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Rev. Andy Early Interview · What You Have Seen and Heard

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, hello again, and welcome back to another episode of What You Have Seen and Heard.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: The title comes from when John the Baptist sent a delegation to Jesus to find out
0:07
SPEAKER_00: if he was the Messiah, and Jesus doesn't say yes or no.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: He just sends him to go back to John and tell him to share what they've seen and heard.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: And so with that in mind,
0:15
SPEAKER_00: my name is I'm a pastor in the Upper Midwest Conference of
0:18
SPEAKER_00: the Global Methodist Church.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: I serve in Northwest Iowa in a town called Marcus.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just trying to have conversations with folks around the annual conference
0:25
SPEAKER_00: to share what God is doing,
0:26
SPEAKER_00: to share stories of God's grace and mercy,
0:29
SPEAKER_00: and to encourage one another So today I'm thrilled
0:33
SPEAKER_00: because our special guest today is Pastor Andy Early,
0:37
SPEAKER_00: who's a pastor in Harvest Church in Bismarck, North Dakota.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: And people who have been watching this for some time will realize that Andy is
0:44
SPEAKER_00: the first person outside of the state of Iowa that I've had the opportunity
0:47
SPEAKER_00: to interview.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping that I'll have many more as time goes on.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: So welcome, Andy, to this conversation.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Travis.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited you're doing this for us.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: So the first question I start out with everybody is, how is it that you became a Christian?
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Or if you've always been a Christian, how was it you began to take your faith really seriously?
1:07
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: I have kind of a prodigal story.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: I grew up in Pasadena, Texas.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: I came to faith in Christ.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: I gave my life to the Lord the summer before middle school in Pasadena in
1:22
SPEAKER_01: a little Methodist church there, Parkwood Methodist Church.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: And I...
1:28
SPEAKER_01: Had a great middle school.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: A youth group that we were active in and everything went really well.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: And then high school, it started to have some flaws.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: I went to a middle school that fed into two separate high schools.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: And so a couple of things happened.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: I can't really say a perfect storm because it was middle school.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, looking back, it wasn't as big as you're going to end up encountering.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: But for me, They were big.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: My youth director left and our youth group at church disintegrated the summer
2:04
SPEAKER_01: before my freshman year of high school.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: And then in high school, My friend groups from middle school all went to the other high school.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: So I kind of was on this island.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have my church group together anymore.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have my school group together anymore.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: And I just started to flounder.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: I always was in church still.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: We were a church family.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: Still knew the Lord, but I wasn't walking as closely with the Lord.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: And what I what I described is just a drift.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: And then I went down this pathway.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: For a long time, you know, probably till.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: Oh, gosh,
2:46
SPEAKER_01: for about 20 years,
2:47
SPEAKER_01: I I was one foot in the world,
2:50
SPEAKER_01: one foot in my faith and just back and forth and gradually getting further
2:55
SPEAKER_01: and further away from Lord had to.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: So two or three tragedies or big challenges that did happen that I would love
3:03
SPEAKER_01: to say drew me back to the Lord, but they didn't.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: They pushed me farther away.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: I had a brother who was a police officer in Pasadena, and he was killed in the line of duty.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: And this would have been in the early 90s, 93.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: I had prayed for his protection, prayed for him to be safe in this job and then to lose him.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: I just went further away.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: Anger, all sorts of things.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: I started drinking, had alcohol abuse problems.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Then my wife and I, we ended up having infertility issues.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: For 17 years, we couldn't have children.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Once again, I wanted to be a
3:43
SPEAKER_01: dad.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to have kids.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: And then early...
3:58
SPEAKER_01: In 2000, life was just, it wasn't a mess, but it wasn't what it could be.
4:03
SPEAKER_01: You know,
4:03
SPEAKER_01: something was missing,
4:04
SPEAKER_01: as it always is, that God-sized hole that we talk about in our heart.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: And I said, I think we need to start to try to find a church to attend.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: And we were living in the north side of Houston,
4:18
SPEAKER_01: and Joanne,
4:19
SPEAKER_01: my wife, and I,
4:20
SPEAKER_01: we went,
4:20
SPEAKER_01: and the closest church to where we were living was this Presbyterian church
4:26
SPEAKER_01: And we went there and we went to a couple of other churches first and then we went
4:31
SPEAKER_01: to that Presbyterian church.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: And mom and dad had moved out of the Methodist church because that church closed
4:38
SPEAKER_01: into a Presbyterian church.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: So I was familiar with the Presbyterian church.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: And we started attending there.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: We kind of quit looking when we started going.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: The pastor was just starting a sermon series,
4:50
SPEAKER_01: and I kept wanting to hear the next message in the series.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: It was God speaking directly to me.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: And so the way I described it, Travis, is I had this gradual walk away from the Lord.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: And in hindsight, He never left me.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: I just, my faith was struggling.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: Right.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: I gradually came back to him and this was the early 2000s and then 2000,
5:13
SPEAKER_01: I was in the restaurant industry.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: I ran restaurants at the time and I just started right around 2005 starting to get this.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: This call that, man, I need to be doing something different.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: I felt this need to talk to people about Jesus.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: And I thought,
5:31
SPEAKER_01: if I do this in the restaurants,
5:34
SPEAKER_01: you know, it was corporate restaurants, I'm going to get myself fired.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: And so I started to look into different things.
5:41
SPEAKER_01: And about that time,
5:44
SPEAKER_01: they were looking for a youth director at the Presbyterian Church I was attending.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: And so I talked to the senior pastor.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: We ended up, I'd scheduled a meeting just to kind of hear about it.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: And we, he took like three hours with me and we had this three hour meeting,
6:01
SPEAKER_01: just getting to know each other.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: And it was just God moving.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: And I, uh,
6:07
SPEAKER_01: I had this plan that I was gonna,
6:10
SPEAKER_01: I was going to,
6:11
SPEAKER_01: a buddy of mine had become an insurance adjuster, a catastrophe insurance adjuster.
6:17
SPEAKER_01: And He worked storms.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: Hurricanes would hit, and he would go adjust.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: He made good money, and it was about six, seven months of the year that he would work.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: My thought was I would start doing that,
6:29
SPEAKER_01: just open my own business as an insurance adjuster,
6:32
SPEAKER_01: and then serve in the youth ministry as well.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: And so that year I opened my business and it was the year after Katrina.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if you remember, but no storms hit the Continental United States.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: No storms hit the Texas coast.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: And so there was just...
6:51
SPEAKER_01: And I found myself a year later waiting tables at this fine dining restaurant.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: And I always say that was God preparing me for the pay cut that I was going to take.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: But I ended up at that point, then the position for youth director came available.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: I put my name in the hat and that started me on my career in ministry.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: I served there 2015.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: We moved to Bismarck.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: My wife is from North Dakota.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: And we wanted to get close to her family.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: We had actually adopted her.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: We had four boys at this point and we didn't want to raise them in Houston.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: It was just too big, too much.
7:34
SPEAKER_01: We wanted to be close to her family.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: There was kids the same age and I couldn't find ministry work.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: I moved back into the food service industry and was just waiting to see.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: And then God moved me back into ministry and pastoral ministry at
7:49
SPEAKER_01: the Methodist church we were attending.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: And so that's kind of my story.
7:53
SPEAKER_01: And from that point on now, I've just continued to get closer and closer and closer to God.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm, you know,
8:00
SPEAKER_01: just getting closer to him every day,
8:02
SPEAKER_01: seeing his hand in all things as we move forward.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: So that's my story.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: So normally the next follow-up question is how God called you into ministry.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: And you kind of shared some of that as part of your High Beam Christian story.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: But before I move on to anything else,
8:17
SPEAKER_00: I want to just make sure that we explore that as far as you would like to.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything else about how God called you into ministry that you would add?
8:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't think so.
8:28
SPEAKER_01: The call...
8:30
SPEAKER_01: The call became very evident, really.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: And everybody, I think, has a different call, a different way they're spoken to.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: And for me,
8:41
SPEAKER_01: I described it,
8:42
SPEAKER_01: and I don't know where I heard the illustration,
8:44
SPEAKER_01: but it was really me resisting, I would say, Travis.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: And there's that...
8:51
SPEAKER_01: And this is not mine originally.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: It goes to some other pastor I heard talking or a talk,
8:56
SPEAKER_01: but there's the Footprints on the Sand poem,
9:00
SPEAKER_01: you know, of the, you know, walking with us and God carrying us at those hard times.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: The term he used was butt prints on the beach because I was dug in and he kind
9:10
SPEAKER_01: of drug me into ministry despite myself.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I was I was like, man, it's not me.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: That's not who I am.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: That's but he made it clear that he was going to be relentless.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: And I would say my call was relentless.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: And that was that was God being so good like he is.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: You know,
9:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've shared this story of myself in one of these,
9:32
SPEAKER_00: but it seems relevant.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: When I was a senior in high school, I was part of a small group.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: It really was modeled for a Wesleyan class meeting.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: And as we were going off to college, we were asked where we thought God was calling us.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: And there were eight to 10 of us.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: And everyone around the table was convinced God was calling them
9:48
SPEAKER_00: into full-time vocational ministry,
9:51
SPEAKER_00: except for myself and one other friend around the table.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: We were sure that God was not doing that.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Ten years later, there were two of us who were in full-time ministry, and it was those two.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: So it's, isn't that the way it works?
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, so you,
10:03
SPEAKER_00: you are,
10:04
SPEAKER_00: you're a pastor in,
10:04
SPEAKER_00: in Bismarck and, uh,
10:06
SPEAKER_00: and specifically,
10:07
SPEAKER_00: so it's,
10:08
SPEAKER_00: can you tell us a bit about, um,
10:11
SPEAKER_00: about Harvest Church and is it,
10:14
SPEAKER_00: is that a church plant or is that a,
10:16
SPEAKER_00: tell me, tell us some of the story of how that came to be.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: So when,
10:20
SPEAKER_01: when everything happened in the other denomination,
10:22
SPEAKER_01: as we were, um,
10:24
SPEAKER_01: going through there,
10:25
SPEAKER_01: there was disaffiliation, uh, And that at that time I was pastoring two churches.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: I had two congregations, a traditional and a contemporary.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: And in 2018,
10:41
SPEAKER_01: I had planted that contemporary church and we ended up moving into the same building
10:48
SPEAKER_01: and we shared a space.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: But then I pastored both of them.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: And what we had happening is we were planning to disaffiliate with what was going on.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: And we were going to go through conference.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: I was pretty new to the churches and trying to just make sure.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: I was leading well and we were taking our time and the plan was at the end of
11:11
SPEAKER_01: the year there to be able to get all everything done that needed to get done
11:16
SPEAKER_01: and disaffiliate.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: And so we went to that annual conference and we had a new bishop.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: We said at that annual conference that there was going
11:24
SPEAKER_01: to be no more disaffiliations allowed in our conference.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: They were shutting it down.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: They weren't going to have any more called conferences if you hadn't done it yet.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: So it was open still, but we weren't going to do that.
11:36
SPEAKER_01: Right.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: And so we were kind of stuck.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: And so what we had always talked about, I just I'd always from the jump let them know.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: That I wasn't going to be able to do this because that's something that is,
11:49
SPEAKER_01: once again, God going before and uses all things.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: And that's what he does.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: But at the Presbyterian church I served at,
11:56
SPEAKER_01: it was PCUSA and they had ended up leaving the PCUSA.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: So I had walked through all of this before with our leadership there.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: So this was not new to me.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: And I had just told our leadership and our church and we had had meetings.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: I said, I won't be able to go where they're going to go.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: And you need to know that.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: And so when we came back after that conference,
12:22
SPEAKER_01: we decided to send it because she made that choice to do that.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: She could also make a choice to let us go if she wanted to.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: And we didn't hold a lot of hope out,
12:31
SPEAKER_01: but we sent a letter requesting to be released peacefully with our property and
12:36
SPEAKER_01: to just part ways.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: And it got denied.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: And then they came back with a, you know, a document for me to sign.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: I can't remember all the points of it, but I couldn't sign it.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: And it was you're going to.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: And I told him when we send that letter, I told the church, I said, you know, when we do this.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: You know, we're opening them up to remove me as the pastor.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: I go, you need to know that.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: And one of our leadership said, well, what will we do if that happens?
13:05
SPEAKER_01: I said, well, we'll worship.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: I go the next Sunday.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: I go, we'll worship.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: But we, you know, we may be in my garage.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: That'll be the only thing is what I'll tell you.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: And that was my promise to him is that we'll worship the next Sunday.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: And so sent the letter.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: And then it was a Tuesday that, uh,
13:24
SPEAKER_01: I had the meeting with our district superintendent and he asked me
13:29
SPEAKER_01: to sign this document and said,
13:30
SPEAKER_01: this is what needed to happen with all these different parameters
13:34
SPEAKER_01: that I couldn't do.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: And I told him exactly that.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: I said, I can't sign that.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: And so he removed me as the pastor.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: And so I was driving back and I had kind of been planning for this.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: I knew it.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: I called.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: I called Val and Ross, you know, their friends, and I told them what was happening.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: And there was an Eagles Lodge that was right over by the church building that we had.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: And I'd been to a birthday party there and they had this big open space.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: And so I prayed for a party.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: I was pretty upset for 15, 20 minutes.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: And I just prayed while I was driving for God to take that from me,
14:19
SPEAKER_01: to move me back into where he wants me to be,
14:22
SPEAKER_01: for the leadership to be able to walk forward with whoever he wants me
14:28
SPEAKER_01: to walk forward with.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: And I stopped by the Eagles and talked to this lady there and asked about renting the space.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: You know, I just was like, man, would this be possible on a Sunday morning?
14:41
SPEAKER_01: And so this was Tuesday, Travis.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: And so she said,
14:46
SPEAKER_01: She said, yeah,
14:47
SPEAKER_01: she talked to me about the price of it and different things and found out we were
14:50
SPEAKER_01: a church and she dropped the price to about a third of what it was.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: And I had enough money that I had been saving.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: I'd been withholding my tithe because I wasn't going to give it for where they had gone.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: And I rented the Eagles for four weeks because that's what I could afford.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: We were supposed to have a breakfast Sunday that next Sunday.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: It was our kickoff Sunday in September.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: This first Sunday in September will be our two-year anniversary of this happening.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: So I just sent an email out telling them that I had been removed,
15:30
SPEAKER_01: that I was planting a church harvest.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: And we were going to meet at the Eagles at this time.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: And she said, she found out we're going to do breakfast.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: She goes, well, we've got a kitchen, do breakfast anyway.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: So we still did breakfast.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: I had a group that were with me I knew, and they agreed to do pancakes, eggs, and sausage.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: And, uh,
15:49
SPEAKER_01: So didn't know what it was going to be,
15:51
SPEAKER_01: but we set up chairs and got ready and we're in the big great room.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: And for us, this was a big number.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: But 151 people showed up, Travis.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: It was just a move of God, you know, because I just didn't know.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: What it was going to be,
16:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:10
SPEAKER_01: I think we set up like,
16:11
SPEAKER_01: I can't remember what it was, it was something like 75 chairs I think we set up.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: So we were obviously
16:17
SPEAKER_00: scrambling around,
16:18
SPEAKER_00: but it was a great Sunday
16:21
SPEAKER_01: and that kind of kicked us off into harvest.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: And then for two months we met at the Eagles and then we found the space we're
16:31
SPEAKER_01: at now and built it out.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: We're in a little strip center here in the middle of Bismarck.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: And God's been just moving in our midst ever since.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: It's been fun to be a part of.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that is interesting,
16:44
SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking about this,
16:45
SPEAKER_00: and this wasn't part of my normal routine,
16:47
SPEAKER_00: but I've asked it to a bunch of folks, is so how big of a city is Bismarck?
16:52
SPEAKER_01: Roughly.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: So Bismarck is connected to Mandan across the river and it's probably right about
16:58
SPEAKER_01: a hundred thousand people.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: Maybe a little over, um,
17:02
SPEAKER_01: as far as the total Metroplex of Bismarck Mandan and
17:06
SPEAKER_00: outlying areas there,
17:08
SPEAKER_00: but that's about a hundred thousand.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: So as far as like cities go,
17:12
SPEAKER_00: it's a relatively small one, but,
17:14
SPEAKER_00: but compared to the place where most of our global Methodist churches are in
17:17
SPEAKER_00: the upper Midwest, it's a pretty good sized town.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: So as somebody,
17:22
SPEAKER_00: so I have for the last 12 years been in rural ministry and the last,
17:28
SPEAKER_00: you know, almost 10 of it has been pretty deliberately in rural ministry.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: I have perspectives that I have on things.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: And I was just curious, your story has so far mostly been in metropolitan areas.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: And I was just curious if you had any thoughts about ministry in the cities and how,
17:43
SPEAKER_00: at least from your perspective,
17:44
SPEAKER_00: it might be different than what most of us in our conference are up against.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: So
17:53
SPEAKER_01: when I started Moving into ministry in North Dakota,
17:58
SPEAKER_01: I was asked, they found out I used to be in ministry at the church we were at.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: And I started lay pastoring,
18:08
SPEAKER_01: just preaching,
18:09
SPEAKER_01: pulpit supply was the term I was looking for,
18:12
SPEAKER_01: in Moffitt, a little Methodist church in Moffitt.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: And I would just 30 minutes from Bismarck,
18:17
SPEAKER_01: I would drive out there once,
18:18
SPEAKER_01: twice a month and just fill their pulpit and preach for them.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: And so that's my only experience with the more rural setting.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: In Houston, obviously, it's big city, you know, millions of people.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: So for me,
18:34
SPEAKER_01: what I have noticed is it seems like the rural setting is much more that,
18:44
SPEAKER_01: like you described that small group,
18:46
SPEAKER_01: it's, you know, you're going to know your people more.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: You're going to know what's going on in their life.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: You're a family.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: You are all just a family of faith.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: And we, in a larger setting,
18:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:58
SPEAKER_01: we'll have, it's two services that split pretty even, traditional and contemporary.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, if we have 70 people in a service,
19:13
SPEAKER_01: We call ourselves a church family,
19:15
SPEAKER_01: but that would be including extended family and everyone else.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: It's the big family reunion where you see people that you don't know
19:23
SPEAKER_00: and you've never met in your life.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: That's city urban ministry compared to, man,
19:30
SPEAKER_01: you know what's happening in this person's grandson's life
19:34
SPEAKER_01: because that's how close you are.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm of the mindset and I think it's challenging to For me,
19:42
SPEAKER_01: I know when I was serving in Moffitt,
19:45
SPEAKER_01: I kept bumping up against,
19:47
SPEAKER_01: man, this isn't growing, this isn't growing, this isn't growing.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it was,
19:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
19:54
SPEAKER_01: if you look at the percentage of the town that came to the Methodist Church
19:58
SPEAKER_01: for services,
19:59
SPEAKER_01: we were doing pretty well,
20:00
SPEAKER_01: but, you know, there just wasn't that
20:02
SPEAKER_00: well of people to come try it.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: And then I look at,
20:08
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:08
SPEAKER_01: the urban mission here in Bismarck and The challenge is different not
20:13
SPEAKER_01: to get caught up with numbers, but to be, we always talk about not missing the one.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: You know, we don't want to miss the one person.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: I was listening to K-Love radio.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: I like to listen to Christian radio.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: And this lady was talking about her son, a 20-something son who had cancer.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: And he was losing his fight with cancer.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: She's there,
20:41
SPEAKER_01: and she talked about this journey praying for her son,
20:44
SPEAKER_01: and she says how she had to change her prayers.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: She changed her prayers from healing her,
20:51
SPEAKER_01: To God using this disease in her son's life for something big.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: She said, if you're going to take my son home, make it for something big.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: And then she said this, Travis, and I'll never forget it.
21:05
SPEAKER_01: She said, let someone come to faith in Jesus because of this.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: She didn't say a hundred people.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: She didn't say dozens of people.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: She said one person.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: She said, let one person come to faith
21:19
SPEAKER_00: because of this.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: And it's just always stuck with me, man.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: I never want to be so big that we miss the one.
21:27
SPEAKER_01: And that's got to be our attitude with all our people.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: That's what we try to get across is, man, we may do all this church plant.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: We may be around for 10 years and impact hundreds of people with worship services,
21:39
SPEAKER_01: thousands of people.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: But it may be for one conversation, one Sunday morning, one person.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: And we've got to be that.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: That honed in on the Holy Spirit's leading to, man, this is the moment for today.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: This is the moment for this year.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of how we operate.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what rural ministry can do is,
22:01
SPEAKER_01: man, you're in that with them in that moment as family.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: And that has such value.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: Just as much as what the biggest church does,
22:13
SPEAKER_01: because it comes down to that person, that connection, that moment.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: That's my philosophies.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: I think about,
22:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
22:21
SPEAKER_00: one of the things,
22:22
SPEAKER_00: my background before I was in ministry was I was on my way to be a math teacher.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: And so I think about the notion of exponential growth,
22:30
SPEAKER_00: you know, and there's a famous story where
22:35
SPEAKER_00: Someone had provided a service,
22:36
SPEAKER_00: and the idea was you can either have however many bags of rice now,
22:42
SPEAKER_00: or the guy says, well, instead of that, how about we have this chessboard?
22:45
SPEAKER_00: And on the first square, it's the first day, and it's one grain of rice.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: And on the second day, it's two grains of rice.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: And then the third day, it's four grains of rice.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: It just doubles each time.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: And the king or whoever thought, oh, I'm going to get off cheap.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: This is going to be nothing.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, then by the end, it's being far more than the original payment would have been.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: And I think about,
23:02
SPEAKER_00: sometimes I think we get so distracted on,
23:03
SPEAKER_00: well, we want to have a big worship service.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: And we sometimes lose our attention on the one-on-one.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: If you had one person in a church and they spent the whole of
23:15
SPEAKER_00: a year pouring their life into one other person so that they become a disciple
23:20
SPEAKER_00: of Jesus, now you have two.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: And then if each of those two people the next year spends their whole year pouring
23:24
SPEAKER_00: into one person, at the end of that year, you have four.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: And then you have eight.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: And then before long, you have a changed world.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that don't lose sight of the one I think is really important.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: And I think that we can so easily chase, well, it's only one person.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: But if it's one genuine disciple, that's a real step forward in the kingdom.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know,
23:45
SPEAKER_01: Jesus talked about one sheep,
23:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:47
SPEAKER_01: leaving 99 to go get it, and then heaven rejoicing over the one that comes to faith.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: So I have no problem with man.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: It's a challenge, though.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, you get so caught up in the crowds and what's going on in those things.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: It can't be just as church is supposed to be.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: It's not supposed to be just me.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: It's all of us.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: It's all of us looking for man to Be in tune for,
24:13
SPEAKER_01: man, who's the one God is calling you to that day.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: And so that's kind of what I believe about it.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that's easier in rural ministry because a lot of times,
24:25
SPEAKER_01: sometimes knowing them that well can be a challenge as well because they know you
24:31
SPEAKER_01: that well.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's just they're different challenges, but they're challenging.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: So at annual conference, you shared a bit about your Taco Tuesday ministry.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to make you rehash all that if you don't want to.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: But for anybody who hasn't heard about that, I'd like you to share a little bit about that.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: And then anything else that God's doing specifically at Harvest Church
24:54
SPEAKER_00: that you think is worth knowing?
24:56
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: So we...
24:59
SPEAKER_01: We're in the strip center right in the center of town.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: The Capitol is,
25:04
SPEAKER_01: if I hit a good three wood and got a bounce off the cement,
25:07
SPEAKER_01: I could hit the Capitol grounds,
25:09
SPEAKER_01: you know, but you know, that's kind of how close we are.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: So we, we got here and we were confident we're supposed to be here the way it all unfolded.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: We had a place that fell through and then this came up and we were able
25:23
SPEAKER_01: to turn it around in 30 days to get ourselves in here.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: And, um, And like I said, God's just moving.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: These things are happening.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: And so the conversation for us turned to how do we let people know we're here?
25:36
SPEAKER_01: You know, how do we get the word out?
25:39
SPEAKER_01: And so last summer we decided to do Taco Tuesdays.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: It was a once a month during the summer.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: So three times in the summer we would do tacos for the community.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: And instead of ground beef tacos, we do fajitas.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: We grill fajitas.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: We put grills out in front of the We just started grilling up fajitas.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: And they would ask, what's the cost?
26:24
SPEAKER_01: How much is it?
26:25
SPEAKER_01: We'd say, nothing.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: We want to bless people.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: We want you to know Jesus loves you and values you.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: And whatever God leads you into that conversation,
26:36
SPEAKER_01: you are fearfully and wonderfully made, whatever you get led into.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: And so we started meeting all these people.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: We sent a mail out for Jesus.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: We mailed out 1,500 postcards inviting people right around the church.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: It was received really well.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: The thing about our place we're at, the strip center, is we don't have a kitchen.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: We did it all with grills and roasters.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: It's the funniest thing because everybody takes dishes home at the end of an event.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: Everybody
27:11
SPEAKER_00: will get
27:15
SPEAKER_01: half a dozen or more dishes and take them home
27:17
SPEAKER_01: and they all bring them back on the next Sunday because
27:20
SPEAKER_00: that's how we have to do it.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: But it's a team thing.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: But the things we do when we're doing it is we're trying to get across that we're different.
27:29
SPEAKER_01: We're not your regular church that you may have encountered.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying we're better.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: We're not.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: But a lot of people have these,
27:37
SPEAKER_01: as we've encountered, these preconceived ideas of church and church people.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: And so what we do is we encourage people.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: They have to be nice.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: Number one, you got to be nice to people.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: If you're not ready to be nice, you have to go cook.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I tell them.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know, we're doing this to put the light of the world out into Bismarck.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: So if you're having a day, man,
27:59
SPEAKER_01: go season meat and grill meat and let the other people be nice because we have
28:04
SPEAKER_01: to be nice.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: The other thing is we don't talk about the church.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: They're going to expect us to try to get them to come to church,
28:11
SPEAKER_01: and we're coaching our people up.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: You talk about them.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: Man, find out about them.
28:17
SPEAKER_01: Tell me about your family.
28:17
SPEAKER_01: How long have you been in Bismarck?
28:20
SPEAKER_01: What brought you to us today?
28:23
SPEAKER_01: What's your biggest challenges that I could be praying for?
28:26
SPEAKER_01: We want them to be known.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: So we want people to be nice.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: We want them to be known.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: And then the fourth one is be aware,
28:34
SPEAKER_01: or third one, I'm sorry, be aware, you know, looking for that one.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: If somebody has something going on,
28:40
SPEAKER_01: we don't want them to get away without us coming together and praying for them.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: You know,
28:44
SPEAKER_00: if you got this going on in
28:45
SPEAKER_01: your life and you share that,
28:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:47
SPEAKER_01: instead of saying, man,
28:49
SPEAKER_01: I'll pray for you,
28:50
SPEAKER_01: it's, man, let me grab a couple of people and let's pray about this.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: And we go circle around them and we pray right then and there.
28:57
SPEAKER_01: And, um, It's been amazing watching God work.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: And it's exactly like I described.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what he's doing out in the world with maybe some preconceived ideas
29:09
SPEAKER_01: about church being broken down,
29:11
SPEAKER_01: hopefully,
29:11
SPEAKER_01: and people that they go back to their old church and try it again
29:15
SPEAKER_01: or do something else.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: But we have a few people that have come to us from that,
29:19
SPEAKER_01: that they've joined the church because of it.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: They're a part of it.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: And it's just a part of our identity to serve.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: You know, Jesus came not to be served, but to serve.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: And so it gives us a chance to just serve and let people know, man, we're glad to be here.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: We want to get to know the people of this community.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: And so we did it again this year.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: Had some weather issues and stuff like that,
29:42
SPEAKER_01: but we're getting better at it, and people now are starting to expect it.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: It's like we're in the taco church,
29:49
SPEAKER_01: and so I don't know that that's a good or a bad thing,
29:51
SPEAKER_01: but that's who we are,
29:52
SPEAKER_01: and that's part of our identity is, man,
29:54
SPEAKER_01: we're this church that is going to be safe for you to go to,
29:59
SPEAKER_01: be heard, and at least be prayed for.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: We don't do a lot of handouts.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: We believe in hand up, and that's kind of how we We work.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: I'll give one other story from the first one.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I shared this.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: I might have.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: I can't remember what I did or didn't share at conference.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: But that first Taco Tuesday, I met a lady named Tiffany.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: She's 36 years old.
30:22
SPEAKER_01: She wanted money to move.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: She was moving.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: And I told him, we don't really do, we're not in a place to just give money to people.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: But I put a team together.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: We unloaded a trailer that this guy who has a painting company has.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: And we had seven or eight of us that went and moved them.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: We helped them move.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: It was a little bit of stuff and we got them into this new place.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: For whatever reason, a month or two later, I prayed for him in there.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: We all circled up, prayed over their place, but she'd come to church once or twice.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: I hadn't had a conversation about her faith, Travis, and she died.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: She ended up having either,
31:03
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it was an overdose or if it was just medical complications.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: She was not well in a lot of ways and she died.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: And then her family died.
31:12
SPEAKER_01: Knew she had had this interaction with us and came and asked about a funeral.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: So we were able to do the funeral.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: And there was probably 30 or 40 people that came to the funeral.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: We were able to care for that family during that time and just be able to be
31:27
SPEAKER_01: the hands and feet of Christ to them.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: And then they all heard the gospel presentation at that funeral
31:32
SPEAKER_01: because I wasn't going to miss that again.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: And so once again, what God does with that, we'll see.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: But that's kind of our We're figuring out still two years in,
31:43
SPEAKER_01: we've got a better handle on, we know we're supposed to be here.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: We're figuring out this is who we are as a church.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: And that's part of what the Taco Tuesday event is.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: It's literally a chance for us to bless our community.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: And that's our goal is just to bless people.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: I think it's really interesting.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: Some of this, I think these points are tied together.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: You talked earlier about how your congregation was talking about doing
32:13
SPEAKER_00: the official disaffiliation process and that door was slammed shut on you.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: And so you had to,
32:17
SPEAKER_00: as a group,
32:18
SPEAKER_00: make a decision about who you were going to be and which direction you were going
32:21
SPEAKER_00: to go and whether you were going to cling to the past, to the building of the past.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why I think it's significant to what you're talking about now is
32:28
SPEAKER_00: because I think that It's ironic that during the season of disaffiliation,
32:33
SPEAKER_00: I think that I looked at the churches that had the easiest time
32:38
SPEAKER_00: as being especially blessed and fortunate.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: And now that we're on the other side of it,
32:43
SPEAKER_00: and now I can hear enough stories of what's kind of going on and all the rest,
32:46
SPEAKER_00: I sometimes wonder if the churches that had an easier transition might actually have
32:52
SPEAKER_00: the harder time now.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Because now the idea,
32:55
SPEAKER_00: because I wonder,
32:56
SPEAKER_00: I worry, because we talk about how we want to be a new thing, a new movement of God.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: We want to reclaim a heritage that has been gone by the wayside.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: But if you're in a congregation that said, well,
33:06
SPEAKER_00: thank goodness we got that over with,
33:07
SPEAKER_00: we're done,
33:08
SPEAKER_00: and now we can just do the same things we've always done, they may just stagnate.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: Whereas what I keep hearing about,
33:14
SPEAKER_00: and in your conference on the situations, is churches that had to make a decision.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: That had to draw their own line in the sand and march forward and
33:22
SPEAKER_00: where they felt God was calling them.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: A lot of them are talking about how they're growing.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: They're having this great revival.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: Even if the numbers aren't growing, they're having this great revival of spirit.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: And so I wonder to what degree,
33:33
SPEAKER_00: if there's anybody who's watching this who was in a church that didn't have
33:37
SPEAKER_00: that hard of a time with this affiliation,
33:40
SPEAKER_00: the challenge of, do you know who you are?
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Or has this only been an excuse to just keep doing what you've always been doing?
33:47
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a question that's worthwhile asking.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: You talk about also softening hearts towards the church,
33:54
SPEAKER_00: even if they don't come into your church.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: I have used this example before, and I think it's an interesting thought experiment.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Suppose for an example that I had a particular anointing from God,
34:04
SPEAKER_00: that every time I preached at a church, everybody left that church.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: But they all, one, joined another church.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: And my being in the one church compelled people who were not yet part of the church
34:14
SPEAKER_00: to all become disciples of Jesus Christ at other churches.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: It would be a weird anointing.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: It would be a difficult anointing.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: But it would be good for the kingdom.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things that we sometimes lose,
34:27
SPEAKER_00: especially, you know, is that we are not, we don't own the gospel, you know.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: So if you soften the heart of somebody and they end up going somewhere else,
34:36
SPEAKER_00: But they become a real disciple of Jesus Christ.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: Then that was successful ministry, you know, for the kingdom.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: The only thing that popped in my head is for the six weeks that your church is open
34:47
SPEAKER_01: with everybody leaving, it would be very impactful
34:50
SPEAKER_00: to the kingdom.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's not an either or it's a both and.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: We have people that are church shopping, for lack of a better term.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't necessarily like that term.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: We're having a lot of new people show up and they don't all show back up.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: We have to be okay with that.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: Our prayers are for God to open doors and close doors.
35:19
SPEAKER_01: We want to be in His will for what harvest is supposed to become.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: But I absolutely agree that...
35:28
SPEAKER_01: The change has been good for us as far as all of this.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: I preached for two years to that first service.
35:34
SPEAKER_01: They had been some of them in the same building for 40 years since the building was built.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: And in that seat, that's their pew.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: They sat in and that's what they did.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: And I tried for two years to move them to, man, what are we going to do?
35:47
SPEAKER_01: What are we going to become?
35:49
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, been there, done that.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: I've lived that, done children, done youth, done all of that where I'm going to just worship.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: I want to have the Lord's Prayer.
35:59
SPEAKER_01: I want to have communion once a month.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I want to do.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: Preach and don't go over 25 minutes.
36:06
SPEAKER_01: And that was kind of, it wasn't that bad.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: That's not who they were, but we absolutely were.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: I feel like in a holding pattern, almost maybe in a rut, that this is what we're doing.
36:20
SPEAKER_01: And then God moving us out of that building into something new, they've just never...
36:29
SPEAKER_01: Never gotten comfortable again.
36:31
SPEAKER_01: Never gotten where.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: And I told the church,
36:34
SPEAKER_01: both congregations,
36:35
SPEAKER_01: I told a few weeks back, I said,
36:37
SPEAKER_01: one of my leadings from God as your pastor,
36:41
SPEAKER_01: as long as I'm your pastor, is going to be to not let us get comfortable.
36:45
SPEAKER_01: Right.
36:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, I am not going to let us get comfortable.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to continue to push the envelope for us to strive to reach new people with
36:53
SPEAKER_01: the gospel,
36:54
SPEAKER_01: to shine the light in other areas of our community that we're in right now and
36:58
SPEAKER_01: to not rest.
36:59
SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, if we got breath in our body, we're called to, you know, to finish well.
37:05
SPEAKER_01: And they're just they get it.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: They understand it.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's it's an amazing thing to be a part of.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: When I when I started in youth ministry, It was the same type of a situation.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: It was a fractured youth ministry and God moved and was able
37:21
SPEAKER_01: to lead this youth ministry as God really did some things.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: And that's what he's doing now in our midst.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: And that's some of what I think we have to Appreciate and live into,
37:33
SPEAKER_01: but then also just,
37:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
37:35
SPEAKER_01: be aware of, man, what's the, use the term sicknesses, what could come against that?
37:40
SPEAKER_01: What could cause problems with that?
37:43
SPEAKER_01: And that's some of what we are aware of.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's been exactly that.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: I would not,
37:48
SPEAKER_01: if we were still in that same building,
37:51
SPEAKER_01: we wouldn't be the same church that we are now.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: And that's a piece, you know, you go through stuff, it galvanizes you together.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: You've got this
38:02
SPEAKER_01: We all have decided to take this stand that we're not going here.
38:07
SPEAKER_01: And now from that stand, we're moving together towards who God's making us as a church.
38:15
SPEAKER_01: And it's still a work in progress as all of us are.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: You mentioned the word sickness.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: I haven't used it yet today in this interview, but we will go there in just a second.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: But I want to make sure I at least give a qualification for something I said
38:29
SPEAKER_00: a minute ago,
38:29
SPEAKER_00: because I'm in a congregation
38:31
SPEAKER_00: that actually our disaffiliation was very straightforward and fairly easy.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: And we kept our building and it was important for us to keep our building.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: But I want to make sure that I'm clear about the fact that not all wanting to keep
38:40
SPEAKER_00: the buildings are created equal.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: Because there are some churches that want to hold on to the building just because
38:44
SPEAKER_00: of sentimentality.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, I grew up here.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: This is where I associate.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: You guys,
38:50
SPEAKER_00: no one can see this,
38:51
SPEAKER_00: but if you go out this way to get out of the building,
38:55
SPEAKER_00: the very next thing is the high school,
38:57
SPEAKER_00: you know, that is also attached to one of our elementary schools.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: And whenever we talked about the importance of keeping the building,
39:03
SPEAKER_00: there was always talk about, well, didn't we pay for this?
39:06
SPEAKER_00: Didn't our ancestors pay for this?
39:07
SPEAKER_00: And there's a certain amount of that.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: But The conversation always went to,
39:10
SPEAKER_00: we are right next to, we have the perfect location in this community.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: And for that,
39:17
SPEAKER_00: it wasn't a sentimentality of,
39:19
SPEAKER_00: let's fight for the building just because we like the building.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: It was a fighting for the building because of what it represents from a ministry point of view.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to make sure I'm really clear about the fact that when I say
39:26
SPEAKER_00: that those who clung to their buildings,
39:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm also in a congregation that fought for the building.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: But I want to acknowledge the fact that there's there are good ways and bad ways of doing that.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: So I'm sure that I didn't come off as entirely.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: If you kept your building, you were a failure.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm trying to say.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: Well, and I want to be sure I'm I'm clear.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: I I can only speak to what God's done at harvest.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: Right.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: I think every situation I think we all have to be we can fall into this.
39:53
SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to say trap,
39:54
SPEAKER_01: but this false thinking of,
39:56
SPEAKER_01: man, I know their story because I walked, I went through this.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: And the truth of it is just like our individual path to faith, they're all different.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: Everybody was impacted different by what has happened, what is happening and what will happen.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the key to it is to recognize that.
40:14
SPEAKER_01: But man, what is God, as scripture tells us, he uses all things for good.
40:20
SPEAKER_01: How is he going to use this for good?
40:22
SPEAKER_01: And that's where I see, and I can only speak to ours and what he did.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: He helped move us out of a rut into this church that is serving and active in its community.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: And that's just what was needed.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: And that's, I think, part of why it happened.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: And it makes me also think about So I think it's also, there's a sense in which
41:10
SPEAKER_00: There's another danger, which is the grass always being greener on the other side.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: And we only have the experience that we have.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: And so the challenge for each of us is always going to be,
41:18
SPEAKER_00: how can we be faithful disciples today where we are with who we are?
41:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I'll tell you one other thought.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: And I just,
41:28
SPEAKER_01: you know,
41:28
SPEAKER_01: I think the other thing is us being very,
41:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm very aware of,
41:34
SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't say,
41:35
SPEAKER_01: but I try to be very aware of of myself and my experiences, my lack of experiences.
41:43
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a key to Us being a faithful witness in the kingdom is,
41:50
SPEAKER_01: you know, recognizing where God is moving.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: Not my desires, but God's desires is always the prayer, always what we're wanting to strive for.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: And old Andy is in there and can, you know, take over any situation.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, God had a plan through this, and I don't think his plan is done yet.
42:11
SPEAKER_01: And I love hearing the stories about the people that they had these,
42:16
SPEAKER_01: you know, 99, 100% votes of, man, this is what we did.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: And it's exactly like you described that individual story who has always walked with
42:26
SPEAKER_01: the Lord, always known Christ.
42:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's places for that.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: And that goes back to that idea of one person, man, one person may need to hear that story.
42:36
SPEAKER_01: Right.
42:37
SPEAKER_01: To be able to make that come alive in their life.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: And that's just how I believe it works is, you know, it's not about all this.
42:48
SPEAKER_01: We have to have strategies and we have to do these things, but it's one person at a time.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: So we've hinted at this already,
42:57
SPEAKER_00: but one of the other recurring features of these conversations is,
43:00
SPEAKER_00: as I ask everybody I talk to, to name...
43:04
SPEAKER_00: A sickness that they see in the church.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: And I always try to clarify that the word sickness is on purpose.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: Because if somebody is sick, they don't need judgment.
43:11
SPEAKER_00: They need support and diagnosis and treatment.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: So acknowledging the fact that we all have problems and we all have issues.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: And some of the issues we have, we don't even realize that we have.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: But we can never get the help that we need if we don't realize it.
43:23
SPEAKER_00: So with all that in mind,
43:24
SPEAKER_00: and you talked about how you had backgrounds in different churches,
43:27
SPEAKER_00: is there any kind of sickness that you've seen that affects churches or Christians
43:31
SPEAKER_00: that we should be aware of?
43:34
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you had sent me that and I'd been thinking and praying about that.
43:40
SPEAKER_01: And I like the term sickness and the fact that it needs a cure and going from there.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: But I have a hard time
43:52
SPEAKER_01: putting myself in a position to look at the church universal,
43:56
SPEAKER_01: if that makes sense.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: But trying to step into that role, I would start with...
44:04
SPEAKER_01: With our leadership,
44:05
SPEAKER_01: and once again,
44:06
SPEAKER_01: what we're focusing on,
44:11
SPEAKER_01: I say this towards me,
44:13
SPEAKER_01: what really needs to happen with me every single day is I give this
44:19
SPEAKER_01: into God's hands.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: I trust that He is going to lead.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: He is going to open doors and close doors.
44:26
SPEAKER_01: And when I can do that well, Travis, I He does exactly that.
44:31
SPEAKER_01: He opens doors, he closes doors, and things are better.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: When I start to have these situations where I run into things that,
44:41
SPEAKER_01: oh, I've been in this before at the Presbyterian Church.
44:44
SPEAKER_01: I know this.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: I know this.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden, I get in the way.
44:49
SPEAKER_01: And I think that,
44:51
SPEAKER_01: so what I would land on is,
44:54
SPEAKER_01: and I think we couldn't help but have to Lead from the front in some
44:59
SPEAKER_01: of what we've gone through as a denomination coming out of where we were
45:03
SPEAKER_01: into what we're becoming and going from there.
45:06
SPEAKER_01: But now I think what I would say is where we needed to stand up and be strong,
45:13
SPEAKER_01: now I think we need to surrender.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: We need to just surrender to the Holy Spirit, to man.
45:19
SPEAKER_01: What is God's view today?
45:21
SPEAKER_01: For the Global Methodist Church.
45:22
SPEAKER_01: And I think we're doing a pretty good job of that.
45:25
SPEAKER_01: But then as it flows down to individual churches and then into
45:29
SPEAKER_01: the individual congregation, it's still the same thing.
45:33
SPEAKER_01: We've got all this stuff happening in our church and there's still a large group of people.
45:39
SPEAKER_01: That, you know,
45:39
SPEAKER_01: they found a new seat and this
45:41
SPEAKER_00: is where they're at and they're sitting
45:42
SPEAKER_00: and they're there every Sunday and they want communion once a month and they want
45:46
SPEAKER_01: the Lord's Prayer, you know, that's where they're at.
45:49
SPEAKER_01: And that's and so that's where I think that it comes back to.
45:52
SPEAKER_01: And I'll give an example of something God did.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: And this is real minor, but.
45:57
SPEAKER_01: When we built this space out, it's an old archery range.
46:00
SPEAKER_01: So it's this big, long, 100-foot-long room that's 50 feet wide.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: And we put a wall in the middle.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: We have the worship center and our gathering space.
46:11
SPEAKER_01: We have two rooms.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: And so when we were putting stuff together and building it out in that month,
46:18
SPEAKER_01: we mismeasured the ceiling.
46:20
SPEAKER_01: So we got it all, the backdrop up and everything.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: And then we got the screen up for slides.
46:26
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
46:44
SPEAKER_01: But I love that, Travis, because I think that's what it should be.
46:47
SPEAKER_01: I think as leaders,
46:48
SPEAKER_01: as just people,
46:49
SPEAKER_01: leaders in our own household,
46:51
SPEAKER_01: all of us, I think what we need to do as leaders is surrender.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: Man, it's not my will.
46:56
SPEAKER_01: It's God's will.
46:58
SPEAKER_01: How do I step back from this and let it become a group?
47:04
SPEAKER_00: Movement to exactly where God wants us to be.
47:08
SPEAKER_01: And I don't have all the answers on that.
47:10
SPEAKER_01: I've just seen that at harvest as I've,
47:12
SPEAKER_01: as I've moved from a period of leading from the front to leading as one of the,
47:18
SPEAKER_01: one of the people called to where God's calling harvest.
47:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's been interesting having, uh,
47:25
SPEAKER_01: having some people see that and move along other people who are,
47:30
SPEAKER_01: man, if the pastor will do that, um, I can do that.
47:34
SPEAKER_01: And it's that's just that's what I came up with.
47:36
SPEAKER_01: I don't know that that's going to be for everybody, but I think that's for us.
47:41
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think that's for us here as far as our church.
47:44
SPEAKER_01: And I think maybe for some others,
47:46
SPEAKER_01: you know, that are in that place is, man, how do you how do you surrender more?
47:51
SPEAKER_01: How do you get led by the Holy Spirit more?
47:54
SPEAKER_01: And and then being willing to to step into something that is we've all had those conversations.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: God, I don't want to do that.
48:02
SPEAKER_01: That's not what I want to do.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: And then doing it, doing it anyway, because you know you're led,
48:08
SPEAKER_00: you know?
48:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: So what, um,
48:12
SPEAKER_00: We're starting to kind of come towards a close of our conversation,
48:15
SPEAKER_00: but is there anything else,
48:17
SPEAKER_00: you know,
48:17
SPEAKER_00: we had this moment,
48:18
SPEAKER_00: I know that not,
48:19
SPEAKER_00: it's not like millions of people watch these episodes,
48:21
SPEAKER_00: but I do know that people do watch this from across the annual conference.
48:24
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything else you would like to share either from your heart or for
48:28
SPEAKER_00: the people of the Upper Midwest Annual Conference kind of before,
48:31
SPEAKER_00: as we bring this in for a landing?
48:34
SPEAKER_01: So just something our leadership is doing here
48:36
SPEAKER_01: that we have found very helpful is we're questioning everything we do.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: Why do we do this?
48:45
SPEAKER_01: Because we found that we have these habits from where we were before.
48:50
SPEAKER_01: This is what we've always done.
48:52
SPEAKER_01: This is why we do it.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: The old story of cutting the ham because the pan wasn't big enough.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of where our And when we're doing something,
49:03
SPEAKER_01: when we're looking at why we're doing something, why are we doing that?
49:07
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a great question to be asking right now in the season that our church is in.
49:12
SPEAKER_01: And I would assume that the other churches are in a similar season
49:17
SPEAKER_01: with this new denomination,
49:19
SPEAKER_01: this new time of what we're becoming is, you know, okay, why do we do this?
49:25
SPEAKER_01: And then we've taken it to another generation.
49:28
SPEAKER_01: Another place in asking the question, well, why wouldn't we do this?
49:33
SPEAKER_01: Whenever it's something, man, we could do this.
49:35
SPEAKER_01: And then we spend time praying about, thinking about, is this something we could do?
49:42
SPEAKER_01: And we got to Taco Tuesdays that way in the fact of, man, we could make that work.
49:47
SPEAKER_01: We don't have a kitchen, but we could make that work.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: And it's been good for us to kind of get our church out there.
49:55
SPEAKER_01: It's growing.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: We're getting people in.
49:57
SPEAKER_01: And then we continue to do that.
49:58
SPEAKER_01: We're looking at doing some changes now,
50:01
SPEAKER_01: renting a little more space, doing some different things.
50:04
SPEAKER_01: And we're kind of trying to operate in the same place of faith.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: Why wouldn't we do this?
50:10
SPEAKER_01: Why should we do just asking that question?
50:12
SPEAKER_01: Why?
50:13
SPEAKER_01: Because I think there's some habits we end up in that aren't always the best habits, right?
50:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, but we've just always done what we've always done.
50:20
SPEAKER_01: And that would be my thoughts.
50:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much, Andy.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: Would you be willing to pray for us as we bring this conversation to a close?
50:27
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
50:28
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to thank you for the time, Travis gracious and mighty God.
50:31
SPEAKER_01: I just thank you for the work Travis is doing with this podcast for the people
50:36
SPEAKER_01: that will be able to view these Lord.
50:38
SPEAKER_01: I pray that, uh, They will be able to glean something that they need from these.
50:47
SPEAKER_01: If it's maybe just an encouragement that you are on the throne,
50:50
SPEAKER_01: it is your world, your church, and that you are active in it.
50:54
SPEAKER_01: If it's just that everyone else is in the same boat,
50:58
SPEAKER_01: Lord, whatever they may need, I pray that we can come together.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: As a new denomination, Lord,
51:06
SPEAKER_01: as it
51:06
SPEAKER_00: grows,
51:07
SPEAKER_00: as it blows up,
51:07
SPEAKER_00: as it expands worldwide, it is such
51:10
SPEAKER_01: an amazing thing to be a part of.
51:12
SPEAKER_01: And with all of this happening,
51:13
SPEAKER_01: with all of these things, Lord,
51:14
SPEAKER_01: I pray that you will give us the
51:20
SPEAKER_01: moments of clarity,
51:22
SPEAKER_01: moments of peace and calm to where we can recognize that Your will
51:30
SPEAKER_01: for what it is that's happening, Lord,
51:31
SPEAKER_01: that we won't miss the one,
51:33
SPEAKER_01: that our churches all around the world will be churches that seek first the kingdom
51:40
SPEAKER_01: of God and let everything else come to them,
51:44
SPEAKER_01: Lord, that we can shine that light to this lost and hurting world.
51:48
SPEAKER_01: I pray for those who watch and hear this podcast that it will be with an open mind
51:56
SPEAKER_01: and heart Amen.
51:58
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
51:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you very much, Andy.
52:05
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
52:05
SPEAKER_00: This has been What You Have Seen and Heard with our guest,
52:08
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Andy Early in Bismarck, North Dakota.
52:11
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to remind anybody who's watching who gets this far,
52:14
SPEAKER_00: this works 100% on recommendations.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: So if you know somebody out there who's got a story to tell or got some church
52:20
SPEAKER_00: or someplace where God's doing some pretty exciting work, let me know about it.
52:23
SPEAKER_00: You can send me an email at pastortravisatmarcusgrace.com and I'll know to reach out to them.
52:28
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much and have a good day.