Can You Shepherd People You Don’t Know?

Can a church really shepherd people it doesn’t know? In this episode, Brody sits down with Jonge Tate to challenge the way we think about church, leadership, and success.

They talk about the problems with chasing numbers, the multi-site church model, and why healthy churches need real pastors, real relationships, and shared leadership. Jonge also shares the lessons behind Bedrock’s church planting journey, including why sending your best leaders away may be one of the hardest and most faithful things a church can do.

This is a conversation about church planting, shepherding people, multiplying leaders, and trusting God with the results.

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Transcript

Welcome And Old Friends Reconnect

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to No Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, a podcast about the Bible, culture, and stories from around the globe. Where I want to start.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Dude, we're close, man.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Why are we so close?

SPEAKER_02 0:21

We've always been close, John G. First off, people always think we're brothers. I'll have people come here and say, I was at this event and I heard this guy speak. Do you have a brother? And uh I'm like, I got a brother, but that's not who you heard speak. And um and uh He looks nothing like my real brother.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

So funny. And I'll text you every, it's like every semester at Liberty. Yeah, the same thing happened. Same thing happened, but like, hey, you know, you got any affiliation with uh a camp called Snowbird? I'm like, mm-hmm. It's so great. You know a guy named Brody? I'm like, yeah, I sure do.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

I I will say this before we

The Conversation That Sparked Preaching

SPEAKER_02 1:05

kind of get into how we met and uh and storytelling. There's two people I attribute to me preaching and teaching and speaking. Um, and you're one of them. The f the one was Rob Hester, who died in 2007. He's a year older than me. Uh, but you're the other one just because you would push me early. You're like, dude, you got an ability to communicate. You need to let God use that. And you would just push me. I'm like, I don't want to. Do you remember where that was?

SPEAKER_01 1:34

I remember a couple conversations, but I remember one specific. Like, it's crazy how God will crease your brain and and you just don't forget stuff. Um, it was our first summer coming here. Yep. Um, and and I still don't I went home last night thinking about it. 98, 99. 99. It was 99?

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Yeah, so 98 we ran one week of camp. It was with Centergrove. Okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Um that that husband and his wife that showed up.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yep, yep, yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Okay, so 99. Um You might have come in 98, uh, but it would have been not a week of program camp because we had four or five other weeks where people came and just worked. So you might have come and done that with your students. I don't remember. But I remember in '99 doing a program. That's when we were going down to the little church down the road. We would walk down to McClellan Cove for our worship services.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yeah, I started Southeastern in '97. For your master's. For my master's seminary. Yep. And then I I went to uh we we were at that church in in Durham, North Carolina. Uh Lene got a job there teaching in their um their their Christian academy. And I just started helping the youth pastor. And then uh he leaves in January. I step up and I was full-time on that church's staff in uh by March. And so that first summer, I don't know where else I would have gone.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

And and I remember say were would have already been booked somewhere. It's possible. It's possible. Might have been 98 if it was so I do remember the first time y'all came, it was it was just y'all here. Correct. Yeah, we were the only ones.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah. Anyway, we we walked down to that church to that service, and then uh you and I were hanging out. We went back to your house. You were leaning against a post on the front of the porch. And of course, of course, you know, Kahuna spoke all morning sessions. Um, he probably spoke all the evening sessions, but you did like a morning devotional that week at camp. And and the only thing that I could equate in my brain was what you know we heard growing up, you know, when EF Hutton speaks, you know, people listen or whatever. And I and I remember saying that to you, like, do you know that? And you were like, Yeah, people listen. And I'm like, dude, what happened in that room with my students when you shared a devotional? It was like something you had read from scripture, and I mean, you could have heard pin drop. And I'm just like, that's a that's a gift, that's an anointing from God. And I remember saying to you, boy, pick up the Bible, don't put it down. God's gonna use you. Yep, you did, man. You were crossed like this, leaning up against a post, and you had one foot up against the post. I remember your posture.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Oh, that's right. Yeah, I remember the conversation, and I and I remember being challenged with it and going, Oh, I don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Because But but a lot of that for you started at the Master's Inn, I think with Mark Brown pushing.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Yeah, but I never but I never spoke.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

No, you never spoke, but you guys came over for like invitation night. Yeah, that Thursday night, impact night, I think we called it. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Your crew came over. Yeah, and I was when you told when you had that conversation with me, so I that's why I say I I attribute the direction the Lord has taken my life in terms of the speaking component to Rob Hester and John G. Tate. And it was that conversation. And then we even the next year we had a conversation, and Lenae was there, your wife was there, because I spoke a couple times the next, maybe once the next summer, and then the next summer I spoke twice. And um, but yeah, that memory that conversation is etched in my memory. I don't remember my posture. I'm sure I look like I was a redneck.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

We don't have to talk about that right now. Where we weren't once were.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

Yeah. I but I I do remember you saying those things, and I remember going, this is crazy, and I've never talked about this on here, and I don't think I've ever talked about it to anybody because it's hard to say this and it not sound come out the wrong way. But I realized that when we had that conversation, I realized something clicked where I'm like, oh yeah, people listen to me when I'm talking. And it was like not this, yep. It wasn't like a it was a it was a humbling thing. And that's why I'll know it was the Holy Spirit. And what what clicked was all my life, every coach I ever had, every teacher I ever had would say, hey man, you're the leader. People pay attention to what you're doing, they follow you. You need to pay, you need to dial in, you need to lock in, you need to you can do the use that for good or you can use it for bad. Non-Christian teachers, non-Christian coaches, they're just like, you're the influencer. And I'd always just kind of brush that aside and didn't think anything about it. And then, but I was always independent, I was never a follower. And then when you said that, it was like something sanctified that principle in my mind right then. And I'm like, okay. So this is what my teachers and coaches have been saying. God has given me a gifting or an ability to speak, and people are gonna pay attention. I better get this right right now. And yeah, but anyway, it stands out in my mind. That's cool. Um, so I'm I'm eternally grateful. And it what's what's really fun is thinking about how you knew me well before that. And so which story do you want to tell? But like for you to say, for you to recognize that, I think that was the Lord speaking through you, to you, and then to me, because it changed the course of my life. And I would say it changed that conversation made an adjustment, a major uh adjustment or direction shift for where Snowbird would go. Um yeah.

Lying Into A Job Building A Lake

SPEAKER_02 8:00

First time we met, I'd I had lied my way into a job. I write about it in the book. Sure. I can build a I can build a lake. Yeah, man. 21. Yeah, I can build it 22.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

You can run a what was the machinery you had to go buy?

SPEAKER_02 8:13

I had a D5 D5 dozer, whatever it was, D6 dozer. Absolutely. Yeah, I can buy it. I go get one. Larry Ferguson. Yeah, I I wrote a $75,000 check. I had never made more than about $8,000 in a year. That's it. And I went and bought that dozer. But yeah, I came to that, and people have heard that story. I I come to that interview, and yeah, and and he says, Can you here's what we're doing, here's the vision. We're gonna build six cabins, a dining hall, a new bathhouse and snack shop at the lake that we're gonna build. Oh, and we're gonna build the lake. Can you do that? Can you oversee all that? I was like, Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

So you're sitting in the inside of the log cabin, the master's inn. The inn. And uh I don't remember. I was I was coming back from from the village setting up TPs. It was summertime or fall time. I don't remember. We were getting ready for summer camp. Um, you were there, I walked through the door, said hello, and all I remember is you were sitting in your posture. You had your you had your elbows on your knees, and you were just kind of hunched over. The the couch, it looked like it was sitting on the floor. It was like squatted, you know, with no legs. So you were just big sitting in the chair. You had a beard, long hair or hair. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

I would have had a little bit of hair, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

But I always wore it short. But you had a beard. But I had a beard, yeah. You had a beard. I said hello. I think you grunted at me. I don't remember. I remember going upstairs. All I remember saying to the secretary was, I said, Who's Grizzly Adams downstairs? I just we just dated ourselves big time. Nobody's gonna know Grizzly Adams is right. Um, but yeah, that was uh that was my first time I met you was for that interview.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

Yeah, that's right. And that was the day I came to interview for that job, and then I came to work there. But then my favorite memory, because you were only there a year. I was there three years. I mean, you had been there, but we were only overlapped by a year.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Okay, yeah. I resigned right after I got married in 96.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Yeah. So I came to work. I came to work in the uh my first summer was 95. Okay. So yeah. Yep. All right. So did you work through the 96 summer? I did. Yep, right up to it, and then August. So we worked together almost two years. So it was closer to two years because I came in the winter of between 94 and 95, and then worked through the two summers with you. But were you and little married? Yeah. So y'all were living in that barn hayloft. Yep. Right? Yep. I just went and asked him. I was like, hey man, you got a old barn. There was an old backer barn down there and an old hay barn. And I said, Can me and little moot just stay in that barn? And he said, What, like, what do you mean? And I said, just like live in it. He said, uh, it's funny, me and JB had uh uh JB's behind the camera today, by the way. Um, and you're on the mic, right, JB? Yep.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

Hi, everyone. There we go.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

So so um JB and the element team, I just did a QA with the Element this morning, our high school program, worker uh leadership program that JB runs, JB and Laley and Lana. And one of the boys on the boys' side asked me, said, Didn't you live in a barn? And so I just told that story. But yeah, he's he thought we I meant like sleep over for a couple nights. And we moved into the barn.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Oh, the the tack room was

Living In A Barn And Work Days

SPEAKER_01 11:40

below y'all. Oh, yeah. And so we had to do trail rides. So I go over to the tack room and was like, What's upstairs? Climb up. And I'm like, it's a bedroom and with in a hayloft. In a hayloft. And uh I remember asking, like, who lives in who you think? That's right.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

Got a mini fridge up there. Who you think?

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Chris Le Adams up there.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Chris Adams and his wife.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

It's funny because them kids this morning were like, the one boy said, How did you get little to do all that stuff with you? And I was like, I didn't get her to do any. I don't ever. We were like two P's in a pot. Yeah. Two P's in a pod. Yeah, man. Let me just say that. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Absolutely. She's crazier than me. That's a special woman right there.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

She is, man.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

I almost killed you one day. Yes, you did. I think the only time in my life I've ever knocked been knocked out.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

It was an accident. If I remember right, we were, I had recruited. So here's where that came from. The guy that was the program director. So my job at that camp at Master's Inn was all construction, maintenance, groundskeeping, and then of course the waterfront with the lake after we got it built, because we did get the lake built. Uh trail rides and rodeos, and but I wasn't like a counselor. I didn't do any teaching or preaching or anything like that. You did, you oversaw and did the teaching for the children's program that we had two camps. It was a children's camp and a youth camp, but you also would come over and speak in the youth camp. That's where you're really gifted. And then the guy that oversaw the youth camp was kind of like the program director. I decided him and his team, they needed to get a little dirty. They need to work, they just in the office too much. So I was like, hey, we're gonna have some work days, and everybody's gonna come outside. Everybody's gonna work, which you didn't have a problem with. You you are already, you already would would be outside working, and right, but there was about three or four of them guys, they were like, they didn't get dirty. So I got it. We're gonna have work days, and it was clear, we'd had some storm damage, and it was a bunch of dead pines, and so I rented a big industrial industrial massive, yeah. And we're feeding. I went back there and sawed everything up, and I think I was running the saw. I I fed limbs, you fed trees. Yes, let's put it like that. JB, you know what one of those big chippers is?

SPEAKER_03 14:07

Like uh, you put the wood in, but the big ones, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Like you you put logs in 17, 18 inch logs.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

I mean, it spits out chips, yeah. We were just making a chip pile. Yeah, we had put in a uh um, it was a playground back there behind the village.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

That's where we were dropping all those trees and spreading. That's what it was. Chipped mulch. Yeah. And we were just gonna take the trees we dropped and spread to mulch. And I threw a log on accident at John Z head.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Right when I bent over to pick up a limb. Brody dropped, throws a tree.

unknown 14:40

Bam.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

And knocked him out cold as a hitting right in the back of the head. I thought you were dead. I just I thought you were dead. And so when I realized you weren't, then my twisted sense of humor kicked in.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Oh, he's standing over top of me. Standing over top of me with your they were silver, yeah, silver teeth. Yep. All I could just you were just laughing over top of me. And I'm like, I guess I'm all right, bro. He's staring at me, laughing. You're alive.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

So you left not long after that, and and I I saw you my last summer there. I saw you because you you were uh leading a little youth group, a small church, and you brought them. Then you ended up at Southeastern in '97. You went to Southeastern about the time we came here to start this. Yep. And um, yeah, and then just good early days, man. I it was really cool. I remember, I don't know if you remember this, but I remember one time um I was introducing you to a new youth pastor who was bringing students. He was here your week, and you said, Man, we're glad to have you. Welcome. And you treated it like you were one of us. And I remember that was real cool. Like you welcomed him the way I would welcome him. We were just having a conversation, and you're like, Man, we appreciate you bringing students here. And and I'm like, Yeah, man, this dude is like one of us. I mean, like, it's always funny. Like, you're you're the longest standing youth pastor that brings students here. You and Steve Brooks. But Steve Brooks, he brings a group from the Atlanta, the northern, just north of Metro Atlanta. But I didn't have prior history with Steve, but y'all both have been coming since then. And um that's the two longest standing guys. And I um I mean, you really did push me not only in that conversation, but you you got me in front of your students. Like you basically manipulated me into talking to your students. Not manipulated, but like you said it, you're like, you said it, you challenged me that night, and the next year y'all came up. I found myself twice speaking to your

From Camp Stories To Church Vision

SPEAKER_02 16:50

students. Right. Um, and then you brought me to your church a few times, and you moved you you finished seminary, moved from that church to uh a larger first Baptist church up in Virginia, and then um I remember going to breakfast one morning when you were here. We're in town eating breakfast, and you said, I'm I'm gonna we're gonna plant a church. The Lord was stirring that. Yeah. Yeah, and uh I think that was probably 06, 07. Yeah, yeah. Because you're planted with 08.

Why The Multi-Site Screen Model Fails

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Planted in 08, yeah, September 08. Here's what I want to do. And I I don't want to be critical for the sake of being critical, but I have a lot of frustration with the mega church model where guys will grow a church to 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 people, but it's on 18 campuses in three states and the same pastors being viewed on a movie screen. I don't like that. And I've heard these guys and their very prominent names, and a lot of people that listen to our stuff, listen and watch those guys. I'm not attacking their theology, I'm not attacking their faithfulness to preach the Bible. I'm not attacking any of that, but I do not like a shepherd that is unaccessible to his sheep. I do not like uh, I do not like a church model where there's not community in Sunday worship. And you know, and they've got answers for all this. I've heard it. I've heard these guys sit down. One of them was the two-time president of the Southern Baptist Convention. I mean, he's they're faithful, successful dudes who will never will never listen to me saying this, and they wouldn't care anyway. Right. So I'm not picking a fight, but I don't care how many degrees and seminaries they've been to and how many people they grow in their church, there you can still be wrong about something. Just because you got the right numbers and just because you're quote unquote successful doesn't mean you're right. And it's not the best way to do church, and I don't think it's the New Testament model. And so when you when you started this thing and we went to breakfast and you said we're gonna plant, I don't remember if you knew what we're getting ready to get into, the model that you were gonna use, where instead of growing a mega church, you were gonna plant and then replant another one and then plant another one and then plant another one. But each plant would have its own pastor, its own elders, its own leadership, its own. Um, and you would just continue to faithfully plant what I call the mothership, you know, the the the original plant. OG. The OG and train guys up and send them out, support them and get them rolling, and then they're rolling. Right. And then they're gonna do the same, and you're gonna continue doing it. I don't remember if you rolled that vision out. I feel like you did from the beginning. Somewhat. There was a couple guiding pieces that I knew that I had to be obedient to. Okay. That was the time where I first became aware of the multi-site stuff because that was when Mark Driscoll was like blowing up. And the first time I heard of that model was that Mars Hill model. Okay. So we're talking about 06, 07, 08. The first time I ever heard of Mark Driscoll was in 06 at the Desiring God Pastors Conference. And he spoke, and I was like, man, this guy's really enjoyable and engaging, and he's good. And he ended up being a little bit crazy, cuckoo, and you know, we know.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Yeah, as a communicator for sure.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

A lot of really good communicators are a little bit cuckoo. Right. Just are and as which is part of what scared me to become a communicator. Then I realized, wait, I'm a lot cuckoo. I'm a lot so crazy, but good crazy. But there's different kinds of crazy. Um, Hank reminds me all the time that I'm crazy. But um, I'm crazy, but good crazy, right? Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

You're not you're not skinny jean crazy.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

I'm not skinny jean crazy. Like a mega pasture. I don't know. That's a different word. That's a different one. Uh yeah, like a mega pasture. But some of them will go skinny jeans one day, cowboy hat, cowboy boots the next day. That's a chameleon. Mix it up, man. Gotta mix it up. All things to all people. Nope. Just healbilly to all people. All right, that's me. All right. So anyway, that's a different conversation. But yeah, it is kind of funny the way you see that play out. But but I remember that's the first time I saw that model because I followed him over the next few years. And I hey, I owe a debt of gratitude to that dude because I realized I can be Brody Holloway and and I can be me and preach and lead, and and I don't have to try to be something I'm not, you know. Right. But I remember hearing Alistair Beg articulate it in a lot better way where he said, um, he said, be yourself and lose yourself. And I think that's amazing. Be yourself, but lose yourself behind the cross, behind the power and the name and the glory of Christ. But you can be yourself in doing that. And so I feel like that dude I learned a lot from him. But anyway, he was the first guy I saw. He had churches in four or five states, and I'm like, wait a minute, how do you preach at all those churches? And then I found out, oh, he people watch him on a Live stream or whatever. Right. I don't like that. I don't care for that. Right. And I and it's not just an opinion. It's not just like that's not my preference. It's I don't think that is the biblical model of church. Um, and I definitely don't think it's the most effective model. And when someone says, well, it's successful because it's growing numerically, I'm like, that is a slippery slope. You do not want to go down. That has never been the measure of success. Jesus feeds 20,000 probably people, for sure, 5,000 men, however many left. And the next day there was about 14 of them still with him. Numbers, numbers come and go.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

No, it's about the spirit behind the number.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

Yeah. So if the spirit's behind the number, and then the number is there, great. Right. We're thrilled at Snowbird that we have tens of thousands of people rolling in over the next year and a half, you know? Like so numbers matter, but there's that's a slippery slope if you use that to say, see, we're successful. Correct. I'm gonna have a guy on here. I'm gonna interview a guy at week eight, I think, who's a bivocational pastor. I mentioned him to you last night. His daughters work here. He goes to Campbell University for Bible to get his Bible degree. He goes to Southeastern to get his MDiv, all along planning to be a general contractor and a builder. He does that, and he bivocationally pastors a church of 100 people in a rural farming community. And he's like, that's all I'll ever want to do. Because I can give something to my people. You know, because a lot of times those churches can't bring in a pastor who's really trained and equipped and gifted. That guy's not worried about numbers. Right. He's like, man, I hope God grows us and he's grown us by 25 in the last five years. Gone from 100 to 125, but they're all being discipled.

The Bedrock Origin Story Begins

SPEAKER_02 23:40

And so numbers are slippery slope. I'm gonna shut up now and I want you to walk through the bedrock story. How you planted the first church, and then before I do that, how many have y'all planted now?

SPEAKER_01 23:52

It's 11 outside of us.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

So 12 total. 12 churches. And each church has its own pastor. Correct. Own team. Its own team. None of them watch you on a screen on Sunday. No, no satellites. Do you have any idea how many people worship in those 12 congregations on a Sunday?

SPEAKER_01 24:08

No. I would say a couple years ago, um, uh, so that's been 17 years ago for us. So I would say multiple years ago, we we went around like at Easter, kind of texting, like, hey, how many did you have? Just to kind of like, God, what are you doing? And it was crazy. And I I haven't personally done that since. So I don't know. Well, but I know it's way more than if we had done it just us in Bedford and done satellite off of that. Yeah. Because we're 27 minutes from Liberty University, and that driving word was equip, right? From Ephesians 4, 11, and 12. Equip them to do the work of the ministry. I don't know how you um how how you say yes to the screens if with the word equip in mind personally. That's and but I don't want to, again, I don't want to bash it because is God using it? Yes. Um, is it the most effective? Is it the most biblical? I think that's arguable.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

No.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Right, right. So I teach this, right? One class at Liberty, and I have to teach the models for church planting. And one of them is, you know, multi-site model. However, there's always that danger of what happens when when the guy, you know, gets it wrong and falls to the flesh. What happens to, as you said, the Mark Driscoll scenario, they all crumble. All them churches crumbled. Absolutely. Every single one of them. And they leave a wake of devastation. Oh, yeah. A wake of devastation. Oh, yeah. And and so, yeah, I think that the Bible um like aggressively goes against the CEO pastor mindset.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

Yes, agreed. Oh, it's so refreshing. I just I point people to your story all the time, all the time. And anybody that's coming to that part of the country, I tell them you need to check out bedrock. That's the church I recommend. Um, so let's start with the first plant and uh and just kind of walk us through the first plant. Let's get that established. What did that look like? Just take take as much time as you want, but just kind of a brief overview how you got the church, the church planted, what that looked like, and then we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

So, so yeah, so I I'm I come from a long um history of of pastors. My father was 22 years Air Force before God called him into ministry. So I have this, I'm more military kid than I am PK. That didn't happen until high school for me. Um so but all of those men were senior pastors in a sense. That was the way my dad functioned. Yet God calling me from student ministry to um more of a you know, planting, that bug got uh kind of hit and embedded into me at Southeastern Seminary. Fastest way to reach lost people in any given community is to start something new. Um, it's not that what's there is bad, it's just we got a lot of people to reach and we're running out of time. So new generates interest. Um, that's just a principle of human nature. Um, I use this principle uh in trying to help people get it at um it's which which brand of toothpaste do you buy? And they tell me, and I go, all right, well, when you go into wherever you buy it, and the same box, same price is right beside it, it's got that little slash in the upper right-hand corner that says new and improved. Ingredients will be the exact same, it's just packaging differently. Everybody gravitates towards new and improved. New restaurant in town, everybody hits it. So there's something about new, even existing churches. They this has been tried and true. You want to grow your if you're a Sunday school model, find a closet, clean it, paint it, put some chairs in it, equip a leader, and that that room that will gather more people and it will grow faster than Sunday school group classes, if you will, that have been gathered for ages, just because it's new. Um, and I think Jesus speaks to this, right? New wine and old wineskin.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

So um, so so that was was really uh impressed heavily while I was at Southeastern Seminary. And so I kind of shifted in student ministry from trips, um, taking students on mission trips, even conversations with you. Hey, we're coming to camp, but brody, I want to, I want these kids to serve. Yes, we'll do rec, but there's an oxygen that comes when we get people serving like Jesus. And so we talked about can we go into Murphy? Can we go in and do paint whatever? And so you guys were talking, you you were already in the works of talking about like missions, SWO, track or something. And and and so we ended up in our student ministry looking up church plants and going, all right, where where's the guy who's out there beating the street, trying to reach new people with the gospel? And how can we come alongside of him? So then when I graduate, I knew that God was leading me to church planting. I just didn't know when. Uh, my father starts declining with Alzheimer's. I run into uh I'm back at the Master's Inn doing a true love weights retreat with middle school students, and there was a group of deacons there from First Baptist Roanoke, and we connected and they were looking for a student pastor. My dad starts declining, and God calls me back home to that church. So I served there in Roanoke for man, I don't know, five, six years. Because that was home for you. That was home, yeah. That area, yeah, yeah. And uh, and all the while knowing church planning is where I'm supposed to be, but uh, because of my AD, ADD, definitely, there's definitely an H capital A in there somewhere. Um, and then dyslexic, um, all those things like Moses that I offer up as to why I shouldn't be that guy. Um, and yet God saying the same thing, who made your mouth, kind of conversations. Um, the Lord was was pulling

Round Table Leadership And Team Calling

SPEAKER_01 30:20

me to a model of church planting that I had never seen, I'd never been a part of, and didn't have any concept of what it looked like, and that was team. The image that was in my head, probably from movies or whatnot, was the knights of the round table. What would it look like to serve at a round table instead of a rectangle where there's a quarterback at the end of the table, and if he chooses to throw me the ball, then but I'm just gonna go run with my piece of the pie. My job is to disciple teenagers and and you know, serve them, love them, point them to Jesus and their families. Um, but the rest of the church kind of did their own thing, and staff meetings were like we all kind of gather around and I work in my silo, children's guy, ed guy does, you know, discipleship, education, ministry. So everybody kind of does their own thing. Um, and it and it wasn't that I was against that model. I just knew God was calling me to different. And and what would it look like to serve at a round table where everybody was equal in calling, but had a different function? Um, my dad was big on your thumbprint, like leave your thumbprint everywhere you go. And and so then just the concept of that, that there's not a single thumbprint on the planet that's the same. Your thumbprint is formed by God in the womb, and it happens from a from from that child in the womb pressing against um uh what is it inside the, I don't know the terms, inside the wall, that amniotic fluid, and the fluid that runs through the finger when it presses against the inside of the wall in the mother's womb is what forms your thumbprint.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

So you this is all you're a youth pastor and you're observing what you just described. Everyone kind of seems to be wearing their hat and sitting in their seat on the bus, but everyone's not at the table. At the table, everybody's kind of running in their lane.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Yeah, and we all kind of, you know, um, and I get it, you know. And you were the student guy. I'm the student guy. And and only one guy went up on the mountain and uh that God gave tablets to. And he came down and said, This is the deal. And I get that. Um, so I'm not I'm not necessarily opposed to that, but what God was leading me to was start something that that all what would it look like to be at a church where Jesus is the senior pastor?

SPEAKER_02 32:36

That's right, because our model is not Moses going on the mountain, our model is Paul saying to Titus in Titus chapter one, the reason I left you on the island of Crete was to appoint elders in every town and equip them. Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

That's our model.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Correct. And just knowing um, you know, uh lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. Um, man, we're good at messing this up. Man, you ain't lying. Yeah. And and so then what would it look like to put into place parameters that can really protect that? This is accountability. This is um my father, again, saying to me, there's no limit to the good you can do when you don't care who gets the credit. I thought that was a him statement until he passed away. And I see a picture of Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office and it's on his desk. He said it. And I thought I thought that's a great quote. Uh, people get tired of me saying it, but I'm like, no, it really is true. Um and so, and I think at that point in my life, 14 years of student ministry, I had a really good grip on who I was, who I wasn't. Um, I had a lot of confidence in who I was in Christ, not trying to be me. And I think a lot of men don't team because they they haven't gotten to a place in their life where they realize they've already been given more credit than they deserve, and they're not at a place where they're ready to see the other guy succeed or get more spotlight than they do. Like this is about others. And I don't know how how how long you got to look at the cross before you see that. Oh man, this is why Jesus came and died.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

So good. That's the golden piece right there. And the way that what you just said connects with that quote there's no limit to the good you can do when you don't care who gets the credit.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

That's gold. It is gold, it is gold. And and so, so that all that was kind of in my psyche that I had kind of cemented as this is this is gonna be how we do this. And then there was a series of events that happened where I was. I was I was really being disobedient because I was scared, uh, doing the same thing Moses did. I'm not this, I'm not that. Um, I'm dyslexic, God. It takes me forever to figure stuff out. And then I don't remember what I read. Um, so I'm like, what if somebody comes and asks me? You know, I just I was given all these excuses. My wife comes to me and she says, I don't know what's going on, but these are some of the most joyless moments in ministry I've ever seen. Figure your mess out. Go meet with Jesus and whatever it is. And I knew that there was this call to church planting, but I was scared and I didn't know how to how to build team.

Serve Church And The Chief Shepherd

SPEAKER_01 35:20

I didn't know what that looked like. Um, and then Matthew 20, 28, through a series of events, really got pressed on my soul. Uh, even the Son of Man didn't come to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many. And uh one morning at oh dark 30, I think it was 3:45 a.m., I woke up and had had really resigned that if the Holy Spirit wakes me up, I get up, grabbed a headlamp, and uh, because there's something about a headlamp, a light shining on the scriptures that makes everything else disappear, uh, and some some good coffee. And and I read that verse of scripture and thought, all right, what does serve church look like? What does it look like for for me to wake up every day, salute chief, shepherd Jesus? Uh 1 Peter 5, we're called to shepherd the flock that is among us. When you look at that text, it's a lowercase s. And then it says, you do your job because the chief shepherd. That's a capital S.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

It's the only time it says it in all the Bible, I think.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Right. And so in mine, at the top, it says, You're always lowercase S. Don't ever forget it, right? You salute capital S. Um, and lead a team to do the same. I can't, I can't skirt leadership. I can't skirt my thumbprint and what God's called me to. But I also have to constantly surrender that pride every day and remember that quote that there's no limit to the good you can do when you don't care who gets the credit. So all of those were principles for me. And so Lene and I just kind of dedicated to to pray and fast, and God brought four men to mind. And then it was like, all right, uh, there was a man in my life at the time named Donald Gillette who was just a good friend, uh founded a ministry in Nicaragua. Uh, he was a member of the church, and I had taken students to missions there in Nicaragua. And um, you know, he would say there's a time to pray and there's a time to proceed. And so we're like, all right. And he was a former Marine drill sergeant, multiple tours in Vietnam because he says he figured out how not to die. Um powerful story. Uh, so I just said, All right, it's time to call these men. And two said, uh, maybe uh we'll see. And two's two said, yeah, we're gonna pray and fast. And so those two men, and then um two other men in my life, there were five of us total that came together and began praying about what you know, in a sense, serve church would look like in the Bedford community. And we did all our demographics and there was a lot of history there as to why God led us to Bedford. Um and um, so yeah, so starting a church where it was about team from the get-go. And and so then there's a lot of reasons why, right? I don't you I don't think you get out of chapter one in Genesis before you see the word team. Um 126, you know, the Godhead says let us. And there's something within that that's plural that pricks the brain, the psyche, the heart to go, wait, what, huh? Us? That you if you've never if you didn't grow up in church and you didn't know anything, and you just read Genesis one, you get to that and you go, okay, so God is plural. Um yeah, like I think that the Godhead speaks to team, even though they're one, right? But they're all they got distinct roles. They're they're individual. And and then of course, man, Old Testament, New Testament, it I I've referenced Moses a lot. Um, all the excuses that Moses pitches to God, uh, God even says, right, who made your mouth? Was God not able or capable of fixing the deficiencies that Moses was pitching to God? Sure he was. And if he really wanted him, he could have said, Come here, let me, let me. He didn't have to. He could say, All right, there you go. I fixed it. I fixed your supposed speech impediment. But he doesn't. He says, All right, after the anger was kindled towards Moses, he says, All right, I've I've basically I've dispatched your brother Aaron. He's on his way. God's fix is team, not let me fix the individual. That's cool. That's very cool. And and I've always kind of hung on to that because I feel like I've offered all those excuses to God, like Moses. Uh, and then of course, all the New Testament with the disciples. Uh, Acts, I mean you get into Acts and right out of the gate, um, I think guys like you and I identify a lot with Peter. Um, jump first, ask questions later. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I stand by that. And if we don't have the analysis by a paralysis people around us, I think you and I would be dead or bankrupt. 100%, 100%. Sink the ship. Correct. Run it on the rocks. 100%. Yeah. And uh, and I've learned some of that the hard way. I I need those people, I need to value those people. Um, but anywhere you see Peter standing, it says Peter standing with the eleven. There's this team, and then of course, Christ sent him out never by solo. You know, it was it was go out by team and and you know, take this gospel. And so there's so much the plurality of elders, I think you you see with the Jerusalem Council, and so much in the way that the early church was established, that is not about this one CEO. It's about this one chief shepherd, right, who died for his church, who's coming back. That's the CEO. That's the CEO. And the commander in chief. We're the lowercase S's who carry out your thumbprint, right? Um, but co-labor together. Um be yourself, lose yourself. Correct. And so that's how the first bedrock was established.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

Boy, that was man, that's so good. All of that. It's so refreshing. It's refreshing in the era of social media driven mega church, multi-site, yada blah blah blah. Just grab a hold of the oar on the ship and get your team and row this thing through the tumultuous waters of your community. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

Absolutely. And I and I think that there's there, right. We we've got all the biblical, theological, doctrinal

Scripture Patterns That Demand Team

SPEAKER_01 41:40

backing to team and church. But then there's the fun side of me that I see it practically playing out as well as a high school. I love track and field. Um, and thinking about that, right? Um, what's the most exciting event in a track and field? 100 meters dash. The 100 meter dash, there's one. What were you gonna say? All right, the relay. There's three. The four by one relay, four by one relay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And pole vault. Pov relay. Yes. Generally, any one of those three events will get people to their feet. But the four by one hundred, oh man, it is the most elect encompassing. Okay, it's electric, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:15

You get to Tuck was won a state championship on a four by one hundred team. Okay, and it was as electric as playing when he played football in a state championship. Hands down, hands down, and it was over in 40 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Okay, all right. So here's here's the reality. All right, this is this is crazy facts, all right? This is one of those, like this is this is proven, tried, and true. Fastest one man around the track, world record. This is 2026. Yep. I think this happened in 2012, maybe. I know it was Rio. Okay, the Olympics in Rio, dude from South Africa, 400 meter, 400 meter, so one man around the track one time, 400 meters, 43.03 seconds. Okay, which is cooked. That's smoke. Okay, cooking. He's got some wheels, all right. He's rolling. That's unbelievable. All right, now, is there a faster way to do it? Is there a faster time? Four by one, okay. Uh London Olympics, uh, Jamaican. Okay, you put Usain Bolt on a team 36.84. Crushed it. That's seven seconds faster.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

Insane. That's four dudes running nine second hundreds. Okay, so what's the principle? Yeah, right. All of them. I mean, anybody that breaks a 10 and gets into the nines, Colbeck, Virginia Tech sprinter, white boy, white boy, what

The Relay Principle Of Multiplication

SPEAKER_02 43:40

in the world? Colbeck is one of five dudes in the last five years in NCAA nationals or whatever that have broken 10 and running the nines or whatever. And I'm I mean, that's unheard of. And four dudes did it.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

So here's the principle for me. This was the This was uh I'm I'm standing in the shower where all good epiphanies happen, right? That's right. Uh-huh. That's it. Um or a deer stand. Treestan. Um tree stand, that's right. Uh four fast men are faster than the fastest man. That's so good, man. I mean so I remember basically running out of the shower, right? Writing in my journal that phrase. And and yet the Lord, the Lord gave you that whole thing in the shower. Yes, that right there. That's gold, man. No, I've seen it everywhere. I mean, I can't I can't take credit to that. Well, yeah, no, no, no. But yeah, but no, that's cool. So so much in life is copy and paste, right? The amount of people who are original. There's nothing original.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Right. But I mean, that is a cool thought that I love being part of a team so much more than I love doing stuff by myself. Like this team, JB's team, Austin, the the Fitzpatrick boys, the I call them production dogs. That's how I got I got a text there with 11 names, and it's that team. I'm so proud to be part of that team, and I don't do nothing. I just cheer them on and sign off you be you. Right, right. And I'm like, And they can't do you. I'm on a team. Yeah. If they try to do you, they look stupid. Yeah, that's right. And then I pointed out yesterday, we were having a meet and greet with all the leadership that from the different churches that are here right now. And I'm talking to two guys, and I said, You see that dude right there? That's Hank Parker Jr. He's like, What? He's shocked. Because Hank just stays behind the scenes, man. He's just a humble dude. I said, You see that guy, Matt Jones? I said, that guy could run a Fortune 500 company. In fact, he left the secular world to come do this. And I ain't gonna tell you what he makes, but it ain't much. He could make a lot more, he could be a multi, multi, multimillionaire, and here he is. And nobody even knows who that guy is. Right. Because them guys don't care who gets what credit. Nobody here cares who gets what credit. And Snubbard is successful for it. Right. And is and is shifting and changing culture in the youth ministry world. Bedrock is, I think that's what resonates with me. Bedrock is the closest church model to the mindset we have here. There's a like-mindedness. Um and being part of a team that resonates, man. That's good. That's so good. Okay, we'll keep going. So you get you get you get your core team. Yeah. Like you're at this church and you're going, okay, our admin guy's awesome. Our our our education guy's awesome. Our lead guy's awesome. I love student ministry. My intern's awesome. The guy with middle school, awesome, awesome, awesome. But we're not maximizing what we could be doing if we were all moving in the same direction. Right, right. And you're starting to realize.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

So well, it's a it's a look at your thumbprint. And and and and at that point, I had a good handle on, and I use the term toolbox. What's in your toolbox? What is God, you know, when when God breathed life into the nostrils of man, right? That image of that, right? Like, what did he breathe? And I and I often asked those guys on the phone, because some of that there was pushback on the phone of like, all right, I know you're a communicator, I'm a communicator. How's this gonna work? And I'm like, that's a great question. Uh, how about we surrender our pride and salute to King Jesus and let him figure it out? Uh, I don't know what that looks like. I've never been a part of it, never seen it before. Um, but I want you to be obedient to Christ. I've got to be obedient to Christ. All of us have to be obedient to Christ. And when you do, it's like what you said the other day. Um, we're always trying to figure out um the what. This is the opening message of this year. Um when Joshua says, Command me, Lord. Correct. Yeah, correct. When Joshua says that, uh that, and and the whole point is Jesus is like, look, get on get on your face. Worship me, man. Worship me, man. And uh Moses, same thing. Get on the ground. Because when you surrender to to worship King Jesus, the what always comes because he holds it. Right. It's not your job to figure out the what of your life. That's Henry Blackaby as well. Find out where God's at work, go get involved. Nowhere in the Bible does anybody go to God and say, hey, I want to plant this church in Bedford, Virginia that's gonna be a multi-whatever. Um, no, God was at work and he invited me to invite other men. They were they were invited by God the same as I was. They just didn't know it yet, or they were on a journey to following Jesus just like I was. And God just brought us all together um and and brought our toolbox of communicator, you know, whatever it is that's in your toolbox. Do that here. And let's just get on our face. 17 years staff meeting for us is we are we are on the carpet, on the ground before the Lord, begging King Jesus to give us assignments for the day, uh, because we're on his mission. This is, these are his people, this is his community, it's his soil. Um, and he's called us to be faithful, to use our talents and gifts, to equip them to do the work of the ministry. I think Revelation 19, uh, Revelation 19, 6 is uh is is the the motivating uh factor for it, right? Um so I exhort the elders among you as fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Shepherd, right? That's the that's the shepherd. Wait a minute. I'm reading. You're in first Peter. I'm in first Peter, by the way. Thanks. See, team accountability. That's still that's good. There's the team right there. Um, all right, here it is. Then I heard the then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like a roar of many waters, and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out. This is the church, by the way. Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. What you and I do every day is we are readying his bride. And that's what keeps us driving. That's what keeps us taking fire, right? Because he's coming, right? It was granted to her to clothe herself with fine linen, uh pure and bright, um, because he's coming. Like I think what there's a motivating factor when you submit and surrender to the book that he wrote, you understand your role, you understand his role, you keep it constantly in view, and you go, wait a minute, everything that we're doing is to make ready the bride. Like you go out here to the Nanahala, you go to some big waterfall. It is a roar that is unlike any other sound. And scripture eludes, I mean, John writing this is like, man, there's a roar of the body of Christ. Being over here, I love coming back to Snowbird because I love the worship. Uh, the other day I just I videoed uh a room full of hundreds of young men singing to Jesus. There's a roar that's in that that is unlike any other roar. And so teams are gonna get us there faster, farther and faster, um, than one guy.

Two Locations And The Need To Cut Loose

SPEAKER_01 52:00

Yeah. Than one guy. So yeah, so we so we did that. And so then what happened with us is we started drawing people from over an hour away. People were coming from Salem and Roanoke to Bedford. And we thought, this is this isn't your community. People are listening to Sunday morning sermons and they're going back to their community and telling people about Christ, getting fired up for the gospel. And then they say, Yeah, follow me to our church. And people are like, What is what are you crazy? Why would you drive that far to go to church on Sunday morning? And and and that was again that early days for us was we had these three B's, uh, build relationships, build believers, and build churches. It was kind of a motivating factor for us. And uh, and so one of our mentors said, Well, there's three of you who preach every Sunday morning, right? What's what's you know, because y'all would rotate. We would rotate around from the big from the get-go. And uh, and two of us were we're 50-50 for the most part every other Sunday. We just rotated. And and so it's that um, well, what what's one guy doing when the other one's preaching? Well, we're sitting with our wives listening, and he and he said, Well, why don't you just send a rotate that guy out and and be live out there? And we already had groups that were gathered in that area. Instead of getting a campus and putting a TV screen over there, correct. And some of those arguments, I've had conversations with those people who've chosen to go that way, and they say, Well, we feel like it's it's a wise steward of um of the shadow that's cast from that individual.

SPEAKER_02 53:40

Yeah, they're just wrong. And I go Okay, all right. They're just wrong. Oh, yeah, I get it. My heels could not be more dug in on something. They it is not the best way to do this. It is not anyway. Right. With with the call to equip, I don't know how you go that route. I don't know how you go that route, man. Right. And shepherd has got to smell like sheep.

SPEAKER_01 54:01

Correct. Not like now, I and I don't think that satellites can reproduce themselves. They can't reproduce themselves because they're constantly tethered to an umbilical cord. So I'll tell you this. So we started rotating, um, preaching in Roanoke. We brought on a campus pastor. Um, a friend of mine came from North Carolina to, in a sense, be the boots on the ground shepherd for that flock there, but we still team taught okay. Two guys coming from Bedford out there, and now there was this three-headed preacher. But in a sense, we became the traveling preacher.

SPEAKER_02 54:39

Two campuses, three preachers sort of rotating between. Correct. Except for that guy would stay at that campus. Right. And then you and the other guy, who I think I know, would would do both campuses. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 54:51

Okay. So it was it was one church, two locations was our okay. But it was live preaching. Live preaching. Wasn't satellite. Okay. Well, it didn't work. It didn't work because the we were already established as the leaders, the shepherds, when we brought him in. Great guy, dynamic leader. Um, it just he we just couldn't get him up. And and that year, um, I forget what I did, but my wife gave me a birthday present to jump out of a plane. So I go skydiving and coming home, we were in the middle of all of that. And and I had this, I just had this, this, I don't know, uh, image of what if I'd have jumped out of the plane and I'd have gotten hung up? What if something at 120 miles an hour, you know, or the however fast the plane's going, you you you fall to the earth at 120 miles an hour. So, but if I jump out of a plane and some strap gets hung up, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be beat to death until somebody cuts me loose. And that was the image. We had planted this church, we had brought on a campus pastor, and we traveled out to him, but we needed to cut it loose because his leadership was never gonna flourish as long as the main guys kept coming. As much as we still lived by the principle of no limit to the good you can do, um, it just we had to we had to cut it loose. So we had to relaunch it.

SPEAKER_02 56:18

Okay, before we get into the relaunch, here's the distinctive that I want to really, really I want to point this out. Um the multi-site movie screen model says, we're gonna put a campus pastor. They'll say, Well, we have a campus pastor. But they're doing the opposite. They're saying we need to keep him on a leash. He doesn't get to preach on oh, he gets to preach six times a year or whatever. Right. And so you John G you show me any pastor you've ever met who has the call of God on their life to shepherd the flock of God. And now tell that guy, you don't get to preach. You don't get to break the bread of life and and instruct and disciple your peop your people. Because one of the responsibilities of a pastor, one of the qualifications of a pastor is able to teach, right? And so they go, Well, he's able to teach, so we'll let him teach one out of every eight Sundays. So it's the opposite. What they're doing is they're saying, Yeah, that's yeah, that's right. He's gonna be the campus pastor, right? And we want to keep him strapped down. He doesn't need to be the guy that's preaching every week. And you're saying if this guy's gonna flourish and this campus is gonna flourish, we're gonna have to take a step back and let this guy lead. Because I don't here's the one thing that's critical for I think for people to understand preaching, the preaching ministry of the pastor is part of how people begin to identify him as a leader within that congregation. And you can have other leaders, but like the people, when I said Muggs and Hank are behind the scenes guys, it's crazy how often I have to explain to people, those guys are as much a leader of this ministry as I am. Right. But they don't see them up front, so they don't associate. Well, in the local church model, if a guy is the quote unquote campus pastor, but he's he's not he's not given the responsibility of every facet of leadership, I think that guy's gonna, I don't know many guys are gonna stay in that role long. And so then you're not building longevity. Yeah, man, it's very freeing to just be yourself, but not try hard at everything. Just like, man, be yourself, lose yourself in in the mission and the call, and the cross is in front of you, and you're behind it. And I got this little sticky note, right?

SPEAKER_01 58:37

It's on my desk. And uh, and this was from my dad. My dad got it from somebody. Um, and it's this little yellow sticky note that's on my, I got this H V A C closet downstairs where I study. And it says, May

Inspiration Over Imitation In Ministry

SPEAKER_01 58:50

the vision for your life be from inspiration, not imitation. And so much we go, ooh, look what Brody's doing. Ooh, I need to be like Brody. I need to stay like Brody, I need to walk like Brody, I need to tell stories like Brody, I need to, and and really like God's like, no, right? There's only one of that guy. There's only one of that guy. And we have, and I think in this, and you guys have talked about this some because I've heard it from my students, um, AI, the dangers of just being able to copy and paste. I mean, two clicks, you know, and I'm done. I didn't have to put any, you know, prayer, fasting, seeking the Lord. Um, and and like the the concept of how creative is God. Yeah, He is unbelievably creative. And in the garden, he brings the animals to Adam and says, Whatever you name them, that's its name, which is nuts to me. Me too. If I create something, yeah, my name is on it. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, man. That's one of the coolest scenes in the Bible to me. It's crazy. God wants to partner with us. Yeah. That's nuts. That's nuts. And and so, how much creativity do we miss because we it's just easier to imitate instead of, you know, you want to you want to meet with Jesus. You want to learn how you know, how do I know when God speaks? Well, learn to hide and seek, right? Learn to just go hide away and get alone with the creator, and he'll he'll create in you.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:30

So you get to this point with this church where you're like, okay, we got to do this differently. And so instead you you said you call it a reboot or replay.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

So we yeah, we relaunched them.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:42

Relaunched them.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:42

Yeah, where we were no longer gonna go, and it was gonna be him and the student guy. So his student pastor who was there, those two guys became the the plurality, uh, if you will, of that church. We remained as elders, kind of helping guide and oversee operating similar to the Jerusalem Council. Yep. Um, just advice, guidance, accountability. That we did uh sermon prep together. They drove to Bedford and we still team taught. We still team prepared.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:12

You're all teaching at at both campuses, you're teaching sort of the same outline or flow, main point of the sermon. There's consistency between campuses.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

Yes, yes. And and and Chris was our main guy at the time who was kind of helping, he was just a brilliant with guiding sermon prep. And and he would say, we come up with, in a sense, the bones together as a team, and then everybody goes and hangs the meat on the same bones because you got your own stories or you got your own DNA that you bring to those bones, the sticky statements of the context of this of the text uh was all kind of planned together. And I'm telling you, uh, this has been so refreshing. I will never, ever, ever go back to the way, in a sense, that I used to do ministry in those silos, or just me being the guy coming up with the content before at that time it was teenagers. But man, this has been so liberating. And I've heard so many guys through the years now talk about that after 17 years of going, man, that that's just so that church they they they started rolling. Yeah, yeah, they did, and and they went through some rough waters because they were in a sense rebirthing a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:26

Um and then and then how long until you then the third one, the next one launched.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:32

Yeah, so the timeline is crazy. Um, and and I don't have it all straight in my head, but you know, we had a guy from Liberty University who uh played football for Liberty. Um God was calling him to church plant. He had he had been at another church serving and doing an internship with a big pastor, and and God brought him back and he felt like God was calling him out to Montana. So he we plant a church in a sense through him and a team of people that went out there with him. Um, and then that church, you know, kind of morphed into another church, and so that's now in Dillon, Montana, uh Logos church out there. Um then it was just kind of like the snowball. But what happened, Brody, was now we had we didn't have kids out there, we had grandkids because the kids were reproducing. And the grandkids, the beauty of it is they may never they may not know my name. Yeah, right. Because why why would you talk about me? Yeah, you talk about Jesus, right? Um and I and there's a trap.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:35

Uh the the mission mobilizer from the 18th century, Ludwig Zinzendorf, who said, preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten. Yes, that's good. Preach the gospel, die, be forgotten.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

Right. Well, I I mean, I don't remember who said this, but I I I I do I know my my great grandfather's full name. No, I don't, but he's that's part of my history. But I have no idea what his name is. What'd he look like? Ah put him in a lineup with a bunch of pictures? Ah, may I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:09

Two gen three generations removed.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:11

And I think great leaders realize at the end of your life you're gonna get a rock. That's it. You're gonna get a rock. This is about Jesus. That Luke 9, 23, right? Take up the cross daily, die to self, follow me. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:26

Which is bookended at the end of that same passage about what we talk about around here. But no man who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. Right. Right. It's a picture. I saw that. Yeah. The plow. Just plow, man. Just plow.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:42

Yep. And stay in that field plowing until God moves you to another. This idea of pitching your resume around because there's greener grass on the other side.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:51

And you can't plow in that field and put computer video screens in a bunch of other fields and let them watch you plow and grow crops. Right. Am I right, JB? Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:02

You're right.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:03

They'd be laughing. Are you laughing because it's a brody or are you laughing because it's wrong?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:10

No, kind of both.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:11

Okay. Yeah. Wait, because it's wrong?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:13

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:14

Oh no, she she says you she agrees with me.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:17

So I agree that it's like not the model.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:20

Okay, okay. I was like, all right, all right, Jimmy. You're like, I'm gonna get checked. I'm gonna get checked. No, no, no. Our team has got freedom to call me out. They know it too. That's good. It's good. Because we ain't always right. That's right. Um, nope. Okay, so so you uh when did when did Jeremy's plant happen? Was that then like the next one?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:42

Uh no, at some point in there, yeah. There were um there were many uh small groups that were already gathered in the Lynchburg area.

Planting In Lynchburg With Kingdom Mindset

SPEAKER_01 1:05:50

So were you 30 minutes away? More than that. Forty five. Boonesboro area is it's over 40 minute drive. Okay. And some of those people were like, hey, they were some of those folks that were like, hey, we I was in, I was in this park and Sharon Christ was somebody at this playground equipment, and they said, Man, I'd love to go to church with you. Where do you go? Bedford. And they're like, Yeah, it ain't happening. So, but then there's that ask of, Are we really going to plant a church in Lynchburg?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:16

In the city that has the largest evangelical university in the world. Right. Where a church a year has been planted for the last 30 years. Correct. Right. And the answer was, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:26

Well, the answer was like, you must you're crazy, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh, and I'll tell to exactly how it happened, right? I get this, I get this email or phone call uh from somebody at Thomas Road that was inviting uh area pastors to something that Jonathan was wanting to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:42

So we go over to the pastor from the Liberty Church. From the church associated with Liberty.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:49

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:50

So it's a mega church.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:51

It's a big church, yeah, yeah, yeah. So so we go over there.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:53

Faithful dude. I'm not throwing off on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:55

Correct. Yeah. And um, and I sit down and we're wrestling with this. Are we really gonna we're we're a church that God has called to be a multiplying agent? Our DNA is we plant churches. And and at this point, uh Bedford would swell and yet we're out of space. So do we go buy land from Aunt Somebody and build a big metal building and because we can, or has God called us to just raise people up and send them out? Or do we go to three services? Correct. And and so all of that was in the psyche, and we're wrestling with that. I go to this meeting, all these church planners and some already established pastors in the area, and um and and the lead guy says, Hey, John G, what's going on in Bedford? How can we be praying for you? And I'm like, am I gonna drop this in this room right now? Because that would be with integrity. This is what I'm praying about. I said, All right, I'll just ask y'all. So I lay the scenario out. Uh, we got we got several hundred people coming from this area to Bedford, and we're we're a church planting church. That's who we are, it's our DNA, that's what God's called us to do. And and I'm like, are we really gonna do this in Lynchburg? And the lead guy says, You're you're wondering if you should plant a church here. And he goes, put it on our back patio. He said, You're gonna reach people that we won't because you got a different DNA. I love that guy, I don't even know it. In the in in that moment, what got established was this is about kingdom, not club. I love that guy. This is about kingdom, not club.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:32

I have no idea who that dude is, but he gets it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:35

This is about kingdom, not club.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:36

Kingdom not club, building over our back patio.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:40

So we did. So we did. And depending on who you ask, how many people left, right? We we released. There's that that scene in scripture where they laid hands on them and they released them like dogs. Like let the chains off, let them go get it, right? And so we looked at Jeremy, looked at the other team members that were with that were associated with that, that were heading out. There were three, in a sense, elders. We had raised a guy up and and uh said, okay, farm the system. There's nobody that's off limits here. Number one, I don't know who gives what because I got nothing to do with tithe.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:19

So you're saying to you're getting ready to launch this new plant out of your mothership, out of the main. There's already groups in that area. There's groups in that area meeting, doing small groups, and you say to the guy that's gonna go be who you've basically I know the story, but you've mentored and trained this guy up. He was one of your students when you were a student pastor at a different church. Came to Snowbird. Yeah. So you're now gonna uh and his son came and worked here. Oh yeah. Was here for a couple years. His wife was here, his wife was here. Um, so they're they worked here at different times, but then their son now has worked here and he's moved on. And so they're you're saying you're gonna plant you're gonna be the guy with this plant, and you do you can take anybody you want to from the market. Cast the vision. Cast the vision. Anybody wants to go with you can go with you. Correct. Right. New generation. You've grown to maybe 500 people at this point or whatever. It's several hundred. Yeah. But let's say, let's say it's 500 people. Yeah. And you're saying, take a couple hundred of them if you want to. Yeah, we didn't say numbers, we just said, dude, cast the vision. And tell people can go. We're not scared of who goes. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:27

Tell people what God is doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:28

This is this isn't about you or me. The pastor at the mega church in town is saying, build a church before you. Right. You're saying, cast a vision. Whoever wants to go can go. Right. This is beautiful. Now that's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:40

But it is not easy. It is not easy. When you got to wear it. And you're like, oh, they go in. Oh, I like those people. I just had fun with them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:48

They were, we just had to do that. You lose. You did you, other than him, did you have key leaders go?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:52

Oh, yeah. I know. Oh, yeah. There was like a third, if you will, of our leadership said,

The Cost Of Sending People Out

SPEAKER_01 1:11:00

We got to go. We got to go. Absolutely, you got to go. But then behind the scenes, you know, you're like, ah, you're licking your wounds. You're like, Jesus. That took time to develop them. First Sunday of their launch. We're in this 736-seat auditorium at Liberty High School in Bedford. Big auditorium. Big stage. Man, you could have heard crickets. It was the most humbling moment backstage. And we're just kind of like, ugh.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:31

Because they're the people that are going have gone. They're gone. This is your first Sunday after, and they're running their, they're having their first service over there. Yep. And you're having now what's left.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:42

Yeah. What's left. And and realizing we probably didn't do the best job we could have to train leaders to come behind them. Because I don't know, man, for so many myriad of reasons, but um that was a gut check. That was a gut check. And I remember backstage, you know, looking to whoever team that was there. And I was just like, are we ever going to be the guys that like have our own name on our parking space? Is that our goal? Because if that is, then we're we're doing the wrong model. No, that's not us. It's never going to be us. We're always going to be hand to the plow, discipling. And so it's time to buckle your bootstraps and go back to it. We got to raise up more disciples. Now, I was preaching that Sunday. We had this huge, we had the biggest screen that we could afford to put God's word on. Uh, because we got people coming, lost people from this community. And so we're like, get it as big as we possibly can, just teach expositionally through the scripture. And that, and it was a big apparatus. It took a team of people. Well, the leader of the team and many of the team members were on another stage because they had been, they had been released to take the gospel to that area. I'm preaching, and all of a sudden, tink, tink, tink, tink, some things started popping, and the screen goes, it kicks to the side and then falls forward and stops. And it was just this moment of keep raising up leaders. You like this idea that you're gonna arrive and just get to show up in your green room and dude. You could have it's not us.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:18

But why didn't you just keep everybody there and put a screen at that other campus in Lynchburg? And right? Right. That's exactly right. You wouldn't have had to deal with all that stress of what you just described. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:30

So, so that that was the that was the launch of Lynchburg. And uh, and and you know, it's always your aim that when you send your kids out into the world, that they do a better job than you did, right? That's that's healthy parenting. Um, they grew. They grew immensely, you know. Um, and and man, it's just such a an amazing feeling to watch, you know, something that that God has used you as a small part of on a team to develop and send out, and they're doing it better than you, but yet, man, it's also a gut check. It's hard, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:07

It's hard. All right, last last thing, and we'll wrap it up. Um, we got to go meet our brides for lunch. Yes, it's gonna be awesome. They're calling. But here um I wanna I wanna

You Cannot Outgive God

SPEAKER_02 1:14:20

ask a couple more questions. So, how long then from the Sunday that they launched and the and you're there going, oh man, we're down, our numbers are now a fraction of what they were. And you're starting in one sense, you're you're not starting over, but you're you've taken numerically a huge step back because you've chosen to do it this way instead of putting a screen on another campus and saying, Yeah, we'll project me on a screen down there. How long until that church was kind of like back, just booming and growing and flourishing? The OG? The OG numerically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What did that what did that re kind of coming back up to speed? What'd that look like?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:03

This is like constantly looking at at the Bible, looking at the theology, what you know about the character of God and what he says in the principle of the tithe, right? I mean, he says, see that I don't throw open the windows of heaven. But because we lack so much faith to just trust him and follow him in what he says, we miss it. Um I I don't know that I can turn around in 17 years and and go, we were at a deficit financially or a lack for people. Because we just constantly give it away. The gospel is the flow is just the resources, right? Man, I don't want to be that that reservoir hoarder of God's goodness and grace and and and the gospel. No, this was yes, it's for me, but it's not just for me. It's never just for us, it's always to be given away. And and so, man, it's it's the principle you can't outgive God. Oh, so good. You can't outgive him through through whatever your time, right? All these teas we talk about, time treasure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of that. Um God just brought more people. We just experienced it with our most recent church plant 12 miles up the road from us in Forest. Um, with one of our OG founding elders, Chris and and Adam. Um, he came on later. Uh, but those men are from that area, they live in that area and felt like God was leading them. Man, that was hard. It was hard. Those were friends, those were guys that we had been in the trench with, you know. Um, I mean, that brother that's born from adversity, Proverbs talks about. Um, those were those guys. And and 12 miles up the road, we're gonna send a hundred plus people uh to keep getting it. Yeah, you know, and and now here we are. I mean, right after that, people are like, man, how are you guys doing? And I'm like, I mean, God just brought more people. We still got the same issues we had before.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:15

And we still I love this, man. So about 11 churches now.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:20

Yeah, there are 11 outside of us.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:23

So 12. So 12 total. So cool. All over the U.S. Like like on a normal Sunday right now, you're you're how long ago did that forest church launch? What was their launch week?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:34

Uh they launched in September. All right, so less than a year. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. They're there are two, they're there, I think they're in year three or year two.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:42

Okay. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:43

Yeah. I'm bad with this.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:44

But and and Sunday at the OG, the church that you're the the guy who's the lead pastor, I guess we would say, or um what your your numbers are typically four or five hundred people?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:58

Uh yes, between five and six hundred adults and then plus children, 120 kids.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:03

So seven, eight hundred people. The reason I bring the numbers up is not here's the reason I bring it up because people get obsessed. I feel like so many young dudes coming out of seminary. I do feel like there's a shift now back to it doesn't matter. I don't need to worry about growing a mega church or having thousands of people. But 800, 700 souls that God's put in your care, you can't handle that many. And I just and so to faithfully pastor and shepherd, there's so much more to it than running a podcast, posting your sermons, doing your sermon content, doing a follow-up podcast that goes deeper on the sermon. That's all fine. There's I'm for all

Shepherding Real People Without Celebrity

SPEAKER_02 1:18:50

of that. I mean, we're saying this from a podcast platform, so I'm for it. But there is something about the first Peter 5 text that you that you referenced, where man, I am the under-shepherd, the little S shepherd, and I'm gonna answer to the chief shepherd for how I lead his people. And part of that leadership is do I know what not do I know what their thumbprint looks like? All 400 of them, all 75 of them, all 130 of them. Whatever. Do I know what their thumbprint looks like? And if I don't, and if I can't get there, it's time to it's time to bring somebody else in to help, or we're not shepherding well. Does that make sense? Because we talk about thumbprint and and each one of us is individual, but we're part of a team to take that a step further. I need to know my people and I need to know what their struggles are and how they're hurting and what they need and how I can shepherd them well. That doesn't mean I'm gonna know every single one of them, but I need to have a team where that team that you talked about, we as a team know what's going on with our people. Right. And they're being cared for and ministered to, and um, I think that's so important. I love it. Yep. Uh it was cool having Paco and Duke on here. You know them boys. I do know them boys. You know them boys in the context of the stories they told us. They're grown men now, but man, they were wild. Back in the day. Yeah. Back in the day, running around. So cool, man. A lot of history. We got a lot of history. If God lets us keep breathing and living, it'll be a lot more. And then one day, Lord willing, that's right. One day we'll be we'll be in the kingdom together, feasting and living and working. And I don't know what that's gonna look like, but we're gonna sit around and tell stories about what the next 20 years look like. Right, right. Pretty cool to think about. I'm I'm forever indebted to you. And I um I, you know, I I don't know, I I don't know if people realize how critical these kinds of relationships are for ministry and for you know for lifelong ministry and partnerships, and we see we see each other once or twice a year. We text more frequently. Um but but I'm grateful for it. I'm grieved that more men don't have it.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:22

They don't. And that's yeah. Yeah, there's uh there's a brotherhood that's formed, you know, in in the in the trenches of the gospel. Yes, that tethers you together. Um and we pray, we pray about it almost every Monday. We we're just grieved by the guys who don't have it, who are sitting in a desk, you know, or in their home or at their because they're working like the guy you referenced earlier, who's who's bivocational, um, and he's tending that flock. Uh, but even in those scenes, I think you can still honor and obey the scriptures and and uh operate within a team. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:05

And there's nothing like it. Yeah. Nothing like it. And you can do a lot more than you realize you have the capacity for when you're a part of that team. Right. The multiplication is one dude grow becoming a team of two or three or four people, it doesn't double or triple or quadruple the the output. It's exponential the growth. Right. Goes back to that principle of the Lord begins to flow through that. Um, yeah, man. Well, I appreciate you. Yep. Appreciate y'all.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:37

Y'all love love y'all. Keep stay at it, man. Just from a guy on the outside of NSR driving down the road, listening to y'all. I'm I pray for y'all and man, I'm honored, humbled to know you, and um excited

Brotherhood In The Trenches

SPEAKER_01 1:22:50

to see what guy's doing here.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:51

I I um now's a good time for me to throw a curveball at JB.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:54

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:55

But I think I really want to start doing a second episode each week, a shorter one, like a 20-minute. You know, we do those. Well, anytime we drop a Thursday bonus, Wednesday or Thursday bonus, we get phenomenal response. So we have so much content right now that we that I want to tackle and that we've talked about. And uh anyway, we'll see. We'll see if we can pull it off. I don't want to overload her. She gets ready to get married. Oh.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:20

Right. Somebody here. He's on the construction and maintenance team.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:25

Nice. Yep. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:26

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:27

That's exciting.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:28

Yeah, he also, Blake also is one of our element guy leaders. Okay. He's discipling young dudes. He's a community group leader. They're pretty cool. He's he's learning the construction trade and really growing well in that area, but he

Bonus Episode Idea And Closing

SPEAKER_02 1:23:40

also is learning ministry leadership. So he leads he leads a community group of young guy staff, and he's an element team leader with our 20 high school guys for the nice. Yeah. They're gonna be a power couple. Let's go. Yeah. Let's go. All right. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:56

Thanks for listening to No Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at swoutfitters.com to see all of our programming and resources. And we'll see you next week on No Sanity Required.