics background. Nothing worked. I stopped. During the night, God spoke to me. ‘You are doing it the wrong way. You are trying to suck the liquid. You must push it.’”
Sometimes the difference between a frustrating prototype and a breakthrough is not working harder.
It is listening better.
The path to market has not been smooth.
A key American financing company that was backing the project went bankrupt after thirty three years in business. Overnight, the money was gone.
PocketStream is now debt free but still waiting for the right investors and partners to fund mass production and distribution.
At the same time, the visa journey took Luc and his family back to France for a season. There, he trained, studied, and discovered that his mother’s health was declining. They were able to spend meaningful time with her before she passed from Alzheimer’s.
On the same day she went home to the Lord, the family received news that their visa had been approved to return to the United States.
“The reason we came back to France was gone. The reason we were leaving for America was confirmed. Same day. God is in the details.”
These stories remind us that God is not only present in “spiritual” moments at church or in quiet times. He is present in:
He is Father, and He is practical.
At one point in the conversation, Luc said something that quietly reframed the whole topic.
“Whether I become a ‘successful’ entrepreneur or not, that is not the point.”
He was not dismissing excellence or growth. He was challenging our definition of success.
He went back to a foundational word: sin.
In the original biblical language, sin is not simply “doing bad things.” The core meaning is missing the mark, going off target.
That raises a bigger question.
If sin is missing the mark, what is the mark?
According to Luc, the target is the heart of the Father.
Success for a follower of Jesus is not primarily about numbers, scale, or status.
Success is:
“Success is whatever will still stand on His heart after the fire. Success is whatever I have done out of obedience with God.”
In other words, you can “win” in the marketplace and miss the mark in heaven.
Or you can appear small on earth and be wildly successful in the eyes of your Father.
Like every builder, Luc lives with a daily question.
“Am I still on the right path?”
That question does not get asked once at a conference. It shows up many times a day in the ordinary.
He believes this is where discipleship is tested.
Mentors are important. Communities like SheepFeast are important. Coaches, pastors, and friends are important. But there will be moments when no one picks up the phone, and everything looks foggy.
In those moments, Luc says, God puts a hand on your shoulder and whispers:
“I am here. I led you into this moment because I want to be the One who leads you out.”
This is why he believes discipleship is not just about information. It is about learning the voice and heart of the Father.
You can hear that theme in how he raised youth in Geneva:
“We taught them how to hear the Father’s voice. That is why so many of them are leaders today. They know how God speaks.”
You hear it in how he encourages entrepreneurs:
God cares deeply about the process.
As the conversation turned toward the future, Luc shared what he senses for the coming season.
He believes God is raising a generation of Nehemiahs.
People who:
He used the image of music. One string can play a note. It takes three strings to create a chord. In the same way, God is aligning different “notes” and assignments into a convergence that will produce harmony for His glory.
Your part might feel small, like a triangle that rings once at the right moment. Someone else is playing the cello line. Another is on percussion. Another on the horn.
The point is not to be the loudest. The point is to be in tune and on time, obedient to the Conductor.
“I am optimistic, not because of the problems in the world, but because God is raising an army of faithful servants who will bring light into darkness.”
That is what it means to give birth to a God project.
It is not only about the product, the platform, or the metrics. It is about becoming the kind of person who can carry God’s heart through delay, disappointment, and breakthrough, and still say at the end:
“I obeyed.”
Want to learn more about PocketStream or connect with Luc?
If you are an investor, strategic partner, or entrepreneur who resonates with this story, consider reaching out. You never know which cathedral God is inviting you to help build.
Tags
hearing God, Luc Lagarde, obedience, PocketStream
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