Latest / Welcome Home. Here, Us, Now. / A Chaplain’s Work -- Father Rogers Meredith

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A Chaplain’s Work -- Father Rogers Meredith · Welcome Home. Here, Us, Now.

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome home, Hear Us Now, a podcast of the Union Gospel Mission of Tarrant County, a space for all of us seeking what's real and sacred in a world that rushes past the soul.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Eric Engelman, a volunteer at UGMTC, and your co-host, President and CEO of UGMTC, Charles Wolford.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, good morning.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in the podcast studio here next to Father Rogers Meredith.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: And across the table in another direction is my co-host, Dr.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: Charles Wolford.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Good morning.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_03: Good morning.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: Well, good morning again, my brother Eric.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: It is always good to see you.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_03: Good to see you as well, Father Rogers.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the Welcome Home Podcast.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: Well, uh let me tell you, Eric, I'm excited as always.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: I get hyena happy every Tuesday when we get a chance to come and spend time uh on our podcast.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh week after week never ceases to um surprise me, particularly as it relates to our guests and all that we get a chance to know.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: And today, I don't think it's going to be any different.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we have the great pleasure of having up in our studio uh the great Father Rogers.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: Rogers, we're so excited to be able to share in this moment with you.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_03: To our listening audience, we just want to get to know you and talk a little bit about your journey, uh your time with us here at Union Gospel Mission and what it is exactly that you do.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: So let's start with the heavy lifting here.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so uh if you would not mind introducing to our listening audience who is Father Rogers Meredith.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us a little bit about who you are and and how you've come to be a little bit.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's an enigma wrapped in a puzzle, topped off by a long division equation.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh actually, I'm Father Rogers Meredith.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I am a native of Austin, Texas.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I am an eighth-generation Texan.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Both sides of my family go back to the Republic of Texas.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm pretty happy.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty proud of that, obviously.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I've been in the pastoral ministry for 30 years.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a graduate of Toronto Baptist Seminary in Toronto, Ontario, where I uh achieved a Bachelor of Theology with a special attention towards uh New Testament studies in Greek.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um I am currently what is known as canonically resident in the Anglican Diocese of Fort Worth.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I am priest in charge of Good Shepherd Anglican Church in Granbury, Texas, and I have had the honor and privilege of being the um senior war uh senior chaplain at Union Gospel Mission for almost three years now.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: Has it been that long?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: Almost three years.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: It'll be three years in October.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: So three years this October makes three years for you.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it is it is without any exaggeration, we've been the better since you've arrived, so thank you so much for your uh commitment here.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: But let's just back up.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: So you've just listed an amazing vita of your life journey of thirty years of pastoral ministry.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: And let's walk there just a little bit.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: What were you doing before you decided to or or got well, I don't know if you decided if you were pulled or plucked in the ministry.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: How did you get into uh the ministry?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: So thirty years you've been going strong, but uh what did you do prior to that?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's an interesting question.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um so for when I say thirty years of the ministry, I want to be clear because I don't, you know, people say stuff like that and they they leave out some important things often.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've been in a ministry for 30 years for sure.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'd have I'd want to also point out that it was only 13 of those years that I was full-time.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's important because it goes back to your question.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Before I was ever in a ministry, I was a carpenter.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not, oh, you were a carpenter because Jesus was a carpenter.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um that's not why.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: Well, but did you know there's also some parallels there that Jesus he he didn't start his pastoral ministry until he was 30.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's true.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um so um I was up on a roof working, and I thought, man, and the roofs were getting steeper and steeper and steeper, which makes it more dangerous, harder to work on.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, you know what?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: I for years loved coming to work, and I'm getting tired of it.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta, and I'm getting tired of this aspect of my trade, and I thought I might move into something else.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, at the same time, I was already doing ministry in downtown Austin, street ministry.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I got talking to my pastor, and he said, Well, if you if you were to not be a carpenter, what would you like to do?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know, I think that I might like, I think that I would like to go into some sort of ministry that involved working with homeless people.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that was my initial uh I thought, you know, because I we were down on Sixth Street a lot, you know, running to all kinds of different people there.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I thought that it would be good to open a some sort of a mission that was very evangelical, quote unquote, whatever that might may or may not mean.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Christ-centered biblical, very, very centered along those things, and then also geared towards people's needs um in other ways.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so that though got set on the backburner for like until I kinda actually came to Union Gospel Mission.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: So just but contextually, you were doing street homeless ministry in Austin off of Sixth Street.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: And what did that entail?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: So was it were you preaching and teaching or were you serving?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: What did that look like?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: It largely involved irritating people.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: We were we were doing this probably the worst way you could probably could do it.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: I know it was the worst way.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: What we would do is we'd go out on Friday and Saturday nights and we'd have these tracks that we made ourselves and we'd hand them out to people that were out partying.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's stupid.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.: So who were the we?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: Would this include some guys from our church.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: So this was a motley crew of guys from your church.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: And there was a calling maybe for you all to fill to do street ministry.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_03: And that then pole vaulted you all to go out into the streets of Austin now to 6th Street, and to use your words, you were irritating people who did.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: You did irritate a lot of people.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: I can see why.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: It would be it would might even irritate me if I was out with my family or friends and someone, you know, come up and anyway.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you all created these tracks.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: But we would also, so that, you know, you would get tired of having people rot wad those up and throw them at you.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so you just start talking to people that are out there.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't stand outside of Ant's or something like that, you know, uh, or Joe's generic bar.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: But you start talking to people, and so that's kind of how I got interested in doing that because there were a lot of different people down on 6th Street and some real characters.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: There is one guy named Art the Artist that I talked to all the time.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I said, Art, you know, one of these days you're gonna stand before God.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Well, when I die, I just want to take a big hit off my bong.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah, Art, and then you're gonna be standing in front of God.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I said, You better hold that hit, man.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: You better not blow it out in heaven.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I love it.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So then that's the kind of folks, and I mean, but you know, there was, I think, and I don't think it's got it seems it seems apparent to me that the Lord was drawing me into that kind of ministry with folks that in a lot of ways were like me.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, uh disposition, temperament, that kind of thing, you know.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: My first internship, which you had to have an internship, was with a guy that was doing homeless ministry out of his church.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: But his church didn't like that.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't want to do it, and they ended up firing him.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: One that was open was with the president of the seminary.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I was not going into pastoral ministry, but I was gonna have to do something as part of my program as an internship.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I took that internship not knowing that it also paid your tuition.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: So look at God, he just worked that out.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I actually made a circle all the way around from what I started out to want to do to wanted to do, never did it.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: I did preach at uh gospel lighthouse in Grand Junction.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, did that quite often, just as pulpit supply.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then so then I came back, and then I I'm here, and then you know, uh continuing on with that.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: What a fantastic journey.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: So you've been here now for three years.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: Going on three years for three years, and it sounds like the hand of God, there's been some providence about that.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_03: So let's talk a little bit about what you do here at Union Gospel Mission.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: I I I have done some research.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: I've got a comment.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: You've got a comment.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: Go ahead, Eric jumping.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: This is not my first time interviewing Father Rogers Meredith, and he has told me well, he he told everybody, that the first thing he does when he gets in the office is he reads his email.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Usually.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: You still do that?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not as fearsome as it used to be because I used to I used to be checking this chapel schedule.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: We got the chapel schedule in hand now, Lord willing.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, pretty much I check my email right off the bat.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: But you always check my schedule, but I check my email.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: There's a little inside joke there because we got a little rocky start on this session there.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_03: But God always has a plan.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: So with your with your engagement here, what does that entail?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: If you're talking to someone and they're asking, so what does a chaplain at Union Gospel Mission, what what do you actually do?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_03: What's the scope of work?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: There are eleven at last count different things that the chaplaincy does.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I oversee everything that's going on, make sure that it's running as it should, make sure that I know what's expected out of each one of those ministries.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: I talk to you or whatever else.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do the best I can to meet any problems that come up.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then also make sure the volunteers are all healthy and happy because we couldn't do very much of anything that we do without the volunteers.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then vet all the material that we use, make sure that it is proper, that it should be done, make sure that the people that are do that are teaching or preaching are actually able to do that and that they do it.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then to think forward about what's going to be, you know, coming next.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of the stuff we do runs on cycles, like we just finished Alpha.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it'll be this week that I get the alpha schedule for the next semester together and send that out, which is you know, you got to go to look at the calendar, find out when Christmas is, make sure we've got enough of a little break in there for everybody, and then get that all together.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we do uh if I mention alpha graduation, I hope that'd be okay.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: We just had our alpha graduation Thursday.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's worth an applause.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Alpha can be challenging for in a lot of different ways.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's always hard when it gets started because we have a lot of people who forgot what you actually are supposed to be doing in Alpha.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: These are people that live here, and also some of their volunteers.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: But once you get alpha rolling, right, once you get through that initial turmoil, which is always there, it it goes, well, Alpha is for you wouldn't you might not think Alpha was a big deal when you if you sit down and listen to it, but Alpha, it never fails.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: People that that go through the program right here have huge things to say about Alpha.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody, we have baptisms.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: We had 10 baptisms.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's this semester.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: The semester before this, we had seven.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we had two recommitments of faith this time, right?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: So those are things that you know you can't take responsibility for them, but you can say my role in that was keeping it, keeping it running, man.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, let's talk through you.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_03: You've listed, you've talked about the 11 kind of pillars.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: Let's just run through those because that's a lot.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: If I can remember them all, yeah, and we Eric will help you fill in some ways.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I gotta remember, I got you know, it's it's easy for me.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: We have another chaplain here who's extremely capable as well, Reverend O'Cause Proud.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she is like, she's she's she's more capable in probably most ways than I am.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you didn't know, women tend to be more capable than men in a lot of ways.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And they are they just are.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: They just gotta face it.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we do we have our job and we do.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so with O'Celia, um, she does More Than Pretty, which is a women's class that she developed herself based on a book that she did.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: She has prayer meeting that she just started.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she does also newcomers classes, and then she does a lot of counseling uh with residents.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Men don't ever want to come and talk to anybody about what's wrong.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Women like to talk to each other about what's wrong.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so you could just imagine she's full up with that.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: She also does chapel services as necessary.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the things that we have to do is fill in if we don't have a chapel speaker.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I've forgotten something that she does, but that's so more than pretty.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: The prayer group she does, chapel services.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: She's working on another one too.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: She has some classes that she teaches sort of sporadic, not sporadically, but occasionally.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like she just did one on manners, which I I thought.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that I'm just I was so happy for her to do that.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: I probably needed to bend in that class.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, manners are something I'm really interested in, actually, and in why we have manners and what what they do and why they're like they are.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what she does.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's four things I mentioned there for her.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Then similarly, I do newcomers, and newcomers is O Celia might do newcomers differently than I do.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I know she used my material to start out with, but what newcomers is we try to anticipate what is going to be weird for people when they first come here.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And what problems are they gonna face, right?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, interpersonal problems.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you are with a bunch of people, what kind of things are gonna come up?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I do a thing on gossip, right?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And just on down the line, you know, those those kinds of things that have the ability to disrupt a community, right?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about that.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, I mentioned I'm not the person you complain to your case manager about, and I tell them who is the person they would complain to their case manager about if they want to do that.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just lay down kind of who we are as Union Gospel Mission.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's those newcomers.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then so Ocelia, newcomers.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then we have authentic manhood, when that's staffed by volunteers.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh authentic manhood is pretty much like what it sounds.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a course that looks at manhood from a biblical perspective, and it starts out with, you know, some observations that are absolutely certainly true.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, that most of the problems or a lot of the problems in our society today can be traced to uh men not doing their job as men, particularly as fathers, right?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you in that class you've got guys who have experienced that, who have not been fathered well, and that who have not fathered well, right?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: So the class the you know, the class um it can be it can be tricky.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to have the right people teaching that kind of stuff.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So like I'll because the alpha format works so well, where you have what I call a movie and then outlines and discussion, right?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: We follow that same format and everything we do because I don't want to get too far afield, I want to go to all your qu your your answers, but in that discussion group, people are able to start doing something maybe they haven't done before, and that is to talk to people and be listened to.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that is that's the very beginning of getting back into community.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about people who are used to people locking their doors where they walk in front of their car crossing the street, right?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So no one's ever cared much about what they said, some of them, others not so much, but that's the start.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think, and I think that's why Alpha works so well.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So all of our programs follow all of our stuff that we do follow that format.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: So authentic manhood.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Then we have Kingdom Agenda.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: That is was built largely by one of our volunteers with my help.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's based on some material by Tony Evans of the same uh name, uh, same format.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that is so the only one that's not in recess right now is Kingdom Agenda.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: So uh part of the Authentic Manhood.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's Kingdom Agenda, then we have um Alpha for everybody.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: So Alpha Alpha in theory involves everybody in this building.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: You so all the residents should be in Alpha.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody, right?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So Alpha, and I mean you could that that in of itself is is enough to to you know to give you fits.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of work.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: So Alpha, but we have a lot of support too.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of support from uh everybody here at the mission.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: So Alpha, and then I also teach a class that ended up being called Mere Christianity, but that's a misnomer.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: So what that class is about is we have folks when they're when they're hired here at UGM, they come in and we have found that not exclusively, but often it's the case that you know people will say, Well, I'm a Christian, right?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: But what does that even mean?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is that does it mean the same thing as I'm a giraffe?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean it so I so when I was asked to do this, uh the word the book Mere Christianity came up, and the person that was talking to about said, Oh yeah, that'd be great.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it became mere Christianity, right?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that's really not what we're doing, but it's good enough.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we have that.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have By the way, you you've made 11 now.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: So we're waiting.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: We still have Staff Chapel.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, Staff Chapel, Staff Chapel service.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that we we have only three preachers for that.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh Dr.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Wolford, Reverend Sproul, and myself.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: We too we handle those, and that's a work in progress as well.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're we're we're changing that a lot, and we're gonna be changing that.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um and and and one of your your your extensions of that has been the development of the uh Union Gospel Mission Choir.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the choir as well.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: So we have the choir.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that is a laundry list of items, and um so that we are good stewards of our podcast time, I am so grateful that um we have you here.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the greatest gifts that um I see is you really provide great guidance for us as an organization, as a community.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm gonna ask if you would do us a favor, would you mind just praying a blessing over uh the ministry and union gospel mission and the work that's going on here?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and then Eric will so be so kind to close us out during our time.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Our Lord and God, we thank you for your goodness to us here at UGM.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And just thinking about Ascension Day, Father, last Thursday, and how we celebrate Jesus Christ's session at the right hand of the Father and ruling over all creation.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: We pray, Lord, and thank you that your your rule extends to UGM.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And ask now, Lord, that you would pour your spirit out upon this place, that you grant us success in all that we do, that you grant us unity, Father, in all that we do, that you would uncover the wiles of Satan as he seeks to rip us apart at times, that you'd continue to provide for us, Lord, and you would bless our residence, Lord.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Help us to help restore people and restore their humanity, and we will give you all the glory, for you're worthy.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hear us, Father, if we ask in Jesus' name.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: Father, thank you that you are faithful to listen to us and to hear our hearts' desire.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: You have been are and are working.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: So the glory of the name of your son Jesus.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.