Greg Cross welcomes Micah Thomas to the podcast to discuss how churches can leverage swag merchandise to promote their brand and identity. Micah Thomas, who is the owner of The Church Shop, has been in the church his whole life.

His dad is a pastor. Micah went to seminary with friends who wanted to become professors. After graduating from seminary, Micah started working in church communications, creating video content, graphics, and more.

He then had a friend starting a church, and he decided to take a stab at creating merch for his friend's church. Thus, the Church Shop was born. The conversation began when Micah discussed his experience of going to seminary, but ultimately deciding it wasn't for him. While the training was valuable, the speaker ultimately settled on graphic design as his career path.

He then discussed an experience of starting a church shop to give his church the ability to sell t-shirts and other items without managing the inventory. This idea snowballed from there and the Micah’s goal became to take the stress off of churches when it comes to ordering their church merchandise items in bulk.

Micah is also a self-taught graphic designer. He has been providing services to churches of all sizes to help them create their own brand and mission through apparel.

His company, Church Shop, offers a print-on-demand method and provides human interaction throughout the process. This helps take the stress off of churches, especially those with limited staff and money, as they don't have to worry about taxes and transactions. Micah also emphasizes that they are able to print as little as one shirt if needed.

Micah is married to Maria. Together, they have a passion for providing children with a safe and loving home. This passion has led them to foster six children, one of them leading to the adoption of their five year old son Atlas.