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264: Pastor Plek is joined by Eric Creekmore, Director of Church Planting at Hill Country Bible Church. Eric is also a former Marine Corps fighter pilot and has been involved in leading several churches in his time as a pastor. In this episode Eric shares his story of faith and philosophy of ministry as a church planter.
Faith, Culture, and Everything in Between.
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Speaker 1:
And welcome back to pastor plex podcast. I am so glad you're joining us, as recording live here from Austin, texas, where I have with me in studio, is none other than Eric Creek Moore, who is one of the pastors over at Hill Country Bible Church. Welcome, eric. Thanks, brother man.
Speaker 2:
I'm good to see you, man.
Speaker 1:
This is so fun, I'm about time.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I know, I know it took you so long. You know, like there is like I have all the answers.
Speaker 1:
Our guest list is so long that you really have to. You know, it's just hard to get people in these days with all the people that we have on famous people from around the world. The one thing you may not know if you're, if you're tuning in with us is that Eric used to be a Marine Corps pilot. Yeah man, like, talk to us about that. How'd you like you went flying and how'd you get into that? And then you transition to ministry.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So as a kid athlete, grown up in northern New Jersey and was trying to go and play baseball, yeah so play baseball in college but got to D one level but was not talented enough to stay there. Yeah yeah, so got cut from my baseball team in college. I was like, well, what am I going to do with my life? And I was like, oh, I'll go to law school. And I was like I'm like after college, I don't want to go to any more school. And so, as an 11 year old kid, I saw Top Gun. Yeah, was like that's cool, my dad's a Navy helicopter pilot back in the day, and so I was like man, I'm going to go fly fighters.
Speaker 1:
And so as one would say yeah.
Speaker 2:
I mean, that's obvious.
Speaker 1:
So yeah, so you were in. Were you in the middle of college or graduate?
Speaker 2:
Like what year?
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
So going into my junior year and Marine Corps has a program where your regular college is your regular college student. You go through OCS in the summer and then you graduate second lieutenant and off you go. And the cool thing about the Marine Corps process is unlike if you go to the Academy or ROTC you don't know what job you're going to get on the back end. You know, this West Point grad is that you can sign up and all I had to do was pass an aviation physical and kind of like an aviation SAT exam.
Speaker 1:
And.
Speaker 2:
I got guaranteed flight school so I knew when I signed up I was going to flight school.
Speaker 1:
Wow.
Speaker 2:
So it was a good racket that is a good.
Speaker 1:
No one told us that one.
Speaker 2:
Like all things, the Marine Corps is better. The Marine Corps is better in all things.
Speaker 1:
Oh.
Speaker 2:
I graduate, I was at Drexel University in Philly and go to flight school. Well, first TBS in Quantico, six months platoon leader training and then flights going Pensacola. Loved it, except for the fact that I almost died on one of my early solo aerobatic flights Nice. So in the Navy, marine Corps aviation, you do 13 flights with an instructor in the back seat, then you solo, and then you go right into aerobatics. So loops, rolls, you just bend the airplane all sorts of ways and you do two flights with an instructor in your back seat and then the third flight is solo, again. Right? So you've had at this point, what is that? This will be your 17th flight ever in a military aircraft and you're doing loops and rolls by yourself. And so I'm not. I'm not going to say that that was wise or not.
Speaker 1:
You're just saying, that's what it is.
Speaker 2:
It is what it is and what they tell you is that when you do aerobatic maneuvers, you do a maneuver and then you fly straight level for at least a minute, and the reason for that is because your inner ear needs to settle out and just the fluid and how your your, your head, orients you in space. If that doesn't happen, you can induce vertigo. It's the reason why, if you go to an air show and you see, like the Blue Angels, they will come by, do a maneuver and then they fly away, yeah, and what they're doing is they're resetting their yeah. Yeah right, so then come back and do another maneuver. Well, as a gosh, I was probably 23 at this point, maybe 22. And I didn't give enough time to let my head settle out in between maneuvers and I gave myself vertigo. And so it's a crystal clear day over Southern Alabama and I do loop after loop after loop, and in the middle of a barrel roll my head goes completely upside down in more ways than I could count. And what's interesting about self induced vertigo is like I can see what's going on, like my brain is the airplane is rolling over and I'm staring at nothing but Ground. Southern Alabama. Yeah, and the airspeed is going faster and faster, the altimeter is going slower and slower.
Speaker 1:
Or down.
Speaker 2:
And the airspeed knows like this isn't good, but your brain can't tell your hands how to fix it. And so, by God's grace, like I, was able to come to enough in order to get the wings level, and then I just at that point said, that's enough, I turn, went back to base and landed, and that day I started to pray to God don't let me die in an airplane, because I knew in that moment it wasn't because of anything other than the providence and sovereignty of God that I didn't die.
Speaker 1:
Were you a Christian at that time? No, no. So this was the process that brought you to faith, I guess.
Speaker 2:
So this was kind of an inflection point where God got a hold of me, you know, somewhat arrogant, which is probably an understatement.
Speaker 1:
I mean, you're a fighter pilot, so yeah, the Marine officer right Billy tough guy. Yeah right, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:
I can't finish that statement.
Speaker 1:
And God was bringing humility.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so in his grace, continued to well in flight school. I get Hornets West Coast, so I'm based at Miramar. So here's the At Top Gun Center yeah, exactly when they filmed the movie I watched as an 11-year-old. I am now at that base flying F-18. All right so, but how is Jesus involved here at this point? Okay, so, as I'm going along, here's what's interesting about the flying and the fighter game. The airplanes only get faster and faster and more complicated, right? So the F-18 can carry 32 different weapons, plus the different systems on the aircraft that you need to know about, and you're going Mach 1, right, which, in normal terms, is usually around 750 knots, or let's call it 800 miles an hour 800 miles an hour yeah, it is way too fast and too complicated, like, honestly, for a human in general. Right, it is just so hard. And so I'm like man, I picked a job, one that's every other day is trying to kill me, and it's really difficult. So I added to my prayer of hey, god don't let me down an airplane, God please don't let me flunk out. Right, because in the Marine Corps when you flunk out of fighter land you don't get to go and fly Helos or some other airframe. They say congratulations, you're a logistics officer, go count, whiteout and erasers.
Speaker 1:
Oh it's brutal. Nothing worse than that.
Speaker 2:
And no offense to my logistics bros.
Speaker 1:
Hey, we need you, we love you.
Speaker 2:
logistics bros 100%, and they usually get better jobs out of the Marine Corps because they go to work for places like Amazon. Right, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, no judging.
Speaker 1:
Like no joke.
Speaker 2:
So I'm continuing to pray like God, don't let me flunk out, and he's, he's graceful to me. Right, I'm doing well Again, I get F 18's, west Coast. But internally, the Holy Spirit is starting to convict me of my sin and although career wise it's up and to the right, internally I just feel worse and worse, like I'm literally just because you're sin. You say, yeah, I'm trying not to say yeah, I'm trying to be a better man Right and I have sin patterns that I can't fix on my own. And so September 11th happens. I get to Miramar 99, September 11th happens obviously a few couple years later, and my squadron gets sent to Afghanistan. Was there for about three weeks just sitting in my tent and I say Afghanistan because that's what everyone knows. We were actually based at a Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. So just find Afghanistan on a map and go to countries north.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Former Soviet Republic. There's still statues of Lenin there. It's where Lenin's from. Wow, it's so really crazy place, literally on the other side of the world from Southern California.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, definitely not the same weather, no, no.
Speaker 2:
But here's the great thing about deployment, and you know this, because you've been deployed, like the distractions of the world are gone, gone, they're absolutely gone. You don't like what do you have to do? Like it's eat, sleep, work out, fly missions. And then God got a hold of me to where I was there about three weeks. I'm sitting in my tent and like, looking back now I know it's the Holy Spirit, but I'm like this is my prayer. I'm like God. There's not much I know, but I know I'm horrible at running my own life, that when it comes to everything I try, it's like. It's like chucking dirt into a hole that has no bottom.
Speaker 1:
Were you single or married at this point?
Speaker 2:
Single. Okay, yeah, and I believe in that moment. God heard my prayer and Jesus saved me. Wow.
Speaker 1:
And so what like? So you're still in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
You're still, or?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, kurdistan were flying missions. You're flying missions.
Speaker 1:
You're dropping bombs, you're doing things Right, and then you come back and do you, because you, how long were you in the Marine Corps? 12 years total. 12 years total. So you're in the Marine Corps for 12 years, yeah, and then what? How do you transition and when do you get married? When's that happen?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so we get back from the Afghanistan deployment and home for there's a few months and then we get redeployed for the kickoff of Iraq Yep. So back now to the Middle East. Do the Iraq deployment in the spring into the summer of O3, get back from that and plug into a good church in Escondido, California, called the Manual Faith Community Church. Yep, and that's when the Holy Spirit starts to press on me. You're going to get out of the military and be a pastor.
Speaker 1:
And.
Speaker 2:
I'm like, no, I am not. Like being a pastor, you have to be a good man and I am not a good man. The things I've done. I am a straight sinner, yeah, and I just I'm just, I'm glad I'm saved, whatever you want to do, god, but not that Right. And the other thing is, I thought pastors were largely just nice. I wasn't nice either. I was, like I was a little bit still angry that I got cut from my college baseball team. I'm a disgruntled athlete, he's like. I'm going to go, fly jets and bomb things is what I'm going to do, and God's like, and I'm going to save you and praise him for doing that. But the Holy Spirit started to impress on me like I would sit there on Sunday morning and feel like the Holy Spirit said that's what I want you to do, preach the Bible. And I'm like what? Like turn into the person next to me, like not really, but like are you hearing that? Yeah, and the Holy Spirit was just consistent. And so over the next kind of year, year and a half that only grew louder. Yeah, and to where I get orders to Quantico, virginia, to do career level school. So as a captain now, and oh, three, you got to do different schools along the way, same as you know any branch. And like, the Holy Spirit is loud. I'm in Northern Virginia now going to McLean Bible Church.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:
I meet now, heather, who we start dating and she's ends up becoming my wife. But it's like I can't ignore it. Where before, like, the Holy Spirit was kind enough to just like I'm just going to press on you, but I'm not going to like like, now he's got punching.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Right, I'm sitting there, I'm like, well, the other thing that happened along those along that same timeline, because God in his grace and sovereignty was helping me to obey, yeah, um, was I had. I had really bad low back problems. So the part of being a fighter guy that most people don't know is it totally destroys your spine.
Speaker 1:
Really? What is that? Just cause all the compression of the forces Exactly G's over time.
Speaker 2:
So the Hornet can sustain seven and a half G. So just take your body weight and multiply it by 7.5. Right, so for easy math, right, if you're at 200 pounds now, your effective body weight is over 1400 pounds. Yeah, right, so if you're pulling G and you're looking, you're twisting, you're trying to find the guy you're fighting, um, it is havoc on your spine, oh wow. And my L five S one disc I completely herniated to where I was in chronic pain, oh gosh. And so to the point where I'm now having to take opiates like viket in and that sort of thing just to make it through some days. And so at Walter Reed army medical center it's like uh, gotta go to the army, you gotta go to the army to get fixed.
Speaker 1:
That's embarrassing. Oh, we're at Bethesda. Yeah, hello, why not? I have Bethesda as exactly as I'm asked.
Speaker 2:
But, um, again, god's grace. Uh, one of the best neurosurgeons in the military was there and it's like, hey dude, uh, we need to take out that disc. We're going to do a disc fusion on you. I'm like, well, can I go back to flying? He's like maybe. He's like there's no guarantees in this, uh. So I'm like, okay, so I get, I get the surgery and you do a lot of thinking.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
You know, when you're laying in a hospital bed and I'm 30 years old, like bulletproof right, two time combat veteran, yep Um, you know, been there, done that and uh, it was humbling. And it was in that moment where God was like here's what you're going to do, I'm physically going to make it impossible for you to fly, but it was his grace to help me, obey.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, okay. So you how you saw it. I'm going to go to Dallas seminary.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so I could. So, like I said, I'm going to McLean Bible church and I'm going to the 20s and 30s kind of young adults Um gosh, what was the name of that service? I'll think about it. I'll think of it as we go along, but I make an appointment with the pastor. We had a new pastor over that, over the young adults deal, and a dude who's actually from Austin, of all places, and um, I sit down in his office. I'm like, hey, dude, here's my story, kind of just almost identical to what I'm telling you now. And he's kind of listening. I'm like, so what do I do? He's like, he's like, uh, yeah, I think that sounds about right, I'd go to Dallas seminary. I'm like, literally, I'm like, what's a seminary? He's like he's like it's grad school for pastors. I'm like, okay, where's that? He's like, oh, there's a good one in Dallas. I'd recommend yeah, so I go online. Dallas theological. I apply again, god's grace, I get in. Yeah, no idea how that happens, but I owed them Marine Corps three more years on my, because when you go, when you go fixed wing aviation, you owe them Marine Corps eight years after you get wings. So, uh, I get orders to Lamor, california, in order to be an instructor pilot in the F 18. The surgery I had my disc, my L five S one disfusion was a success. I got back in the cockpit. But after it and in that timeframe, heather and I got married, Yep, we moved to California and, uh, but a year and a half later I started having chronic pain again, oh gosh. So at that point I needed to be medicated 24, seven. So that ended flying. Yeah, and again, all part of God's sovereignty. Um got plugged into a good church, um, south Valley Community Church in Lamora, california, and the pastor there who's like I'd gotten to know him a little bit at church of like, say, like 800 on Sunday and uh, he knew I was in the Marine Corps. But getting out and started DTS, and he's like, hey, can you help out with the men's Bible study? So I started teaching the men's Bible study and then one I think it was like on a Tuesday night pulls me aside after. He's like, hey, dude, you want to take a Sunday morning? I'm like what? I've done this four times. But then again, like what the Holy Spirit had been saying over all those years is you're going to get out and you're in, preach the Bible. And I was like, okay, I guess this is here we go. And so started, started preaching a little bit as I'm doing DTS online. And then in 2008, I get out of the Marine Corps. Heather and I we've got two little kids at this point we move from Lamor, central Valley, california, about 45 minutes south of Fresno, to Dallas to finish up the degree and we could you start online? Yeah, start online. How far did you get online? Well, between that and there's a tiny little seminary in Fresno. I was able to do Greek in person. So I was able to essentially get the first year done online while I was still in.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 2:
Which was huge, and then moved to Dallas, to move to Dallas, to finish up and along those lines, god started to bring this idea of church planting Right and, like I didn't know it again, it's like seminary for me, like what's a seminary?
Speaker 1:
church planting. What's that?
Speaker 2:
Like you, just churches are there.
Speaker 1:
I don't know how they got there. They're there.
Speaker 2:
I don't know how that happens. Yeah, the church is just a broad, just appear. Yeah, and like I would, I would have this thought and that'd be like reading a book for class. I mean, look at the back, be like, oh, written by so and so, that planted such and such church, right. I'm like, oh, that's interesting, I like this book. This guy seems legit, you know, whatever. And then that's also the time where, like the, the growth of at that time, x 29 and X 29 boot camps, so you had guys like Mark Driscoll and Matt Chandler. You could find them talking about church planting and what's a church planter like. And I can remember listening to Driscoll had a talk that he did called the ox Right, the qualifications of a church past church planter. And he basically unpacks first Timothy, three, one to seven qualifications of an elder as the foundation for what's the qualifications biblically for a church planter. And so I listened to it and I'm like I don't know, like is that me? Yeah, you know. And so I had my wife listen to it and she's like, oh heck, yeah, that's you. I'm like okay, and so that kind of was a confirmation, like I feel like God is saying church planting. And so I grew up in New Jersey, like I said, went to college in Philly and the rest of my Christian life has either been in California or the Middle East.
Speaker 1:
So I'm like.
Speaker 2:
I'm like, of all the places where you don't need another church, it's Texas. Right, right, right Right. Especially in the Dallas area. Oh, my gosh bro. So we moved to Dallas and I'm thinking, okay, god, I feel like you're saying church planting and Philly, like so we're going to go back to the Northeast. Yeah, because, like none of my buddies from college know Jesus and like I still kept in touch with several of them, like man, I would love to go back there and plan a church. And so, going through DTS and approaching graduation, I start like reaching out to planting orgs up in the Philly area and you know, send an email or call and leave a message and like I don't get a reply. It's like the weirdest thing. It's like your website says you're looking for guys like me, but you're not replying to the email that I'm. With a call, I'm like what? And my mentor at DTS gobbled name Andy Seidel, was West Point grad, by the way. Oh, by the way, another army dude. So the army is not like now, love my army bros, pastor Plect being one of them, and he's an elder at Fellowship Bible Church, dallas at the time. He's like hey, eric, he had been kind of praying with me and talking through kind of like I just don't get it. I feel like God's saying plain church. You know, billy, you know blah, blah. He's like well, at Fellowship Dallas we're trying to get some church planting going. Let me introduce you to Gary. Your brand bird is a lead pastor and former baseball player. Former baseball player. So this is this is going to come full circle man this is it's fun, how it's fun, how God works right. So he's like hey, let me choose to Gary. So I sit down with Gary and Gary is is awesome, like, like you said, like he's he was. He got drafted by the Orioles, played in the minor leagues for several years, never made it to the majors, but just athlete. Love the guy, awesome Bible teacher, preacher, great leader, and we hit it off. Interesting enough, gary grew up in California. His dad worked on fighters back in the day for Northrop Grumman, so so we had this interesting kind of like co-location of experiences of military, aviation, baseball and all these things. Now church planting, being pastors, and he's essentially hired me to be their first church planting resident. Yeah, and what they were trying to do is get in the church planting game and they were going to send out what was going to be their first plant after years and years. If you know anything about the fellowship churches that started with Gene gets out of DTS back in the 70s just amazing church planting movement that spread beyond Dallas. You know, fellowship Little Rock can trace their heritage back to what Gene started and so it's kind of a recultivation of that, of that methodology and multiplication, and so so I get hired and what they're going to do is they're going to launch out my, my residency, like. The other thing I love about Gary is like hey, gary, what's your plan? I know we're just going to go after it. I love that.
Speaker 1:
Let's do that. What do you need a plan for?
Speaker 2:
Let's go do stuff like what are the steps? I will figure that out as we go, Gary. I'm a lot like Gary. So what they were going to do is they're going to send out their young adults into pretty good young adults community and the pastor that was overseeing that was feeling the call to the plant. And there was an area kind of in Dallas, near White Rock Lake yeah, be familiar, oh yeah, where it was kind of a younger demographic and so they launched out and I was on the team that helped launch that that first church did that for about seven months and then it was time I was about six months from graduation to start the church that I felt like God was calling us to plant, not in Philly. Now is I'm kind of like, oh man, I'm supposed to stay in Dallas, in the town that we were living in as we were going through seminary for any suburb on the east side of the city, and that's what we ended up doing. So in January of 2011, started with a Bible study in my living room and that's what ultimately became Mission Church, which pastored, planted and pastored for seven years, and I my wife and I was interesting, both from the northeast had never lived in the south except for different stints and like going through the Marine Corps and flight school and different, different pieces and I thought, and we thought, that okay for me, suburb of Dallas, you know, like most suburbs and major metro areas, it'll be very, you know, very similar to suburbs wherever around, whatever city, whatever country. But the interesting thing about Forney is it's geographically located near Dallas but still, at least at that time, had had a much of a small town mindset.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah like, like small town like when I, when you initially said New Jersey and then I, because I knew for me, I was like that's a weird connection there's 100%, bro, 100%.
Speaker 2:
And so it was like, effectively, cross cultural ministry is like we, we did not fit, yeah, very well there. But God was gracious to have that be a season of learning and learning to persevere into and to like and you know this as a communicator like the only way that you get better communicating is by communicating right. It's reps and getting those reps in because, like, as a planter, you know like you're preaching out of the 52 Sundays, like 49. Yeah, right, and you're just in the grind, but you, there's no other way to get good.
Speaker 1:
In my opinion.
Speaker 2:
no, I 100% agree, and so it's all about training, reps, training, training, training reps, reps, reps and to really get in that, getting the good rhythms of not only preparation but delivery and delivery among a people that you have to spend time with over the long haul right To see the word really take root in their heart and grow. Yeah, and how do you, as a communicator of God's word, really craft to their growth?
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Right Versus what most guys come into the preaching game thinking is like oh, no, no, it's, it's my great exegesis, or it's my great delivery and I'm just this great order or whatever, and that's the like, no, no, it's you being able to serve those people.
Speaker 1:
Well, yeah, through the preached word, in order, and so anyway did you get a core team that went with you to launch the for me, or did you?
Speaker 2:
just go.
Speaker 1:
Hey, I'm living in for me here, my neighbors, hey guys, come over 100%, it was the latter.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I am a bad church planner, like like seriously like not good, like I'm like I'm an okay evangelist I'm. The reason why I planted now in hindsight is because I'm apostolic and that's my primary gifting, like I like to start things I do, apostolic.
Speaker 1:
for those who don't know what that means.
Speaker 2:
So when you look at Ephesians four and Apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers, A-11, the. A-pest framework of how, how Jesus has gifted the church with certain giftings in order to see that the whole body matures. Right, you'll read that in the text. There's the apostolic gifting, which is and this is Eric's definition this is the guy or lady who has apostolic gifting that sees something that isn't happening or some untapped area, like hey, there's a need there that no one's going after. We need to do something about it, right? So your general, your apostolic gifting, is someone who's going to be bent to start new things in order to advance mission right, to advance the kingdom. Right, so you don't know Jesus there, or the representation of Jesus there is substandard in some way and you need to fix it, right, right, and so that's, that's more my ban.
Speaker 1:
So when you were, so, when fellowship Dallas sent you, did they say hey, here's a salary for a year or two. How did they set that up?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, just like just prays, praise God in in their backing, because they essentially did the three year. I don't remember the numbers, but it was like declining year. We're going to give you this much the first year, this much the second and this much the third, and between that and what we raised, heather and I through our relational network, we had sufficient funding.
Speaker 1:
Nice, yeah, and so like your launch was with how many people?
Speaker 2:
Oh gosh. So we started in January with maybe five families plus us, but I'll tell you, man, that first night in our, in our house one, the spiritual warfare was off the chart and maybe we can talk about that That'll.
Speaker 1:
So what you're? Saying maybe, maybe when you're fair, happens in church planning.
Speaker 2:
Oh my gosh, bro, like we do not talk about that enough. The reality of there is a real enemy who holds ground and in church planting you are. You should be taking ground from the enemy and he doesn't give it up easily, right, right. So he's happy that you are doing that and so he is going to fight you, and we experienced that all throughout our time in Forney. Like crazy stuff. Well, you should have that.
Speaker 1:
Is that a podcast part two?
Speaker 2:
That's part two. Well, no, because the average pastor and planter needs to have a sober awareness of that. Again, I can't remember if it was CS Lewis or someone like we're not saying everything, like there's a devil behind everything, but we're also saying the devil isn't nothing, right, right, there's a soberness in the middle that we need to operate in that we largely don't. But anyway, when we were kind of we went through, kind of what we did and we're kind of just hanging out as a group like you could feel the Holy Spirit there. I was like, oh my gosh, like this is exactly what we're supposed to be doing, and I was able to grow that from five families to like eight.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, okay, what do you got, Because I'm really good.
Speaker 2:
I'm not good, but we launched that Easter with the neighborhood we were living in had about at that time like a thousand homes, and so we were just farming where God put us and had about a hundred people at a launch service. And back to your question how many people did fellowship send with us? Zero, oh, wow. Zero. That parachuted in went for it. It was a hundred percent parachute plant and please do not parachute plant ever.
Speaker 1:
Unless you were like unless Jesus tells you to, wow, that is so hard. Yeah, I can't think of anything harder. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
So it was hard. Yeah, I tell people and now that you know my background a little bit, baghdad was way easier than planting. And like that's not even hyperbole bro, like that is the what kind of things cause.
Speaker 1:
I think church planners, and you know most church players, start out naive, so they said they said this is course not going to be me. So I know you're probably thinking that if you're listening Like that won't be me.
Speaker 2:
I'm, you must have been, you know, an idiot or whatever.
Speaker 1:
But like, for those of you like once you're you're going to plant and then you're going to go gosh, what did I do wrong? Talk to me about, like what, some of the things that happened to you in the early days of church planning, that you're like that couldn't happen. I mean, you would just never think that would happen to a church.
Speaker 2:
Oh, a hundred percent. Here's a good example. So one of the things that you need when you're church planting is a worship guy Right, and you just got to find them. It's like I don't know worshipguycom.
Speaker 1:
Like does that exist?
Speaker 2:
That'd be nice, maybe not, it's looking at worshipguycom. And how it's funny, how like you, just through relational networks and connections, it's like, oh, you should ask someone so. Or I know this guy, the youth lead worship, blah, blah, blah. And so I got connected to a guy who, like decent, like wasn't a good fit. He was like at that point we're like in our mid 30s. You know, it was a young, family kind of neighborhood it would have been ideal to have that kind of demographic and this guy was like in his mid 50s.
Speaker 1:
Oh, interesting, you know, nice enough guy but had a it was like him and his guitar and he was gonna sing a few songs, oh hundred percent, hundred percent, and songs and songs from like.
Speaker 2:
is that from this decade?
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And what essentially happened. I'm gonna get the details wrong because when I think I'm repressing them, but after, after a few weeks, like you have this conversation, like most church planters, like they don't like love, conflict, and like I'm the same way unless I have a weapon.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, of course. Then let's roll, let's go.
Speaker 2:
Then let's roll. But like conflict in church is different because you have to be nice and kind, and like there's verses about be gent, correct them with gentleness. Yeah, it's like. Oh I hate that Cause I'm not good at it. And so I had this conversation with this guy and I'm essentially gonna try to get him to pick different songs, and I didn't realize that he was pretty pleased with the songs he picked. And who was I to speak into that? And like I think we're just having a conversation about songs and it becomes this big blow up and then I'm like I don't have a worship job and I'm three weeks in.
Speaker 1:
Wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:
That's awesome, okay, but here's let me back up, because that reminded me of the harder story, which is buddy of mine, who I met the very first day at DTS, became a good friend and we had I'd shared with him like, hey man, I feel like God's called me to church plant. He's like, oh man, totally in. I was like, oh, awesome, this is great. This is how this happens, right, you just tell people and they're like I'm in with you, he and his family. Actually, when we got the deal at fellowship, started going to fellowship came with us when we started that church over in the White Rock and then when we started the Bible study, they came with us there. And then, three weeks before we launched that Easter, I get an email hey man, we're out.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, nice.
Speaker 2:
It's like I was like what the? And just insert line of expletives.
Speaker 1:
I think this is what church planners that are, you know they're about. They're like. That one happened to me. I'm just telling you it's going to happen 100% Because church planting is so hard. 100% and when people get, we had people say I will follow you anywhere you want to go.
Speaker 2:
That's exactly what he said.
Speaker 1:
And people will say that all the time Right, and then all of a sudden life happens and I don't even want to put it on them like blame them?
Speaker 2:
No, it's just like.
Speaker 1:
God calls them a different direction, 100%. But it feels personal because you're needing them so badly.
Speaker 2:
Oh, my gosh yes.
Speaker 1:
So it's like and that's why when you read the letters that Paul writes about the people that abandoned him Totally. So if they would abandon Paul, if they would abandon Jesus, let's just go there for a second. Oh, by the way. They're, of course, going to abandon you, and so people aren't your hope. God is your hope, and then he brings you the people who he is working on, just as he's working on you, and part of it is when you have somebody and then they leave. It's for you to not to trust in people, but into trust in God, and we love people genuinely and generously.
Speaker 2:
So I really I love that aspect Totally, totally. And the guy who quote did this to your point right At the time in my immaturity. I'm like that son of a gun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How dare you? You disloyal, right you?
Speaker 1:
don't understand.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, like, how dare you? Like, we're about to go into the fire and you quit, bro, right, I think I matured, maybe a little bit.
Speaker 1:
He needs to get to fire as every good oh thermopole, thermopole baby press field. If you haven't read that book as like a planter, should be like as a man, as a man, as a planer, for sure, as a church plan. You need to read the gates of fire.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's funny, I gave it to my son. I have a 17 year old now. I'm like, dude, you need to read this. It's good for your man soul. But as I look back to the point that you just made, like I do not like judge him one bit. I trust the sovereignty of God in that, but it's dagum hard. Oh, it's dagum hard.
Speaker 1:
I think that's the part you just people just don't understand.
Speaker 2:
You feel like people aren't with you. And then you turn to God and be like wait a second, God, how? Like you let me down too right and you have your Job moments and whatever, but by grace, and like I don't like you learn this in the military, Like when someone asks you like, dude, how'd you get through your freshman year at West Point, or how did you get through Ranger school, or how'd you get through Marine Corps officer or Canada school and the basic school and flight school is like don't quit.
Speaker 1:
Don't quit, that's it.
Speaker 2:
That, I know that seems so simple. Just don't quit.
Speaker 1:
Just keep showing up. And I'd say and I say this to people all the time 90% of pastoring like pastoring, whatever it's just showing up.
Speaker 2:
Just keep showing up Cause most people will eventually quit.
Speaker 1:
And when you're the last man standing like oh man, thank God, you're here. And they're gonna bring your issues and problems and you're there for their crisis.
Speaker 2:
And here's another thing that I don't think it's talked about enough, and I saw this back to Gary Brandenburg, his life. Gary went through some stuff. He was a church planter and it was funny we would laugh about and cry over the things, cause his first church was a church plant and went sideways and mine eventually goes sideways, at least for me To see what God did in Gary's life in his late fifties and sixties. Yeah, not only from like just the, the God presence that God gave him. Yeah, that he got to do, and even now, yeah, what Gary's doing as he's, as he's in his early seventies, like I think and this isn't true for everyone, I'm not gonna paint with like, oh, this is definitely how God works, but I think so many guys, they go through the heart of the first few years. If you were gonna quit, you should have quit earlier, right, right right, should have quit yesterday. Yeah, like there is blessing, like this is why I saw in gears like like God's like, oh, gary, you got to do what, gary, you're getting to do what. Yeah, like it was just amazing to see that. And now, with we just had a succession to Hill Country, austin, and longtime pastor Tim Hawks Handed the church off to his successor and the things that God is doing in and through Tim in these later years Are some of the best things. Like it gives me fire To be like that gummit by grace, with grace fueled effort. Hmm, I want to get to those those years of like where God's like good job sticking in. Hmm now I'm gonna give you a present. And just the different, just the different things that happens and you will never see them if you quit. Yeah and one of the things that we need now is a in a non Jocko, non David Goggins, like a hundred percent, like I love those guys, yeah, and like I listen to them. Yeah but it's only half the story right, because it ends up being a humanistic message that lands on. At the end of the day, it's it's you to get your own discipline right. It's you to figure out how you're gonna suck it up, yep. And at the heart of it is grace, you old effort in order to do the things advancing the kingdom Right, which is way harder than doing some 4 am Workout Right way hard, as hard as that may be, but to but to continue on persevering by grace In the call of God in your life. We need a generation of men who will seize that and stop thinking that. You know the Christian life is some man be pamby. You know you just what? What does God want? He wants you to stop cursing when you drive right, right.
Speaker 1:
No, he wants way more than that. Oh my gosh, he wants you go and die. Go. Go to Thermopylae, let's go. That's the call.
Speaker 2:
And oh, by the way, if you're a church planter or a pastor, like to encourage you because, because Chris and I are in it right now, like just don't quit mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, stop quitting, stop thinking about quitting. You're not gonna quit. You got a calling now just keep stepping. All right, so talk to me. Then you did shift, though. You shift from being a pastor at the plant you found at the church plant you founded, and then, all of a sudden, you found yourself in Austin a whole country, bible church, mega church. How did that happen? Yep.
Speaker 2:
Well, we, heather and I, knew that and we would say this for me isn't forever, but it's for right now. Okay, it was what God had for us in that season and it's exactly what we needed to go through the good and the hard and and everything in between. And so, after, like in in God's Providential loving grace, was able to raise up some elders, raise up a really good worship guy, associate guy who's really good both of those dudes are still in ministry killing it it was like, okay, I'm bringing the next season. Yeah, right, and there was some persecution there for part two, because it's a longer story, but God made it clear that your time here is done and I'm bringing the next season. And so Through through some really hard stuff. But it was God's providence and he was working in it. And as I look back I'm like, oh, thank God. He did what he did Because it brought us to Hill Country who and this is back to like the Gary and fellowship Connection. I got introduced to Hill Country Bible Church one at DTS, when John Harrington and Scott Heider Came, and I think it was Scott came and talked to our church planting class, aubrey Malfers, yeah yeah, and I was like, oh yeah, hill Country Austin, their planting churches right on, and then Gary, his friends with Tim, yeah. And so when Gary's the kind of leader kind of a lot like you, it was like, hey, I'm going to do something. You look around, find a young guy, you're coming with me. Right and like that was his MO, yeah. So, hey, eric, I'm going to this thing, you're coming with me. Hey, eric, I'm going to the senior, come with me. And I met Tim, yeah, and spent some time with Tim, and so knew of Hill Country and Gary, and I actually came down to Austin To spend a day with Harrington, john Harrington, and talk about church planting, church planting systems. Oh, we were gonna essentially take the Hill Country model and bring it up to fellowship. Well, it it was, you know. Hindsight now is like, okay, god was Introducing me to where he was taking me, and so I applied for, and got, a role as an executive pastor at Hill Country.
Speaker 1:
Oh, it took John Harrington's job essentially.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So I came in as an XP role. John was there. John had Developed, along with Tim kind of the methodology of planting it, yeah, at Hill Country, austin, and had overseen that for 12 years and did an amazing, amazing job. Ian Hawks, setting the foundation of what there is now, what there is now right in 41 churches over let's call it 26 years. Right, 27 years. But I got there spring of 2018. Harrington left staff about nine months later to go to Woods Edge in Houston and Take a senior exec role at it at that church there and outside of Hawks, I was the only staff person that planted a church. So here you're gonna take on the church planting stuff. Roger that let's, let's take some ground for the kingdom. But what also happened in that time is I didn't know that Tim and John had already started talking about the next season of church planting, right, and how, like, yes, we've, we've seen a lot of great success, yes, by God's grace. But that things were happening and Tim is very apostolic, john's an architect, where, where Tim sees the future and then John architects it. Yeah, I have a little bit of both of that, yeah, yeah, but not hard over on either, kind of like a blend. And so here's what. Here's what they had decided, that in the previous season, how we planted churches because the key is the planter finding the right guy with the calling and gifting to do the work and the Perseverance, like we talked about mm-hmm I that we were no longer going to do a we'll call a find and fund or free agency model of planting where we were going to say, hey, man, you feel called to Austin and let's go interview you, assess you and then train you up in a residency and launch you out. We're going to transition from that to a farm system right methodology, where we're no longer going to look outside but we're going to look inside.
Speaker 1:
Now this, I think, is what you and I were talking about earlier, is the canary in the coal mine. Like the problem with churches is they have not done, and I would say we were one of those like, after we sent out Holland our first church planner, we recognize we did not have the engine of discipleship, of internally developing our own people and and and. In a smaller church, that's problematic. At a big church, that's problematic. So talk about, like what you saw in that pipeline development that you needed.
Speaker 2:
And so to get into that, we got to do a little history lesson and walk into it, because I think it's helpful A little church history in the in the near past and walk into it. Hill Country started planting churches in the mid to late nineties under an X one eight conviction. Right, your receive power in. The Holy Spirit comes upon you to be my witnesses in. And there's a geographic reality starting in Jerusalem, right, the place where I've put you right. I put you there in order to advance the gospel there. And this is nothing against those who feel called to plant outside of their local geography. That was just not our conviction, right, right. So Hawks was the was the one who birthed it. So we're gonna, we're going to one day and he would say this over and over present Austin to Jesus as a trophy nice in the new heavens and new earth. And so we have a, we have a geographic focus on the basis of X one eight. And so the first couple of plants were guys that were on staff or connected to Tim, that were like hey, man, we're playing churches, you feel called awesome, we're going to send you out, we're going to hive off, think, a hundred hundred fifty people and launch you out to Georgetown or Flugerville and then other areas south Austin and for about let's call it 1314 years killing it. Yep Right. You realize pretty quickly when you're using staff to plant. That's like man, I got to replace staff pretty quickly.
Speaker 1:
Oh, I can tell you that's a problem. Tell me anybody, anybody who's not involved. You just tell me how hard is any of it?
Speaker 2:
We know you go that right now, it's right, it's, it's limited Right. The number of like like, like, you have a staff of four hundred, like no. And so that's when the find and fund model got put in place, right, hey, we're going to have this, we're going to build out this residency, we're going to fund it, we're going to do assessments. Come on in and God was super gracious, yep, right. And we're talking like, call it 2000 to 2010 1112. Yep, we were bring guys in and they would kill it. Right, they would kill it. But then something started happening Call it 2012 1314 where we here in Austin started to see mergers. Yep, right, oh, that church can't make it on their own, they're going to need to merge. Started seeing closures. And then, in hindsight, what was really happening underneath the surface is in the 2000 to 2010 once when, like back to the like the Mark Driscoll stuff earlier in the X 29, like, church planting was the sexy thing, yeah, it was cool. And what and what we found was those were leaders. They would have been successful at anything they did. Right Right, church planting just had to like. The biggest headlines are like oh, that looks cool, yeah Right, I'm going after that, and God totally used it in this sovereignty in order, I think, as we look back, to get the church planting engine and ethos better embedded in the American church. Because if you remember previous to that, what was the season before that? mega church, mega church secret sensitive multi site right. Nothing wrong with that. Right has its place, god used it. But God needs the church to operate and to learn different skill sets right, different seasons, in order to continue to grow and mature and advance and take round. So we started to see the quantity and the quality of church planters decline, right. So what was before like you put out a call for planters and be like man, these guys are solid, yeah, right.
Speaker 1:
Awesome, just got to praise the flag.
Speaker 2:
They'll show up 100%. Well, the essentially the low hanging fruit had gotten picked, and now we're like rode the wave of cool Cool is over. Now you got it.
Speaker 1:
You got to read. You have to train up internally to have people believe in church planting in the same way you're convicted to Jerusalem, judea, samaria, the ends, either 100%, 100%.
Speaker 2:
And what's interesting is, when you think back from like 2010 to 2020, say, is, as the sexy conversation around church planting was diminishing and never went away, like especially the pockets that we run in. It was, it was always there. But the conversation around disciple making started to get more and more airtime. Right, you started to see different conferences, discipleshiporg and different things start, and that happened at Hill Country, where the Holy Spirit brought some conviction to say, hey, look back in the 90s and early 2000s, man, you guys were killing it. Yep, making disciples, but that wasn't the ethos as much anymore, and so there was some times of repentance, tim the elders, to say, hey, we need to go back, john, to making disciples. And when we say making disciples, what we really mean, to be clear, is making disciple makers, right, right. So whatever you call discipleship in your church, you can't actually call it that unless the person who goes through whatever your thing is is able then to go and do it with someone else absent you, right, right, if they can't go and do it absent you, you have a program.
Speaker 1:
You have a program that they have it some to show up to. I'll get. I'll consume your thing, that's it. And then I'll wait for the next thing. I'll go consume that thing. That's right and that's if you, if you, if there's one critique of the American church. We are consumer oriented and program programs I'll show up and I'll come anyway.
Speaker 2:
Go ahead, that's right, and so and again, our program's good. Yes, they have their place, but you can't call that discipleship, right, right, because discipleship to Timothy to to take what I've given you and train others, who then can train others, right, that's the key metric there. And so we got a conviction at Hill Country and call it 2015 2016. Like we have to get back to that. And so we rekindled not only a methodology but a heart for disciple, disciple making that God. Then use that to combine with what we were seeing in church planting and starting the name like we're not as successful as we once were. Right, what is going on right now? Back to the timeline, john's leaving. Tim calls me into his office and says Okay, eric, here's the deal. You are not allowed, like we have to, we have to plant churches, but you are not allowed to recruit from outside of Hill Country Bible Church. Yeah, and I'm not. If you've ever been in those situations where your boss calls you and he's like I'm gonna, you know your. Your battalion commander calls you and is like here's the deal. Yeah, I need you to take this sale, I need you to take down that house and we're crazy.
Speaker 1:
That's dad says I don't care, I'm in charge.
Speaker 2:
You do it, yeah, you do it like on your face. You're like Roger, that sir, yeah let's get after it.
Speaker 1:
You know what? When you said it's kind of like Pharaoh telling the Israelites to go and make more bricks with no straw.
Speaker 2:
Right, Right, it's like bro do you know how this works.
Speaker 1:
You give me straw, I make bricks. Let's go.
Speaker 2:
Can't do it that way. So, internally, like I'm all anxious and like no one I don't know anyone that's does that or how do you do that? He's like, but, tim, again that apostolic, forward looking, prophetic gift that he has, like this is the direction we need to go. And I even asked him as like hey, so, just so we're clear, like I'm not allowed, yeah, to look outside of the country goes, because I don't want you to spend any time on it. Nice, right, and again, in that conversation, like you probably saw at some level, a little bit of like, just like pale face, like I don't know how in the world is gonna work. He says that he goes. He goes, go find Ralph Moore, and if you don't, yeah, Ralph Moore, the X 29 pretty much starter really. Well, not X 29, the Hope Chapel movement, okay, yeah. So Ralph more, if you don't know that name and you're in the church planting game, you need to know that name because out of the three churches that he has pastored in his lifetime Hope Chapel in Hermosa Beach and then in Hawaii and then well to in Hawaii you can now trace over 2600 churches out of those three. It's wild in what he did. And so Tim's like, hey, go find Ralph Moore. And because he did it by raising up internally, right, and so that sent me on a pilgrimage of sorts like I'm Luke trying to go to the Degas system. Yeah, how do you like. How do you like that for all your Star Wars fans as I'm going to look for Yoda? Yeah, but I literally I link up with Ralph at a exponential conference in Houston, probably gosh, three or four months later and I'm like, hey, ralph, can I take it to lunch? He's like sure I gotta eat and we sit down. He's the most quiet, unassuming guy who has like been there, done that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, right, I think when I, when you told me about this conversation and this is the part where I like it's weird how what conversations you remember I remember you telling me about the conversations, like what you do to get, say, you pick a book, you'd read it and then you talk about it, Right, and that was it. That was it. What did you do about church playing Right?
Speaker 2:
Right. So I'm sitting there, right, and we're having lunch and it was at the exponential conference, right. I think it was like Chick-fil-A sandwiches they brought in or whatever, and I'm sitting there on my Chick-fil-A sandwich and my notebook, like waiting for this great wisdom he's like he's going to download to me, like, like this step one. Yes, right now. He's like okay, here's what I did. I would find leaders in my church. I would get them in a group. We would read a book, Didn't matter what it was, something on leadership, something on business, something on ministry. And then each week we would come together and ask an answer, the three questions what did God say to you, what are you going to do about it, and how can we pray for you or help you? And I'm sitting there, I'm like okay. I'm like then what he's like. Well then, as I got eyes on these guys, I would say, hmm, that guy, you know, he'd prayerfully discern God's got a call on this guy's life and I would take him to lunch. I'd say I want you to pray about planting a church. And if that guy went away pray and said no end of conversation, If that guy said anything other than no, then Ralph would spend more time with them. Now, that's what we had, that's what we talked about in that conversation. Come to find out. The other key thing that he did in his churches is for his small group system. He called them mini churches and he called the leaders of those mini churches, he called them pastors. And what do you would do is at Hope Chapel. You had to. If you're on staff or you want to be a leader in any capacity, you had to lead a mini church. There was, there was. If you were on facilities, if you cut the grass, you had to leave at Hope Chapel. At Hope Chapel, you couldn't, unless you're leading a mini church. Wow, I love it to the level that he, like this, is like we're going all in on this. And what he did is and this is the both end of what I just described in that leadership circle is he would see guys that can multiply a mini church, and if he would see a guy that could multiply a mini church a couple times the same thing, either it would be a direct conversation that hey, you came up on my radar because you multiplied a couple times. I want you to pray about Planet Church. Or he did, or and or he would invite them into that leadership huddle and do that same methodology, and that's all he did because in the thing that I love about it's easily reproducible.
Speaker 1:
I think the thing that the thing that gets struggle for us and for me is that we? Make it too complicated. So I think that's a big difference.
Speaker 2:
Okay, so they had. Well, here's the thing about that, right. So just a double tap on yeah. If it's too complex, it's not reproducible, right, right, because you need to have something that any leader again. Leaders are going to be on a spectrum, right. Some are going to be the Tim Hawks's that can lead 7000 person church and start a 40 plus church movement church multiplication movement in the city, as well as star Christ together and other things, and other guys like, like the vast majority of us, who can multiply a few times. But we can multiply a few times, yeah, yeah, right, it has to be simple enough for that average leader to be able to implement. And here's a great thing, and this is how we got to 2600. Since all of those guys grew up in that system, it's what they were able to take to the church that they eventually started, yeah, and then on and on and on.
Speaker 1:
All right. So tell me this how did you get this? Now you know that. How do you create an internal pipeline now at Hill Country Bible Church, where you're now raising up leaders Right.
Speaker 2:
So the so after that, after that time with Ralph, I did a couple things. One is I asked Ralph to mentor me. I said this can't be like the one conversation I have with you, like I was smart enough to know that I'm not smart enough, right, Right. So I essentially, I rate I made Ralph my friend and over the next year and a half in particular, like at least once a month, we were talking Nice. The other thing I did is I came back to Hill Country and I said, ok, if I try to do this on my own, I'm going to flame out, right, something that I learned from parachute planting in Forney. And so it's all about team. So God had given me enough relationships of solid leaders at Hill Country, where I just did an I see a new conversation and invited them to pray about being on a team that is going to chart the course of church planting into this next season. And I had a couple guys one guy that was a current elder, one guy that was a previous elder and another guy who was a longtime retired DPS officer but had built a company and scaled it Nice, right. So I put these three guys in a room and I had, I had some thoughts, you know, given my Ralph conversation and my experience, like this is how this pipeline thing could work. But I very much open handedly knew like they're going to come up with ideas that I haven't thought of. Yeah, for our context, these are smart guys. I said, oh, we're going to take the next, however long it takes in my mind is going to be at least six to 12 months to come up with our plan. Because the other thing I didn't want to do and this is where a lot of pastors and planters get in trouble is they take oh, that worked there for that guy in that context and that church. And try to, and try to put it in your place and it completely craters. Right, because God was doing something specific in that place, right?
Speaker 1:
And with that unique gifting and everything else.
Speaker 2:
All that right and even under that, what God really wants is to do ministry together with you, and he really wants to be in the journey Right and you talking to him about what he wants to see in you, through you, how he's wired you and the guys that he brings around you in order to move the mission there.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Speaker 2:
Right. So we get in a room with a whiteboard and we start throwing stuff up there and after about it took us about nine months we came up with our internal pipeline, which what we said was okay, where are the pockets within our church where leaders currently reside, where we could come alongside those ministries in order to help leadership development happen? But we would also be there to get eyes on right leaders, because at that time this is, I can't remember, like the the time warp of COVID stupid pandemic it was right as probably 2019 right that we're doing this For us to get eyes on, at that point, a 7000 person church to see where the leaders are right, who are they, who's?
Speaker 1:
here, who's God?
Speaker 2:
already embedded into Hill Country that we could come alongside and and cultivate. And so we just said, okay, things like student ministry, young adults and adult ministry, small group ministry, some other different environments that we have in Hill Country, and we said, okay, we're going to separate those out in our what we're calling our finding phase and, for now, this team that had developed this plan are now my deployed implementers. Right, who get it, are bought in and see the value, like, oh, yes, we need to do that. But come alongside these ministries, not from the standpoint of, hi, we're here from church planting, we're here, we're here to poach all your best leaders, right, like like end of conversation, yeah, right, but to see, like legitimately, come alongside these ministries and help. Yeah, right, because every ministry, like right now in your church, whatever it is, you want leadership development either to start happening at all, right, or to go better. Yes, because what happens is in the tearing of the urgent. Again, in our next podcast, we can talk the difference. Level five, level three yeah, in a level three, church programs, eat your lunch and you don't have time you don't have to do leadership development, no, you're just trying to make it.
Speaker 1:
First of all, I'm trying to make Sunday happen.
Speaker 2:
Oh, by and it happens every week. Somehow every seven days that thing comes around.
Speaker 1:
It's brutal yeah, you got to make all these different people that like, oh, I can't make it, that it's hard yeah.
Speaker 2:
Bro, and so what we did is like we're like OK, this guy has a passion for this area ministry, this guy has a passion for students, this guy's a passion for young adults. Ok, come alongside that leader and I would do some collaborative work and say amen, like with the other staff member, and say, hey, this is what we're doing, this is what you can expect. Let's work on this together, right, like in order to very legitimately, I want to help leadership development happen better in this ministry and if we see guys that have some leadership chops that we could cultivate, that we can invite them into a next step.
Speaker 1:
I love that. So, essentially, not only are you empowering your leaders to be church planners, but you're already cultivating in the area of ministry. They're already in right and that greatly enhances that specific ministry. And so you're doing two things at once. And I think that's probably if someone's like I don't even want to do church planning, but if you say, like what if you had a vision for church planning? Because most people aren't going to be church planners, you might raise up a leader to their leadership lead or whatever, and now, all of a sudden, they're empowered to do that and it's exactly what you've called. We've gone for over our 10. This is like the longest podcast we've ever done. As well, let's do this. I want to bring you back for another round and because I feel like there's so much more here to go into. Oh, there is. Yeah, I feel like we, like when I think about pipeline, I'm like we go hours on this. So let's bring that back around, because I feel like we're at an hour 10. We're like now we're beyond long form or now in a place of like I want people coming back from work. So let's kind of let's kind of bring this all together, like because your journey is so important in all this. Like what would you say to a church planner right now? Like they're, they're out of church, they're like what's my next step?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, your next step is disciple making. Okay, one of the things that I've learned in this journey is and this is theological one of the things we'll get into next time is a God's heart and a theology for multiplication. What I mean by that is the normal state of a follower of Jesus should be one of multiplication. Right Meaning if you have a Christian whose life is not being multiplied into other people, something is wrong, right and you, as a good pastor Gardner Cultivator metaphor your job is to come alongside them and remove anything that's getting in the way of the fruitfulness of that individual.
Speaker 1:
Right, and that might be like hey, you cut this sin out, or hey, all of it. You know that it's all. It's all of it.
Speaker 2:
Right that if you're a church planter, you are a pastor. Your number one job is to see disciple making happen as the primary ministry of you personally. Go and make disciples, matthew twenty eight, baptizing and teaching right and low and with you always to the end of the age. Yep, right, that is what we are called to do. We are not called to plant churches, it's not in there. We are called to make disciples, and when you make disciples you have the opportunity to get church. If you go after church, you may or may not get disciples.
Speaker 1:
That's beautiful. I think that that's huge. I think someone needs to hear that, like you have a desire to go play a church, you have a desire to be a pastor. Start making disciples right now, because if you're not making disciples right now, then what you're going to get into is running programs.
Speaker 2:
That's it. That's all you'll do. Okay, I want to just kind of end it there. All right, good to go, thanks so much.
Speaker 1:
I'm going to start with a little bit more about leadership development, internal pipeline, kind of growing in through that and excited for that. Hey, listen, if you are watching, make sure you like, share, subscribe, let everyone know that you're especially if you're a church player you know, send this. You know there's a guy that you know that is like a potential church player. You need to send them this podcast. Let them know all about it. We would love to hear from you. You can always text us 737-231-0605. We'd love to hear from you and any questions on church playing. We'll bring Eric back and we'll do this all. Again, eric, thanks for being here, what's up, play and grateful for all you guys watching and from our house.
