Fellowship Around the Table
Great conversations about life, faith, and the Bible from Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma (www.fbctulsa.org).
Fellowship Around the Table
Meet Pastor Craig Exendine w/ Eric Bryan
Ever wondered how childhood faith journeys translate to a lifetime of ministry? Join us as we welcome our new Small Groups Pastor, Craig Exendine, and explore his inspiring path from a young boy in Tulsa to a driving force in our church community. Craig's story is filled with heartwarming anecdotes, like meeting his wife, Courtney.
Craig's deep-rooted faith journey began at a summer camp when he was just ten years old. Through the transformative power of youth groups and college ministry with STUMO, Craig developed a robust understanding of discipleship and evangelism. We dive into the importance of daily scripture reading and personal gospel preaching, as Craig reflects on the spiritual mentors who guided him. His transition into vocational ministry was anything but straightforward, marked by pivotal moments and difficult decisions, including a challenging church planting effort that tested his faith and resilience.
As Craig steps into his role as Small Groups Pastor, we explore his vision for fostering authentic community within our church. With a focus on the one another commands of scripture, Craig emphasizes the need for genuine relationships and communal support. He shares his excitement about aligning with our church's mission, vision, and values, and the vital role small groups play in this endeavor. Don't miss this episode filled with heartfelt stories, spiritual insights, and an inspiring look at Craig's journey and vision for our church community.
You are listening to Fellowship Around the Table.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Fellowship, around the Table where we endeavor to have great conversations about life, faith and the Bible. I am your host this week, heath Casey, and I have a special co-host this week, our lead pastor and elder, eric Bryan. Hey, Thanks for joining me, eric. Good to be here. I'm excited the goal today because we have another special guest with us our new small groups pastor Craig Exendine Craig. It is great to be here. Yes, I'm so excited you got the OSU shirt on. Let's go.
Speaker 3:I've come prepared. Casey's happy. He's happy right now.
Speaker 2:He doesn't even know, why the goal today is to give our body a longer and more intimate introduction to you, craig, who started here on July 1st. I've gotten to know Craig quite a bit the past couple months through this process and I would love just everyone else to hear the stories that I've heard, his past ministry experience and really the plans that we have for him here at Fellowship.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. And let me just dispense with two items of business that are on my heart before we start in one about you, heath, and one about Craig. One I just want to say thank you for all you're doing with this ministry. Seriously, this is a really helpful, impactful ministry.
Speaker 1:I've had numerous people come up to me and say I'm a regular listener. I didn't know about this and now I feel more informed about this. That's kind of at a base level, but beyond that base level I've heard people talk about how it's been an encouragement or a help or a equipping or an exhortation for them. Wonderful, or a help or a equipping or an exhortation for them. So this ministry matters and I know you put a good amount of time into it and it was really a lot of your creative juice to get it going in the first place. So thank you. And I want to say about you, craig, and say this to our friends and listeners, that there's times where you get, especially in an interview process, where you get to know somebody in the dance of interview which we all understand that.
Speaker 1:And we're a bit gussied up and polished up during that, and then you get to know the person in the real trench of life and sometimes you're like, oh gosh, that's not the same person.
Speaker 2:I wasn't expecting that.
Speaker 1:But the good news about Craig is that there's been a consistency and a seamlessness to knowing you in that process and knowing you now, and I'd want everybody to know that In all the really good ways. What you see is what you get with Craig X and Dine and your wife Courtney which I'm jumping the gun on a question here or two, but she's a delight.
Speaker 2:And those two boys are fantastic.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, just wanted everybody to know that Craig's one of those guys where his integrity it defines itself as we watch him, and the consistency with what we've learned about you. So, thank you for being the man that you are. So I'm going to turn it over to you, craig Tell us about that family that I've already sort of started talking about.
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah, Well, I'm married to my lovely bride, Courtney. We first met. It's been yeah, I'm realizing this as I'm saying it right now 10 years, almost a month, I think. We met in August of 2014 in Stillwater. We were friends for a couple of years.
Speaker 1:Were you both students at that time.
Speaker 3:I had actually just recently graduated and had started working at Eagle Heights doing college ministry.
Speaker 2:A local church there in Stillwater.
Speaker 3:Yep, that's right, and she was finishing up school, but we got to know each other. That's right, and she was finishing up school, but we got to know each other being friends over the next couple of years. We actually went on a mission trip together to Boston and got to know each other better that way and then actually ended up moving into the same apartment complex and being direct next door neighbors. We shared a wall, so our paths were just crossing all the time on top of going to church together.
Speaker 3:So yeah, after knowing each other for about a year and a half, we started dating for about six months. We were engaged for about six months and married in the beginning of January 2017.
Speaker 2:Now at that apartment complex didn't somebody show up to somebody's door with a plate of cookies? That's right, yeah.
Speaker 3:So it was my birthday and Courtney was aware of that. She says she was putting off studying, but we all know.
Speaker 1:We all know, we all know.
Speaker 3:She knew I was next door.
Speaker 1:The essence of Craig was just powerful. That's right.
Speaker 3:So she made some, some cookies. She knocked on the door and the rest is history.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So we were married less than a year after that, after those cookies yeah, powerful cookies, those little moves.
Speaker 1:My story with Lauren goes back to our high school days. She invited me to our first date for a drill team banquet in Texas and we were dancing a dance All right for a drill team banquet in Texas. And we were dancing a dance, all right. And she says and now that I know Lauren, I know this is true, but she had her arm up on my shoulder and she was just gently rubbing her finger up and down. And for me that was like this woman loves me.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean.
Speaker 3:You knew from that moment on, I knew from that moment on.
Speaker 1:I mean we'd be married 35 years now. I mean. So we just knew love it, but that's that's cool yeah, and you could have been like heath and shay and just gone on ahead and gotten married during college.
Speaker 2:Yes, I didn't know that I met in high school in chemistry class and I figured out she liked red siddles. So at lunch I would go to vending machine, get skittles, separate out all the red ones and bring them to class afterwards. Whoa.
Speaker 1:That was your version, your batch of cookies.
Speaker 2:That's right, and she was sold. She was sold, that's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, she's fun to have down the hallway, isn't?
Speaker 3:she, she is, yeah, she's a great teammate. And we have a couple of kiddos. Howie is our oldest. He just turned three, not even two weeks ago. A number of people got to meet him at a distance a couple Sundays ago when we were introduced our first official Sunday here.
Speaker 1:Do I need to put him on the preaching schedule?
Speaker 3:Well, he won't be shy. We're still working on Sound Doctor, but he won't be shy. Okay, we're still working on Sound.
Speaker 1:Doctor Okay, but he won't be shy, that's for sure. He won't be. He's willing to utter things, he is. He is To give utterance, that's right, okay so yeah, he stole the mic, but he's fun.
Speaker 3:He's really coming into himself and I'm getting to know him and his personality better and he's a blast. And he has one younger brother, hudson, who's 14 months. There's no doubt in my mind that he's going to be our first trip to the hospital. He's the accident prone. Yeah, he has no preservation for safety. So he's climbing on things, he's jumping off and crying and then repeat the cycle.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But he's a blast, and so that's Hudson. And then we found out, between the time I was offered and here at FPC and the time I started found out that number three is on the way.
Speaker 2:Are we breaking news on this podcast?
Speaker 3:We might be probably for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 3:I know, so praise the Lord. Yeah, we're super excited for baby number three. Don't have a due date yet, probably March, early mid-March. So, lord willing, we will become a family of five early-ish next year.
Speaker 2:Fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exciting news, congrats, Thank you. Thank you. Tell us a little more about your faith story. How did you come to trust Jesus? As your Savior and engage with Him. And then today, nowadays, what's been the progress of how life has looked, walking with Him?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I grew up here in Tulsa. I've spent the overwhelming majority of my life here. I was born at St Francis and moved to Bixby. When I was a year old For the first oh, nine or ten years of my life, I was going to the church that my mother grew up in in Broken Arrow and my parents were consistent in having us plugged into that church there. And about the time I was late elementary school, my parents they wanted I have one sister she's a couple years older than me they wanted us to go to a church where we also had a lot of friends and friends in the same school and the same church. So we made a transition to a church where we lived in Bixby and I was probably 10 years old at that time. So a year after that I went to a kid's summer camp. Is this Camp?
Speaker 2:Wow, this was before that Okay, sorry.
Speaker 3:Camp Wow was later. It was teenage years. This was called Camp Talakogi on Fort Gibson Lake, but it was June or July of 2001, where I remember the camp preacher for the week clearly and lovingly explaining the gospel from the stage and asking anyone who wanted to respond to come forward and they would connect us to a volunteer who was willing to talk us through the implications of the gospel. And there was a man named Curtis who was a volunteer with our church that week and I've often thought in recent years for some reason that I would love the opportunity to reach out to him to track him down and thank him.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, after hearing the gospel from the stage, he sat down with me and talked me through the implications. It's costly to follow Jesus. It means that you deny yourself right. The reward is eternal and immeasurable and it was, yeah, that day, that summer where I gave my life to Christ. It was, of course, the best decision, going home from school daily and just opening up my Bible and reading a paragraph and closing it.
Speaker 3:So my appetite may have not been super strong to sit there and to memorize Philippians, but I had a new found desire to read the word and it was taking root in my heart, my life, and planting gospel seeds. So a couple of years after that, I got the opportunity to transition to youth group and the Lord gave me incredible friends during my teenage years. My best friends were those same guys that were in my youth group. I got married when I was 26 years old. Four out of my five groomsmen were guys that were in my youth group. So the Lord just used those years in a really profound way to shape me for the godlier, shipped off to OSU and to Stillwater in 2008, got really plugged in to student mobilization and really learned from some older guys, both in my fraternity and some older guys involved in STUMO, especially how to take initiative in evangelism and in discipleship.
Speaker 3:And I think those years in college were the most concentrated amount of spiritual growth in a short amount of time I've ever experienced, especially in regard to okay, if I love God, that means I love others and I even show my love for God through loving others and really learned what it looks like to disciple other guys and to share the gospel and do evangelism.
Speaker 3:There's some other questions that we'll probably get to that I'm kind of jumping ahead a little bit, but today and what it looks like for me to trust in the Lord and follow Him is not any different. It's a daily cycle of remembering the gospel and preaching it to myself, right, because I have a way of waking up in the morning and forgetting everything that happened the day before, right? This was why it's so important to open the scriptures right before I go anywhere else, to remind myself and to whet my own appetite. I need something to kindle my own heart and my own fire for the Lord, and the scriptures do just that. So it's really a daily cycle of remembering that Jesus gave his life for me so I can live for him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were talking. The other day, craig and I had lunch together with Paul Hildebrand and Joel Slaughter and it was a good time, and on the drive back we were talking a little bit about some of this and agreeing that there's no one campus ministry. That's perfect, right, yep. There's no one campus ministry. That's perfect, right, yep. But boy Stumo's been such a stalwart for discipleship and evangelism through the years, that's right. We still support as a church some longtime Stumo guys, couples, and grateful for how.
Speaker 3:God has used that ministry. Yeah, I'll be forever grateful for them and for those years, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean some of the foundation tracks they laid with you are tracks you're going down today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And will continue in your ministries, which segues us perfectly into kind of. Here you are now in vocational ministry. You're here today, but a lot of people may not know that you've, for the better part of this last decade you've been involved in vocational ministry. So take us back to kind of when that started. How did it start? Did God kind of tap you some way? For that, and then just walk us through some of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure. So there's plenty of folks who, in regard to what we'll often call a call to ministry, who can say man, I was, at this point in time, I was standing over a pier and this happened, and this person said this and.
Speaker 3:I knew that. You know, ministry is for me. That's not me. Praise the Lord when, when that happens, uh, mine was. Mine was over a period of time, but I'll pick up again.
Speaker 3:In my college years Got pretty plugged in to Stumo and developed some really great relationships there and, like we just talked about, especially grew in discipling and sharing the gospel, got to see some fruit come from that. In the fraternity that I was a part of, fiji in Stillwater, I got to see some guys come to Christ. I got to see guys grow in the Lord and see bonds be built together. And it was, yeah, as we do in our college years, we're thinking what am I going to do vocationally, right, for the rest of my life? What is this going to look like? I could get into the nitty-gritty, but just through a series of events I had some friends who started attending a church in Stillwater, eagle Heights, and it dawned upon me that you know what I enjoy ministry. I think the Lord has wired me in such a way to see fruit. I wonder what this looks like vocationally. And about that time I started attending Eagle Heights and decided well, I realized that if I'm thinking through vocational ministry and yet I'm not plugged into a local church. It just doesn't make any sense, right? How could I say I aspire to pastoral ministry? And besides, back home in Bixby, where I don't live anymore, right, there's not a pastor who really knows me.
Speaker 3:That was about my junior year of college and, god's kindness, I decided I'm going to get as plugged into this church as I can and I started attending a men's Bible study at Eagle Heights. That was Friday mornings at 6.30 in the morning. Roll out of bed and walk, thankfully, half a block down the road and stumble into this early morning Bible study, but got to develop some really rich relationships with other men and with the lead pastor there, named Brent. I got to share with him. Hey, I'm interested in vocational ministry. What might this look like? Some time goes by and it dawned upon him hey, we usually hire a college intern for the summer and we haven't done that yet. Would you be interested in doing that? And I said absolutely. So that would have been oh, 2012, summer of 2012. Got the opportunity to be an intern there and then the youth minister stepped down and moved overseas to be a missionary. Youth minister stepped down and moved overseas to be a missionary, and it was kind of me or nobody to lead that youth ministry With the help of the other pastors, with the help of lay leaders and parents, really got to dive in to that youth ministry for the remainder of my college years.
Speaker 3:Got to see what church is like behind closed doors. Got to see, okay, I think I desire pastoral ministry, but what is it actually like? And I realized that, okay, yeah, I do aspire to this kind of word work, I do desire this, I do enjoy this. And they were also a church who. They gave me a long runway, they were patient with me. I didn't have to have it all together, I didn't have to be super polished from the beginning, but they also loved me enough to be honest with me and say, hey, craig, I think you're wired either in this way to pursue pastoral ministry or not, to not pursue Throughout that time, as we got to know one another and they gave me a long, long runway.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we came to that conclusion together hey, I think this would be a good fit for you. If you desire the work, we'd love to see you pursue this. So that was a process of me coming to that conclusion, but was very thankful for how it worked out. There's a lot of people in my corner who love me enough to be honest with me.
Speaker 1:So keep talking us through the years from that point forward.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So when I first graduated from college in 2013, spent a little bit of time going to seminary but then had the opportunity to actually join the staff again of Eagle Heights and to help start a new college ministry there, so I decided to jump on that opportunity. There were college students there but there wasn't a structured college ministry. So I had the opportunity, as a lot of folks in college ministry do, to fundraise and raise my own funds for a season to do college ministry and really help develop that college ministry there at Eagle Heights. And it was just a blast. I mean, I was fresh out of college, you know, and I was getting paid to invest in my friends, basically Right and yeah, the Lord just continued to use those years. So I spent a good amount of my time actually on OSU's campus, whether that be doing evangelism or discipling folks who were at Eagle Heights. Yeah, I just loved it. Got the opportunity to start preaching a little bit Not a lot, but a little bit.
Speaker 3:Got my first reps on Sunday morning during that time frame, yeah, and got some good feedback. Well, it was probably all good feedback, but I had a hard time receiving it initially, because it's hard man, I just want you to encourage me.
Speaker 1:I don't want you to tell me what I did wrong. Yeah, what he said, I agree no.
Speaker 3:But it was yeah, at that time again where I met Courtney and dated and engaged, got married to her. But a lot of my time at Eagle Heights was helping bridge the gap between the church and the college campus, so doing some evangelism, equipping students to do that, discipling them and really teaching them, hopefully, how to be healthy members of a healthy church so that when they graduate they know what it looks like to go out and to plug in to a healthy church and to continue following Jesus for the rest of their lives. So I was there for another three years or so and then got the opportunity to move back to Bixby. Now, or to Tulsa in general, the church we were at was in Bixby Now married. At this time Courtney and I had been married for about six months or so. When we moved back to Tulsa she was finishing up nursing school, a fast track program through OU.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, I got the opportunity to join the staff of New Beginnings in Bixby and that's actually the church that I grew up in. So it was really neat to get the opportunity to join the staff of a church that had a big influence on me as a teenager. But I was hired initially as the high school pastor there, which was a blast because I loved the youth ministry when I was a teenager and loved doing that, really enjoyed doing youth ministry. After, oh I don't know exactly how long, it was a couple of years or so there was some staff turnover and got the opportunity to see my role expanded more into just you know, general associate pastor kinds of things. Had a hand in small groups there, had a hand in equipping classes, got to preach oh, 10 to 12 times a year, something along those lines.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah and just absolutely loved it. Loved pastoring then, still love pastoring now, but I'm forever grateful for churches like Eagle Heights and to understand that, just like anything, it takes time to get good at something and I don't know if I'm good now or not but I hope. I'm at least better than what.
Speaker 1:I was when I first started.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very grateful for the investment of those churches. I think they laid a solid foundation for me going forward.
Speaker 1:That's great. So I'm going to use the word sabbatical in two instances here. Okay, we met Craig while I was on sabbatical, that's true. Heath graciously took the point man responsibilities for our search while I was out on sabbatical. And then I came back to the delightful news that you know we knew about you at that point. But we met you during a sabbatical, if I could call it that, that you were on and yours was a working sabbatical.
Speaker 3:It was. I was the fortunate one that wasn't doing a working one right, I was working hard, yeah, so.
Speaker 1:So, heath, maybe I'll let you pose the question or questions, because you you were more in the driver's seat at that point. You know about how we kind of connected and and why you were even on sabbatical from ministry at that point, sure so yeah, I think it kind of starts with Dan Galante a fellow member here.
Speaker 2:He knew we were on our search process and he said, hey, I got a guy that is wanting to get back into pastoral ministry. I know really well. Would you come have coffee with me? So we met me, dan and you at Double Shot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, beginning of March. Beginning of March, where all?
Speaker 1:monumental spiritual things happen right. Just ask Nathan Cozart. Yes, Okay.
Speaker 2:Dan was there for you know like 45 minutes. I didn't know how long I'd go and he had to get on to work. Yeah, did we hang out for two or three?
Speaker 3:hours. It was a while. Yeah, I wasn't expecting Dan to leave.
Speaker 2:I know You're bouncing, okay.
Speaker 3:Well, leave, you're bouncing. Okay, well, let's get to know each other. But yeah, we were there for oh, two, three hours at least yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So we had a blast. Then I immediately Hank and Paul, two fellow elders, were kind of assisting me in that process on the search, and I was like you need to come have coffee with this guy and see what you think, and I'd love to pursue this. They did. We met in the same spot a double shot.
Speaker 2:I think, and just kept going down the process from there. But you had had a relationship with Dan because he was on your team in a process that you were with in the beginnings, on a church plant, that's right, yeah.
Speaker 3:So in regard to just my own thinking through vocational pastoral ministry and what opportunities I want to pursue, I have always wanted to be open to whatever kinds of opportunities the Lord gives, and here's what I mean by that. So I'll share this and then back up a little bit. I had the opportunity to pursue church planting, and there's some folks who are convinced they were born and then born again to be church planters and praise the Lord for that. That's great. I know that I desire to pastor and I want to be open to whatever opportunities, because the Lord works through opportunities. Right, he's not going to call you to something that he doesn't give you the opportunity to do. But, that being said, one opportunity that came my way was the opportunity to pursue church planting, and I got really excited about that Sent from new beginnings.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes. So it was a good situation. It was healthy all around. New Beginnings was very much so. In support of this, they were endorsing, they were sending us out, raising us up and sending us out to plant a new gospel work in another part of Tulsa, to plant a new gospel work in another part of Tulsa, and I'd add too that Eagle Heights, where you're at, was in on supporting this as well.
Speaker 2:Oh, cool, so you?
Speaker 1:say us plural, so give us a sense of the dynamic of the team that they were sending out.
Speaker 3:Who all was? Yeah, so there were about 20 or so adults who had formed this core team.
Speaker 1:And, to the extent they had kids, their families involved too, yeah.
Speaker 3:So yeah, including kids, I can't remember the number, but around 22 or three adults made up our, our core team and there was a portion of those were from new beginnings, even some from Eagle Heights and then some others just from the Tulsa area that we had, god's know, organically. So yeah, it was a lot of fun and it was a really sweet time. We had formed that core team and we hadn't become a church yet but we were meeting regularly as a Bible study, going through John's farewell discourse, john 14, 15, 16, 17. Super sweet time. I look back, even though it was just a couple years ago, three years ago now, I guess, look back on those years with nothing but fond memories.
Speaker 3:But in Lord's Providence, another good friend of mine who was planning to be an elder at the time, he actually had an opportunity presented to him to pursue another work in kind of a revitalization, kind of work in Another part of Tulsa. And you know I don't I don't fault him for this, but it turned out that he got really very excited for that work and was excited to pursue that and decided to pursue that. But just kind of how the cookie crumbled, how the logistics fell, we really needed each other to make that church plant work. And it was going to be really difficult if it was just him. And it was going to be really difficult if it was just him, and it was going to be really difficult if it was just me.
Speaker 1:In a place of sort of lead leadership, so to speak. Yes, if I could be redundant, yeah that's right, gotcha.
Speaker 3:He decided that he wanted to go ahead and pursue that opportunity. We shared that with our team, that I did not necessarily feel that same way in transparency. But we shared the news with them and together we decided we're grateful for the time that we've gotten to spend together, but it's probably best that we don't move forward with pursuing planting this church together. Man, and to be honest with you guys, I was heartbroken.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was super excited about this. I had put a lot of time and a lot of investment into this and thought there's a real chance, like, hey, I could be doing this for the rest of my life, wow. And then all of a sudden that wasn't there anymore. I want to say again that while it was unexpected for me, not only was it not unexpected for the Lord, but the Lord is the one who planned this, and while it might not make sense to me, it might not make sense to others. The Lord orchestrated not only church planting aspirations but also the fallout, for my good and for my family's good. Eric, we talked about this in the interview process a little bit, but like any pastor who's kind of worth his weight, he's been kicked in the teeth. Yes, and.
Speaker 3:I felt like's been kicked in the teeth.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:And I felt like I got kicked in the teeth. You know, sheep bite. I have bitten Jesus, I've sinned against him and he took it on the chin right all the way to the cross. And, as under shepherds of Jesus, we can expect the same kind of thing. Sheep are wonderful, they're loving, and I'm a sheep. I include myself in this but sometimes we're going to bite.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And sometimes pastors are going to get bitten. Yeah, but I was being sent out from new beginnings in this, but that the fallout of the church plant led to me needing to step down for a season, and which also led to me needing to find a job because I have a family to provide for. So the Lord provided that for me, a good job that I could do, that I could provide for my family.
Speaker 1:And Keith and I both know the founder owner of the company where you went. And that's a sort of a friend and partner in ministry in this community. Oh for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll just give him a shout out. High Corp is the company. Brad Camp has been extremely supportive. He loves the Lord.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he would be the kind of guy who says that's not my business, it's God's business.
Speaker 3:Right, you know, yeah, so grateful for that Lord provided in that season.
Speaker 1:Matter of fact, we bumped into each other. I've told you this. He and I had a wedding after you'd accepted our offer, and he came up to me with a fake angry face on.
Speaker 2:Sounds like him up to me with a fake, a fake. Angry face on.
Speaker 1:And then he. Then he embraced me in a bear hug and he said this is where he should be going, you know got one.
Speaker 2:He said you got one of our good guys.
Speaker 3:I said I'm sorry, that's funny. Yeah, he actually just texted me yesterday.
Speaker 1:Oh good, yeah, he's that guy for sure. Well, go ahead.
Speaker 3:Well, I was going to say kind of what that. That was about a year and a half or so from the time that I stepped down from vocational ministry.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I stayed a member at New Beginnings during this time, which speaks well of the.
Speaker 2:UN Meeting a small group. Yeah, plugged in. Yeah.
Speaker 3:They loved us very well during that season. But what that year and a half was like for me process through a lot of these things and after about a year my wife and I's anniversary is on January 7th we went out to dinner together and checked in one on one another and you know where are you at in regard to, you know, vocational ministry, things like that and we decided together that you know what, for some weird reason, I think we do want to do this again.
Speaker 3:We do want to pursue. We do want to pursue this. And not long after that, dan reached out to me and texted me. Said hey, and I knew he was here at Fellowship Bible. Said hey, we're looking to hire a new pastor on our staff. Would you be open to meeting some of the guys? And I said, absolutely, let's do it.
Speaker 1:That's great. You know, I don't mind kind of saying as a and just as a kind of a pure sterile look at being an interviewer. You know that's a huge stewardship. And when you see something in somebody's profile and resume that says church plant and it didn't make, so to speak, that was a drill down point for us for sure. Yeah, as it should have been, yeah, as it should have been. The delightful conclusion to that drill down was not only did it not be a, it wasn't a weakness for you, we perceived it as a strength in your profile.
Speaker 1:And just to hear you talk today and again, this is where those of us who are getting to be around Craig a little bit more than average can see it, see the consistency of this. When you say, you know that you have fond memories. When you say things like you know this is delightful providence of God, you know we see that you mean that Absolutely and that came through loud and clear to us in our conversations with you. So praise the Lord for that. Just want to finish up a little bit. The last sort of subject to turn to is kind of now you're here, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm here.
Speaker 1:So your role here? We've called you the small groups pastor. Let me just and Heath, I don't know if you have this easily at your fingertips, but you know, I do you know the MVV, the mission, vision, values. Yeah, do you have that statement in front of you?
Speaker 1:Of his job profile, no, the mission, vision, values. I'll keep talking, but the long and short of it is as we rolled it out in the month of January, right before I went on sabbatical. It hadn't changed much from where we were, but we refined it in some important ways and we talked about the fact that we're still a church, that is, as we grow together as a church family, as God's church family, we are engaging His truth, we are pursuing life together and we're sharing hope in Christ, all for the glory of God. I think I got that close, you nailed it. And so when I overlay that and we overlay that on top of small groups, pastor, we've said before and we'll keep saying we think small groups is about as good a place as there is to do all that, to engage God's truth, to pursue life together and to share hope in Christ.
Speaker 1:So you know, as far as your vision for ministry, we've laid out a lot of this and I would let you all know who are listening that there's really some key teammates that are involved with Craig very closely in all of this Paul Hildebrand and Joel Slaughter at the Elder Roll. Jay Rhodes, of course, is our integrating pastor, and then we've got a shepherd team, dave Hembree, jesse Griffith and Joe Cowan and you guys you're already becoming buddies, all that group, and are kind of shaping the path forward. So talk a little bit about that, about kind of what you're off to so far, and give us in Craig's words and Craig's heart what your vision is for this small group ministry as it fits into that MVV grid.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I'll start off like this. I think one of the most attractive aspects of this role, this opportunity for me that I learned about during the process, was the opportunity to be part of a team, and not just a staff team that's exciting in its own right but a team of people who are invested in small group ministry together. So it's not say, hey, craig, you're the guy, you're out here on an on on an Island. Just you do you make sure it gets done. That that wouldn't have been as appealing to me. But what was evident to me during the process, and has been confirmed just in the three weeks that I've been here, is that yeah, there's a group of guys who are invested in seeing small group ministry flourish and that's because they love their church, it's not because they're paid to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you nailed those guys, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I am grateful and excited to be a part of that team. In regard to the MBV, I think where, where, where small groups play into into that picture especially, is pursuing life together right. Our vision for small group ministry is is really simple, it's it's it's not complicated right, it's pursuing life together. It's carrying out and obeying the one another commands of scripture in a small group of people, say, that's, you know, 12 to 18, 20 or so people, is kind of ideally what we'd like to shoot for. But I mean, you guys know this, it's not impossible, but it is hard to show up on a Sunday to attend church, even to have some small talk with folks.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then go home and not see anybody until the next Sunday when you do it again. So, by providing small groups or community groups, they are an opportunity to pursue life together. And what I mean by that? It's an opportunity to know people and to be known. It's an opportunity to you know with, with the lens of scripture, say, hey, like I'm having a hard time with this in my life. You know, my kid is struggling in this way and that's I'm not sure how to parent right now. I need you guys to pray for me.
Speaker 3:Or you know, I know, eric, you've got four kids. You've walked through this. What was it like for you? And we have the opportunity to actually then do life together and know one another and be known. So it's not a complicated ministry. It's simple, but I'm convinced it's super profound that the Lord uses brothers and sisters doing life together in incredible ways, and in the book of John he even says that the world will know who belongs to Jesus Not only by the way we love the Lord, but by the way we love one another. It's a compelling gospel witness to the world. So I'm excited for small groups to look like that.
Speaker 2:Good, can I just read the job summary we? Put together when we were going down this search process, the job summary for this role. The person who will excel in this role is the chief vision caster of small groups why they exist, what they do to work out FBC's mission and how they grow and multiply. The person will thrive in the context of connecting and relationships, building teams, communicating effectively, organizing work and equipping people to equip others all done with great energy and enthusiasm. Small groups are core to all we do at FBC.
Speaker 1:Wow, did you write that? That was good. He must've been AI. Wow, did you write that?
Speaker 2:That was good, Heath.
Speaker 3:It must have been.
Speaker 1:AI Must have been. That's the next podcast episode right, yeah. That's good. Well, did you get all that down?
Speaker 2:Craig Middle notes we need you to deliver on that next week.
Speaker 1:If that's all right, Deal Okay.
Speaker 2:Really quick. I'd like to peel back because I got to be on the inside of this and I have also seen God at work in a big picture, because it was about a year and a half ago when we really started to refocus and say, okay, let's really define our mission, values and vision. And really it was built off the legacy that was here. It was just some fine fine tuning, but like, let's state it, let's be accountable to it. Fine tuning, but like, let's state it, let's be accountable to it, let's focus on it and really cast a vision for each year, because you can't do everything all at once, right.
Speaker 2:And that first year we really laid out everything this church is doing on a big whiteboard and Hank's office, yeah, and for all day, everything we're doing and what are we doing. Well, what's not doing as well as we'd like to see it. And we came up with two big areas that we wanted to see real focused energy to improve. And that was a place for people to get developed and trained for servants, for leaders, and really bring a focus back to that. And that has been this vision this year. And we laid out accountability markers and we're meeting them and we're rolling that stuff out. But the other big thing that we knew we needed to address was small groups, and I'm seeing this all come together in God's timing.
Speaker 1:This is, I was going to say, just as you described, that it's again the kind generous I like to sometimes use the word generous because he doesn't know it to us but it's the kind, generous providence of the Lord. He sees ahead. That's kind of the definition of that word a little bit. He sees ahead, he knows the right sequencing of this deal Right, and I was delighted coming back off the sabbatical which did you guys know I've almost been back as long as I was off which is crazy.
Speaker 1:Two weeks from now, I will have been back for three months, which is crazy. But really to come back and see that we'd been hitting markers on these equipping opportunities and stuff, which is cool, so I'm encouraged by that One other part of what you're going to do. You said you got reps early on and then kept developing reps in preaching, and I guess the guy who actually put the preaching schedule together already knows the answer to this.
Speaker 1:But, are you going to have some opportunities to speak and what's going to be first for you about when and all that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I hear.
Speaker 1:Eric, you.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm counting on, yeah yeah, received an email from you last week planning out was it nine months or so of preaching.
Speaker 1:Plus or minus. Yeah, yeah, yeah ish.
Speaker 3:And of course I was excited to look through there and say okay, are my initials CE?
Speaker 1:you know when and where. What am I preaching?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm excited, grateful for the opportunity. Mid-september will be my first opportunity to jump into Ruth chapter two, which is going to be a good one Ruth is short and very sweet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sweet yeah, and I think we've just to finish that story. We've got Craig lined up. That story. We've got Craig lined up. We told him, as part of the more granular part of his job description, that he would be in the pulpit eight to 10 times a year, plus or minus, and so we've got him mapped out in these next nine months in several other slots as well. So stay tuned, and I hope that today is what's your appetite for hearing the heart with which he communicates and really the God-honoring and God-aligned way that he communicates.
Speaker 2:So that's good. We're just grateful and thankful for you here and we're just excited for you to keep rolling Likewise.
Speaker 1:Let me give you you know how they. I listen to sports radio and they'll say all right to the interviewee. We got 30 seconds before we got to go to break or whatever that's right. So I'll give you like 30, 45 seconds here. Where's God got you in school right now? Craig Exendine, where do you see him working in your life? What's he putting on your heart?
Speaker 3:A couple of life stages, if you will. One is very obvious right the transition here to FBC.
Speaker 3:All right, and I think the Lord has used transitions in my life to remind me that I need him right. He's not just a subject to be studied or to be talked about, but he is my personal God who cares for me, who maps out my steps. So he's summoned me to trust him, which I'm excited to do. But he summoned me to trust him in this season of integrating my family into the life of FBC. But then I think, parenting, right, I'm still in the scheme of things, right, a new parent, you know, a little over three years into it and you know, my wife and I just talked last night about how, how we're disciplining our kids and what we're doing good, especially in the what we're not doing good. But it is always helpful for me when I remember my fatherhood right is especially intended to reflect the fatherhood of God. Sometimes it's easier to carry that out than others.
Speaker 3:But the Lord continues to impress that upon my own heart, that the lens through which I parent is how the Lord is my own father.
Speaker 1:I love it. Quick, quick hits as we, as we get out of here. The last question on here that I almost overlooked is tell us just rapid fire.
Speaker 2:What are?
Speaker 1:what are hobbies? What are hobbies for you, what's fun for you? And maybe add that in for Courtney as well.
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah. Well, we're big OSU people. We enjoy going to game days. Cool yeah, we're miserable OSU fans. We're excited at the beginning of the year.
Speaker 1:Man, this is y'all's year to take the conference. Come on, and so was last year and a couple years ago.
Speaker 3:But love going to Stillwater, love being outside. We enjoy when we can going to national parks. We love Rocky Mountain National Park. We've been to the Smokies several times. Courtney has an epic garden in the backyard. Yes, she loves it. She does a great job with it. I just get to eat it.
Speaker 1:She actually cultivates it, okay, but I love to be outside too, she actually cultivates it.
Speaker 3:Okay, but I'll be outside too. If you know there there was a time in my life where post-college, pre-marriage, where I was on, I was on a golf course. A lot loved it, enjoyed it. Don't get to play as much these days.
Speaker 2:We might be playing this Thursday.
Speaker 3:Oh, we might be.
Speaker 2:So I it's a, it's a, it's a it's a business, that's right. It's a business, that's right. You're going to be discussing ministry all day. This match will forever set our relationship, I hear he's a big boomer.
Speaker 1:I hear he can hit it.
Speaker 3:Okay. So if I had all the time and the money in the world which I don't have much of either if I did, hypothetically I would spend a lot of time on the golf course. Doesn't mean I'm good, just means it's fun.
Speaker 2:There you go. I'm good. Just means it's fun. Brad Dewey is going to beat us all.
Speaker 1:Okay, oh, brad's the best.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:All right, yeah, go for it. Thanks for being here, guys, yeah we'll be doing this more. Good, all right.
Speaker 2:We'll see you all next week. Thanks for joining fellowship around the table. If you would like to learn more, go.
