How Letting Go Of “This” Unlocks A Church’s Calling

What if the plan you loved wasn’t the path you needed? We share how a postponed church plant, a surprising phone call, and a three-word dream—invest, build, multiply—reshaped our next steps and clarified our mission to help people refocus on Jesus. The journey wasn’t tidy. It meant saying yes when comfort said no, moving back when logic said stay, and trusting that surrender would unlock impact we couldn’t manufacture.

We walk through the nuts and bolts of the vision: why community groups are our engine for discipleship, how sermon-aligned studies create shared growth, and why we’re committed to missions giving that stretches our faith. You’ll hear a year-in-review snapshot—baptisms, youth momentum, prayer rhythms, block parties, benevolence meals, and partnerships—along with the conviction that our city should feel different because our church exists in it. We talk candidly about building leaders we might one day send and choosing spiritual maturity over passive attendance.

Anchoring it all is a challenging look at Matthew 19 and the rich young ruler. The issue isn’t money; it’s the “this” we refuse to surrender. Everyone has one. We name ours and invite you to name yours, believing Jesus’ promise: what’s on the other side of surrender is better. As we pray toward expanded youth ministry, breaking ground on a new space, launching recovery support, and multiplying community groups, we keep returning to the same call—less of us, more of him, for the good of our neighbors.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs courage to let go, and leave a review with the one “this” you’re ready to surrender. Your story might be the spark someone else needs.

Transcript

Welcome And Backstory

Calling Disrupted And Delayed

The Dream: Invest Build Multiply

Mission: Refocus On Jesus

Community Groups And Discipleship

Missions Giving And Local Need

Vision: Invest Build Multiply Detailed

Multiply Leaders And Impact

The Rich Young Ruler

What Is Your “This” To Surrender

Year-In-Review: Ministry Highlights

SPEAKER_02 1:04

So, for those of you who are new here, welcome. It's important that I'm going to say that because what I'm about to tell you now, and kind of what I'm going to talk about, might make me seem a little crazy, and that's okay. I've embraced the crazy. A couple years ago, when I was coming back here, so just give you some history, my wife and I were up in the Columbus area. We've been up there for almost 10 years. I worked at a church as an associate/slash youth pastor for a while. And then we left that church and we joined a church plant. And we were with that plant for about three years. And then right around 2019, God like moved us on to plant our own church. And we were set to launch our own church plant in March of 2020. Anyone want to guess what happened? The world shut down. Everything got delayed. We didn't know what to do. We were kind of stuck. I was working in a job at a warehouse, and so I threw myself into that. And then, and my wife was a duo at the time, and she was unable to work for almost a year because hospitals are really tricky places to be in. And so we kind of took that whole year and we prayed and just we had determined that this wasn't our season. For whatever reason, this wasn't our season. And so we got plugged into a local church. Um that and I was privileged to know several uh the pastors there, but but we got plugged in and and so we kind of threw ourselves full into that. And I got on the worship team and and it was amazing. And I was able to preach there a couple times. And and so um we were there for about two years, and and we had kind of settled in that this this is it, this is what God had called us to do. I was gonna work this job and I was gonna serve at this church, and God was gonna open whatever door he needed to do. And so, in the process of that, the I I can remember it really vividly because I remember like a couple months uh into like 2022, or a couple months into 2021, I told this church, like, we're here, like this is where God's called us, and this is where we're going, and and like we believe that this is what we're supposed to be doing, and like we were all on board. And then, like six months later, I get a call from Jackie Bu. You guys know who Jackie is. Some of you do, some of you don't. And Jackie calls me, and she was at this church, and I had been here before years ago, was the youth minister, and Jackie called me and she said, Hey, listen, uh, our senior pastor's retiring. Are you interested? And I was like, No. I was like, but I'll pray about it because that's important. And listen, I we were gonna bought, we had just bought a house. I was up for a promotion at work. Everything was going the way that I thought it should go. And so what I did is I offered to come in and I did some supply preaching. And so I actually preached uh January 1st, which was a Sunday in 2022. I preached here, and I remember I left this place and the two and a half hour drive home, God was telling me you're going back. I was like, there's no way. I was like, God, I was like, why? I'm like, we just bought a house. Like, that doesn't even make like, listen, I'm not saying you're wrong, God, but maybe your timing is wrong. And so I get home, and I've always had this running dialogue with God that if you really want to convince me, it's you tell my wife to. It's come in handy multiple times in my life. So I get home, and the first thing she says to me, she says, we're moving back, and I'm like, ah, okay. Like, okay, God, you weren't wrong. And so it started this process of us coming back here. But but I say all of that to say this when we were in the process of planning a church, I had a dream one night. And I'm not one for dreaming, and definitely not one for remembering my dreams. And I remember I was standing in front of a wall of what I can only assume was a church building, and on that wall, in big bold letters, said, invest, build, multiply. In case you're wondering, that's where those words came from. And I woke up and I immediately wrote it down because I thought I have to remember this because for some reason this was as clear as day to me. I couldn't tell you the location, I couldn't tell you the building, I couldn't tell you anything other than invest, build, multiply. And so when I started the interview process here and I came down and I met with the elders of the church uh the night of, John Cooper called me and said, Hey, listen, uh, you're coming down to the elders meeting tomorrow. Can you give us an idea of what your plan is? And I'm like, What plan? He said, Well, just do you do you have something prepared? And I'm like, Nope. Just me. I sent you guys my resume. And I sat that night and I prayed, and I said, All right, God, I believe that these words are important, and I need them to matter. And if it's your will, then I need you to give me what I need to write. And so I stayed up for the next four and a half hours, it just flowed out of me. And I remember that I came and I presented it. And this has kind of been a fine-tuned process, but let me share you, share this with you. As a church, our mission statement, our our one goal is to help you refocus on Jesus. That's it. That's the focus. To help people get their life focused on the one who can change it. Now, one of the ways that we've decided to do this is uh we started doing community groups a couple years ago. So these are uh I'm gonna just read this as I wrote it. Uh, these are one of the more essential ways for us to disciple and mature current followers of Christ. We currently focus the teachings of these groups to be entered around the sermons on Sunday morning. Uh so for those of you who are part of a community group, I actually prepare a material that I send out every Monday that allows you to go back and as a group, when you get together, talk about the sermon on Sunday. Kind of a deeper dive into the message because I realize that I'm I'm standing up here for 30 minutes talking. It says uh it allows people to go deeper into the text, the topic being discussed. It allows for the church to be unified on what is being discussed and how we are growing and maturing. And it gives space for friends and families to be invited and provide them uh with that initial introduction to Jesus. So that's what we believe our community groups do. They give us a way to invite people to church who might not normally go to church. I can tell you there's been a handful of people that have come and eaten in our house months before they ever set foot in this building. That's the point. In the future, the look of these groups can be adjusted for better uh to better meet the needs of the people. So lately our topics have been focused on outreach, community evangelism. And soon we're working on uh we're still working on some new new believer classes. There's a couple more classes this coming year that I'm gonna be focused on teaching because we want to give new believers an opportunity to grow in their faith, but we also want to challenge those who've been in the church for a long time to continue the same pursuit. We believe in missions. Uh currently, I think we have four missions now uh since I wrote this, but but we believe in supporting missions local and abroad. Uh we do our best to uh my goal or our goal as a church, going into it is as as of right now, uh we give 10% of what comes into missions. I would love to get us to a place where we give 25% of everything that comes in. Because that's that's how committed we want to be to the missions that God is doing. And and again, reach is one of those missions that we've chosen to support this year. We also desire to be focused on mission, being mission-minded in the community that we lived in. We live in an area that could be defined as economically depressed. And as the church, we feel it is our role to breathe life and love back into the community around us. One of the ways we do this is by being a place of hope and provision for people who are in need. As we continue to grow, we trust God will provide opportunities for us to grow in our community outreach as well. Our prayer to be the church that is defined by being on mission, and this means locally and abroad. Here's our vision for this church. As a church, we should be intentional with how we invest our time, our finances, and our service. Again, I wrote this two years ago, which is kind of cool. Um, next year, so last year's mission or the year before was his kingdom first. Uh, this year's kind of overall arching theme uh was beyond mission, and next year uh the theme was going to be a fully surrendered life. So we want to make sure that we're investing our uh our efforts in the building of God's kingdom first. There are several ways in which we would do this. We want to increase our financial spending and missions. We want to invest in community projects that focus on uh showing people the love and the goodness of God. We want to invest in community groups that are designed to create a place for discipleship and maturity for all believers. We want to invest in creating opportunities for people to serve in the local church as well as in the local community. We want to invest in partnering with other churches around us and using our combined resources to have the greatest impact for the kingdom of God. We want to invest everything that God has given us, including ourselves, to build the kingdom. We want to build through the effort of investing our time, resources, and service, we trust God will use us to build up those around us. We want to build up our own church, our own body of believers and help them achieve maturity in Christ. That's important. We're not just looking for people to sit in the pews, we're looking for people to fulfill the life that Christ has called them to. We want to we will build a community around us. This community should be better because our church exists in it. We want to build up the people around us, not just our church. We want to offer hope for those who are lost, who are hurting, who are broken. We want to spiritually build up the people in the community to refocus their life on Jesus and the plans he has for them as beloved sons and daughters of God. We want to build a church and a community center that brings life to the community around us. We want to build cross-cultural relationships to help fulfill the purpose of Christ and his desire to bring all nations to the knowledge of him. We will build relationships with the churches around us to achieve unity in Christ. That's what God desires. And we will build our knowledge and love of Christ, his church, his scripture, and his people. And last, we want to multiply. As we continue to seek God and putting his kingdom first, we trust God that will not just multiply us financially, but also numerically. People will come to the knowledge and acceptance of Christ and develop their own relationship with him. We will multiply the leaders in our church and trust that some of them will become Timothy's for us. This is probably the hardest part. There will be people that we raise up in this church that we will send from this place. And that's okay. God will multiply our abilities and our connections to the local community in order to provide us with the greatest opportunities to see his kingdom being built. He'll multiply our multiply our finances in order to increase how much we currently give to missions because we believe in supporting his kingdom growth. God will multiply us in attendance in order for us to have a larger impact in the community around us. God will multiply us in order to build his kingdom and bring as many people to the saving knowledge of Jesus as possible. That's just a small look at our focus. We want to invest. We want to build, we want to multiply. And listen, I I understand people get weird when churches talk about money, but it's a fact. The finances we bring in help do the ministry that we do. It helps support uh the local ministries, it helps support the missions. We we are called to be people who are constantly building up the kingdom of God. It's about service, it's about surrender. So it only seems fitting, as we talk about a life surrendered, that we're going to look at a man that Jesus encountered who actually failed to do that. So Matthew chapter 19, uh starting in verse 16. Why do you ask me about what is good? Jesus replied, There's only one who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments. Which ones? he inquired. Jesus replied, You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself. All these I have kept, the young man said. What is it that I still lack? Jesus answered, If you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven, then come follow me. When the young man heard this, he went away sad because he had great wealth. Then Jesus said to the disciples, Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, Who then can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said, With man this is impossible, with God all things are possible. Peter answered him, We have left everything to follow you. What then will there be for us? And Jesus said to them, Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you have followed me, he will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much, will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first. You know, I I've heard this passage read a couple times. And and one of the common themes is we we think it's just talking about money. And and and we, sometimes culturally, we like to shame people who have a lot of money. And say, well, you have so much. You have more than you could ever need. And really, Jesus is saying you should give it all up, sacrifice everything, sell it all. Except the problem with that is I know a lot of really faithful believers who still have a lot of money. So in there lies a conundrum. If if Jesus is calling all of us to live sacrificially and have nothing, then how do we see it in the world where it doesn't necessarily fit? Because again, I see I know of a man, and I will not speak his name, he's a good friend of mine, but I know of a man that when we were at a church we were at a couple years ago, that he himself donated uh one and a half million dollars to missions every year. And I only know this because I sat in some offices and I saw numbers. Not that I was like out there prying. But but I know this man's heart. He he was so giving. God had blessed him tremendously, but he he gave money away as freely as he received it. That's not what happens in this encounter. This this young man comes to Jesus and says, Listen, I've done everything right. I follow all the rules, I obey all the laws. What am I missing? And Jesus specifically targets the one thing that he was unwilling to surrender as well. That's important. Because there was something about his money, whether it was security or his finances, like there was something about his life he was willing to do and be obedient as long as it didn't cost him this. And and what's interesting is you and I might not have a lot of money, but all of us have a this. God, I will follow you to the ends of the earth as long as you don't touch this. This relationship. God, I just bought a house. I'm about to get a promotion. Don't don't you dare call me back to a church that I was at years ago. God, this doesn't make sense to me. God, I God, don't call me in the mission field. I I don't want to go over there. God, I I don't want to give up being comfortable here. God, I don't want to, I don't want to lose the thing. God, I'll serve you. I'll go to church, I'll do everything I'm supposed to, as long as you don't call me to give up this. And and the problem is oftentimes, what keeps us from fully seeing how God can work in our life is our this. That's what this young man missed. He had everything. Who knows what he would have had had he sold everything. I mean, I mean, the the the disciples even God says, listen, you'll be blessed a hundred times. Jesus says you'll be blessed a hundred times over. But he couldn't let go. Whatever this in his case, his money. He he couldn't let go of his comfortableness, he couldn't let go of his life. He he he wanted to follow God, he wanted to serve God, he followed all the rules, but but he was unwilling to to take that next step.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

So that's why going into next year, living a surrendered life, I think, is going to be important. Because we all come to this place with ideas and hopes and wants.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

We all come to church and hope that it's what it wants it, what we want it to be. We want to be comfortable. We like our things. We like our seating. We we're we're comfortable and and oftentimes being comfortable because of that, we fail to let go of the things that are holding us back.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

We've done a lot this year.

Community Presence And Outreach

SPEAKER_02 21:50

I sat down last night and and I wrote it out. I like to reflect back on on things that have happened in 2025. We brought on Jesse, part-time, as our youth minister, which I'm excited about. Jesse's not up here. He's the guy that plays drums, if you don't know. He's downstairs uh with the kids, which is good on him. Uh they went on several different hiking trips that they had. They went to Winter Jam. Uh they they meet on Sunday nights. Uh they started, they did an overnighter uh this year with uh they teamed up with a church across the river called Crossroads. Um really huge overnighters, like over 100 kids. It was really cool. Uh I loved it. I was here until two, and then I went home and I went to bed because I can't do overnighters anymore. And I've tried some different other events we've had. We had a Super Bowl party, uh, we did our Easter egg hunt. Uh, we had our Mother's Day brunch, our Father's Day barbecue. Uh, we had a child dedication Sunday, which was a ton of fun. Uh, we had a community block party. Uh, we did our first responders brunch, we did a prayer walk, uh, we did fireworks at the arch. Uh, we had vacation Bible school, uh, church picnic and our harvest festival. Some new things we've started, and we're continuing to grow them. Our community groups. We started doing a fellowship meal. Uh, we started doing prayer on the fourth Saturday of every month. Uh, and then we have a very focused prayer list uh that was put together and actually printed up for us really nicely, uh, praying for the future of our building and our plans and the plans that God has for us. We celebrated 11 baptisms this year, which I'm excited for. Make heaven crowded, man. That that's my thing. Someone asked me if this is a new shirt. I was like, it is not, but this is my this is my my slogan. Make heaven crowded. 11 people gave their life to Jesus. Again, I already said it with Jesse and Lydia got married. That was pretty cool. Funnest wedding ever. And then uh we actually have a new design for the building that we're gonna be building up on the property. If you haven't seen that, it's really neat. Very well done. Ways that we serve our community. We have a benevolence fund. We do brownback diner here twice a week. Uh, and we actually feed between 50 and 60 different meals those two days. We did our cookie outreach, we prayed over our schools, which was awesome. But the public outcry was kind of interesting. Uh, I don't know if you paid much attention to it, but a lot of people were angry that we went to a school on Sunday afternoon and prayed for the schools, and I was like, no one's even there, but it's okay. Uh, we partnered with the FSC, so that's an organization and a nonprofit uh in in Wellsburg uh to host a couple community events. We've done multiple outreaches. It's been fun. You know, we as we go into the next year, we got to fine-tune some things. We're gonna look at our schedule and probably drop some things. You know, that that's ministry. Sometimes things don't work the way you expect they do. So you move on. You try something new. But but I sailed on that because what what matters in all of this is you. It's us. You know, so much of what we can do is oftentimes limited by us. It's never limited by God. Like, don't don't misunderstand that. God is God can do whatever he wants, he does it all the time. He he uses so little to accomplish so much. I I don't mean to like talk bad about myself, but sometimes I stand here on Sunday mornings and I'm like, God, I am evident that you can use so little to do so much. Because I don't feel like I'm I'm worthy enough. Because I know who I am. But but there's something about living a surrendered life. There's something about looking at life and saying, God, I want less of me and more of you. And and sometimes that comes with a process, and so there's some fine-tuning that happens. But but what matters, what matters is are we as a church living surrendered? Surrendered to his will, his purpose. Because this is not our church.

Surrendered Living And Identity

SPEAKER_00 26:28

I'm sorry. It's his. I think about the story of Esther.

Esther And Being Positioned

Prayers And Goals For Next Year

A Call To Surrender And Hope

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Esther's a pretty fantastic book. It's actually the only book in the Bible where God's never mentioned. Do you know that? It's inferred. But I think about Esther because Esther was in the right place at the right time to save the people. This church is at the right place at the right time to do what God wants us to do. I believe that. We're called to be a light, to be a beacon. We talked about last week, but even on Christmas Eve, this divine rescue mission. So as much as we did in 2026, this is what I'm praying comes in 2026, or sorry, as much as we did in 2025, this is what I'm praying comes in 2026. I pray that we get it to a point where we can bring on Jesse full-time so that he continue to do the work of the ministry that he's called to. I'm praying for the day that we break ground on our new building. I'm praying that we continue to support the Brownback Diner because it's an opportunity for us to help feed the community around us. I pray that we are better utilize our current building for the growth that we've been experiencing. I pray that we're training and raising up new community group leaders. I pray that we launch more community groups than me during the week. I pray that we're creating disciples who make disciples, more people who are actively sharing their faith. I pray that our our community events, our community events are more focused on life change and not just numbers. I'm praying that we raise up future leaders within this congregation. I pray that we send more kids to summer camp this year than we've ever sent before. I pray for greater attendance and engagement in our community groups, increased involvement and serving within the church. I pray that we move from being a church in Follinsby to the church of Brook County. I pray we see more people give their lives to Jesus through baptism. I pray we see more families dedicating their children to follow Jesus. I'm praying for stronger families grounded in biblical teaching. Praying for a greater and more visible community presence. And I'm praying for the launch of a faith-based recovery program. There are so many people who still need Jesus. And here's where we come together. My prayer is like the rich young man, that whatever Jesus is calling us to surrender, we do that. I pray that your faith is stretched more in this next year than it's ever been. And listen, that's not me wishing harm on you. But I pray God is is moving you to be more like him. Not just you, but us. I pray the decisions we make are focused on him, building his kingdom. It's not about us. I pray that that we understand this this rescue mission that we're part of and that it pushes us outside these walls so that more people can find Jesus. I prayed it yesterday morning specifically. I simply asked that this next coming year would be a year that defines the future of this church. Where we're headed, where we're going. The numbers staggering. I think last I read it was on average fourteen to sixteen churches close on a Sunday morning, never to open their doors again. I don't believe that's God's plan for this church. I see these kids and I think about their future, and I think about giving them a church they can raise their kids and their grandkids in. I I see young men and women all over this place who just want to know more about who God is, and who knows what he's gonna do with them. I see a church that desperately wants to see God change the community around us. But it it starts with you and I being willing to surrender everything. Our time, our finances, our talents. So when I when I say things like there's nothing greater than building up the church that Jesus started, I mean that. There is nothing in this world, no job title, no amount of money. There is nothing in this world that'll ever make me happier than the knowing that my life has made heaven proud. This isn't just a shirt that I wear because I want people to know that I love Jesus. This is what I live and die by. But this only happens when we surrender. And and what I love about this interaction, and it's sad, because the man walks away, really having lost it all. And Jesus turns to his disciples and said, Listen, every one of you who has sacrificed so much will get a hundred times more than that. Like he doesn't just say, hey, you're gonna have to sacrifice and lose everything. He says, I promise you what's coming on the other side of this is better. So whatever your it is, I don't know. I know what mine is, I know where my my struggle is. I I know the thing that I I gotta give up. I'm working on it. But whatever your it is, my prayer this coming year is that you surrender it. And you let God do what only God can do.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

I love this church, I love this community. It needs us. People need to know who Jesus is.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

Whatever God needs to get out of my life to get there. My prayers that he doesn't.