Guests: Pastors Shame and Amber Blackledge

Pastors Shane and Amber share their testimony and God calling them to plant a church in St. Louis, Mo.  Listen in as they share God's redemptive story and everything He's been doing in the greater St Louis area. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Amen. Amen. Well, I I hope you're excited to be in the house of the Lord this morning because your pastor is not preaching. That's always exciting for some. Yeah. I I guess it depends on who you are, you know. But there there's a couple of announcements I want to get out of the way. I've had a lot of people asking me about the church driveway. Pastor, where are we at with the church driveway? K Pasa? What? Kids, yeah. Kids, you're dismissed, of course. Of course. Kids, you're dismissed. Enjoy. Yeah, yeah. It's just automatic at this point. Like I don't have to say anything, it's up on the screen. But with our church driveway. So we had to have City Des Moines said, we want you to get a civil engineer and we want you to do everything properly according to what the city needs. And so we did that. We submitted it. And originally we were told it'd be four to six weeks. And then we were notified, hey, we're down staff in our office. You can expect at least double that. So we're just waiting for approval for our site plan so that we can go. And what for those who don't know, we're putting a new entry exit right at the center of the property, five feet off the sign. You'll be able to see down east and as far as the eye can see. But you know what? The Lord keeps telling me you got to be patient. So I guess I'm being patient. Here we are. And the other thing is just after uh church today, new members class, we're gonna be meeting in room 101 right at the back back there. And we've got food for you. We're all set, and we can't you're you're a member, Steve. I saw that perked up. Uh yeah, he said food. But again, boy, isn't it good to just pour into God's word? And that's what we're here to do today. And you know, I'm gonna welcome up Shane and Amber here in a second, but I've I've had the privilege of knowing Shane since before he was a credentialed minister, probably since 2016 or 17, somewhere in there. And Shane bailed us out big time when I was a pastor in Waterloo. He lived up in Waverly, and there was his pastor's mom was having a funeral at our church building. And I wake up that morning and we have an ice storm. It's it's the end of February. We have this ice storm, and then I get to the church, and the ceiling inside the church lobby had completely collapsed about an hour and a half before the funeral is supposed to begin. And got a hold of Shane. We cleaned up that day, but got a hold of Shane, and he did a bunch of drywall work for us. And he's a man of many talents and tasks, and yet the Lord also calls him pastor. And so I wanted to welcome up Shane and Amber this morning as they share about their ministry and all that the Lord's doing in their lives. If you'd welcome them, please.

SPEAKER_07 3:26

Oh. It's good to be here at Sunshine Open Bible this morning. First and foremost, I want to thank Pastor Aaron and Wendy for their hospitality this weekend and just allowing us to come in here and share our hearts with you this morning. So I'm Pastor Amber Blackledge, Shane's other half, better half, I should say, that he he needs to help him along the way. The Lord has granted me that that task as well. So so we're just gonna share with you guys kind of what the Lord's doing. Um, I was born and raised here in Iowa, Waterloo, Cedar Falls area. That's kind of where I grew up. So we have four kids. Our oldest is 23. She still resides in the Waterloo, Cedar Falls area. I have a 19-year-old as well. She's still at home with us. And then I have another 18-year-old boy who I gave up for adoption at birth, and he's back in our lives, and he is in the Waterloo Cedar Fi Falls area as well. And then we have Uriah, and then we have our two dogs as well, which you know your dogs are your family as well. So they're your inner, they're those are our that's our family. And so the Lord has blessed us. We're blended, very blended. So he has his daughter, I have my kids, and then the Lord blessed us with Uriah. So that's kind of a little bit background of us. And so I want to share with you before I get into what the Lord has us doing right now. And so I want to share a little bit about my story and where I come from, and that will give you a little bit more of why the Lord may have called us to St. Louis, Missouri from Iowa. So I'm a grateful, grateful believer in Jesus Christ, and today I stand before you as someone who has been deeply transformed by God's grace. Deeply transformed. The many things that I've seen in my life. My life is a testimony that no one is too broken, too lost, or too far gone for Jesus. I grew up in Iowa in a very dysfunctional and dis unstable home. For a young age, I experienced abuse, fear, insecurity, drugs, violence, and chaos were normal parts of my childhood. I never felt safe and I never felt truly loved. And as a result, I carried deep pain, anger, and rejection in my heart. By the time I was a teenager, I began turning to drugs, alcohol, and unhealthy relationships to numb the pain. As I grew older, my life became more destructive. I struggled with addiction, dropped out of school, and lived without hope or a purpose. I became a young mother, but I was still lost myself. I experienced deep grief, shame, and guilt, including the pain of losing my mother to cancer and placing my son up for adoption. On the outside, I turned I tried to survive. On the inside, I was completely broken. In my darkest season, God met me where he needed to meet me. Through a simple conversation with a stranger, God reminded me that he had never forgotten me. I remember the seeds of faith planted in my heart as a child through church and in prayer. For the first time, I realized that even in my brokenness, God loved me and had a plan for my life. I cried out to Jesus and surrendered my life to him. Jesus began to heal what I thought could never be healed. Through faith in Christ and a Christ-centered recovery program, I found freedom from addiction healing from my trauma and forgiveness for my past. Today I have been free from meth addiction for over 15 years. Amen. All glory beg belongs to God. One of the greatest miracles in my life has been forgiveness. By God's grace, I was able to forgive the person who abused me as a child. That forgiveness brought deep healing and freedom to my heart. Jesus restored my identity and showed me that I am chosen, I am loved, and I am a child of God. God has also restored my family. And he gave me a new future. Today, my husband and I serve as pastors and church planters. We dedicate our lives to sharing the love of Jesus Christ, serving the broken, helping those in recovery, and bringing hope to the forgotten, the ones who truly are forgotten. My story is not about how strong I am. It is about how good God really is. If Jesus can change my life, he can change anyone's life. There is hope, healing, and freedom in Jesus Christ. So that's a little bit of background as to my story. And so Shane and I had started going through, and I don't have very much time to share because Shane's gonna take over the mic, so I'm gonna try to hurry up. So before we had left to go to St. Louis, we started Bible college. The Lord took us from Waterloo, Iowa, where I was born and raised, where I did all of my bad stuff. And we went to Waverly, Iowa, which was 20 minutes north, and there wasn't a whole lot of stuff happening in Waverly, Iowa, except for church, getting healed, and going to Bible college and state Bible college. And that's what we did. So there was a whole lot of healing, a whole lot of background, and we started celebrate recovery in our church, and we became state reps in Iowa. So we went around doing all of that kind of great stuff. But the Lord was calling us out of Waverly. As Shane was getting credentialed, the Lord's like, look, you guys are ready for this. We're gonna take you to St. Louis. There's a whole nother story how we got to St. Louis, but it was God ordained. It was appointed by God that we were to go to St. Louis. We had a big map in our room. We were praying, like, God, where are you calling us? We thought for sure we were gonna go to Vegas. Why? Because the sin in Vegas is huge. We wanted to go where God was gonna use us the most because of our past. So we thought for sure we were gonna go to Vegas. God wasn't sending us to Vegas, He wanted us to keep us in the central region area. Why? Because there was so much community and love that we needed that we were that we didn't know it at the time, but we needed the people that were in the central region location to help hold our arms up as we left from the place that we only knew was Iowa, Waverly, Iowa, Waterloo, Iowa, that was where we were born and raised. But to go to St. Louis, Missouri, not knowing a single person. We were in a foreign land as missionaries. When we moved there, I it was the hardest thing. It was like we just plopped right in. And I was like, I woke up the next morning, the coffee pot. How many of you guys in here need coffee to like even begin your day? Okay. So I had no idea where my coffee pot even was. Period. Like I don't know where it was. So I needed to go to the gas station anywhere close to me to get coffee.

SPEAKER_08 11:35

Except for I woke up and I didn't know where I was. I didn't know where I was.

SPEAKER_07 11:46

And I had to GPS myself to get to a coffee place and to get back, and this was going to be my life for the next however long the Lord. All I know is that the Lord had took us and placed us here, and I didn't have anybody. I had the Lord. And so there was a lot of sacrifices that we made going to St. Louis to leave our family, to leave everybody that we knew. But the Lord is faithful. He is faithful in everything, and that's why we're here today. We are here today to allow you to love on us, but also ask that you continue to support us as we are your sister churches, as we are one of open Bible's church planters in Missouri that said, All right, we're just gonna go on faith and believe that the Lord's gonna do something, and that's what He's continued to do in our lives. The sacrifices, I mean, we have a whole church family now. It's amazing, and Shane's gonna share that. But God has been faithful, He's provided every step because there's many people like you, and I know some of you in here, and I know not a lot of you in here, and I know that some of you in here have prayed many prayers for our lives as the Lord has sent us to St. Louis, and those prayers is what keeps us going. When we're like, we don't want to do this anymore. And it's real, church planting is real. So I'm gonna hand this over to Shane because if I don't, we might be here all day.

SPEAKER_05 13:45

Can you guys hear me? Woo! Let's just give God some praise for that testimony. I prayed a long time ago that God, would you just I wanted to have a wife, so I prayed for a wife, and praise the Lord. I'm so grateful that I have a wife. She really does hold me all together because I'd fall all the way apart if I didn't have her. So trust me. And I'm just I think a hundred miles an hour all the time. And then I always have these ideas because I'm a visionary, right? I just see the big picture and go after, and she's like, You're on a chain, you're on a leash. So I'm only allowed to go out and play every once in a while. You know what I'm saying? Because otherwise, I'd probably be in a foreign country right now. But I'm grateful and thankful to be here with you all. Man, God is so good. And I always love hearing her testimony because when I met her 15 years ago, we we celebrated our wedding, so it's 15 years of being married. But when I met her, she lived in a handbasket, she had a handbasket of clothes, and that's it. And she never even owned a purse, and she kept losing her ID all the time. I'm like, girl, we're gonna go buy you something to help you. It's called the purse. And so I went to the store and got her purse, and it was a Michael Kors purse. And I'm like, this is beautiful, and it's leather, and that started a whole nother issue with her because then, yeah, you know, and now she doesn't have a basket, she has the whole entire closet, and my closet is in the basement. I had to build my own because I don't have she, she won't let me have any of her closet space. Praise the Lord. God is so good. Well, I want to share with you a little bit about my testimony, and then I'm gonna share with you about cultivate church planting because we started this church two months, two years and ten months ago is when we officially started the church. We moved to St. Louis four years ago. We're about to celebrate our third year birthday. Um, there should be a slide that shows a picture of me as well. And oh, there it is. Can you guys see me? Oh, there it is. There's me, right? So I am Chinese American. My mother is from Taiwan. Um, she passed away in March, but she's a believer in Christ, and we grieve differently because of that. So I know she's in the presence of our Lord and Savior. I was honored and blessed to go there and share the gospel and my testimony at the funeral. I had no idea. Five minutes before the funeral started, they handed me a piece of paper. I looked at it and it said Shane Blackledge sermon. And I'm like, oh, great. And my family was there, they're all Buddhists, and my sisters, my mom's one sister was there, and she's a Christian. I shared my testimony, we shared the gospel, and 15 of my family members were saved uh in Taiwan. Yeah, at my mom's funeral. That's how good God is. Amen. Well, here I am, young kid out on a farm in Iowa. I had an acreage out there, apple tree. It was amazing. I even had my own fort in the backyard. Life was good. My dad was a marine, and then after two tours in the Vietnam War, he's like, I still want to serve the country. So he signed up for the Air Force. So then after he was in the Air Force, that's where he was stationed in Taiwan. Met my mother, they got married. Here comes Shane. I was born at the Air Force Academy Hospital in Colorado Springs. My sister Tammy came right after me, and then my brother. Then we moved back to Waterloo, Iowa, where he's from. We got this farmhouse. Life was great. I loved riding my bike. It was amazing. We had an awesome place to live. I was in school. My mom gets a phone call one day that her brother had died in a tragic motorcycle accident on his wedding night, killed him and his bride. She was devastated because this was the baby brother, the youngest in the family. And Chinese people, their culture is centered around family. And so it's very common to have 20 of them living in the house and they live with each other all their lives, you know? And so she came from that type of background. So for her to leave her family, come to America was a real big deal. Well, when he had passed away, she went back to the funeral. She told me, Shane, look after your little brother and your little sister, and I'll be back. But she never did come back. Okay. My parents got divorced and it ripped my heart in half. And at the age of six years old, that was some childhood trauma. Okay. And so faced with that childhood trauma, I went to a school that was an all-white school, and I got made fun of for being Chinese. And they would pick on me and they would talk to me in their version of Chinese and make fun of my slanted eyes. And I realized then in second grade that my skin color was a little bit darker than everybody else's, but I had no idea about ethnicity. I had no idea about different countries. I'm just a little boy growing up being made fun of. So that started me on a path of self-harming, cutting myself. And then I started drinking alcohol in third grade, smoking cigarettes, fourth grade, get introduced to some pornography magazines, which started an early addiction to pornography. By the time I was in fifth grade, I joined a gang. I joined a gang called the Crips, um, very prevalent gang that's still going on today. But early 80s, early 90s, lots of Crips and Bloods, gang wars going on. This gang had gone to Waterloo to set up an enterprise of drug dealing and you know cartel stuff. And so I became a gang member. They handed me a gun and they told me to go out and get the world. I used to listen to uh Tony Montana on a movie called Scarface, and that's who I wanted to be, right? So my role model was this movie star that was a kingpin, and I wanted to be a drug kingpin. Great goals, right? So that lasted for about five years of me being a drug dealer, being a kingpin, and I ended up getting sentenced to 17 years, or I ended up being sentenced to 30 years in prison when I was 17 years old. Okay. So 17 years old, I'm still a kid, I'm still a juvenile, but they waived me to adult court because I was a really bad kid. You know, I started a school on fire before, don't do that. You'll get in a lot of trouble. Uh but I went to prison, and this picture is me in Anamosa State Penitentiary. But what happened was I didn't grow up in church at all. My family didn't grow up in church, but I went to jail, and when I went to jail, I really just wanted to end it all. I didn't want to be here. I didn't ask to be brought into this world. I didn't ask for my parents to be divorced, I didn't ask to be made fun of for being Chinese, and I was greatly depressed. And inside of this jail cell, it was just me. But there was a Gideon Bible in there, it looked just like this Gideon Bible right there. It was on a nightstand, and I could just hear my aunt telling me, Shane, you should read the book of John, but I never did. And that day in this jail cell, I just opened it up to John 3.16. And it said, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And I had feared death. It would keep me up at night. I would lay down and I'm like, if I die today, do I just go off into eternal darkness and space? What is and it would just bother me. But when I read that scripture, I escaped the judgment and the wrath of God through Jesus Christ. And I said, Okay, I want this. And I got on my knees that day, and I just said a short prayer like, God, I don't know what I'm doing, but I know I'm a sinner and I need your help, and I'm going to prison for 30 years, and I can't do this by myself. And he came into that jail cell and he filled me with this Holy Spirit, and I went to Antimosa State Penitentiary. And while I was there at Antimosa State Penitentiary, I was reading in the gospels about water, and people get water baptized. Amen. Anybody get water baptized before? Raise your hand. Praise the Lord. Amen. Well, I won't. To get water baptized. And when I was in Anmo State Penitentiary, I had a man of God who's actually here sitting with me today. He's my mentor. He's my teacher. He water baptized me 30 years ago. Praise the Lord for Ezra to be in the house today. But he taught me kingdom principles. And he taught me that Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life. And I was very curious. I was a young man of God, 17 years old. I'm soaking up the Bible like a sponge. I read it 20 times, front and back, learned Hebrew, learned how to read and write it, uh, studied the Greek text, got very deep into studying Jesus. And I knew that this was the truth because I read the Quran and I studied Buddhism and I took world religions in college. And while I was in Animosa, I actually went to college and learned more about Christ. Okay. But I got out of prison about six years later. And I would say that that would be an amazing testimony to not go back to prison. But what happened was I got back to Waterloo. I tried to go into a church for support because I wanted to go into ministry. And I knew God had called me into pastoring, but I couldn't, I didn't get the support. And I didn't have family out there to help me. And I ended up turning back to drugs. Okay. And I went back to prison four more times. So all in all, I've been to prison five times. But the last time I went to prison and got out was 20 years ago. Praise the Lord for not being in prison for 20 years. The last time I was in, I got out. I was sober for two years. I was doing really well. I found a church that I felt like I belonged to. My girlfriend wanted to relapse and get high. So I had made a stupid choice and I relapsed as well. Went on a six-month binge and almost died of an overdose. I was rushed by ambulance to the hospital. I was placed on life support and they told me that I was in a coma. They contacted my family and said, come up here. This is probably the last time you were going to see him. He's not stable. We don't know what happened to him. The machine's keeping him alive. And if we pull the machine off, he's not going to make it. And that was what happened to me. And then I just woke up on a Sunday morning and I was reminded of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Right? He arose. And as I opened my eyes, and I was can, you know, I had the breathing machine and the IVs and the drip band and all the machine stuff. And I'm like, God, why did you spare me? Why am I still here? I I'm tired. I don't know if you've ever felt sick and tired of being sick and tired, but that's where I was at. I was just sick and tired. You know, I was worn out. The streets beat me up. The world beat me up. And I was at the end of it again. And he says, Because you have a purpose to live, you're my son. You are my child of God. And I just heard that still small voice telling me that I love you. And then that day I got out of the hospital and my father said, son, and he hadn't called me son in like 15 years because I was a drug addict and I've been to prison so many times. He was ashamed of me. He said, son, I love you. And I've never seen my dad cry before. And I'm telling you that that hurt me because I hurt my father and I disappointed my heavenly father. So I said, God, I don't know what to do, but surrender. And I just surrendered my life to the Lord again. I said, Lord, if you take this methodiction away from me, I will serve you all the days of my life. And today I'm 19 years clean from methodiction. Amen. He did it. And that's when now I have a picture of my wife and I being married. So that it was an amazing part of our testimony is God redeemed me. He restored me. You know, when I lost, I lost custody of my daughter because of that overdose. Six months later, with the work of DHS, I was able to gain my daughter back and we raised her into adulthood. And we have a wonderful, beautiful family that's blended. And God is so good and amazing. Amen. So God called us, like she said, to a broken city. And I just wanted to go somewhere where it was the worst city in the in America. And St. Louis was on the top of the list at the time as the most dangerous city, the the most sinful city, and the murder capital. I'm like, they're first place in a lot of things. You know what I mean? So like let's go there. And we went there and we started driving around the city praying. And then all of a sudden, somebody said, Hey, why don't you go to Connect Church and for Sunday service? And we went there and I met this guy, and I just felt I knew that the Lord was with us because I had shared my testimony on a Thursday and I had handpicked those three songs for that testimony night. On Sunday, those same three songs were playing. And I just knew that God was all over St. Louis, and that's why we came. So I want you guys to listen to a few stories from people that have been impacted by Cultivate Church.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Hi, my name is Rachel. I'm a member of Cultivate Church. About two years and two months ago, I went to a park and I met a few members of Cultivate Church. At that time, I was heavy in my addiction. I was depleted. I had nothing to live for in that moment. I was invited to church, and my first day I attended church was Mother's Day. And during that service, six women, including Pastor Amber, spoke in front of the church about their hardships, about the things that they've endured in their lives and gotten through, and what Jesus has done in their lives. That day I left church, I never used drugs again. Since then, I've been serving at Cultivate Church this last two and a half years. We do multiple outreaches: jail ministry, prison ministry, prayer drive-throughs, homeless outreaches, and I have been able and grateful to serve through the church. These the people at Cultivate, Pastor Shane and Amber, have walked with me every step of the way. No matter what I was going through, no matter what I needed, they're in my family. And I very much love them. And I think that what they do in the church is amazing. And I am, again, so grateful to be a part of what they've done and what they're doing in the community here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

Hey, my name is Ann Quigley, and I just want to share a little bit about what Cultivate Church means to me. About two and a half years ago, I was an endless cycle of addiction, addicted to math, living in a homeless encampment. And Shane and Amber and some other Cultivate Church members came down to this homeless encampment. And, you know, they just wanted to share the love of Christ with me, which was foreign to me. But by their persistence, continuous going down there, of course, when I came to the end of myself and I had had enough, I knew who to call because, you know, they I felt like they developed a trusting relationship. And uh I ended up getting into treatment, going to church, getting baptized. And if it wasn't for these interactions and the persistence of Cultivate Church and Pastor Amber and Shane, you know, I don't know where I would be today. And today, I'm two and a half years clean and sober. I got a great good relationship. You know, we have two cars, we have our own place, we both have jobs, and just been blessings upon blessings upon blessings. And, you know, it all started with Cultivate Church and and the members there. And so, you know, if I had to sum Amber and Shane up into a couple of words, it would be determination and perseverance, just sharing the love of Jesus Christ with everyone. And now where me and my girlfriend Rachel live, we have now done the same exact thing. We now go down to the homeless and community and you know, bless them and just tell them about what Jesus Christ has done in our lives, and because it happened to me, and so I just extremely grateful for God putting Shane and Amber in my life. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 31:15

Hey guys, my name is Spencer, and I've been a member of Cultivate Church for about a year now. When I first met Shane and Amber, I was in the grips of addiction and losing my wife and my son about a year ago, and Shane and Amber were there, they were there to help them pack, help them leave, and when they left, they took me in. They saw me the way that Jesus saw me, and praise God, I've been redeemed. In the process, Shane has brought me into rehabs to give my testimony. I play the drums on the worship team, and I've got a little around a year sober now. And about a month ago, I got my wife and my son back. So I just praise God that Shane and Amber they lead a church that actually sees people the way Jesus sees people. They give everybody a chance to step up and be the hands and feet of God. I hit the streets with them and minister with them. It's a beautiful thing just to see the way that they really love people and that they're actually there for people. But yeah, thanks guys.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Hello everyone, my name is Corbin and I'm from Waverly, Iowa, and today I'd like to share with you my sort of testimony on how Cultivate Church has had an impact in my walk with God, and kind of all starts like a year ago when I went to youth camp in 2025, and that's where I received my call from God and my purpose to be a missionary and an evangelist. I received this call by a woman giving me a handwritten letter that read things like, You're gonna impact the nations, and this through the Lord's strength. And if you continue to seek him, he's gonna use you mightily. And so coming back, I was just so on fire for God, and I wanted to serve him any way I could. And that's when I came across the youth missions trip to St. Louis, Missouri, and it turns out the hosts for this mission trip were Shane and Amber, and I actually knew them from back when they lived in Iowa. They used to go to my church actually, and that was all before they went and planted a church in St. Louis. So I was like, Alright, God, you're aligning just all all the dots, and I was like, here I am, send me. So I ended up going on this mission trip, roughly it was in mid-June, and it was for four days, and we went with a team of 12, and we just got to minister. We got to learn from Shane and Amber and how they did things, we got to make blessing bags and just all these things, and it just truly impacted my life, and it truly confirmed that this was my call from God. And so coming back from that, coming home, I truly felt that God just wanted to continue to use me. God wanted me to just continue to be brought up as a disciple in St. Louis. So I reached back out to Shane and Amber asking if they would host me for 10 more days, and they said yes. And I'm sorry. They have forever impacted me. I I without words, the the way they brought me up, the way they loved me, the way they taught me how to bring the gospel to people. It just has forever changed my life, and I'm just so grateful for Cultivate Church and how they were just so welcoming. All of them have their own story. They go to that church, and they were all willing to share, and they were all willing to pray, and they were all willing to just love me and show me how to love others the way Jesus would. And I am just so so grateful, and I'm just I'm just so thankful for you guys listening to me today. But yeah, that is how Cultivate Church has had an impact on my life.

SPEAKER_06 35:41

Hello everyone. I'm Cheryl, and I want to tell you about how Cultivate Church impacted my life. Cultivate Church changed me and my life forever. Cultivate Church has shown me that God has never left, never left my side, not even in my darkest moments. Cultivate Church came into my life at a perfect time. This was clearly God working through them and through their continued outreach. My healing was possible. Shane and Amber and Cultivate Outreach Team would come to our tent encampment two or three times a week. I mean, two or three times a month, and bring blessing bags, clothing, and blankets, and and a good hot meal. They would pray with us and invite invite us to come to church with transportation already provided. It took them eight months of consistently showing up, eight months of consistent kind kindness, and eight months of non-judgmental love when it started to click in my head. I needed to change my life. Shortly after attending service, Shane and Amber found a treatment center for both me and my husband. During my treatment, my faith grew stronger and stronger. One one week before I graduated treatment, I became very ill. I had sepsis and found out that I had heart issues. I ended up needing open heart surgery and the placement of an internal defibrillator in my chest. Because God put Cultivate Church in my life and my faith in Jesus Christ, my body began to heal at a rapid rate. God was performing miracles through the healing hands and prayer that Cultivate Church was providing. I would not be here today without Cultivate Church and their amazing outreach team. Today I am two years and two months clean and sober. I have gone from being homeless, completely strung out on drugs, and having my own car, a home to live in, all my bills paid, my children back in my life, a wonderful husband who supports me, a loving dog, but most of all, God is there leading me on a path to a much better life. Thank you, Colter Rick Church, for showing me what outreach and giving back to the community really means, and for saving my life.

SPEAKER_05 38:31

Thank you, Jesus. All glory to God, though. It's the Jesus Christ that's in us that moves through all of us that are impacting lives like this. These testimonies that you hear that you heard today are the reasons why church planning matters. The most effective form of evangelism right now is church plans because you really need to go out there and tell people about Jesus to get people to come into the side of the church. Amen. Yeah. Just this year alone, we've really broken out. Okay. We've really broken out. And in the prison ministries, the rehab ministries, the homeless ministries, we have helped over 150 people get off the streets of St. Charles and St. Louis into rehabs. Praise God for that. We've already ministered in three states. What we do is we do these you are not forgotten prison hope concerts. We have a partnership with Prison Fellowship where we go into a prison and we bring in Christian hip hop artists and worship artists to come in. We perform a full-blown concert with a full-blown PA concert system. And uh there's a there's a concert right there with two 21-inch subwoofers, two eighteens, 300 men out on the yard.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Yes, oh right, can you hear me?

SPEAKER_05 39:58

All right, so we do these you're not forgotten prison hope concerts. We've done them in Missouri, we do them frequently. We do we've been we've done them for the first ever in the state of Illinois. And at the altar call, we've seen over a hundred inmates give their life to Christ at these at these events. Give God some praise for that. And for the first time ever in the history of the state of Iowa, August 28th, on a Friday, we get to do a you are not forgotten prison hoe concert in Anamosa State Penitentiary. Yeah. Full circle. The place where I was, I'm going back to share the love of Jesus Christ. That's how good God is. Amen. We are our we are we're supposed to track as open Bible pastors like track water baptisms and salvations and stuff. So I I I want to boast on God. We are over a thousand salvations this year with Cultivate Church. Praise God. We have seen countless families restored, people that were like really ready to be divorced, their marriages saved. We have uh impacted many lives through the going through to the drug rehab centers. Last night, two men from Cultivate Church went into a secular drug rehab center last night sharing their testimonies. One guy shared his testimonies two years sober, but he shared his testimony for the first time last night. And he's being activated as a disciple of Christ, and 20 men gave their life to Christ last night in the rehab. Praise God for that. We are also doing jail ministry, but uh, one of the things that we have done since we've been in St. Louis is we host church teams. And we would love to invite you next year or anytime to come down for a weekend and we can tailor the street ministry for you to come into. You can go into the prisons with us, you can go into the rehabs with us, you can go to the streets with us, we can we'll make blessing bags together, and then we'll go out to the streets and minister and actually see the kingdom of God at hand where people are healed, set free, and delivered. It's an amazing time. And so we do host churches. We do the Open Bible Central Region uh middle school youth trip every summer, so that's been amazing. I want to remind you of a verse that is very important because it's healthy churches plant healthy churches. We came from a healthy church. Some of the most amazing pastors I've ever met in my life are so relational. It helped us to be relational. I went to Life Church, and as a youth leader, I was mentored by um Pastor Andrew Braits. I mean, he's one of the most amazing pastors I've ever met in my life, and he mentored me to and helped me become a leader. And then, of course, Matt and Nicole Miller also mentored us and discipled us and groomed us for leadership. And so we left and was sent out by a healthy church, and I believe we're a healthy church because of it. And I also would like to just thank you, Sunshine Open Bible, and thank you, Pastor Aaron, for having us come here. But when I first got credentialed, I went to this thing called the gathering. It's a pastor's kind of like retreat to go and get refreshed every September for the central region. And at the time, he was giving a testimony because he had won number one for the church that gave the most to missions. And he was sharing his testimony about how this church is doing amazing and they're growing and all this stuff. And what it did though was instill something in me to where we give 10% of the tithe to missionaries and church planners. And I just want to thank you for your testimony because it moved me in such a way that we now are a giving church. Amen. Praise the Lord. Matthew 12. 2819 says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And here's the big part teaching them, Amen, to observe all that I've commanded you. And behold, I'm with you always until the end. The Great Commission has never changed. It's been around for over 2,000 years, and it's still a command to all believers. Amen? Yes. And so healthy churches don't simply grow. Healthy churches multiply. All right. We're not here to fill seats, but we are here to make disciples, all right? We're not into uh quantity as my mentor and teacher would say. No, no, no, Shane. We're not into quantity, we're into quality, and that's something he's instilled in me over 20 years ago. And I take that serious because we are to study the word of God and teach the word of God, but do the word of God. We have to be Jesus in action, right? We can read this all day long, but if you don't apply it to your life and then do it, you're I would say stop reading and just go out and start doing. Amen. One of the very reasons we're proud to serve in open Bible churches is because we're a part of a movement. We have an amazing president, Michael Nortoon. He's on, he's a man of God, he's on fire for the Lord. Have you guys ever met him before or heard him? Yes, when you're around this guy, he's just like a firework, man. He's just boom, he's explosive. And but I believe that same spiritual energy is kick starting a fire inside of open Bible churches to make disciples, to develop leaders, and to plant more churches. And this is a movement, and it's really exciting right now to be a part of open Bible churches. So praise the Lord for that. Amen. I want to share this one scripture with you because this is how we advance the kingdom of God together. Ecclesiastes 4 9 says, two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fail, one will lift up their fellow. But woe to him who is alone. When he fails, he is not another to lift him up. You see, church planning is very difficult. And I would say if anybody wants to do it, if it's your calling, you do it. We obey the voice of the Lord. And I will say this the number one reason why church plants fail is because of finances, not having enough local uh church support, either from their sending network or their sending denomination. And so we are grateful that open Bible churches supports us and they support us being missionaries in St. Louis. But no planter should ever be serving alone. Barnabas, Paul had Barnabas, right? Paul also had Timothy, and Paul had churches that supported him as he was a missionary going to all these cities, planting churches. Other churches were supporting his mission, and he still was a tent worker. You see, I actually work a full-time job. My life is crazy right now. I would not recommend having this type of schedule because I work a full-time job. I'm a director of facilities over a school for autistic children and a new psychiatric children's hospital being built. And I oversee like 10 buildings and a maintenance team and all kinds of stuff. But I also work a full-time job. And we have a church that is growing with amount of attendance of anywhere from 60 to 70 members in the church on every any given Sunday. But with that comes a lot of pressure. And so pray for us. Pray for us. Really pray for us to keep our hands up to and our hands to the plow for cultivating the grounds of St. Charles of St. Louis to continue. We are truly believing that the greatest days of cultivate church are still ahead of us. Okay. Your partnership helps us to continue reaching the loss, developing and discipling new believers. It also helps us to expand kingdom recovery, a recovery ministry that is right now in churches, prisons, and jails, a curriculum that I wrote. Um, after being in recovery for 20 years, this is what the Holy Spirit led me to do. In closing, I want to share this scripture in Philippians 1, 3 through 5. This is Paul. And he's saying, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. Always in every prayer of mine for you, all making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I'm just going to be honest with you, without open Bible, there would be no cultivate church. Sometimes our offering is $20 in the plate when you minister primarily to the unhoused addicts and inmates. We're very poor. But the vision that I believe for cultivate church is something that Pastor Aaron said today to be multi-ethnical, multi-generational, but also to be multi-class, where the poor, the middle class, and the wealthy can serve Jesus together and be a family of believers together. And that's the vision for Cultivate Church. Amen. One day in heaven we'll meet people from St. Louis who came to know Jesus because churches across open Bible chose to pray, to give, and to send. And some of those people will never know your names on this side of eternity, but they'll be in heaven because you chose to invest in the kingdom of God. So thank you for believing in Cultivate Church. Thank you for having us come here and just share about what God is doing in our St. Louis area region. And thank you for considering to partner with us in prayer, most importantly. Continue to lift us up in prayer. I'm reminded of Moses, you know, needing his hands lifted up by Aaron. Right? So thank you again for letting us share. I think we'll go into a time of prayer.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

You know, Amber said it, if God can use them, he can use anybody. That's the testimony. And the reality is that can be you. But there's something that God has to do in us where he has to heal the broken parts of our lives so that we can step into who he's called us to be. And so what I want you to do is I want you to just bow your heads right now. And if you're here and you say, Pastor, I'm I'm broken. I'm not in a good place. And I just need ministered to, and I need prayed for. And I want God to change me as he's changed them and shared great stories of change. You say, That's me, Pastor. I need to pray. Wouldn't you raise your hand just where you're at so we know who we're praying for? Okay, praise God. Praise God. I want you to do something that's a little bold. Just where you're at. I want you to stand up, those that raise your hands, just where you're at. And I want our prayer altar team to just go out, look around at those who are standing, and just surround them in prayer. And so if our prayer altar team could step out right now. And I want you to pray specifically. I want you to, I want you to minister to them and I want you to pray over them that God can heal all the broken parts of their lives. And so we're gonna declare that and believe that in Jesus' name. Prayer team, are you with me? Church, you with me? Let's pray right now. Let's extend our hands out to those that are that are standing. Father God, we just thank you so much for the acknowledgement of people declaring, I am not in a good place. Father God, I need you. And Lord, we believe that by your sun stripes we are healed. And God, that that's a that's a spiritual healing. It can be an emotional healing, a physical healing. And Lord, we declare it over these lives in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. God, we thank you so much because that's a work that only you can do. And God, you can make change where there is no other way for us to be changed and healed. And God, we just celebrate in knowing, God, that you are with us. When we call on the name of the Lord, you are with us. And God, we are just believing that, Lord, this is the beginning of something great in each and every one of their lives. God, that you've chosen this time. That, Lord, that they might call on your name. And Lord, they they don't turn back to the past. They just step out and move forward in you. And we are just declaring it and believing it. And God, I pray for great support to come around them. Support that keeps their eyes fixed on the realities of heaven. And off of their situation, just trusting and knowing that God, you have the victory. Lord, we do believe for healing and peace and comfort in their lives. And strength to face tomorrow. We thank you, God. We just declare it that Lord the victory is yours. You've already won. We just claim it in Jesus' name. And everyone said, Amen, amen. Isn't the Lord good? Amen. You know, I I wanna. They're not quick to say it, but I I will say, and that they do a pretty good job of spelling out that hey, we don't we don't get the most support in the world. Starting a new church is hard. Starting a new church where you're ministering to those in recovery is even harder. And who knows, those in recovery, they don't make a lot of money. And so them being able to continue on is a challenge. And so what we have done is we have welcomed them in because we said we want to support you in prayer and maybe ease your load a little bit financially. And so what we're gonna do, and I realize we already took up our missions offering today. And some of you might be saying, Pastor, maybe next week, tell you what we're gonna do. We're gonna take up an offering today, but I'm gonna extend over the course of the next three weeks, the next three weeks, that we're going to remind you about opportunities to give to Shane and Amber. Okay? And then we're going to make a way on our app that if you so choose, if you say, I want to support that couple going forward, anytime you give an offering in their name, it'll be on the app going forward today. Just mark it other. Starting next week, there'll be Shane and Amber. And what we're going to do is we're going to send that in regularly. So if you give monthly, that'll go to them monthly. And we want to do that because we want to see them continue doing the ministry God's called them to do. Amen. Alright. So, what we're gonna do, I'm gonna ask the ushers to come forward and we're gonna pray over them and just thank the Lord for sending them to do this hard work. Lord, I just thank you for my brother and sister that are so bold in stepping out in ways and areas that not many are willing to. And God, your calling is irrevocable. We can't just we can't just pray you change it or take it back, Lord. This is the burden that you've given them. And God, we thank you for your supply so far. And God, we just pray that, Lord, the little bit that we can contribute, Lord, will just be a huge blessing in their lives. That God, you will just multiply it exponentially, Father. And that, Lord, you will also, any financial burden that might be on Shane and Amber right now, Lord, will be lifted in Jesus' name. Anything that uh that has been happening in their lives to cause them to question, Lord, what you're doing. Lord, may it be confirmed exactly what you're doing in the coming weeks. And God, we just thank you for shining the light on their ministry that God, they have some more support in prayer. God, just continue to use them in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, guys.