We welcome you all to an engaging journey with Pastor Jason Cook, the founder of The Refuge in Conway, South Carolina. This episode is a string of heartwarming and inspiring stories from Pastor Jason's life, from the miraculous journey of his wife's survival from cervical cancer to the joy of their daughter's birth. Join us as we explore Pastor Jason's unique story of trusting God during times of personal struggle and the lessons he learned along the way.
We also shed light on the significance of spiritual maturity in church leadership, which Pastor Jason exemplifies through his journey of following God's grace over a potential job opportunity. The episode also brings insights into the International Pentecostal Holiness Church's mission to unite the church as a family and how church revitalization holds equal weightage to church planting. Listen in on how Pastor Jason manages a busy schedule of balancing grad school, family, ministry, and his devotion to God.
And it doesn't stop there. His commitment to community service and the local church's revitalization certainly leaves us eagerly waiting to hear more from him in our next week's discussion on church revitalization. Brace yourself for an episode filled to the brim with encouragement, wisdom, and divine inspiration. Share this empowering journey with us on Pastor to Pastor!
We welcome you all to an engaging journey with Pastor Jason Cook, the founder of The Refuge in Conway, South Carolina. This episode is a string of heartwarming and inspiring stories from Pastor Jason's life, from the miraculous journey of his wife's survival from cervical cancer to the joy of their daughter's birth. Join us as we explore Pastor Jason's unique story of trusting God during times of personal struggle and the lessons he learned along the way.
We also shed light on the significance of spiritual maturity in church leadership, which Pastor Jason exemplifies through his journey of following God's grace over a potential job opportunity. The episode also brings insights into the International Pentecostal Holiness Church's mission to unite the church as a family and how church revitalization holds equal weightage to church planting. Listen in on how Pastor Jason manages a busy schedule of balancing grad school, family, ministry, and his devotion to God.
And it doesn't stop there. His commitment to community service and the local church's revitalization certainly leaves us eagerly waiting to hear more from him in our next week's discussion on church revitalization. Brace yourself for an episode filled to the brim with encouragement, wisdom, and divine inspiration. Share this empowering journey with us on Pastor to Pastor!
Hey, it is the next episode of Pastor the Pastor, pastor Seth, talk to us how you doing today.
Speaker 2:Man, I'm doing great. It's so good to be back on the podcast.
Speaker 1:It has been some time, but look our schedules and a lot of other things have been popping. It's been really hard for us to make this happen and to give you some content that's worth listening to. That's right. We want to just talk for just the sake of talking. We want to give you something that you can chew on, something you can learn from and grow with. Actually, today, pastor Seth, is the first time we have a guest in with both of us. Last episode I had Pastor Tim Hodge of Norfie Harvest. We were talking about hyper grace and its impact. This time we got the big pastor, jason Cook-in from the refuge in Conway, south Carolina.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Pastor, how you doing.
Speaker 3:Man, I'm good. These big talks got me a little self-conscious but, other than that, man. I'm good, I'm glad to be here, man.
Speaker 1:Great to have you, Great to have you in. So, Pastor, you are kind of you oversee like eight different churches down in Conway and the Conway area, so tell us a little bit about the refuge.
Speaker 3:All right. So the refuge was a church called Conway First Pentecostal Holiness Church incorporated of Conway something like that. And more names than you know you can find in the phone books, yeah bro and the Conway Church.
Speaker 3:we started there. I went with a 20, 30 smile in faces my first Sunday and just kind of went in there and they asked me if I wanted to. I was asked to come speak. I went to fill in, came back and they said would you be willing to come back? And my wife said I don't think so. But, man, through the Lord's providence, we spent the summer there and saw some amazing things and, long story short, god brought us to the place that is now called the refuge man. It was a journey. It's been 13 years now and so I just thank God for his goodness, but it's an honor to be here with you guys today, man for sure.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. 13 years, definitely. Let me ask you this. It's something we typically start with, is what we preached on this past Sunday, but I'm going to ask you something different. I want to ask you what the Lord's been speaking to you lately.
Speaker 3:Well, brother, if you ask me the hard question, he asked me the hard question. A couple of weeks ago we started going through a season just some stuff going on the church and stuff that really didn't have any control over. And one of the hardest things I would say Christians have to deal with and unbelievers too is trusting God when you can't see what's in front of you. I heard Jensen Franklin say this morning that in the book of Esther the name of God is not mentioned at all, but it doesn't mean you can't see his work. The same is true with my own life, and I had to learn. As a matter of fact, out on the highway walking one morning, the Lord told me wait till the dust settles, and so all of this chaos.
Speaker 3:You know God's just been speaking, the power of restoration, the power of just him putting things back together that were broken, and even in my own heart, the Lord's been dealing with me personally about places that I thought were submitted to him, that weren't, and trust being the top of the list. We preach trust God, trust God. But what about when it's your wife that has the diagnosis? Trust God when it? What about when it's your family that's sick or your child that's addicted, or it's just a whole another ballgame. When the Lord makes it personal and if I would say he's put his finger on something in my life that's been, it is just trusting him. When the bomb goes off, when things are going haywire, when you don't know where to turn, he's been teaching me that the stillness of just being in his presence is enough, and that he's got it. Man. If I can trust him with my eternal soul, that's right, and I sure can trust him with the things that affect my life, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:That's great. He thanks for sharing that. So tell us a little bit about about your background, and you mentioned something about your family already, so just kind of tell me something. I think you said your wife was a cancer survivor in cancer awareness month, right? Yes, sir. So tell me a little bit about that situation.
Speaker 3:I mean, my wife is a cervical cancer survivor. She actually is a three time. She had it three different times and one time the Lord healed her through a small medical procedure. The second time she had to do chemo and we were told that there would be no kids down the line. They would. She was done. The third time she was diagnosed she went in to you start chemo and the doctors said I'm sorry, and this is after 12 years of minding her marriage and two miscarriages. And they said, sorry, we can't start chemo. To which she says why? And they said because you're pregnant.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, so miracle baby, my daughter was born like not eight months later, and what the doctor said wouldn't happen, god allowed that. So, yeah, man, that my church. When I told them they went bonkers, we, we put a ghost into the team man.
Speaker 1:Some babies got thrown.
Speaker 3:that day it's got run man Just a great day. Yeah, it's a great day. But married to the same girl. But married to you for 18 years next month or December? Yeah, we've been. I met her here in Lawnberg and while I was doing my internship up at Northview, and we've been married. My daughter Alice. She's five and she's our miracle baby for sure and thankfully she has my energy but my wife's demeanor in some way. So she'll she'll give it back To you just as quick but she also has my energy.
Speaker 3:So to God be the glory. My father's a third generation, second generation IPHC minister and making me a third generation IPHC minister.
Speaker 2:So that's a roots.
Speaker 3:Hey dude, this is my heartbeat. Iphc is me man. I know it sounds crazy, but it's all I've ever known.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so my great granddad attended the Lake City PH church way, way, way back when, and it's all, it's all I know. I'm uncomfortable anywhere else. This is my family, these are my people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I love these people.
Speaker 1:They're called IPHC. We were actually actually recently at the quadrennial conference for the IPHC the South Carolina IPHC conference and got to see you voted in as one of the district members board members, so it was an honor to be able to see you. You do that and you did something we talked about briefly earlier. Yeah, you turned down letting your name run to be on for one of the positions at the IPHC conference.
Speaker 3:I did, man, I did, I had to. I came to a place again trust that this was a year prior. You know, you start hearing talk. We're going to nominate you, we're going to nominate you, we're going to nominate you. Okay, well, that's fine, you know, we'll see what the Lord wants. Yeah, yeah, and sure enough, that moment came and I had been praying and I thought up until like a week before I'm going to let my name run. And you know, after talking with mentors, crazy part is all my mentors said do it, do it.
Speaker 2:Do it, do it Do it.
Speaker 3:It would have been an elected full-time position. I would have had to vacate my church and sitting down one day at my desk in the afternoon, my wife and daughter were taking a nap and I couldn't sleep, went and sat at my desk and the Lord told me very emphatically through an old Southern gospel song called Daystar. And he said leave me, lord, I'll follow anywhere you open up the door. And I realized that my open door was in my city, it wasn't in another place. So I came to that moment. But when the possibility of serving on the conference executive council came up, I was like Huh, I believe that that's something I can do and serve well and hopefully bring some of the revitalization techniques the Lord has given me To the conference level. And sure enough that that has been something Lord's allowed me to do. Man, huge decision to say no, absolutely decisions.
Speaker 1:But I have to say kudos to you for following what God wanted you to do instead of what the flesh may have told you. You know, the average person who don't listen to God would know.
Speaker 3:Man, let me have that this is a blessing.
Speaker 1:This is a blessing. I gotta take it right. But no Kudos to those who actually listen to what God is saying in the heart of the father and they're able to do what God wants them to do, versus what they may want to do themselves. That's truth that is spiritual maturity, uh, which you would expect from a pastor. But but just to be honest, I've been around a few who would have taken the position Absolutely for politics sake, man, just uh, just oh.
Speaker 3:This is a big deal, and you may not even get it, but just letting your name run, you know that that to me, says I'm willing to do this. And for me too, what would that have said to my congregation? I'm willing to vacate, to go up, and if the Lord just said, do it all day long, I'd have done it. Dude, when there's no clarity, the Proverbs 16 33 said man can roll his dice, but the Lord determines how they fall. Meaning I just resolve that if he's got enough put me in, he's got enough to keep me out and he's got enough to tell me no, and that's that's what he did.
Speaker 2:This speaks too, as leaders, how we we should be maturing in our spiritual walk and hearing the father and not as our flesh.
Speaker 2:Because I remember, even younger in ministry and I'm only 35 been in ministry about 11 years. But I remember young in ministry where I could have went to a 3000 member church, being a student pastor, and I were all. We're almost in the door and the Lord's like it's not it and I look back and I thank God that I I said no to it because it would have destroyed the passion that I had in the heart for for people and pastoring it. So it's just good to know that, even on those levels and even on the higher levels, to know that we have leaders that are, that are take a step back and say okay, god, where is it that you want me in this conference? Is it that the executive board? Is it the district board? And a man, we're honored that you're a part, jason, and I, if you don't know this, we are part of the iphc as well and, man, we're honored to have you on on that board leading it. It gives us a.
Speaker 2:It's like a little godwink, like hey, we've got some good people to move forward and it makes some changes that need to be done. So, man, we love that.
Speaker 3:Appreciate that so much as a part of that council man, one of the goals and agendas is to Unify around this concept of family. Yeah, like Bishop Smith, that's one of his main agendas, from numbers 6, 27 through 28 or 26 through 28, but it's one of his main dreams is how do we make this thing a family unit where we're not? It's not you set up there in southern pines and jason here in larenberg, and me and cotton Ah, we are one family.
Speaker 3:Just stretched out no different than my wife, who's In conway today. Fix and go to work. She's still my family, yeah that's right. We are family on the same agenda, man, and kudos to you For recognizing that moment and what could have been a very lucrative, very Fulfilling position. But, dude, if the grace of god doesn't lead you, the grace of god doesn't have to sustain you, that's right.
Speaker 3:And so that's the danger of Moving outside the will of god. When I came back to my church and it felt like all hell broke out this summer, at the end of the day, I had a word to go back to, to remind. Okay, lord, you said now I'm here. So kudos to you, man, for having that word. Now you got a reason to go back. So all right, god, I'm standing on what you told me.
Speaker 2:Listen, I don't know if y'all caught this. I don't know if jason caught it, but what he just man just said was a truth bar. So if, if god, if god's great, you gotta do god's grace. God's grace does have to sustain you if you go in a place that God didn't grace you to be at now this job Not out of his hands. Whoo. Let that freeze some people today that are listed it. Man, follow the grace and the pace that god's giving you, and he'll sustain you, he'll sustain you and everything.
Speaker 3:He'll sustain you at the grace to pace in your space.
Speaker 2:I like it, man. I got our sermon right there, all right. We're going to the sermon right now.
Speaker 1:Well, we're going to series. All right, take a ball from now we're ready.
Speaker 2:We're fed church. I love that man. It's the truth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's no way around it Like there's no way around if the grace of god. If you go into something we see it all throughout scripture people that tried to move apart from the grace of God and, at the end of the day, man, it always collapses. But the moment they get back into the grace of God and the moment they recognize I'm back in God's will there's a sustaining grace, it's not just a saving grace, but it's a sustained man. That, ministers, to my heart it's a sustaining yeah let's stay there. Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, tell us a little bit about what the typical day looks like for the, for the pastor, jason.
Speaker 3:Cook man my day. So I'm in grad school, attending Liberty University. I graduated in December with a master's degree in theological studies.
Speaker 3:So my schedule is a little different now that it has been in years past, and then I start my doctorate in January. I want to actually get a 18 month doctorate D-men from Liberty in church revitalization. So one day I want to write and that's part of it. I feel like the doctorate will add validity plus the experience to be able to speak authoritatively to other pastors who want to revitalize me. And this I think revitalization right now is just as strong a movement and necessary as church planting. I think it takes both. Okay. If we don't have both arms of the church moving, I think we're crippled because we only have one way of going. So typical day for me right now I get up at 430 every morning. That's my, that's my time. That is new since January.
Speaker 2:Did you say 430? 430.
Speaker 3:430 every day. Here's why, though and I hope it makes sense Last winter. I love to duck hunt, love to go duck hunting. I'm a redneck through and through and love to get up, but you have to get up 3-4 in the morning to go duck hunting and drive and go out on cold water and shiver and then shoot and go home Cleanly birds Sounds like a great time.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a ball man.
Speaker 3:That's great, it's great. But the Lord whipped my tail one time when he said all right, so you get up for a duck, but you won't get up for me. And I said oh, because I remembered the scriptures that said Jesus arose early and went and spent time with his father.
Speaker 2:Oh dude he got me, I hope he can get to me on this podcast, man, come on.
Speaker 3:He got me. I'm telling you, you got me, dude. I went from there and I went home and I tried six for about three months and then I backed it up. I said this isn't enough time, backed it up to 530. I tried that for about three months and that just still wasn't enough time, backed it up to five, settled on five until August and then my daughter would have to be at school by eight. Well, now she's in kindergarten, she has to be at school by 715. So I backed it up to 430 so that I have adequate time before I have to take her to school. My wife is a third shift overnight nurse at the hospital, so she's gone most of the night and she's not back in time to your school. So I take her school. So I got to have my time and so my day starts 430.
Speaker 3:I go, sit down at my desk, I open the word of the Lord and I go out actually go outside. I pray, yeah First, open the word and I copy scripture. I know that sounds weird, but I was doing that for a long time before I realized my goal is to copy my entire Bible in two more years by the time it's all done. Okay, I do about a chapter a day. One full sheet will take about a chapter a day. I put my prayer request and things that have happened that day or that week and I make sure and document those things. But I was doing that for a couple years and then I found out an old another minister said to me, he said Jason. He said you know why you're doing this. And no, he said if you go back to the Old Testament there's a passage that says every king should make a copy or make a copy of the law and read and refer to it often. And I didn't even recognize it but I was do. I'm not a king, but I was doing what other kings before had done. They had to copy the law. So you imagine David and Solomon and Saul they were copying the law of Moses so that they had it and referred to it often. So that's part of my morning.
Speaker 3:I have four devotional books I'm reading. One is Greek for the day. I know nothing about Greek other than what my little book tells me of one page of Greek at day. I do a John Maxwell leadership book every day, leadership devotional, and then I do one called Restoration Year by John Eldridge, and then I have one I'm reading right now called Shepherds Look at the 23rd Psalm and Blow in my Mind by Philip Keller. So that's that, I'm done with that. Then, about six o'clock, I have a Bible app on my phone. I do two devotions on it and I text every single Person. I've got about a 30 people or so that I pray for on a daily basis and I send them a text, a screenshot of a Bible verse that I read that day, just to let them know I'm thinking about them and praying about them.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 3:Get my daughter up at 630. Man, I go to work by 730 and then I leave work at 2, work being the church. I'm there four days a week, typical responsibilities, you know making sure things are done and met. And I go get my daughter and go home and Somewhere around eight, nine o'clock I start working my way towards shut my eyes. But yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:I just want to let you know, between 430 and 630 you do more. Then most pastors and most people in general do all day long.
Speaker 3:Oh we do but, man, that's the most productive time of the day my wife is asleep or not. There, my daughter is asleep. Yeah so, man, I've got my desk at the house, I've got all my stuff. Dude that is the sweetest time. Yeah with the Lord. I found myself walking down. I have a sidewalk in front of my house, on the road. I found myself just out there, praying and weeping and rejoicing, ain't it's pitch black, dark, kind of souls see me, but I get.
Speaker 3:This morning I walked out and all my lights on my house were off, so it's pitch black, dark, cuz yeah. And I got it thinking about Jesus venturing out into the night with no light, no torch, no flash light, no nothing.
Speaker 3:Yeah just pitch black, dark to go spend time with his father and dude, that Burned inside of me. I said, man, the determination to walk around with snakes and rats and roaches and and go walk in Straw and everything that's in Israel. And here's Jesus, just out among the nature Talking to his father. Do that and it did something to me because I realized I'm getting to do something my Jesus did.
Speaker 3:Wow early in the morning, just time, my father. I'm not perfect. I'm so far from it, because this, if I were honest with you, my study is where I was the slackest. Yeah leading up to this year, I was just. I studied when I could. I didn't make time for it, I just fit it when I had time. Yeah and, of course, tried to be daily, but it just wasn't the priority. It is now. Now I feel out of order if I don't start my day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm gonna be honest. I'm checking my salvation over here.
Speaker 3:You're on your own, god, I'm making out easy.
Speaker 2:No, I love it, man, that's. I'm getting up early tomorrow, bro.
Speaker 3:You try to mess you up, it'll mess you up. Try to don't get crazy. My youth pastor come in and he liked to sleep to about one o'clock every afternoon.
Speaker 3:That's all right, cuz how about tomorrow, try 6 30? He comes in tomorrow the next day by half asleep and drinking four red bulls. I mean you know. But the kicker for me is just uh, dude, my mom is a. My mom gets up two or three every morning. It's just, she's just a night owl. But if I don't get it done in the morning, you know, some people are morning people. Some people are night people.
Speaker 2:I'm a morning person.
Speaker 3:if I try to do something night, it doesn't make coherent sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but if I do it in the morning, man, God's got my full attention and he's got you know, we've got our tie.
Speaker 1:That's right man with our ties.
Speaker 3:We want to give God our first fruits. I'm giving him the first fruit of my day, that's all he gets a chance to bear a harvest in me on the first part of my day.
Speaker 1:That's me. That's the whole word. Man that's it. Man that's me. Yeah, that's great. Hey, thanks for sharing that. Um. So tell me a little bit about the refuge itself. I know the currently the ministries that you're involved in.
Speaker 3:All right. Well, I feel like I'm doing a whole lot of talking, so y'all just tell me to hush from talking too much Good.
Speaker 1:Go ahead.
Speaker 3:We heard the refuge itself. When god gave us the vision for refuge, I was actually out duck hunting One morning and we were somewhere we weren't supposed to be. We were actually in a um uh didn't realize it, but we looked up after hunting for a long time and realized we were in a wildlife refuge. And the guy with me, the guy I call gay beard you know big old beard, yeah.
Speaker 2:His his.
Speaker 3:He looks at me and he said, man, that maybe that's the name for the church. Huh, I said yeah, maybe. And so we go back and Conway first. I ended up there I told you my story, just going as an interim, and I wanted I had applied to go to another church. It was down to the last three candidates and I was one of the three and I just had my mind made up that was it. Well, come back, and that that wasn't it at all. That wasn't what the Lord wanted. The Lord wanted me at that church in Conway. But when I went and preached first time I was like I don't want to be here. I'm they. They saying the praise and worship service was nine minutes. We sang every line of the red back.
Speaker 3:You know my come now we used to skip every other line. Nah, we sang every line. Praise first was nine minutes. This guy gets up with his open shirt, big green shirt. He said, well, the preacher's coming, and so then it was my cue to preach, so I go preach. But anyway, that church that summer we started having drug addicts show up.
Speaker 3:We started having alcoholics show up. We started having homeless show up. We started seeing lives transform, families put back together and we had a work day. I'm still the interim. I wasn't even the pastor. We had a work day and I'm out trimming bushes, you know, one day, around the sign with the work day, with the other men and there are actually some women there we just cleaning up. The Lord spoke to me and said dead things can live.
Speaker 3:And I said huh, dead things can live. The sign the edges were this much above the sign, they were six, eight inches above the sign. Couldn't even hardly see the sign. It was covered up. The Lord spoke to me, said dead things can live. Okay, so now I've got dead things can live. I've got refuge in my head. We, they voted me in as pastor and they had already bought property and a whole nine before the church had just gone down so bad. The pastor retired and the church just really, really struggled. But as time went on, I gave him my vision. I said I don't mind, I'd love to be your pastor, but I want to give you my vision. Yeah, and I did. It was three pages long and it was ministry after ministry after ministry after project after product. I mean it was just, it was by, it was. I gave them all of the same 30 people.
Speaker 3:Yes, sir, he said no. By then we were at 100. So over the summer it went from 30 to like 170. So by this point we're like I don't know, we're 120 people. Same member board, you know, same same council and one of the board members. One particular thing I wanted to do was move Sunday school to Wednesday night and he just had a conniption. He said I don't ever wear that. And I said I rebuked that in the name of Jesus, because if we're going to do it, god's going to bless it. You know, as long as we're in his will, we got it.
Speaker 3:So we did it and it still is the most successful program we've had today. Moving forward and we moved, we blew out of that building so fast that building people get a shouting in the floor, get the shaking it was just it was an 80 year old building.
Speaker 3:We moved over to our location now and man, the Lord has just made this thing. There's so many ministries we're in. We have a food bank ministry that feeds about 250 people every month. We have a motorcycle ministry mission 25,. We have a homeless ministry where we go from time to time and give bags to people that are homeless. We have an addiction recovery ministry called Hope Center. We have 28 men that live full time residents of Hope Center and that's new this year we just did that, but the Lord gave us that this year and 28 men. They attend our church faithfully and we mentor them and train them and they're in vocational training. So that's been a huge deal. Our church does a pro life, a pro life ministry. We have a closet that is about the size of I don't know, it's a 10 by 40 closet that has diapers and wipes for mothers that don't have diapers and wipes. So we just we are pro life. We're not just pro birth, we're pro life.
Speaker 1:We want to help you do it, absolutely.
Speaker 3:We help you care for these babies. So the ministries just could go on and on. Man, god has just given us influence. We're doing chaplaincy that's being developed right now to actually come us alongside our local sheriff's office to do chaplaincy ministry downtown. We just if it is helping people, we try to be involved in it.
Speaker 1:The hands and feet.
Speaker 3:Yes, sir, hands and feet, we get involved, that's right.
Speaker 1:That's great, hey. So we have enjoyed really kind of getting to know pastor Jason Cook, and so we're going to actually we're going to wrap this here today and then we're going to go ahead and for the next episode we're going to go ahead and start really digging into the main topic and why we're here today, which is church revitalization. So as we wrap this, hey, we hope you tune into us next week as we listen to Pastor Jason talk about this church revitalization. So we'll talk to you soon. God bless you. Bless you.