SO THAT Missions Podcast | FBC Boerne
So that...God's ways may be known on Earth.
"So That" is an FBC Boerne podcast focused on what God is doing around the world with missions and through FBC Missions partners.
SO THAT Missions Podcast | FBC Boerne
Episode 50: A look at 50!!! Amazed at what God is doing!
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Welcome to the Sew That Podcast, and today we get to celebrate our 50th episode. And we get to hear from Chad about what God has done through this podcast.
SPEAKER_00Hi, and welcome to season four of FBC Mission Sew That Podcast. This is an encouraging place to hear how God is working in and around us. We know that he blesses his people so that they can bless the world around them. Why is God working in our life, church, and community? It's so that through us the world will know that he is new.
SPEAKER_01Hey John, we're here today with the 50th podcast.
SPEAKER_00Listen, listen, we got a 50 episode.
SPEAKER_01Just for today.
SPEAKER_00We have the studio is full of clapping people. They also have a laughing button. Uh we got lots of things going on there. Well, hello, Amanda.
SPEAKER_02You've made it.
SPEAKER_01We've made it 50 episodes.
SPEAKER_00That's really quite amazing. I I don't think I ever would have thought we would uh do that, especially in just over a year. So that's uh a lot of recording.
SPEAKER_02It's impressive. I mean, you started with you and Sadie doing a lot of podcasts. You have a lot of interviews, you had a lot of good just teaching and understanding of what missions is.
SPEAKER_00So it's been very fun. It has been fun. I've enjoyed every moment of it, and Sadie is amazing. Um so there's there's been so much fun. We've had a lot of people through um the podcast this first year, and uh and there's so much more to do.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, and we're glad to do this to spread the news of what the church is doing and what missions is doing. So, Chad, tell us why did you even start this podcast?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so uh uh I've been a missions pastor for more than 20 years, um missionary and missions pastor in kind of different lots of different places. And one of the biggest challenges always is trying to tell stories. Um and uh like I I've said this a time or two where you get a team of 20 or 30 people to go on a mission trip and you come home and you get two to three minutes to tell a story on the stage or a video, and you're thinking, man, there's like 35 people that had a whole one week or two-week experience and they want to come back and talk about it, and there's just no space for it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and they can share with their friends, but they can't share with the church that sent them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and they feel like it's a big story. And uh, and so you know, that's that's kind of the big version, but the small version is that there's things happening in the life of our church all the time that we wish people could hear about, know about, and uh and there's really no capacity for it uh in large group gatherings. So maybe their small groups will listen, or maybe the Sunday school classes will listen. Uh like you said, friend groups, but this gives us an uh an opportunity for them to pass it around to everybody, you know. So uh a quick interview. Uh we try to keep these things around 30 minutes. If you've been listening to them, you know they go beyond that. But everyone has a lot to say. Like, oh, I don't know what I can say for 30 minutes, and we go 45 minutes. And like, oh gosh, yeah, it goes by so quick. And uh, and yeah, it's just really a medium, uh a media opportunity for us to share uh really unbridled stories. People can tell stories all day long. So we've uh had a chance to to interview some of our members and some missionary partners that come through from our local local partners or domestic partners uh that that live in our area as well. And so just a good way to help people or let people hear. You know, here's the thing is is uh, you know, you can get like 10 people maybe listen to it, right? Uh or or five people or 50 people you don't really know.
SPEAKER_02You don't know.
SPEAKER_00And uh and so one of the really fun things is that there's been people listening, and that that that also makes it really exciting when people come and they're talking about how much they enjoy listening to it and that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_02So and the interviewees, they've all come and they've sat here and like you said, been like, I don't know what to say, and they say a lot, but they're always very thankful to have been able to tell their story or ministry they're a part of or what gives them passion. They really enjoy being able to sit down with us and talk because it's like I get this opportunity where otherwise, you know, even if our listeners know how many downloads, we know how many downloads and things, but there's people also just listening and they get the opportunity to share what's going on in their lives.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and there's there's really so many ways to make this even more. Uh for instance, if we uh like we need help. By the way, if you're if you're a listener and you really want to help us, let me know. Because we need if somebody would do like um any kind of social media uh campaign to try to get some of the episodes highlighted. So uh we've had a few of our guests uh have been so excited about that they email it out, the link to all of their friends, and you can see all of a sudden there's one this one episode goes up to like you know, 90 people have listened to it in the first week. You're like, okay, this is crazy. Um, but it's it's really fun because you can do so much with this so much. So even as we're documenting the story, we're also creating an archive, right? An archive of different activities of our church that could be listened to or referred to later on. So as we get our domestic partners to come in and talk to us about like uh we had the leadership from um pregnancy care center. As uh as Donna came in, she could put that on her website. She could tell people, hey, if you want to hear more about how we interact with local churches, here's uh an interview we did with a local church and and on and on and on that goes. It's a win-win for everybody. It's just fun for everybody. I mean, it takes time and uh that's that's the trick.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you get to sit in really nice microphones.
SPEAKER_00State of the art studio and uh and have a great time. So yeah, 50 episodes. It's a it's a fun thing to celebrate today, and uh I'm excited to just uh talk with you a little bit, Amanda, as well. So so yeah, what do we got on what are we doing today?
SPEAKER_02Okay, I also want to know, you know, some people maybe just start listening, or you know, you've been here for 18 months. So what I want to know about you, like a little bit. You interview tons of people, and you might have said this on you know of the first episodes, but what how did you even become a missions pastor?
SPEAKER_00Oh man, well, that's uh those are fun questions uh all the time. And you're right, we we do interview everybody. Um, and so you just get to be the facilitator of the conversations. But uh uh no, the for me it was it was uh really from the beginning. I I became a believer at a a little mission, a little Trinity church camp in the Arkansas Hills. Uh it was called Rockhaven Bible Camp. I don't even know if it's still around. And the city was Hasty, Arkansas. And uh and my dad sent me kind of on a whim. He met a guy, we were not a believing family at the time. He met a dude that was sending his son to the to the camp, and so he's like, Hey, I'm gonna send you to camp. And I'm like, I don't even know what that is, but sure, let's go.
SPEAKER_02Question did they have air conditioning?
SPEAKER_00No, there was no air conditioning. And I think it was like a July. At one point, it was like 1991 or two, I can't remember exactly the date. And I wrote it down somewhere so I could find it. But at the camp, this missionary stood up and started talking about how God changed lives in Africa. And you know, it was like your old school missions presentation. He had spears, and I'm pretty sure he had like the old like the picture slides, not like PowerPoint slides, like the picture slides, you know.
SPEAKER_01So wow, so you like insert it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, you hear the little thing turn and it click, click, and the picture pops up, and you're like, oh, this is uh you know, it wasn't black and white, but it wasn't it wasn't super clear. It wasn't 4K, that's for sure. And he started talking about this God that could change lives in Africa. And and and I thought maybe if God changes lives there, he could change lives here. And uh so that's the day that I gave my heart and my my life to Jesus, and and really immediately everything began to change. Um crazy is while I was at camp that week, my dad became a believer in a different location. He went and visited a church, he gave his life to Christ, and then our family began to make pretty massive changes later that summer. We both got baptized together in the Buffalo National River, which is a beautiful river in northern Arkansas. And uh, and our family began to change. I mean, we I always say we were still extremely messy, we probably still are, but like uh just things were a little different after that. For me, it was very different. So just from the beginning, there was this mission hint, this mission tent. And we went to this church uh in in Arkansas that when I was 12, they started taking teams to Mexico, and uh, and so they invited me to be a part of it. My dad uh didn't go, it's crazy. I was too young to go. I'm not sure why they let me go, but I got to go. Uh, and uh and we went two years in a row, and again, it just impacted me. Uh, I was in another country with a bunch of kids from Arkansas, and we saw poverty on a level that was much, much stronger than anything we'd seen. And if you've ever been to Arkansas, there's poverty in Arkansas. A lot of uh it's one of the poorest states in the in the United States, and and uh and so it was just that that was huge. So just fast forward, I would join the army, went to Bible college, and uh, and every time I had an opportunity um to to travel or see the world or to to be involved with what God was doing elsewhere, it was always exciting. So when I got hired uh at North Lake Christian Church, um and outside of Seattle outside of Seattle in Everett, um they hired me to be there junior high youth pastor and missions pastor, and it was perfect. So I started taking teams uh all over the world then and uh did you take the the kids with you on these teams, these little trips? Yeah, yeah. Most of the most of them were youth-oriented trips. So like a youth pastor and missions pastor, we partnered with some groups like YWAM or um others that were really youth oriented and uh and had had a great time. I I would tell you looking back on it that there was um we learned and did amazing things, but like it was very much entry level. Um we had no idea whether we were causing more problems than we were helping with. You know, there's there was no wisdom that we were doing, it was just let's go and do all passion energy, uh, not a lot of wisdom. And then uh kind of grow. So I came across this perspectives thing, right? And it began to just really shake me up, and I started to learn that there's actually incredible strategy that has been kind of developed for missions over the years. So that's kind of the whole thing. Uh I started as a missions pastor in 2003 and uh been doing it ever since. So I I absolutely love it. It's by far the best part. It's like I feel like it's the um it's the uh the big it's the big vision for all churches, for the church, right? Like it's it's the reason why churches say they exist, is to make Jesus known you know, here and everywhere, kind of kind of statements, right? It's at the core of everybody's uh purpose statements. Yeah. And so I get to talk about the big things happening all the time. It's it's really fun. Uh if you get into the little tiny details, eh but this is the big picture. It's the big it's just keeping the big picture in front of the church.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you can tell. I've only been a few episodes with you and listened to a bunch, but you clearly have like this desire, this passion for missions, and this passion to communicate it clearly and to kind of bring missions and the church body together and not just these two separate isolated things. So what about missions excites you the most or communicating that to others excites you the most?
SPEAKER_00Well, there's so much. And and you know, missions is broad, right? You can talk about the unreached, the places where the gospel's never been, and how you get the gospel to those people, and you can talk about everything in between, right? Like a a Bernie, where I feel like our our our likelihood that everyone in Bernie hears the gospel at least once a year is probably fairly high. Maybe there's some exceptions, but like you've got a lot of ministries focused on a fairly moderate population, 20,000-ish people. And so the gospel is at least championed in this community very well. Uh, you put those two things against each other, you have places the gospel has never been, no one will those people live and die never hearing the name of Jesus, that someone like Bernie, where you might hear it all the time and be irritated that someone else is going to talk to you about Jesus again. But uh within the scope of that, I found this word that just redefined all of it for me. And the word is mobilizer. Um, I I I was I had never heard the word before, but it it fits me to the T. And it is defined by the people who don't go overseas so that they can send more people here, right? Like it's to champion the need, the cause, uh, to champion the heart behind it. It's to champion the commands of Jesus that should result in our action, all those kind of things. So it's it's a discipleship function, but it's a it's a it's taking knowledge and putting feet to them, right? It's this this mobilizer word. Uh historically, the word mobilizer was trying to get uh resources to the army when they really needed it, right? It's trying to mobilize people so that they can better pursue the mission. So you see all the pictures of the ladies in factories with you know uh from World War II, uh, when they're like the men are all at war and now they need women to work. And and uh and that was kind of this word mobilizer. How do you get people um to to to to live differently so that they can pursue what the mission was, the army mission? Right. Um, but I love this this this uh new new new tweak of the word that is the mission mobilizer trying to engage the body of Christ for the work of Jesus uh around the world. So it it's I love it. It's it's my favorite part by far. And uh and so that's really fun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I think you do a great job at that. Well, thank you. You really do. I feel like sitting here and talking about all the things you do have like this brain full of understanding of you know, missions, like you said, for um just the the language and for the unreach, but also the whole scope. You have the language and the smarts all in there.
SPEAKER_00So thank you. I I do love it. So First Baptist has been a wonderful environment for me the last year and a half, just uh and there's I gotta tell you, there's these these doubtful moments like uh in the interview process. I'm talking to some amazing people that are here at the church, and they're talking about all that FBC has done in the past, and there's moments you're like, do I really have anything to offer? Do I have any like do they even need this? Because they're already doing so much, you know.
SPEAKER_02And uh they need a mobilizer, they need someone to put those pieces together.
SPEAKER_00They have all these things already. What am I gonna and even perspectives, you know? Like uh, we we're getting ready to host the class here. It takes a ton of work, it's a huge undertaking administratively. And uh, and you just wonder, maybe they already know these things or take the class, and you just wonder, is it gonna impact a community like this one? And uh and now a year and a half in, I'm I could say with great, great confidence, yes, like uh my my role here has had an impact and it and it does encourage it fans a flame that was already burning, but now the flame is raging. You know what I mean? Like it's it's growing, and that's exciting and uh and perspectives. It just impacted these people who are I would call them already like superstar believers. They're already fully engaged with their heart, and now they're gaining wisdom and they're like, this is this is this is so good. It's so good. And uh so it's so exciting to to to be a part of and uh to get to do it. So I love that word mobilizer redefined my whole uh whole understanding of my role.
SPEAKER_02Kind of like an identity of what you have going for you. That's really cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there are these times you get on a mission trip and you land. This happened to me for probably the first decade of doing this work. Is I would land in a new country, be like, is this where you want me to land, Lord? Like, like, is this the place you're calling me to? And uh and then again, you you you learn the word mobilize, you're like, oh no, no, God's called me to do this other thing, and that's uh that's okay. It's okay. You don't have to go to the ends of the earth. Yeah, you can you can stay here and impact the earth from here. So that's that's pretty cool stuff.
SPEAKER_02I love that. Um I know that you know I'm new to the you've it had to educate me quite a bit on exactly what missions is and what's it look like. And um, but one thing I know that you've done for the church is the um boxes at Easter or before Easter and you know, really trying to engage the church body sitting at the pews to do kind of exactly what you're passionate about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I don't know if you have any fun stories to share the what that has looked like. But what are some other things that you've done at FBC that maybe some people don't know that you have been kind of a hand in, or like you said, or jumped on board to things that were already going forward that you're kind of proud of that have the FBC has done with missions that you're proud of or excited about?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's it's a great, a great question. There's there's a lot. Um and and it's super encouraging. And again, that's kind of what this podcast is designed to. And you read when you listen to the podcast, some of our the interviews are to highlight some of our partnerships, right? Some of the things that we're most proud of. And uh, and there's a number of others that we just haven't been able to line up our schedule. So we have more coming. Um, but for me, there's a few things that maybe nobody would know about uh that that in my heart uh speak volumes. Um it's like again, like what are you doing, Chad? You just rah-rah, cheerleader for missions, you know, what what am I doing? We need one of those. You do, but you know, there's probably better cheerleaders in this world than me. And and uh and so there's a couple things that just that that uh I'd say kind of sit quietly in the corner that that uh mean so much to me. One of them is right when I got here, November 22, uh, we had a missionary couple family that was preparing uh to return to the mission field. But they had when I met with them for the first time, and I'm a nobody to them, they don't know me. I haven't invested in there, I've not discipled them. I'm I'm a nobody, I'm just the new missions guy. You know, and so we sat down and in our first conversation, they began talking about some of their major reservations for the place they're about to go. And uh, and there were so many of these, I would call them red flags that pop up, like these are big issues. And and so I said to them, Are you sure that this is the right place for you guys? Like as I'm listening to you and I'm hearing you talking about these things, this is our very first conversation. And they just started like almost crying, like this is we feel like we have to do this. We've already told our supporters, this is what our agency expects. And I said, Guys, you don't want to be there for another five years if you already know it's gonna be bad. And they're like, Yeah, we need to and and then they went through a major change. So they went back to leadership, they said, We really feel like this is not gonna be a great fit. They were all the way, like they were a few weeks from leaving, and they made all these changes, and then I'm like, You got again, there's this risky feeling, like, I don't know, if I just wreck these people's world, I hope that this is gonna be good for them. And they ended up staying home for an extra six months as they kind of redeveloped, redefined what they were gonna do, and then they went to the field and uh they went to a new place, one that they really felt was exciting for them, felt like this is really the core of who we are, where we want to be, what we want to be doing. And uh now they've been there for almost a year, and uh and I had a conversation with them just the other day, and they're thriving, they're thriving. And and in my heart, there's nobody knows of any of those little things, you know, maybe a couple of the leaders. Um, but that's not something you talk about from the stage. It's not something, and yet that little bit, so I got to counsel with them now over that six months before they left, um, and then I got to just continue. Now I'm supporting them, and we are very close. It's it's amazing how God is using them. And uh, and and they to me, it's like this is again, like this little this is one of the reasons I'm here. There's several others. Uh some young people who were going on mission trips, uh, they were gonna go long term. We started talking and and and then they started thinking, oh, maybe they need to make some adjustments to their plans. And uh, and so over and over and over again, there's this other layer of I would call it like maybe more intensive missions engagement, uh, missions counseling for our missionary uh partners and potential partners that uh continues to bear fruit as well. And it's behind the scenes, um, but it's so life-giving because now you you can see people make subtle shifts, but the shifts are are really strategic and really good uh for for each one so far. So far, there's just probably gonna be a mistake at some point, but so far, but the Lord will be there. The Lord has blessed us and and we've seen such good things uh behind the scenes in the small places in the quiet places as well. Okay, one more story. There was a family that came to our church who had just come off of the mission field and they had a really rough interaction in their their uh year plus uh serving overseas. So they came back pretty wounded and uh and frustrated. And there's an element that if you're a missionary and you go overseas and you're gonna just spend, you think about it, you've given up your life, you've sold your things, you've raised the money, and now you're overseas and things go poorly, and you feel frustrated, the leadership there treats you in some way. You know, maybe you find that there's still sinful people in the missions world. You're like, what? I'm supposed to be here serving God, and it doesn't go well. You come home, and there's an element to that that really hurts the core of your heart and faith. Because you're like, Why do we do all this? Why Lord? What are you doing? God, were you even there? Like I did all of this for you. I expected you to at least meet me in the middle, and they come back wounded and broken, and sometimes they even question whether they even believe that God, if if if he's not faithful in this, maybe he's not faithful at all, is what their heart tells them. And uh, and so there was a couple that came in that just kind of had this this they were just wounded, and uh, and now uh the last year I've got to just spend time walking with them, just seeing what they're doing, and God is just blessing them. They took perspectives as well, it gave them like a lot of uh really good tools to kind of reprocess their experience and kind of identify there's some areas here that we didn't know going into it, we should have recognized. And uh and so again, you're just helping people grow. And uh I heard someone say discipleship is helping helping believers interpret the world around them and responding in a godly way. And I feel like that's kind of what you're doing. You're just kind of walking through with people from a a a wide scope of experience, and you throw in all the international stuff, it gets even crazier. And uh just help them to interpret it through Christian eyes, through godly eyes, through patient eyes, through wise wisdom, wisdom eyes, and and really just trying to to interpret it in a way that that um helps them see God in it, if it makes sense. So it's it's but those are those are things that nobody would see. And again, they don't go into magazines.
SPEAKER_02Me too.
SPEAKER_00If it all fell apart and that's all I did. I would still feel really good about those few little things. That that those are the things that make you know this is God working. Again, those are the things no one would ever see or know or talk about.
SPEAKER_02So And it's nice that you because someone could like I could come along and be like, Oh, God loves you, you know, or say try to say some encouraging things that might be helpful or not. But the fact that you understand where they're coming from and know what's going on and know words or all the stuff that you're able to actually physically help them and guide them and understand what they're going through. Because a lot of people can try to understand, but you actually know. And I think that's helpful for these missionaries that are that we want to send out that come home or you know, what is it called when they go on they take a leave or yeah, home assignment.
SPEAKER_00It used to be called deputation, which that word doesn't get used anymore.
SPEAKER_02That's great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But they come they can come back and um find encouragement before they go back out again, you know, and they can land here. They want to land here and be supported here. And you do a great job to do that for our like actual missionaries out there internationally, and I'm sure in the community as well.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Well, we're sure trying. Uh I I uh it there's so much going on that there's plenty to criticize as well. That we we need to do better.
SPEAKER_02But when's the 50th, so we're just a good side about everything.
SPEAKER_00So everything's wonderful. Yes. Uh no, one of the great things uh again, maybe in the last year and a half too, is we created capacity within our missions uh structure here at FBC. So before we had two teams uh that were about you know 11 or 12 people, um, and they have uh unbelievable scope of work, uh the international side and the domestic side, trying to care for and develop vision for, tell stories for. It's it's just a lot. So this year we created one team with five, um, one committee with five different teams around it. And now we have about 25 people that are involved, and it's just starting to share that load. So everybody, everybody capacity goes up the more people that get involved, especially the more wise people that get involved, right? They have some idea of what they're working on and and uh so some expertise in the areas. And so it's it's uh it's getting better and better, and uh I think that that'll continue to grow. We're gonna probably add another team soon, a prayer team that just tries to communicate prayer prompts to our church constantly for uh our mission partnerships and things that are happening uh within our so what exactly does that team do?
SPEAKER_02So they're they're one big team, and what do they do?
SPEAKER_00So the missions and evangelism committee uh is six people and each of the the team leaders from those five teams uh sit on the committee. Um so the committee is the one that has the responsibility to develop and um um approve budgets and expenditures, all those kind of things. It's got the fiscal, the fiscal responsibility stays with the committee, but the teams each represent um their area of influence. So one of them is the international team. So they're working with all of our international partnerships, our foreign mission trips. Uh they'll be working to develop the substantial, it's the largest part of our budget goes to the international side. The domestic side is like the easy second large, it's 22 partners, it's a lot of work, and every month we receive requests for new partnerships. Um FBC is on everyone's list of a place that you can go and get financial help for your ministry. So startups, new ones, old ones that we've used to partner with that we haven't partnered with now, they're all consistently and constantly looking for ways to build a connection with us. So that team is supposed to manage and care for our partners and also vet and develop new partnerships when we have capacity for it. Uh then we have the communications team that's trying to just do this, tell stories. So we've developed a couple of large um publications each year, one focused internationally, one focused domestically. Uh one day I hope that they'll help us develop next steps for the podcast. Um if they I don't know that uh I don't know that I'll stop doing this, but it'd be great to have other people involved, uh, especially in the production and other uh planning and strategy. What would be the best next interviews we do? It'd be a great conversation to have with somebody other than just me, me and Amanda. And uh, and so hopefully that'll grow. Um, but beyond that, we have that mobilization team that's really looking at trying to uh what's our next step for our congregation? How do we help our congregation as a whole grow in their capacity? So events like perspectives, or last week we did the gospel conversations training. Uh, in the past, we've done some things like when helping hurt seminars, um, all those kind of things would be part of the planning and development of that mobilization team, um, trying to figure out what's the next step for our congregation uh and how do we help people grow in their own capacity. And then the newest and probably most exciting one is the business as mission team. We're trying to create uh space for business practitioners in our church uh to understand the growing kind of whole industry within missions that is starting businesses to fund missions or starting businesses uh that will be the um it's kind of the platform for missions. Every country in the world, whether it's closed or not, wants businesses. They want successful businesses that provide livelihoods.
SPEAKER_02And that's how you can come in as a missionary, right?
SPEAKER_00You own a business and lots and lots of businesses can be started uh in some of these closed countries by American leaders, American workers, they want American dollars. But there was a season where they were there's there's best practices and bad and poor practices, right? There are there are some businesses that masquerade or missions that masquerade as business, and that typically ends up getting in trouble because they don't make a profit, they don't actually benefit economically the country that they're working in. And so you have to be able to do both. Uh, you have to be able to be smart about that. You have to be smart, you have to be a successful business, which is a challenge. Most missionaries are not trained businessmen, so just trying to get missionaries to become businessmen is not a great plan. You typically have to get businessmen who have a good idea, work together with some missionaries, and you form a team, and that that then helps to to create where you can do good and make some money.
SPEAKER_02Wow, what a strategy!
SPEAKER_00So there's so much of this kind of stuff. So the business's mission team is new. We're just starting. There's uh five of them, just trying to think we hit we believe that our our church and our community here has exceptional um business capacity and leadership. So we're trying to figure out how do we how do we capture that and then focus it uh on how we can apply business principle or business opportunities for the mission field. So there's some really cool things there. Uh and so that's what that the committee is only six, but the teams all together represent about 25 people, and and so you've got people focused in these different areas. Like I said, we're probably gonna add a prayer team, uh, which would make our committee add another person, a team leader. Um, and that one just really wants to try to help our church engage with how do we bring and know, how do we how do we knowledgeably approach the throne of God and speak to and ask the Lord, petition him for these different requests and different needs um along the way. When again, if communication is such a challenge that we have to do and and we're working on all these different platforms to try to get the information out, then a prayer focus would be the easy, simple next step. So, yeah, so it's really exciting to see the capacity of our missions uh growing as well.
SPEAKER_02Wow, that seems like a uh fun team, well organized, but there's some cool people on that team.
SPEAKER_00We're trying to be, we're trying to be. It's limited by the leaders' organization, which is not substantial, but we've got some help and uh the guys that have other jobs and things to do that want to come and help.
SPEAKER_02But men and women.
SPEAKER_00We've got the big picture guy at the top saying, This is great, let's do this, but then sometimes the nuts and bolts of it uh need some of the things. That's why it's the body, the church. It is that's exactly exactly. We actually uh I said this Sunday in my sermon, like we need everybody doing their part. Like it's gonna take the whole body uh to do the work that God's called us to do.
SPEAKER_02Yes. I'll I wanted to say that today was you know, being the 50th podcast with Chad, that you need to listen to his sermon on last Sunday. I don't know the date. It was May.
SPEAKER_00It was May. I think it was the 26th.
SPEAKER_02Great. May 26th. You want to go to Chad, talk about legacy. And it was really fun, Chad. I think I told you this a little bit, but so in our growth group, we meet we meet a growth group after your sermon, after the Sunday sermon. And the question to our growth group was, you know, what kind of legacy does FBC have? And there were lots of great things, but the first thing that came out was missions. And so there's this understanding that missions is important to FBC. They were talking about how missions, there's so many different people within our church that we've been able to interview that do some things. Um, they know that there's lots of international things y'all do. There's some family ones, there's kids, there's adults. And so there's this underlying um, underlining, underlying understanding that FBC's legacy is missions. And so, but like you said, it's like, how do you get those stories out there? How how do we know by word of mouth that this is so important to FBC? And so it's fun to hear from the church that we know that it is missions. And so you're doing a great job with this and all the other things, even if you don't get a whole Sunday talk about it, but it's it's there and people of the church know that it's important. And I think it's the people in the church have done a great job, but you know, leading that and wanting it to be in the forefront has been apparent. So it's really fun that that's FBC's legacy is missions.
SPEAKER_00Well, and it's it's an old legacy, right? It's 125, 26-year-old church. Yeah, and it far preceded me, right? It's not like this is Chad's thing. I get to build on foundations that were well laid way before I got here. And and really it it gives you so much strength, right? You're so much so much what we have at FBC is is such a blessing, whether it's the resources or the people resource, the the understanding and history that we're working with. Um I this this class we did, the prospectus class we did in the spring. Um I've probably led uh seven, six or seven classes over the years. And uh like I said, they're enormous. The undertaking is is huge. So that may not sound like a lot, but that's a lot. And I believe it. And and and many of them, there's always major impacts, so that's always really big. But this one was something special. Like again, you had such high caliber people jumping into the class, enough that I wasn't sure it was gonna make an impact on them at all. And then they interacted with this rich content that really was new and challenging and surprising. And uh, and then as it's starting to like embed as they're working through it, and you're gonna see how their lives it's it's unbelievable. It's it's one of the highlights of my mission's career is right now watching these impacts for people who uh who are again devoted, amazing followers of God, and and uh and excited to see what God's gonna do through them um as it as it grows. And so it's super exciting for me. And uh yeah, the 50th episode is just fun. Like it's all these stories.
SPEAKER_02We have you have about 43 interviews, so that's 43 times that someone has come in here and told their story about how you know the gospel has changed them and other people, and you know, maybe the the ministry they're a part of or they started, or so that's really fun. And there are um of those 43, 18 of those are from our church, which is really cool. They're members that sit in the pew that have um started something in missions or has been a part of something. Um, because they're like you said, there's a lot in Bernie in the San Antonio area. Um, a lot of these people, we've got people international that we've been able to like physically interview from Moldova and Uganda and Southeast Asia and North Africa. I mean, these people sat in these these places and were able to chat with us about um what God is doing in their lives and in their countries.
SPEAKER_00And some of those stories are just phenomenal. They're incredible. And you listen to them and you're like, oh my gosh, there's so much. I'm sorry that there's a time limit.
SPEAKER_02I don't want it.
SPEAKER_00Right. That's there's some of these are just fantastic. And uh and so yeah, that's so exciting.
SPEAKER_02I know. And you have like you've talked about perspectives, but that's been a really cool part to see that this little this huge class that is really you'll hear in these interviews, have really changed people's perspectives. And um and how we get you can listen to these podcasts and get like a little glimpse. And and I've listened to a few of them, and I'm amazed at the people that you're interviewing who have come to Bernie to want to talk about what the Lord is doing in the lives of people over the world or in their hometowns and things is amazing that they came to Bernie and wanted to share it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, our our instructor base for this class was was incredible. Stout. And uh it really was wonderful, and all of the instructors were were uh were excellent. And uh so yeah, that that's that's wonderful. Uh, you know, my last church we had I had this idea, the podcasting idea. So we put together a podcast, and I think we recorded 10 or 12 episodes, and uh, and after like six months of those episodes, I think we had like 50 people had 50 downloads, 50 people had downloaded like this just is not making impact, you know.
SPEAKER_02Maybe you're just ahead of your time.
SPEAKER_00I probably listened to, I was probably 20 of the 50, you know, it was me just trying to see if they just making sure it was working okay or something. And uh, and so this has been a ton of fun. It really has been. You should be encouraged.
SPEAKER_02You put a lot of effort into it. Yeah, there's like some more stats of there's 1700 downloads, and that doesn't even include the listens, you know. I don't know if I download, I just click to listen. I don't know what it does, but um, that's a lot, and that's pretty fun to see these stories going out there. Someone's listening.
SPEAKER_00And they keep it it's funny because month to month the listening keeps going up. I guess the more episodes you have, the more people are listening to all of them simultaneously. Some algorithm out there. It's it's just wild. In the last month, there's been over 250. And uh, and uh there, I'll just tell this. This is a good corny story. I was talking, I went to a meeting with the missions organization probably five months ago, and I'm meeting with a group of different missions pastors, several of them I'd never met before. One of them was First Baptist San Antonio. If you're listening, Byron, I'm telling you a story. And and uh he said, Hey, I recognize your voice from the podcast. And I said, What? And he said, Yeah, you do that podcast, the FBC Bernie, right? Are you Chad? And I'm like, oh my goodness. Like you're famous. You never think that people are listening to this outside of the sphere that you're intending it for. Yeah. And uh and I'm sure my face turned red because I thought, oh, all of a sudden I'm trying to think through the hundreds of things I've said in this podcast, and just not hurt anybody's feelings. But he was uh he was he said it's been really encouraging for them, and he likes to listen to it because he's trying to figure out what other churches are doing, and uh so you know you never know what it's gonna do. And so that was that was that was a fun moment to think, oh goodness, this really could be listened to by anyone anywhere. That's uh that's a challenging thing to think about.
SPEAKER_02And really neat.
SPEAKER_00And pretty pretty neat.
SPEAKER_02Um, and so well as we yeah, wrap up our 50th podcast, I want to know like what's going on this summer. I know that as a church member that there's a lot of summer uh missions trips going on, and what does the rest of the year look like for the podcast this summer?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so here we are halfway through 2024, halfway. It seems so fast. We're like two days from June. Wow, and uh and uh we've got a lot planned. There's a lot coming up. So the biggest thing is we've got a couple big mission trips. We've got 35 people going to Mexico in a few weeks. We have 15 people going to Turkey, Moldova. Uh just next week.
SPEAKER_01You guys being one of them. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Our family, our family being one of them. We're super excited about that. So we'll do some bonus episodes in the summer where we just try to do some testimonies from our trips and what people took away from us. Those are awesome. And uh so there'll be probably five or six or seven of those uh that we'll record in the summer. In the fall, we'll definitely launch a new season, um, season five. We're trying to do these by semester. Um, and so we'll have another one uh starting in the fall. Really excited about that one as well. Uh, we'll continue continue doing kind of what we're doing where we just try to find some stories from within the congregation. We'll try to find some local partners or domestic partners that can come and talk about their ministries. Um, if you know of stories, they don't have to be just FBC stories. Like there's these these networks that FBC has partnered with, so they can kind of go really far. We've talked about maybe mops. We mentioned this idea of family on mission.
SPEAKER_01It is now Momco.
SPEAKER_00It's now Momco. Mom community. It's this big, big change there. Yes. Uh it's gonna be hard to change that in our hearts and minds. It's been Mops for so long. It's no longer a cleaning supply. It's no longer something you clean your floor with. So momco. Uh we'll try to get some interviews with those guys and see how how some of these different networks were embedded with how they pursue kingdom advancement within their own work. So lots of great stuff coming up.
SPEAKER_01We're really excited to see what's going to happen. And yes.
SPEAKER_00And uh, we have a few more really good interviews too. We keep finding in our church just unbelievable people. And uh so look uh look forward. We have several several different episodes we're releasing week by week in the next couple months, and so uh hope you enjoy those as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, happy 50th podcast chat.
SPEAKER_00Hey, look at that. We've got more cheering. Amanda, thank you for all that you're doing. Uh, for those of you listening, we pray that and hope that this is a value for you, that it's it's encouraging and exciting to hear uh how God is using uh FBC and many others uh for his kingdom. Remember why? It's because that we know that God has blessed us so that we can be a blessing to others. So be a blessing wherever you go today. If you're excited about our 50th uh podcast, send us a note. Tell us how uh this has impacted you. We'd love to hear about it. Maybe we'll even share it on a podcast in the future. Have a wonderful day and God bless. We are so thankful that you joined our podcast today. We would love to hear any feedback you may have for us. Remember, Psalm 67 says, May God be gracious to us and bless us, and make his face shine on us. So that your ways may be known on earth and your salvation among all nations. Don't forget why the Lord blesses us. It's so that we can be a blessing to those around us. Until next time, God bless.