Everyday Mission featuring Hugh Halter

In this episode of the Disciples Made Here podcast, Drew sits down with Hugh Halter — church planter, author, painter, pizza shop owner, and one of the most incarnationally faithful missionaries Drew knows. From inner city Portland to Denver to Alton, Illinois, Hugh has spent decades simply showing up where God sends him, picking up the manna, and letting the kingdom grow from there.

This conversation is a masterclass in what it actually looks like to live as an everyday missionary. Hugh unpacks the difference between missional and incarnational, why business is often not a means to mission but the mission itself, and how hospitality through food and presence has opened more doors to the gospel than any program ever could.
If you've ever felt the pressure to build the church, convert people, or grow the kingdom on your own timeline — Hugh has a word for you. Chill out. Jesus said he would build his church. Your job is to walk with your eyes open and ask God to put bread on the trail.
This one is for every son and daughter who wants to live sent — not just on Sundays, but wherever they live, work, and play.

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Reflection Questions
Where in your normal life are you already present that could become a mission field if you showed up with your eyes open?
What would it look like to practice archaeology in your neighborhood, your workplace, or your community — digging around to find what's broken before crafting a response?
If you left your neighborhood tomorrow, would anyone notice? What would need to change for the answer to be yes?

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Connect With Disciples Made Here
Instagram   / disciplesmadehere 
Facebook   / disciplesmadehere 
Website https://disciplesmadehere.org/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hey guys, well, welcome back to the Disciples Made Here podcast. I'm Drew Sodostrom, and man, it's been a gift to just journey with all of you over these last couple of months. Thank you for the way that you're fighting for your joy in Jesus, but doing it as a community with the hope that each of us would live out our calling as a sent one, a son, a daughter, truly deployed. And so just a quick reminder where we've been. On our podcast last week, we looked at the woman at the well and how Jesus models this really this pathway of engaging in conversation and normal day life, pointing us to follow him to the joy that he offers, and then actually living that out. And so today's fun. It's one of our guest episodes. Um, as we prepare to walk through the disciples making diamonds, some of these ideas and concepts will be pulling apart over the next really month. It's because of guys like Hugh. Uh, I would consider Hugh a big brother. Hugh, I don't know if you remember, I met you at an EFCA gathering of all places. Really, the year that we launched vintage, and you were not just putting words to my vision, because vision is just words on paper unless it's lived out. You lived it. And I'm like, Hugh's who I want to be when I grow up. We were just talking about CrossFit. I'll never be as strong as Hugh, but I want to follow as faithfully as you, man. And so I just want to start today by introducing you to my friends with Disciples Made Here, but also by just saying thank you. Not just the way that you lead, but more so the way that you follow, uh, the way that you paint houses and be a dad and the way you live as a husband, your brokenness. Um, but God's goodness shines through you to me. You are a missionary. Um, and I am just so, so dang grateful for you, brother. So thanks for being here, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yeah, just keep going. That was sounding great. You should just five weeks. That's the only kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

And I could I could go on and on because I say vision's caught not taught, and I've caught part of it from you.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yep, yep. So before we get into like just some questions I threw at you earlier, uh just tell us your story. Like, I know part of your story. Right now you're out in Alton, but there were decades before that led you to this point. Give me some big steps to how you got to Alton today, but where have you come from to get you where you are today?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yeah, big steps are uh Portland, Oregon to Denver to Alton. Portland uh was where I was doing inner city kind of youth ministry with Youth for Christ about 10 years, which led to our first church plant there. Um, but it was it was not a normal church plant. I was a house painter. Um, you know, we didn't take any money from it, so I made my income on the outside. And it was mostly just uh a lot of evangelism, and then just trying to to give people a community to be a part of the the backstory behind that was our son Ryan uh had really severe epilepsy, so we were it was hard to leave the house. That's why we did most of what we did out of the house and out of the neighborhood. Um, you know, driving the minivan to church just wasn't an option for us, and right. So, really, it was uh my wife and I just trying to learn how to live like missionaries right where we were, and that went good. And then we eventually moved to Denver uh to try to do it more intentionally. We we decided to start more of a missionary movement, we thought it wasn't really a let's start one church, let's just try to teach people how to live like we live. And that ended up being a story called The Tangible Kingdom that ended up traveling around the world and got me traveling. But it it was, you know, it wasn't rocket science, it was just individual people that work normal jobs that um would take a chunk of their neighborhood or a need or something that really captured their heart, and they would build a missionary community around that. And so we built that network up to 20 some uh kind of communities around the Denver Metroplex and just basically trying to make the kingdom tangible to people and then letting them respond to it. That was kind of the evangelistic discipleship process is you live in such a way that people would go, hey, uh I would love to do lunch with you, you know. So we would never go after anybody, we just waited for them to come and ask us to do something. So um that was 15, 14 years, 15 years of that. Um yeah, and then we found an assisted living center for our son out in this little Midwestern town just north of St. Louis called Alton, Illinois, and never thought we would leave Denver and move uh to this spot. Um, but I always say our son's disability uh caused him to be the spiritual patriarch of our whole family. So he taught us how to live as missionaries. He also got our entire family, my two adult daughters and their husbands, uh, to all come out here with us about 10 years ago with the idea of just trying to do something to help the city. It's a very impoverished area. Average family income is about 20,000, uh sort of half black, half-white context. But we literally didn't know what we were gonna do. We just felt like God called us on mission number three, and now we've got five grandkids and we've all settled here, and it appears as though we are stuck here forever. So that's kind of the journey.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Yeah. Well, and I love it because as I've walked with you from a distance every step of the way, you're just simply saying, I'm a son and a sent one, and you've not gone to easy-to-reach places. Like you've gone where God's opened doors and called you. You're never looking at the next thing, you're always just right here, right now. And it feels like there's plenty for you to do every day of your life. Um but that's where your faithfulness is just something that I, again, I'm encouraged by, I'm inspired by. Um, in hard times and easy times, there's no such thing as easy times. It feels like everything you've done has been hard, but you've also said it's worth it.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Yeah, the uh kind of the undercurrent has always been that little suffering element with my son. You know, I mean, that was uh one hour of sleep a night for me uh because I would take the night duty and then Cheryl would take him during the day. And yeah, it was kind of I don't looking back, I don't know how we got through, but it I always just go the Lord knows what he's doing. Um, I don't think I would be the person I am without that constant sort of undercurrent of suffering. Uh it changed who I was. I think it made me a better person in general. Um, my wife didn't need that, she was already already pretty great, but um yeah, when we got to Alton, you know, this was unique in that I was 50 years of age. I didn't really want to start another congregation, to be honest with you. Um but I would walk the streets and I would pray and I said, God, I'll do whatever you want. I don't care what it is, but I would specifically ask him to put bread on the trail. Every day I'd say, Can you just put bread on the trail today? A little mana. And we'll just pick up the manna and do that, and we'll see what you build. And now he's I don't know, but I think I feel like this is our best story, what he has built with just day to day picking up a little piece of obedience and going, I think we're supposed to do that today. Um, I don't know, it's just been a cool thing to see what the creativity of God, not really our creativity, but what's the thing?

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Yeah, we're just faithfully following or picking up the manna, like you said. I I love that. Now, one of my favorite times connecting with you was over the book flesh and walking my life group leaders through this idea. You know, I'm a formary, I'm a former, you know, seminary professor and teacher at Bible school and those kind of things. And I really believe that in the Church of America we can overteach and under-reach. Um, and Jesus came, he did teach, teaching's not bad, but he lived this walk with the Father, abiding in the Spirit, and that's where the word becomes flesh. And so it wasn't just this like idea in a book, it was lived out. And that's what, again, I think that you you live what you write, which is what makes your writing flow easily. When we think about that that book flesh, um, how has that impacted? I mean, it's just it's just your story, but how have you seen that impact the church to get away from the Sunday focus and living this out Monday through Friday, picking up the manna every day?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, I mean, the flesh was off uh John 1 14. Word became flesh and he made his dwelling among us, and so we perceive the glory of God. So the the whole idea of the book was that, you know, like back in those days, we were talking a lot about missional, you know, missional everything. Missional, if you think of it like a bicycle, missional is the back wheel. Uh, it's where the sprockets are, it's what propels you forward. But incarnational is the front tire, it's what uh what touches people first, what they first experience. It's the way of Jesus, his humanity, it's uh it's our posture, it's the way we talk, it's the way we look, it's it's how we speak, how we don't speak, how we wait, it's it's everything related to helping them see the face of God. So the fact that Jesus came in the flesh, we were able to go, oh, it's not like what I thought it was. Like God must be different because I ran into that dude. So when we live a missional incarnational life, we hopefully uh we don't come at people with a political bent or a or denominational bent. We come with uh the way that Jesus lived, and and that hopefully helps them to see who God really is.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Yeah. Well, and something I've appreciated about you I wrestle with having no tribe, and you and I have talked about that, right? Where we really value this missional bent, but the opportunities are at the gym. They are at the coffee shop. They're not people coming to see Jesus at his dwelling place. We are his dwelling place and we are leaving, right? And so the best part of my Sunday gatherings is that we scatter, not that we gather. So what changes is you've seen it over decades now. This isn't a one-time thing, this isn't like a flash in the pan. What changes in our disciple-making culture when we move that context out of church and into the gym, into the coffee shop? Like what changes there?

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Well, just think about, I mean, again, I don't know what our problem is, but in America, we turn everything into like a math equation, um, especially discipleship. It's like if you go, okay, let's disciple somebody, then we we go to these weird compartments where we think about a weekly meeting or some Bible verses or whatever it is. But we don't disciple our kids that way. We disciple them as moms and dads, and we go every single day is an opportunity for probably five, six, twenty reps with them where they get to see the way we live and then we talk about things in time. So you would never, like in your family, go, hey kids, Thursday night's discipleship time, and you give them that hour. And no, I mean, every single thing they're going through, you're speaking into, you're asking the right questions. Um, I just I think we've got to begin to view disciple making like that. So when you're out in the world, it's just more reps in real life. It's not, you know, coming away from the world and then having a Bible study. It's right, it's talking in real time about things that they really care about in that moment. And I so I never go like, let's just, in fact, I have a little problem. We just go, let's make disciples and make disciples make disciples, because just the way we say that, it's like bam, bam, bam. That's not how discipleship works. It's a life and it's it's getting natural reps with people until God says we're done with those people.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

So and it does feel like it's two steps forward, seven steps back. It's not even like we want to say two steps forward, one step back, because then we're taking the hill. It does feel like with disciple making in my journey with men, it's like sometimes it feels way back and way sideways, but I'm not the Lord of the harvest, and so I'm just faithfully staying in it. And they're a lot more transparent with me at the pub than they are with the priest, right? Like this mentality of sacred, secular. Um I I I love that, whether it's at the ranch or at the bar or whatever that looks like for you. Yeah, where do you start with that?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

I also think, too, you know, I'm still like I always tell people, I've been walking with the Lord for almost 50 years, and I'm like 11% better. Like there's still there's still a lot of Hugh Halter that's not conformed to the image of Christ. And and there are days that I drive down the road and I'm begging God to send somebody to re-evangelize me, like help me to really believe again. So, again, disciple making, it's not it's not some guy on top fixing somebody on the bottom. It's like we're it's more directional. We're all going in this direction. So come be with me and I'll be with you, and we'll we'll kind of move our way towards Jesus together on this thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Well, and I think one of the things I've experienced in my walk with Jesus is that he's the only hero, and then we all just get to be limping along, following him. Something that that you've modeled well for many people that are anyone that's around you. Um, and we I remember giving all of our life group leaders, right, as we launched Vintage, everyone got a copy of Happy Hour, because it's trying to help them rethink their sacred secular divide and their their spaces that the front door of the church is not Vintage Grace or whatever church you know our DMH communities are in, the front door of the church is the front door of your house. Um, how have you seen fruit in helping people rethink their thinking? That it's like, no, the organic natural conversations, my home, hospitality is mission. Um yeah, what walk through some of that with me?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Well, to me, that's the center of the cinnamon roll. So we've had been married almost 35 years. We've fixed and flipped a house together about every three years. We'd move into a new house. And we always with the kids, we go, okay, how do we make how do we get 50 people in here? So we would blow out walls, and it was always about getting people into the house. Um, and the power of that is I've I've always said the way to the soul, like we're we're always going for the soul, right? Right. The way to the soul is through the heart. But what seems to be the way to the heart is through the stomach. God's given, you know, there's not a lot of things that connect people. The only two that I can find that across the board always make some type of connection are music and food. And if uh if that's a natural rhythm of your life, whether it be a like every Sunday night was family meal time at the halter home, but all of my family kept inviting their friends. So family, you know, halter family night always meant everybody. Bring your friends, and our kids grew up learning that that's like the family of God is more important than our nuclear family, and hospitality becomes the entrance to that. I think I think it's a primary discipling tool for your kids as well. If you're eating with people together and they're they're listening and watching how that happens, they'll just end up being great people.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Yeah. Yeah. And they get a front row seat to people that have real questions and real conversations. Um, and some of the language that we've been using with DMH has not just been who are you inviting to your house, but looking for green shoots where people invite you to their house, right? Like live in such a way that they want you there. Yeah, not because no, they don't know why. I would argue it's the Imago Day shining out of you, right? Or you married well, like you and I, so they want your wife there, and then you just come along. But how to help people like really view that as like that's the mission field.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

So we always told our people keep inviting them until they invite you. But when they've when they do finally invite you, that's a sacred, like that means you've done good work. It means that they trust you even with their kids and their friends. Like when they when they trust you with their friends, you've been a good missionary.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

And I just feel like we have to change the paradigm, and that's the whole point of this podcast, right? How do we help people, every person at our churches, say disciples are made here where I live, work, and play. Of course, I want to make disciples on Sunday, but that's such a small fraction of the week, and it's not where they're made. Disciples are not made, they're made around the campfire, during happy hour. Um, and I just feel like we're seeing great fruit, and it's helpful to have guys literally two, three decades ahead of me, that are like, no, I I've done this in Portland, I've done this in Colorado, I'm doing this in Alton, Illinois. Um, I really view like what would it be like if the dwelling of God rested in us, and now imagine our city saturated with little followers of Christ called Hugh and Drew, right? Like that changes the city. How have you seen that in Alton? I mean, you've seen it in multiple cities now, but how are you seeing that right now? Like, even where you sit, I know conceptually God's placed you there as a missionary.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Yeah, well, I mean, I'll just give you a story. This this is maybe the newest story. Just a couple months ago, a young girl that had a uh a business in our town asked if she could bring her business into our business. And we asked her why. She had a good following, and she said, I'm trying to figure out God, and I just thought it'd be good to be with you guys. And I said, I said, Chrissy, how did you even know that we were God people? And she said, Everybody knows that about you guys, but she goes, but you guys are not like normal Christians, there's something different about you. And she goes, I just feel like I need that in my life. So I feel like that's just an example. Like we just keep doing what we do. A lot of it's business forward, so we've got a bunch of different businesses in town again because our town didn't have a lot of what we have, and so we create spaces that people respected and loved and were thankful for. And so then they they start to, you know, a lot of people will come up and go, I Googled you. So they they pick up on things and um they meet other young missionaries in our in our movement, and they people have said, like, your buildings are amazing, what you guys do, but your people are amazing. And those are our young missionaries, and I feel like that's always the entrance in is whether or not people respect who you are in real life. That's and and honestly, we've never had to go after people. Um, they do come to us and they ask for lunch or 20 minutes or to share a coffee, and they just ask questions and something begins to move. And it's it's it's quite startling how easy it is if you do the groundwork.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Um I feel like part of what I want my friends to hear, of course, is it is slow, but once you saturate a community with presence, it's a lot. It is a lot. And and I try to coach people hey, don't ask questions for people that they're not asking, right? Like I say that all the time because I grew up in the church and I was like, let me tell you about my Jesus, which on one level, cute, Drew, like zealous for Jesus, yay. But also they didn't care about your Jesus. Um, but if we live lives that create curiosity, right? Like I I'm a cancer dad, you've dealt with a son in such a way that you're like, this is a long obedience in the same direction. And my joy is not perfect, but it's not wavering based on my circumstances. That creates curiosity in people. They only get that if they work out with you, they only get that if they break bread with you, they only get that if they see you dad, right? Like, and I just I I love that reality, and something that we try to model then, of course, is the idea of like, don't answer questions people aren't asking, but live in such a way that they ask you first. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

I usually try to come and give them get them give them less than what they're asking. Just be right on the one point that they care about, and then I whatever. I always go, hey, by the way, thanks for asking my thoughts on that. And and then they usually do, they're coming back, and uh even like you know, I did start like a discipleship with a bunch of young men, but it was after 12, 14 months in the CrossFit Gym. Right, and I just finally, when I knew that I had the respect of everybody, I just sent out an email that said, men, whiskey, fire, meat. And everybody I sent it to, they all came, about 25 guys. Wow. And so I don't send that email on the first month. They don't know me. But over that 12, 14 months, I would get to know their names and I would go, hey, uh, last week you told me about your boss and that little struggle you were having. How'd that did that how'd that go? Like, did you confront him? Did it so I just was always just moving the dial forward with the things that they were bringing up, and then eventually we're talking about Jesus with them because they asked for it.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Yeah. And because everyone is trying to be happier tomorrow than they are today, they're trying to fill that God space hole. And so if you have him and he has you, that leaks out of you. Like it is, it feels like the Shekinah glory at the CrossFit Gym. Like, and if we're so focused on Sundays, then man, we're missing all the Holy Spirit's doing the majority of the week. And I feel like the language we like to use, then of course, is that you can belong before you believe. And of course I want you to believe, because you won't be happy apart from belief and trust and treasuring. But how do we we belong? And so you've done this now for again, like I said, decades. So, what is important for the everyday missionary that's listening today, not the pastor, the everyday son and daughter that's being sent. How do they think about building trust without being in a hurry to get there? But of course, that's their motivation for God's glory and their good. But how do they help just do the little things?

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yeah, one simple thing is to ask God to show you where he is at work. So I don't ever presume that I know you know what's going to be going on during the day. So I do wake up every day and I give him permission. I say, you can interrupt my my schedule anytime you want. But when we're training the missionary way, we we use words like archaeology and artistry. So so dig, dig, dig around, find out what's broken, what's hurting, um, who's struggling. Um, that's the incarnational life. So get in there, you know, once you begin to realize who's hurting, what's wrong, what's broken, then try to craft an artistic response to that. So our town had no coffee shop for 50,000 people. So once we realized there was no place to gather, our response was to build a big living room for our city. Okay, so sometimes your responses are big and they're they take two years to do. And other times you move into a neighborhood and there's no street lights and the fences are down, and you go, well, we can at least let's go and fix that fence. And then people come up and go, that's been down for 30 years. Thank you for putting. So it doesn't matter what it is. It can be a small thing or a big thing, but just go, you know, dig around. Don't presume that you know, and don't just be weird and sit around and try to figure out how to talk to people. Start fixing things that are broken and That will lead to conversation, I think, in due time.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Yeah. And it does feel like the ways of Jesus. And I want to memorize the words, I do, but I want to live his ways. Um, which it was, it was getting dirty. I mean, that was like the big criticism, right? Why do you hang out with all the sinners? Why do you I mean and he's like, because I can be with them and love them and ask good questions?

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Yeah, we have a we have a tagline here that uh it's not a tagline, it's a scripture out of Proverbs uh 11 10 where the righteous prosper, the city rejoices. So we would ask ourselves, are the things that we're doing day to day, are there things that that make people glad that we moved to this town? And if we left, would they be, you know, a little bit bummed out that we left? So those are some ways to think, like even in your own neighborhood, what are what are some things that would that our our neighborhood's concerned about, or the moms and dads? Like, what are some issues here? So we're we're about to start building a big family entertainment health park because 65% of our kids are fatherless. So, you know, again, sometimes it requires a big artistic response, and other times you just go, I know about that family, and I know those kids probably live in loneliness, and so the response is just when you see them to say, Hey, we got a cool backyard with the trampoline. If you know, if you ask your mom or dad if it's okay, you can use you know, just anything like that. Um, but you got to be looking around for what the real issues are that would cause people to be glad you're there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

And asking those questions, you know, because people are willing to share their felt needs. Um, you know, and if they just know that we care because we genuinely want them, and that is my our language, happier tomorrow than today, of course, Jesus I think is that answer. But it starts sometimes with just a cup of coffee. I I love the trampoline. Um, going in, and I always wrestled, even coming out of seminary, that mentality if your church left tomorrow, would anyone care or notice? And it still felt too like centralized. I love the way you just said that. If you left your neighborhood tomorrow, would anyone notice? Yeah, because I do feel like if our church left, I don't know if people would notice because we're not always trying to put our sticker on everything. You know what I mean? Like it's not about the collective family as much as the release family. And so I I man, I and I find so much joy when our people understand that. Like, that's why we we do missional grants as a church, and even DMH does missional grants all over with the hope that you see yourself and your trampoline as a sacred space. I love that. Um, it's great. What a cool, cool thing. So when you think about Alton, you've been here now for I can't believe it's been a decade. You said 10 years already. Yeah. So I think again, we met right before you moved, and so it's crazy. And you've been again, Portland, Denver, these are not easy places, but I'm sharing that more in the context of this loving, caring, living a missionary, living proof of loving God, that translates in every culture, right? Yeah, anything different, or people are people, same needs, same desires, no matter what. I mean, that that's what I feel like we see often.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

You might see some cultural differences. Portland, Oregon, it was easier to get people to the house. I don't know why. It was uh more west coast, a little bit more open. Uh a lot of the families were broken up already, so people were like, you know, Christmas, Easter, any holidays, we'd say, hey, if you don't have a place to go, come hang at the halters. It was always 50, 60, 100 people. Now we're in a Midwestern culture, families a little bit more intact, except in our town. Uh, people a little bit more reserved, so getting them to the houses might be a little bit, you know, less comfortable. So I think you do have to be aware of your cultural context. But um, I think other than that, the same issues always exist. If they if they like and respect you as a person, um, if they know you as a person, um, not as a political, like, don't put signs in your front yards and don't establish yourself as you know, there to stick up for God or stick up for your country. If you just be a normal person, I think that works anywhere. And if you have good food, it works like if you get crappy food, you know, don't buy your cheese at Costco in pre-made chunks. Like, get some real cheese, people are gonna like you, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

I love it. I love it. Well, and even when you are painting, be the best dang painter that you can be. Yeah, because when I'm at your house painting, that creates conversation. Yeah, when I, you know, again, the the coffee, you know, your coffee shop isn't a crappy coffee shop on purpose. It's designed for good because we're trying to reflect the glory of God.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Well, recently we had a family, you were out here, I don't know, seven or eight years ago, and you were talking about this new venture, right? Just what God was inviting you into. Every day you're waking up, surrendered to the spirit, manna from heaven, but also there's some big things as well. Um, lots has changed the last seven or eight years, but one of those things is not just what God's doing Alton, but this family was so inspired by going, oh, that's right, everything is a God thing. Uh they lived way away from our central location here. Um, and so they were like, look, we'll do watch parties for Sunday, but we don't, it's not about Sunday. And so they bought a coffee shop and just opened it up. And it's amazing to see how this translates Midwest, Far West, East. It's all about creating space and your business's mission. So you're a business owner. How many jobs you got? 10, 11, 12, right? Um, but every one of those is a mission field. And so help me coach some of our business owners, our our workers. How do we view work as the mission place?

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Yeah, I I I always say business is not a means to the mission in many settings. Business is the mission, right? Um, and so I think you gotta see it like that. I think the key though with any business, it's it's always well, it's not even even if you don't have a business, everything's about building kingdom culture, you know. So, like the benefit of what I do here, we we don't try to hire Christians, we try to hire people that don't know God. But our managers are all little, you know, subversive missionaries. So we all set a culture together of kindness, and somebody's out of line as a staff, they don't get immediately fired. We all sit down and love on them and talk to them and go, hey, we want to call you to a different culture. And usually they're drawings, people like the kingdom, they really do. Um, so given enough time, if you just hold to that culture, they're eventually going to move towards it, um, or they're just they're gonna be actually offended by it. So I feel like that's the role of a business in a city is you just help build kingdom culture and and you know, again, change people's mind about what they think a Christian is. In our setting, you know, there's a lot of religious people that don't like us because we got a whiskey bar next to our coffee bar. They don't get it, you know, but the locals appreciate you know what we do and and all the different types of unique business things that we do, but it's mostly they they like our people. It's like a consistency of um concern and care. And we I mean we had a guy come in the other night with uh into our pizza uh microbrewery, and he had a bulletproof jacket on, and he was not doing well with drugs, and by the end of the night he's sharing his whole, you know, we thought he was basically gonna shoot up the joint, and our staff just locked in and ends up the guy actually had a real soft heart and they were able to love on him, and you know, it's just stuff like that. Uh just kind of happens in the business, right? It's not happening in the church, but it's happening in the business.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yeah, and I don't even mean that. I know it's not your heart. I don't mean that as a criticism to the church. I just want to equip the church to go. Um, the opportunities, I love the way you said earlier. Like, it's amazing how many times they're gonna ask questions. Like, I actually my schedule could be full of lunches with the yet to believe um because they know that we love them, we care about them, um, and we want that. But how powerful it'd be if we viewed the church as a collective scattering, not just gathering, um, to all these unique places where again, like you said, that guy's not going to vintage grace. He's not gonna show up on a Sunday. Um, but he will come to the bar. And so if we're there ready for him, what a huge opportunity to just be incarnational, Jesus with skin on, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Yeah, we had even the other night, and this is with one of our pizza guys that, you know, I mean, he knows God, but he's he's never really like, as he would say, never been on mission. So he'd buy himself in the pizza joint the other night, and an adolescent from a from a Catholic orphanage that we've kind of we've all befriended. He came in and he had to share that he had just been raped at the orphanage, you know, and it was interesting. Our staff called because he's like, this is above my pay grade, but and we all went. But I just remember thinking that this kid, he thought the only place I can go to get help on this was to our pizza joint because of what our people had done. But it did also help disciple our staff person, it helped them realize that what they were doing was mission. So, I mean, everything related to disciple making, I just feel like it's better when it's done out there, not in here.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I just remember being a young high schooler going on our you know, Mexico missions trip. And the highlight for me was coming back after a good day of quote unquote work and then talking about where did you see God work? Like, what if we framed our home that way, right? That's what I know family dinners are for you. What if we framed our church gathering, our life groups, our missional spaces that every day it was this rhythm of God, what are you inviting me into? This surrender of the day, my eyes are open to see, but then the end of the day, this reflection of you you said 20 at one point with kids, right? 20 moments. And if I get two of them, I feel like I crushed it, right? Like two for 20 feels like a dub. But just to reflect on those two, or even to reflect on those 18, how do you process that? Like, I'm trying to create a culture where that's a regular rhythm with my marriage, with my babies, and in our churches that we go and then we come together and hey, let's let's just talk. Let's debrief. How did the work week go? What was a kingdom moment? What was a Jesus fingerprint? What was an invitation? What are some things you've done that have helped people reflect after the fact and then actually preps them to go into the next one?

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Yeah, well, I mean, like with the situation I just brought up, I have not had time to debrief that with this staff person, but I know he works tomorrow. So I'm specifically gonna go on and go, hey, let's talk about that. And yeah, um, I've done that with my kids. You know, if we have a party and one of the one of the old guys gets drinking too much and gets a little obnoxious, and I have to take him out of our house and send them home and go home and sleep with them. Uh that's when I remember I talked with Allie about alcohol and she was 13 at the time, you know. So every situation, it's like, well, if the crap hit the fan or um or if it went great, then I'm gonna debrief it usually. Just it's almost like natural. Like, hey, that was awesome the other day when we were doing that together. So um I'd also say like I'd encourage folks to plan your week. Like you take ownership of your own life. So, you know, we would plan the family night, we would plan the big Bronco pizza party and telling everybody bring their friends. So if you put it on your calendar, generally uh unique opportunities will happen. If you if you just let weeks and weeks go by and you're waiting for like supernatural, a lot of times it doesn't. So I I would say plan what you can and then be available on those weird times where where God goes, hey, I know you're busy, but we need you over here. Like simmer down, it'll be okay, but I need you for a half hour over on this park bench.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

So yeah. Well, and I just feel like we're doing anyone a favor when that happens because we're helping them grow in their understanding of what does it mean to be incarnational, but also to receive. Like when I'm in a situation I don't have a clue what I'm doing, it's amazing the spirit shows up every time. And I might fumble, I might fail, I might, but again, there is really no failure when it's the spirit leading. And there's a freedom to that of being like, I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I'm moving to a new town, starting a new job. I mean, you've got so many different jobs you're starting. There's an excitement of discovery, there's a desperation. Um, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Yeah, here's a little reminder maybe for everybody. Um, and to me, it lets it take all the pressure off this whole thing. Um, and that is that Jesus said he would build his church, so you don't have to try to build his church ever. He also said, I know you guys are going to struggle with trying to convince and convict people of sin, righteousness, and holiness, so I'll send the Holy Spirit to do that. Yeah. And then there's no scripture that says we build the kingdom. So when you don't have to build the church and you don't have to convince or convert people, and you and you can't build the kingdom, it's already there, then those are generally the three categories that usually get us all uptight and get our undies in a square knot. And if God just said, look, you don't do any of that, then what you do get to do is live your life and and just walk and say, God, I'm available and get after the stuff you love doing and know that God's going to breathe into it and stuff is gonna happen. So I always like tell would-be missionaries anywhere in the world, like, chill out, number one. Yeah, um, this is not, you know, people don't go to hell because we don't get to them in time. Jesus lived 30 years in the neighborhood and never said a word. So that teaches us like uh it ain't about the the timing issue or about franticness. This is about the father and his patient love for people, and it'll get done when it needs to get done. Um, so wait for him to lead for sure.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

When there's so much freedom to that. That's what you're describing, right? Which again, I I definitely missed a little bit in seminary and all of this idea of like, we got to do our apologetics training, we gotta always be ready to give an account, which is a true biblical verse. Like, we do, but man, I said ask people like, have you lived in such a way that people want you to give an account? Right? Like, what a cool opportunity when someone comes and says, Man, I'm broken. This is what my wife is saying about me, or man, this is what my dad didn't do, and he's left me, or this is the domestic abuse, and like these opportunities are literally in every one of our neighborhoods. I pray we see them, like I pray we're there with eyes open. Um, and I do, I love the freedom that it's just not about us, which some of us don't like because we wish it was, um, but we really don't.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Like, we just one of my greatest, you know, the mistakes, the moments where I went, geez, halter, it's when I was moving too fast. And it was, you know, it's because I love people. I've always cared about people outside the faith. Um, but I think as I've gotten older, I I realize God loves them way more than I do. And he's, you know, he has he's always been a front band. He could have just pulled up and just told everybody exactly who he was, but there was timing issues, and he would send John the Baptist. Like, like, why waste all this time? But well, there's something he understands the psyche of people, and that there needs to be a build-up and uh kind of a tearing off of shackles. And so I just say just be a part of the long process that God's doing with everybody. And then, you know, if if he calls you to proclaim in a moment or to share your faith, then do it. You know, but if they're asking, you don't have to shrink back at all. You just be honest with them and tell them what um so I don't know. I just I think as I get older, it's way less pressure. I totally trust God with everybody. I'm happy to not talk for him now. I'm happy to not do anything. I like being by myself. I don't even like people anymore. I mean, that's that's the natural. So when if God wants to interrupt and pull me in, remember it's Hugh Halter has been crucified with Christ. So it's not Hugh Halter who gets to live his life, but it's Christ that wants to live in me. That's an amazing concept. So, you know, I just I wake up every day and go, look, if you don't need me, I'd be great. But I'll do if you need me all day for 12 hours today, I'm in. Whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Well, and again, I just I can't thank you enough for just how you've modeled that in season, out of season, hard seasons, good seasons. Um, it's so easy to just settle for, all right, I just want to get by. And faithfully, the Spirit's opening doors for you relationally, in your neighbors, at your work, where you play. Um, any final words for us as a community? We're we're fighting for our joy. We're trying to pray, like we really are trying to have a culture of prayer, of surrender every morning. God, what do you have for us? Um, any final words? Surrender, buy your underwear, what else?

SPEAKER_00 38:20

I'd say walk with your eyes open in the morning early, take a little five minute, and just invite God to interrupt your day and ask him to put bread on the trail. And just so good. That's don't go past that and see what he builds out in your life.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

Cool, cool. Well, it's fun, like I said, for us as a church, as an organization, from afar, as a little brother. Thanks for not just leading. I appreciate the way you lead, but you live. That is your your life. Every book you've written has pointed to that. We'll put those in the show notes, just ways to get connected. Um, and I want to encourage our our DMH community, we're gonna dive into that first side of the diamond, which again, it's not a playbook, it's just a pathway, which is exactly what Hugh said without knowing it, but it's identified to be a culture of praying. I'm just watching what are you, spirit, doing, as we live as everyday missionaries? Because the harvest is plentiful and the labors are few. I pray that's not true of Hugh, of Drew, or of you, because it's happening everywhere that you live, work, and play. Thanks for being with us, guys.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

Love you. Take care.