Where are you going to be 25 years from now? We should ask ourselves this question from time to time. Believers, let’s not pursue the wrong goals and drift away from Jesus. Let’s commit to being numbered in the faithful.
This episode is from our 2023 Snowbird Christmas Party, where Brody encouraged past and current staff to remain faithful to Jesus. Brody also gave an end-of-year report that includes how many people were impacted through Snowbird in 2023. He also shared a sneak peek into the future goals of SWO.
Let’s fix our eyes on Jesus, set worthy goals, and commit to not burn out.
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Where are you going to be 25 years from now? We should ask ourselves this question from time to time. Believers, let’s not pursue the wrong goals and drift away from Jesus. Let’s commit to being numbered in the faithful.
This episode is from our 2023 Snowbird Christmas Party, where Brody encouraged past and current staff to remain faithful to Jesus. Brody also gave an end-of-year report that includes how many people were impacted through Snowbird in 2023. He also shared a sneak peek into the future goals of SWO.
Let’s fix our eyes on Jesus, set worthy goals, and commit to not burn out.
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Last weekend was the SWO, the annual SWO Christmas party, and we do this every year and it's it's an awesome time because we have staff come in from all different years. We have folks that worked here gosh 20 years ago that come into that weekend every year. I want to share a little bit of an update from that and also I want to share with you the challenge or the word of encouragement that I shared with a couple hundred people last Saturday night at the SWO Christmas party. I think it'll be an encouragement to you. Even though it was targeted or geared at them, it's directed to them. I think the word that the Lord gave to share with them would be an encouragement to a lot of our listeners and it would give you a peek.
Speaker 1:You know, from time to time we like to give you a peek behind the curtain of what goes on at SWO. A lot of our listeners have served here in the past and so you know. But we won't. We really want people to feel like they're connected and they're a part of what the Lord's doing here, and we're a big community of faith and a big faith family and we want everybody to feel like they're a part of it, and so we want to. We want to bring you along for that. And then I want to give some updates in this episode here as we're coming to the end of the year, give some year end updates. That I think will be really encouraging and watch the Lord move in incredible ways, and I want to want to share that with you. So thank you for tuning in to no Sanity Required. Welcome to this week's episode.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. A podcast about the Bible, culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:Well. Merry Christmas everybody. 2023 was an incredible year here at SWO. We saw the Lord do such an incredible work in so many people's hearts and lives. I want to give you some numbers just so you can celebrate with us in 2023. We had 11,151 registered attendees, so that means people that registered, signed up, came to an event, a marriage conference or some other adult retreat, a summer camp, a student ministry event, a Christian school event, whatever it might have been. 11,151 souls sat in the seats in the supercoupe and heard the word of God faithfully and expositionally, or expository, taught and preached and were impacted.
Speaker 1:And so I just want to say thank you to the Lord publicly. Thank the Lord, thanks. I want to just pause and pray, lord. I thank you. Don't normally do this on this podcast and just stop and pray. Maybe you should do that more often but just give you thanks for moving and hearts and lives and even the prayers that were answered in the way that you brought people here.
Speaker 1:We pray each day as a staff when we meet. We pray over the people that are going to come and the people that you're going to bring here to this valley to be ministered to, and you've grown this ministry in so many ways. In so many ways we're the same as we've ever been Our core values and who we are at the core and the center of the gospel ministry that you've called us to be. But, lord, you've you've shaped and molded and reformed and refined and grown us, and we're just grateful for the work you're doing here. Your good hand of provision and protection and blessing is on this ministry and that's evidenced by 11,151 people that came here. So we thank you. I pray your blessing over each one of them and that you would do incredible things in their lives in 2024. I pray that, as many of them will return, lord, I pray that that you would hold them in your stead and sway and grip and that that grip of grace would watch and guard over them and guide them and and that when they come back here they would be rejuvenated. And, lord, I pray you would open doors and make a way for new people to come. We are, we are experiencing growth, pains, as you know, and we're turning people away. We don't want to do that, but we rejoice over those that that attended and ask you to bless and move in their lives. So, thank you In Jesus name. Amen. 11,151. Thank you all for for your support. Those that listen and this, this, this podcast is, has far exceeded anything we ever imagined it would do. I'm blown away by how many people listen to it and and encourage us later on when, at the end of the episode, I'm going to share a couple of encouraging emails, at least one, okay.
Speaker 1:Next, some staff numbers Summer summer staff All hands on deck. This past summer we had 210 people working here. Isn't that incredible? 210 people were working here last summer 210. That is wild. It takes that many to do the work and we celebrated at our Christmas party that we're going to talk about in a minute. We celebrated 20 years with Connie Whitaker, who is faithfully served in our kitchen, in our food service department, for 20 years. We're only 26 years old. She's been there for 20 of them. That's pretty amazing, pretty awesome. But 210 folks served this summer, that's not counting. I mean that there's some folks that volunteered a week here, week there, people that came out day to day and helped out, and so those numbers, those numbers are modest, like 11151 attendees. That's registered attendees, that's not counting. I mean there there are times where we'll have 20 or 30 people here, you know, that are attending, like a local youth group that comes out to attend a worship service, something like that and so, and that's also not counting how many people we minister to on the road at conferences and events and you know that number goes way up from there. But 11151 is a firm number of people that that came and we're grateful for that.
Speaker 1:Listen, here's a fun stat. The breakdown between summer camp and the rest of the year 11151. Summer camp was 5,350, 5,350. So about, you know, about half is the way it splits out. Let's see, yeah, 5,801 came between August and May and that's an I think that's significant number because people think of us as a summer camp and I try to explain to people we're not just a summer camp and but it's hard to explain who we are and what we do. But 5,350 people came in the summer, 5,800 came between August and May.
Speaker 1:That's fall retreat, winter retreat or winter swoe, that's our spring D now. That's marriage conferences, men's events, women's events, college retreat. We led 4,715 share groups. That's where we go deeper dives, beyond just what we we cover in sermons. 182 sermons were preached, 100 and that's 182 different sermons, by the way, not necessarily different texts. Some of those sermons are like a fall retreat. We do three weekends of fall retreat. We preach the same series for all three of those, but 182 times the word of God was preached. That's not count breakouts, that's that's the preaching and proclamation of the word we had. This is cool.
Speaker 1:We had 1100 rafts go down the Nana Hala River. So it's not counting the old Koi River, it's just Nana Hala and that's. You figure, on average six people in a raft. That's a pretty cool number. I like that stat 33 students completed the snowboard Institute this year, 322 groups. So if you take away individuals, like, like at some of the adult conferences, those are a lot of those are just individual registration. We have some groups at those but most of them are individual registration, just just churches and schools.
Speaker 1:That brought groups. 322 and think about that. 322 churches and schools and there's probably I don't know the hard number, but there's, there's only about 20 schools that come, not even maybe. So 300 plus churches came through this year, 180, let's see. 182 of those churches were in the summer. So again, kind of splitting the, the, the numbers. You have a heavier church number in the summer because those are all youth groups, hours of local ministry with smote, that snubbered mission and outreach 6600 hours of local ministry. We painted several schools, we put in wheelchair ramps on homes roofs. It's a. It's a super active ministry.
Speaker 1:Last one, this is cool, this is a financial number From the SWO1 fund to develop SWO property, $540,000 were spent and that SWO1 fund, that's all donor dollars. So $540,000 donor dollars, half a million dollars went into development of the property this year. That's phenomenal, I mean just absolute. Some of that's recreation. We had two major recreational components that we added. But man, what an awesome, what an awesome report. Huh, thought that maybe some of you would be encouraged by that here's.
Speaker 1:Here's some quotes Andrew Spires, a pastor, lakewood Baptist in Phoenix City, I think, alabama, I think that's where Lakewood's at, and Andrew's a brother that used to be a student pastor. Now he's a lead pastor. It was amazing. As always, no better camp in the Southeast, maybe no better camp in the entire country. Amen to that, by the way. Students are energized and it'll be more than a small spiritual bump. It's more of a jumping off point into what we have planned for our missions and service the rest of the summer. That's a cool report. Brandon Zortman, student pastor at Schindler Drive Baptist Church in Jacksonville, florida.
Speaker 1:Our goal in student ministry isn't to just see spiritual highs but to see students saved and sanctified in. Snowbird is one of the best partners in helping facilitate that. And then Kevin Mathis is. He leads North Raleigh Christian Academy. I think the title is headmaster. It would be equivalent of like the superintendent of. You know, principal meets superintendent at a private Christian school. North Raleigh Christian Academy is a really good school, solid education, big Christian school in the Raleigh area. Kevin says this. It is evident that SWO's team truly desires to invest in the lives of students and to train them in developing biblical relationships with Christ and each other.
Speaker 1:A sincere thank you for everything. So thank you to all the student pastors, school principals, teachers, youth pastors, leaders, adult parents, moms, dads that came as volunteers, lead pastors that showed up or that got behind the students coming. Thank you all. I want to remind you of the mission statement. The mission statement is snowbird wilderness outfitters exist to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ through the exposition of scripture and personal relationships in order to equip the church to impact this generation. You can find that mission statement on pretty much anything we put out and if you, if you can't find, ask anybody that works here and they can quote that to you on demand and then they can break it down and explain it if you need that. And then just our year end report.
Speaker 1:I want to include a little, just a little glimpse of the vision for what we've got coming up. The vision is to grow from just under 600 students a week to 800 students a week in our summer program. That the primary reason for that is because we're turning kids away and that I can't stand that. That that's just. I don't want kids to not be able to come. Who want to come? I just want to see students come here and have their lives impacted by the gospel and some people.
Speaker 1:Let me give one point of clarity. People will sometimes say, well, if you get too big, don't you think you'll lose your identity or forget who you are? It'll be too hard to maintain. You know that personal relationship component and I would just say no, everything we do is scalable. It's a good question, but we thought that through and we have a good answer, good strategy, good plan. And I would even just point back to the fact that our first, our first summer, we were running groups of 30 to 40. And we remember when we jumped up and we grew to 100. That was a concern that we had. And then when we grew to 200, that was a concern that we had, and then to 250 and then to 325. And then, in each time we've grown, that's been a concern. Can we maintain that personal? You know the relational component and the answer is yes, we can, because everything we do is scalable. So what that means is we just have to have a bigger staff, which means we need, we need a larger number of management team people so that we can disciple our staff well and and equip them and grow them. So, yeah, it's, it's very scalable. So you know, to simplify that, we said that we had what was that number? 200, like for the summer staff workers. There's 210. And that's at 550 people a week, 570 people a week, whatever we end up running. Well, you jump that, update 100, that staff number grows from 210 to 250. And so then we're able to continue to maintain that personal component. But that's the vision and and we are in the right right as we're looking at the new year.
Speaker 1:One last thing I'll say. I've been going for 12 minutes here and I know that this, this kind of thing that can can be super exciting, or I could really end up boring you with numbers, and I don't want to do that. But the last thing I'll say is we have a strong and healthy and and dedicated plan to move forward how we want to develop and grow. The first move to be able to get 800 students is going to be to build a new dining facility, and so that's the next thing on the list. But before we can do that, we have to increase the water line onto the snowboard property from a two inch line to a six inch line, and we're going to be able to do that because the town of Andrews is going to work with us, the state of North Carolina is going to work with us. The funding has come in through donor dollars, faithful giving of God's people so faithful, so many people given and the quarter million dollar project that it's going to be to run a water line. I mean, it's just like moving mountains, you know, to run major infrastructure projects. So it's going to take a quarter million dollars to get water on the camp property. That's going to enable us to then grow the way we need to grow. So we get that water line in, lord willing, in 2024. And then the next move will be to begin preparing and planning and building new dining facility From there. We will then expand housing and rec. So be in prayer for that. We have the, we have the acreage and the property, as you know, and God has been good to us and we've grown and expanded and it's just the hand of the Lord. So we're so thankful.
Speaker 1:I know so many of our listeners are faithful supporters and givers. If you want to give to the development and expansion, it's easy to do. Just go to SW outfitterscom and there's a, there's a donate tab and you can give to the SWO one fund. The SWO one fund is the developmental fund. It's the. It is designated funding for any future expansion of the physical property so that money goes straight into infrastructure development, buildings, roads, the things that are that are going to help us to grow the physical property to be able to bring in students. That's the SWO one fund. You know, in the last couple of years we've built a couple bath houses, we've built some, some housing structures and things like that. We've done some upgrades to and some add-ons to some of our main buildings. So that's the SWO one fund. So you give that here at the end of the year. If you need a good tax right off, there you go. That's, that's a worthy cause.
Speaker 1:Lord has been so faithful, gosh man, it's. It's amazing what God has done in the last three or four weeks with people getting behind this and giving so. Thank y'all. So now I wanted to. Last week by the time you're getting this, it'll be Saturday before last we had all of our staff on all hands on deck with our full time year round team, and then we did our annual Christmas party, which is just a big dinner. We cooked four pigs. Our kitchen crew cooked four pigs and let a big, huge pig picking and then I don't know, I don't know the total number that ended up. It was way north of 200. It was close to 300 people here. We fed everybody and then we had just a big celebration and we we sung songs together, played some games, goofed off, and then I shared a word with our staff and I want to share with you what I shared with them and just to to intro this sort of where we are right now.
Speaker 1:My heart in this and you hear this come through in a lot of the episodes we do. So many people are turning away from the faith and it and it seems it has felt like at times that people are turning away at a rate that we've never seen before, but I don't. I don't really think that's true. I don't. I think it's always been this way. I think there have always been people who were apostate, who turned away from the faith, who rejected the faith. Jesus dealt with it, the early church dealt with it, the apostle Paul dealt with it and wrote about it extensively, and so this is nothing new, and one of the points that I made with our staff that you'll hear in this, in this challenge and in charge that I gave him, is usually the people that are that are doing that are making the most noise. So it sounds louder and feels like there's more people walking away than there are being faithful, but I will say this the majority are remaining steadfast. The church Jesus is always going to preserve his church and his remnant is always going to be faithful. And so be a part of that remnant and commit to be faithful and don't, don't give in to the desires and temptations of the world to turn away in unfaithfulness. It's, it is Such a blessing when you step back and think about the goodness and the faithfulness of our God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's so faithful, has been faithful and will continue to be faithful. So focus on that and let's not be swayed by the unfaithfulness of the minority. And so with that, let me welcome you to kind of peek in, sit in the back of the room and and listen to the conversation we had last Saturday night with about 300 former and current staff members. All right, man, it's good to have everyone here.
Speaker 1:I want to point out one specific staff member that's here tonight. That is very special to most of us. I think everybody probably know her, and that is Connie Whitaker. She's spent 20 years at Snowbird 20 years. We love you a lot. We love you, connie, so much. Thank you. Connie's gonna kill me now. I didn't tell her I was gonna do that, but it's. It's so refreshing in a time where so few people stick to something Just for 20 years. I mean, when Connie started working here we were serving pre-wrapped meals from McDonald's and Hardee's and she's been here through all the growth at Snowbird and it's just refreshing. And it's refreshing to see a lot of people that are here tonight.
Speaker 1:I want to give y'all an encouraging, a word of encouragement, briefly, about staying the course and being faithful to Jesus and being true to His Word and recognizing that it is the majority of people that have served here that have stayed faithful. It is a small minority that tend to be really loud, that have drifted or turned away and I want you to be numbered in the faithful and I want you to. I was. I said last night there was a Sarah Dunn had, sarah Dunn's phenomenal middle school girls basketball coach. There is not a greater niche you could describe than what I just described. You know like, but not a more like. If you said to me you can coach middle school girls basketball or go to a foreign planet and take your chances, you know like I'd probably say be. I mean, it's very complex, you know, and it's just. It's a hard world to live in and and she does so well.
Speaker 1:And last night they had a Christmas party over at our house and about 20 minutes into that just dance party I went out to the barn where I spent the next hour. It was so dark out there, so cold and so quiet it was, but I um, it was a hoot. But I got on the phone with J Belu. J Belu is Moose's brother-in-law and his name is Jonathan, but he goes by J and Jonathan and Alisa or Moose's sister brother-in-law, and then there, I think, four kids.
Speaker 1:They serve in Thailand. He's a church planner in Thailand and we're talking and and and he had sent me a thing, he had sent me a 30 minute presentation of him speaking that he was going to then send to his main sending church and he said we just proof this and let me know what you think. And in that he described something that he's described to me before and it was this that when he was 24 years old he read where God was laying out the requirements or the instruction for the Levites, the Levitical Priesthood, and it said you know, take, take these men, at age 25 they will enter into service and at age 50 they will move out of that service and into like a mentoring role. So he's sort of he's patterned his ministry, life and goals off of that. So he got.
Speaker 1:He got to Thailand when he was about 27 or 28, 25s, when they started preparing to go. I think he's mid 30s, late, late 30s maybe. Now I think he's got 15 years, so 35 and he'll be 50. And he said you know, and we'll sort of this, this lifelong trajectory where at 50, I hope that we will have established enough of a work that I can begin to invest in people. I thought he just described my life. 23 years old, god gave us a vision, for snowbird went to little's dad that first year he was like he wasn't ready to get on board with that. A year later he said I'm really, I want to do this. A year later we moved here, 25 years old. I'm 51 now.
Speaker 1:In that time the seasons of life, the ebbs and flows, the role there were things I could do as a 28 year old that I cannot do now, things that I brought to the table in ministry. There are things that I bring to the table now ministry that I did not bring to the tables a 28 year old, and I think that it's it's important that, whatever phase of life you're in, we've got people in their teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, literally. It's important that that we understand that we are on a journey where we are walking with Jesus and at every step of that journey you have something that you need to be doing for the work of the gospel, for the advance of the kingdom. It probably doesn't look the same when you're 38 as it does when you're 22, but you, but I think part of the reason people veer off is they start drinking from the wrong. Well, they start setting the wrong goals, or they just don't set goals. And if you will, if you will fix your eyes on Jesus, set goals and say where am I going to be, what am I gonna, where am I gonna be 25 years from now? People don't. You know, people don't think like that and in the younger generation people don't think that way. They don't think that way. But but we need to, because one we're like on this gospel journey where we, your life needs to matter right now and you need to be thinking about what it's gonna mean when you're 50 and 60 and 70.
Speaker 1:There's a, there's a couple here, jake and Tabitha Stanley. I was just thinking in that one family, the ebbs and flows of life. I met Tabitha when she was a young teenager as a camper, one of our first ever summer camps, when first years we ran camp. I want to say like 2000, 2001, somewhere in there. That's not right, Beth. When did you come? Maybe I met your sister before. When was it 2000? So okay, 2000 and and and that's we're approaching a quarter of a century. And in that time I watched her family go through craziness, then met Jake and his family, stood before God and man as they were saying their vows, officiated their wedding as they walked into a covenant relationship together within months, was standing in front of the same basic group of people preaching Jake's father's funeral and then last night I was wrestling with their little boy in my living room.
Speaker 1:The longer you live, the more ebbs and flows of life are going to happen, and but it takes far-sightedness, not just short-sightedness. And it's easy, I think, for those of us that are older, the older generation of us that are here, it's so easy to look back and see that. But when you're 25 and 30 it's hard to look forward and imagine that God's got a whole lot of life for most of us to live yet. There's some folks you're gonna go see the Lord soon. Probably it's just statistically gonna happen, but most people in this room the Lord's got a lot of life yet for us to live. A lot of work to do a lot of labor.
Speaker 1:Hand on the plow, plow straight rows. Don't look back. Set your eyes on Jesus, plow straight ahead. Plan for the next 25 years and commit to not burn out. We serve a God who doesn't burn out. So if you're hitched to Jesus, if he is your source of life, your source of identity, if he's the well you're drinking from, you don't have no ministry burnout. I feel like I can say that now, at this point in my life, like that's a lie from the devil. Now you could have personal burnout because you take your eyes off Jesus and do things in your own strength. Just put your hand on the plow and just let's, don't complicate this. Just serve the Lord with gladness, come with His people in worship, sharpen one another, care about other people. It's so important. Leave you with one challenge and thought. Maybe a word for like what? How do you chart that course? And put your hand on the plow? There's.
Speaker 1:We're going through the book of Mark right now at Red Oak. There's just point in Mark, chapter four, where Jesus says he who has ears to hear, let him hear, let him hear. And the message is clear that I need to have ears to hear. Have you ever noticed how someone that is not a Christ follower or is in a place of like disarray or backslidden state that they could hear the same words of scripture that you hear, and it doesn't affect them the way it affects you. It's because you have ears to hear.
Speaker 1:My girls love to watch the voice, and so because all three of them Juju, laili and Little and Katie, who's like one of my girls too she lives with us and so when, like because they like to watch the voice, I watch the voice with them because I want to be with them. I don't know what vibrato is, I don't give a crap. I don't know what falsetto is, I don't give a rats fanny, I don't know what your chest voice, your belly voice, your head voice? I don't know, don't care. I know some of the people sound great to me, some of them sound horrible, but I'm usually wrong on my assessment. The people that I like have never won. The people that I can't stand always win, and I've come to the conclusion I don't have ears to hear, I'm not tuned to the music, I'm not up with the trends. We just bought our son some pants called Lulu Lemon. What the crap is that. I'm out of touch. I'm an old man in a young man's world.
Speaker 1:I went to an art museum. Anybody ever been to the Atlanta Museum of Art. A lot of people, a lot of people love that. I walked through that thing with Kilby. You know why? Because I love my daughter so much. I love her so much I would go to Helen back for her, I would crawl on glass for her and I would go to the Atlanta Art Museum Because I love her so much. And we walked around and looked at some stuff that I just don't know. I don't know, chad, what it was, I just don't know. I can spin a, I can, I can, I can skin a buck and run a trot line. A country boy can survive. But I don't know about the Atlanta Art Museum. But I went and I looked and I realized I don't have eyes to see and appreciate. You know what I mean. I'm going to commit it to it.
Speaker 1:Each room or phase or stage would go through. I'd say I want to pick something I really like. A few years ago, decided I was going to rock poetry, wanted to expand my territory, realized that that wasn't going to work. So I memorized the poem and said it at Kilby's college graduation. Quoted it, recited it Boom, Robert Frost stopping by Woods on a snowy evening. So the next Christmas I received a Robert Frost book of poetry.
Speaker 1:I ain't read a single poem in that thing. I just don't know what I'm going to do. I ain't read a single poem in that thing. I just did that for my girl that night. You know what I mean. I don't have ears to hear. I don't have eyes to see.
Speaker 1:There's things that come natural for you. There's things that are easy for you because God wired you that way. You appreciate that you run in that lane. You enjoy that thing. Some people are wired to work with their hands. Some people are athletes, some people love art, some people are creative.
Speaker 1:Everybody's bent a certain way, but it is the Holy Spirit in you that will give all of you and all of us ears to hear the word of God. It's not like abstract art, it's not like music that you can't appreciate. It is the one thing every one of us is hardwired to appreciate and to understand and to get to receive. But you have to be committed to walk in that walk and putting your hand on that plow, and then stay in that course. So Jesus says let Him who has ears to hear, let Him hear. And the one that has ears to hear, I'll give Him more and I'll reveal more and He'll know more and He'll understand more and He'll grow more, because he tuned His ears to my word. You want to stay the course. It's important to set long-term goals. It's important to think about the long haul, of what it looks like when you're 50, 70, 80, if God lets you live that long. But it comes down to every single day, committing to have ears to hear, because sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow, wake up and have ears to hear and a heart to receive and a mind that's open to Jesus, and you'll be faithful when others aren't and you will not burn out and you will desire the fellowship of God's people and it'll fuel you and you'll be encouraged by it, and when you gather, you'll sharpen and encourage and enjoy, and then you'll go out and we'll all be on mission. It will impact the darkness with the light. Take wherever, wherever God's got you planted in your field of like, in your, in your vocation, your field of education, wherever you're at in a stage of life, god will use you and you won't burn out. Burn out, that's Satan's ploy. Man Jesus says this Burnout is is the thing that that you don't have to experience. Because he says take my yoke and learn from me, because my yoke is easy and my burden is light, because I'll do all the heavy lifting.
Speaker 1:Tonight I want to pray for owner rejoice that Zay is back and Cole is back with Zays here with us on rejoice over what God's done in their lives this fall. And I want to pray for Chris and Shelley Burns, who are going through a very difficult battle right now. Again, I could tell that story. I met Shelley in a second year, third year, of snowbirds existence and she served faithfully here for a Lot of years. They're here so thankful that Lord gave her the energy to come and I want to. I want to close our time before we finish with some song. I want to pray over the Burns family and specifically for God's continued hand of healing on Shelley.
Speaker 1:So if you would pray with me, lord, I Thank you that that you've given us the grace that we need. That is sufficient grace. That you've supplied what we need to live our lives and In your will and in your and faithfulness to you, and I pray that we would do that. And I thank you for all these men and women that have come from different seasons of life and ministry, seeing people like Justin and Christian and Patti standing up here in Tabitha and, and all those that were here that are now Mamas and daddies and raising families and, and, and being reminded that you are, you are growing your church, do multiple multiplication in the home, and we're grateful for that. And then also knowing that there there are people in here who have struggled through great loss, even in the last year, and that we are a community that can bear one another's burdens. Thank you for, for the bonds and for Connie and for the Mabries, and and, and for those that are ahead of us in life, that have invested in this ministry.
Speaker 1:Thank you for Chris and Shelley, and I pray for your continued hand of protection, pray for your hand of healing. I pray that you would bring peace and healing, that you give doctors wisdom, that that your healing power would be on display the way it was, and so many of those gospel narratives where you gave sight to the blind, you gave Words to the dumb, you gave hearing to the deaf, you gave the ability to walk to the lame, you gave health to those that were sick, you restored bones and muscles that were broken and atrophied, you erased and eradicated leprosy from infected flesh. Lord, we believe that you were the healer and that you can put your hand on and in the very DNA, the bone structure, the muscular structure, the lungs and the heart, the blood that is in Shelley's body, and you can heal her because you are the great physician. It has the ability to do that, and so tonight we implore, we plead, we ask you to do that. We come as your people asking you to do that, and I pray for your peace to rest on that home and that you would continue to bind them together by the hope of the gospel. I Thank you that they're here tonight and I pray they'd feel loved on and appreciated and Do thank you for Connie and her faithfulness for so many years and Thank you for all these people that at some point or another, stepped into this ministry and signed up and said I'll serve, I'll labor I'll, I'll go through long days and short nights and Import my heart and life into students that need Jesus.
Speaker 1:I'll be a representation of the gospel, and thank you that you've linked us all together through that common mission and that You've you've used this body of people to impact the world with the one thing that'll change the world, the one thing that gives all people hope, the thing that we celebrate most in this season, this time of year, and that is the incarnation of the Godman, that Jesus. You came Humble yourself, became obedient to the cross. Therefore, you've been highly exalted because in your conquest of sin and death and hell and the grave, you've taken your rightful place where you're worshiped and where you will judge the living and the dead. And I thank you that you are our king and our Savior and pray tonight. We were drawn that be encouraged by it and that you would enjoy the remainder of our time here as we worship you together, and it's in your name, jesus, that we pray. Amen. Thank you all for Listening in and joining in, and my prayer this week is that that would be an encouragement to you.
Speaker 1:I want to share some encouragement from the last couple of Weeks and episodes. Give me a second here. Okay, here we go. This is from a youth pastor in South Georgia. Hey man, nsr was great this week, very encouraging and reassuring for me personally, thank you. That's a friend of mine, who's, who just sent that by way of text. And then I want to share an email that was so encouraging. This is from a mom and Literally in like the farthest point, just about that you could get and still be in this country. She is in California northern cal, I think it'd be northern California, up near Napa.
Speaker 1:I listen each week on Tuesday mornings at my awesome farm job. I wanted to thank you for the encouragement this week's episode was to me into my own Personal spiritual development this past year and what a year it has been. She's referencing this is a family that we are very connected to. She, her husband, was had a near-death experience this past year a young, fit guy and he had a near-death experience, so they've had a crazy year. For years I've been beating myself up for not being able to stick with with these read through the Bible plans. I so often fail because I realized that the pressure to read big chunks at one time doesn't work for me. She's obviously if you, if you're a regular listener. She's referencing last week's episode, the episode from last Monday. I found that when I start reading, when I start reading Big chunks, my mind wanders and I feel like a failure and often head down the slippery slope of wondering if my faith is even authentic, because I can't stay engaged in four chapters a day.
Speaker 1:This past Sunday, one of our pastors preached on first John 1 and how our intentional personal fellowship with the Lord will help to make our joy Complete. Within the sermon he made mention of how the quality of our time with the Lord should be more important with the quant in the quantity. And now, two days later, in this episode, you say the same thing. It's amazing. My heart needed this. Anyway, just having one of those Thank you, lord, for clearly, clearly showing me something moments, and it's through faithful preachers like you that God helps to get these things into my thick skull. So thanks. I really appreciate the practical stuff you put out there, so helpful when life feels crazy and sometimes out of control. Merry Christmas to you and your family. Please tell little that I say hello.
Speaker 1:My girls remember her as the lady who caught a lizard in our backyard and how cool she is, at least compared to me who wouldn't dare touch one of those things laughing emoji and that's from a lady named Sharon who's a good friend to the ministry. So that's a, that's a huge encouragement. And circle back one time real quick to To that, that episode. You know, if you can read the Bible through in a year and you, it encourages you and grows you, that I man, I want you to do it. I hope nobody heard that episode. Well, the flip side, my goal was that people like what Sharon is saying there. That that's what people would hear me encouraged by. I've had numerous Conversations with people locally here in the ministry this week that were encouraged by it. But and I had a conversation with little about it little listens to an app that's a through the Bible in a year app and she said you know that's a really good thing and and it is because she reads, she does, you know reading and devotional stuff, but then just listening and a lot of people listen while they're driving or working and little actually.
Speaker 1:You know she's a stay-at-home mom, she's a super busy gal, that's I'll say that, with a with. So there's a caveat there. She runs so much she, she, she's in the band at slow. In the band at Red Oak Church she runs pinwheel, tutoring high bandwidth, high capacity person, and then we've got a house full. And we've always got a house full, like last weekend we had a couple. This past weekend we had I thought, okay, we're gonna have some downtime and I was looking forward to it and this is not a begrudging thing, oh, but I was looking forward to like piling up on the couch and watching, you know, a movie together. And we don't get that, like like in my house right now living, you know, I've got two kids that are gone, but I have four children at home and then little and I, sir, six of us. But there is always somebody else in our house always. I mean almost 100% of the time. I don't know the percentage, but it is high, and so it can be. You know it's.
Speaker 1:Her life can be so stressful and I appreciate that. Each day, after she takes the kids off to school, she makes herself an americano or a latte at our little espresso machine and she goes and wraps herself. She's real cold-natured and she'll wrap herself up in a really warm blanket. She, she sits in her chair, has a fire roaring and she listens to the Bible for about 30 minutes and then she does her devotions for, you know, another 30 minutes to an hour. And so she was pointing out, hey, this app is, you know, for folks that do struggle, this might be something that would be helpful, and so I know some people do already Kind of kind of use something like that. So that's a good reminder. But anyway, back to Sharon and her email. I just appreciate Sharon's email and her heart and that was the goal, and it was just real encouraging for me to hear someone say, hey, this is what I needed. So, thanks to Adam, thanks to Sharon, thanks to John, who I had a conversation with that said something similar, and Folks that have expressed their support, really grateful, thank you.
Speaker 1:I hope that you have an awesome week here as we prepare the final week before Christmas. I am, I am elated. I'm recording this a few days before it's dropping, but as of today, this Monday, the 19th, 18th, 18th, today, the 18th, or 19th, 18th, 18th, my son Tucker is home. They will be playing on. On December 27th, virginia Tech will be playing in the military ball in Annapolis against Tulane, which will be tough but fun. Tulane ended up 10 and 2 last year. Tulane beat USC and so it ought to be fun. But anyway they they gave the boys three days off Sunday, the 17th, monday the 18th, tuesday, the 19th. We'll have to drive back tomorrow and be back tomorrow night and then he'll spend Christmas in Annapolis Football practice and work out some Christmas Day. But I'm so grateful to have a little window here and so we're grateful for that. Hope this is an incredible week for all of you.
Speaker 1:The next episode that drops will be on Christmas Day. We will drop an episode on Christmas Day and it'll just be some scripture reading and and Something that that'll be hopefully an encouragement. But anyway, love y'all. Thank you for supporting us and for listening and for being here. It means the world to us, it means more than you could ever know, and so so I hope you're encouraged by the content that we put out and I hope this episode is just some good house keeping and updating and and you kind of get a feel for where Swo is here at the end of the year, and also that that you're encouraged by the word that was shared with our staff and maybe it'll be something that's Applicable for your life and I hope the Lord bless you in an awesome way this week. I believe he will Stay faithful. Keep your hand on the plow, don't look back, plow straight rows until Jesus comes back or cause you home and, lord willing, we'll see you next Monday.
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