Episode 131: What is "Missions"?

Rural Church Podcast 2.0

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Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast.

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I am your host, Alan Nelson, one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church in the grand metropolis of Perryville, Arkansas.

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If you don't know what Perryville is, I like to tell folks, we're just on the outskirts of Toadstooth, so that'll help you.

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And it's a balmy August, Arkansas day. I don't know when this is coming out.

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I think it'll be August, but we're recording on, what's today, the 14th? And I have the one and only

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Randall Chronister with me from the hills, from the, well, what is that, the

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Ozarks, right? That's the Ozarks. Yeah, the Ozarks, absolutely. So, Randall Chronister from Hector, Arkansas.

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How you doing today, brother? Doing great, doing great. It's good to be with you, Alan. And right now

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I'm looking, I'm driving down the road and I can see that my temperature says 102, so I don't know,

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I don't know if it's lying to me, but anyone that's spent any time in Arkansas August, they know the feeling.

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I don't know what your opinion is, but when it comes to Arkansas, this is my least favorite month probably as far as weather goes.

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Yeah, hear, hear. Well, we're going to talk about the trip to Mexico some, and I'm telling you, brother, the weather was nice down there compared to what we're feeling right now.

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Some people may be surprised and may think we're ribbing them, but in all honesty, when we were down there, it was very nice.

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Yeah, it was great, it was great. One of the guys said that when we was coming back and landed in Mexico City, that the temperature was like 61 or 62, something like that.

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It was unbelievably cool when we landed there. I cannot wait for those days. Yeah, amen.

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Tell us a little bit in a couple minutes or so about who

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Randall Chronister is. Well, he's the biggest nobody that you'll ever meet.

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Man, I'm just a preacher, just a country preacher. I've been helping a church, pastoring a church up around the

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Jasper area, which is right in the big heart of the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas, a beautiful, beautiful country.

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But they need the gospel just like every other area of the world does. And so I've been up there ministering for about two years and been in the ministry altogether for, and I'm sitting here,

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I'm trying to think now, several years, 15, I guess, something like that. And pastored a few churches.

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And this is the work that God's called us to right now. And he's really blessing it.

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God's brought some people in and brought some people to faith. And we're glad to see what's going on there.

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And that's what my main goal is in life.

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But also, I've got a lot of hobbies. I run a sawmill, do some lumber, saw some lumber.

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I'm an instructor at the college at Moralton, a community college there.

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I instruct horizontal directional drilling on the side.

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So it's kind of a fun little hobby to do. And then I'm married to the most beautiful headed woman you've ever seen.

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And I've got four kids all the way from the age of 16 down to four.

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So we got our hands full there and just got a strong focus on the home and the church and just living happy in Jesus is basically who

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I am. Amen. Amen. Well, we'll have to do it. This would have to be a completely different episode.

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We just don't have time to talk about it. But you have a great story about your journey to the doctrines of grace from where you were in your

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Free Will Baptist background and a few weeks ago, I'll try to point you to it.

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But a few weeks ago, I talked with Pastor Jacob and he kind of gave his story and I think your name was brought up there in a positive way.

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I might add. And a few times, yeah. No, no, that's no.

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Anyway, so you and I got connected in 2022.

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We were both at the preaching at a Drag Queen Story Hour thing in Little Rock and I don't really remember how it went down, but I think we were kind of filling each other out like, hey, are they preaching the gospel?

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And then I realized that this is the guy that Jacob knows and we just kind of hit off there.

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Is that how you remember it? Yeah, that's how I remember it. It was, well, it was just, it was providential, although, you know, we would have probably met over time just because of the connection that I had with Brother Jacob.

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But yeah, we wasn't expecting to see anyone that day when we went down to preach at the,

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I think it was a Drag Queen Story Hour or something that they were having down there and hand out tracts and all that stuff and run into you guys, several of you.

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And I think we ate lunch together, if I remember right, and just really hit it off from that point.

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And I was kind of the same way. When we walk up, you know, we're trying to figure out, okay, who is this bunch that, is this competition or is this, are they bringing the gospel?

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And it became apparent real quick that we was serving the same

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Lord and had the same word. And what, it was a great blessing to see

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God put us together in that way. Amen. Amen. And since then, we've just become friends.

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You've preached several times in our church, although you've never asked me to preach in your church.

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So, but no, you've been a great brother, helped us out several times and our church loves you.

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And so all that transpired to me, ask you to be on the, go to Mexico with us.

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And I've kind of talked about it for, I guess, maybe a couple of years. We've talked about, hey, what'd you think about going?

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And, you know, Providence has to orchestrate these things and just things didn't work out for a couple of times.

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But finally, in this year, you're like, hey, I'm going. What convinced, like, why were you like, hey,

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I'm going? What was the motivation there? So, you know, from the first time that I got any kind of invitation or there was any discussion about it, man, for years,

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I've always wanted to just see what the church looks like in another country, another continent, just, and I know this sounds selfish, but for personal perspective, as a minister in Arkansas, rural

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Arkansas, all of my life, that's the people I know. That's the culture that I've been saturated in all of my life.

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And I realized that our Christian faith doesn't just stop at the

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Bible bell. And, but in my world, that's really all I had got to experience.

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You know, I mean, with the advent of internet and things like that, we get to see a lot of things, but didn't get to experience it.

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So the drive for me to wanna go was, and I'm just gonna admit it, honestly, it was really a personal,

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I wanted to see it so that I could minister. I felt like that I could minister better to my people and the people that I'd be involved with if I had some perspective of what the church looks like in other places, whether richer or poorer.

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You know, I just, I wanted to see what she looked like and be involved in something that was edifying the church.

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And there was a lot of prevention and it's self -inflicted prevention on the front end.

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The first few years, I was engulfed in a corporation working all the time and, you know, just couldn't seem to get the free time to do it.

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And God allowed me last year to leave that business and just kind of go out on my own.

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So I was left with the available time to go do it. And, you know, it was one of the greatest blessings

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I can mark probably in my life. So that's kind of what led up to it.

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And I know you guys didn't hound me, you didn't say after me, but every time y 'all had a trip, you'd say, hey, we're going, you wanna go?

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And, you know, secretly inside, I was like, yes, absolutely. But I would have to say, no, I've got this or that going.

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So, you know, it was a great blessing though to be able to go. Amen, well, so for some people listening, they may be the first time,

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I don't know, but we've talked about, I've had a couple of different episodes talking about what we do in Mexico.

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And maybe for fuller detail, you could go listen to those, but I'll just kind of give a overview real quick.

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But we're part of an organization, it's really just three churches. It's called FIRM, it's three churches in the

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States, I should say, FIRM, Fellowship of International Reform Missions. And we meet with these pastors in Mexico and Central America every

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Wednesday on Zoom. We teach them, we interact with them, we pray for them.

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What we believe that missions is centered around investing in and strengthening healthy churches.

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That's all this, it's not an organization, you know, to go digging wells or whatever, or doing, you know, medical missions.

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It's really focused on investing in pastors, strengthening churches, helping churches to be healthy.

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So that's just kind of an overview there at the front for anybody listening. But let's start with the fleshly stuff first, and then

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I wanna get to the heart of the trip. But, so you're out of the country, brother.

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I mean, we left our house, let's say you met us, you left your house like at what?

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Four or something? 3 .30, that's right. I mean, you drove down here and we jumped in at 4 .30

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and we booked it down to Dallas, we actually made really good time, and flew from Dallas and got off the plane finally in Tuxla, Gutierrez, Chiapas, a layover in Mexico City.

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But, you know, you put boots on the ground, well, I guess Mexico City is first, go through customs and all that, and then boots on the ground in Tuxla, Gutierrez.

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What are your initial thoughts? Just of being out of the country, that kind of stuff.

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Yeah, okay, so I've always been in the country, and I mean that twofold.

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I've always been in the United States, all of my, never traveled abroad at all, so that was gonna be an experience for one.

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And then, man, I've never been to many big cities for that matter,

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Mexico City blew my mind to see the size of it. But, so, just on the, you're talking about the fleshly side, man,

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I like things that go fast, and when we got on that airplane and that first time,

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I'm gonna say this for your listeners, Brother Cuatro, Brother Allen Nelson is so full of grace because he helped restrain me.

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I almost shouted, you know, whenever we was taking off on the runway, I felt all of those country boy emotions coming up to the surface, and so Brother Allen did kind of, he kind of settled me down a little bit because I was so excited to fly for the first time, that was awesome for me.

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Matter of fact, I'd like to just, if it wasn't so expensive, I'd just like to fly around all the time, that was fun.

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So we, like you said, a long day of travel, we land there at our final destination that night, the sun had already went down, and so everything's a new world to me.

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I don't know, I don't know the language, can't read the signs, don't know who

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I'm meeting, other than I know a few names that you guys had told me, and so here's when the rodeo began for me.

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It felt like we were running all the time, you know, felt like we was having to move fast, and we go immediately out of the airport, and you guys stick me in the little car with some man

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I've never met. Yeah, Pastor Flippe. You told me to trust him, Pastor Flippe, now

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I do trust him spiritually. I still do not trust him with my life, but so y 'all stick me in this little car, and we almost,

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I felt like we almost had at least three accidents before we got out of the parking lot, and we get on this highway, and I'm expecting something similar to what

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I'm used to driving on, and we get on this highway, and I was quite certain in my prayers, you know,

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I'm completely convinced of the sovereignty of God in my salvation and my life, so I knew my life was in his hands, but I was also praying fervently that he did not call me to go to Mexico and then let me die the first night, so that was day one, you know, just getting out of the airport and jumping in a little car and driving, what felt like, well, initially,

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I'll just kind of admit my ignorance here, I glanced over a time or two at the speedometer, and I mean,

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I'm seeing numbers like 80 and 90, and I felt like that's what we were doing.

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I thought to myself, okay, we are, we're going 90 miles an hour, and I'm dying tonight, so that was my final consolation there, but then later, of course,

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I realized that a lot of the cars have kilometers per hour, and it was more like we were going 45 or 50 miles, so on the fleshly side, you know, there was a whirlwind of experiences for me personally, and then, you know, there's several stories where we were all together and had some good times, had some little intense times, and, you know, all of it was fun getting to see the sights that were there and just the different culture and things, and although we stayed moving and busy so much that, you know, we did get a break or two over the course of eight or nine days, however long we were down there, and got to see a little bit that was in the culture and the country of it, and, you know, that was great.

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One thing that I told my family the night that I, or, yeah, that night that I got back, they all, you know, they stayed up and wanted to talk about everything, you know, and I said, you know, these, it seemed like everyone was good, righteous people.

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I loved all the church people, so I said, but if I would have been anywhere else,

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I would have put a bumper sticker on their car of the proverb that the wicked fleeth when no man pursueth, and I said,

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I felt like we were running from somebody every time we got in the car in Mexico, but we weren't, so that's kind of, that was some of the things that really impacted me as far as just the things on the surface, the experiences of it.

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Yeah, but, you know, it's cultural, you know, and I'm sure we'd feel the same if we went to New York and got, rode around with those guys or something, you know, it's just a different kind of culture.

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You know, we were, just to give an overview of what we were doing, so we were down there in Chiapas in Tuxla at, well, sorry,

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Iglesia Reformada Soligracia Grace Alone Reformed Church, and the pastor there,

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Felipe, I'll just mention this because I think this will come out before, but Pastor Felipe is gonna be at our church,

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Providence Baptist, September 19th to the 21st, so we're having a free conference with him and Pastor Jonathan Murdock, so we're looking forward to that time together, but we were down there in Chiapas for, actually

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Wednesday, we actually kind of got a little bit of a buffer day. It's hard, you know, it's, people don't realize how hard it is just to travel.

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It takes a lot out of you, you know, and so Wednesday kind of had a buffer day, got to go see

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San Cristobal, then Wednesday night met with their church, and then we had the conference there,

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Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and then on Monday, we traveled about three and a half hours to Via Hermosa, and we had a conference there at that church,

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Pastor Juan Carlos, Monday night and Tuesday night, so that's kind of what we're doing, then we turned around and we came back

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Wednesday, but like you said, you know, as far as the physical side, really tiring, it's not like, hey, we're going on vacation, you know, it's like, it's pretty exhausting, and then the food,

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I like the food, I don't know what you thought about the food, driving, it does take a lot out of me, especially when we have to take that trip from Chiapas to Tabasco, but I don't know, and then we got to see some beautiful sights, so that's kind of all on the surface level, like you said, fleshly stuff.

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Anything else you want to add with that? No, I mean, yeah, the food, by the way, was great. I was trying to eat everything

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I seen, and, you know, was worn on a few things, but y 'all gave me the reins to eat, and, you know,

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God was gracious to us, no one got sick or anything like that, so the food was wonderful, loved it.

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Yeah, amen. So I want to talk now about your experience, you know, with, all right, so we talked about, you know, just kind of the surface level, fleshly kind of stuff, but what did you think of the trip, the preaching, the, what are some of your takeaways from the churches and the pastors you met and the conversations you had?

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Let's talk about that for a minute. Yeah, yeah, well, you know, just thinking about just missions in general, you know,

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I've always believed that we have some duty, you know, go into all the world and preach the gospel, every creature, and you mentioned something about going and digging a well, and so ever since I've gotten back from this trip with you guys, people have asked me, oh, how did your mission trip go?

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And man, I want to be gracious to them, but I still want to communicate to them that I think what they think that we were doing was going down there and building a shelter for the homeless or digging a well for the, you know, some thirsty kids that we've seen pictures of or something like that, and because that's,

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I realized that that may be the idea, the prevailing idea in American Christian missions, and what so impressed me about the work that FIRM was doing down there and the churches was this was a far cry from going and doing some kind of physical labor, and I'm not saying that there may not be a need for that somewhere in the world, but this was heartwork, spiritual work, you know, kingdom work that was taking place through the work of the ministers and FIRM and the pastors there, the churches.

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So, you know, the first thing that stuck out to me is this probably doesn't look like what

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I've heard American mission trips is supposed to be, you know, this was a spiritual labor, a lot of prayer, a lot of preaching.

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And, you know, so that was the first thing that probably stuck out to me, you know, getting to see the actual boots on the ground work that FIRM is doing, you know,

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I just, I was looking at it really kind of from just an observant perspective, just, you know, what's y 'all's main focus?

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What's the goal? And I could tell readily, especially when we left, that the overall, the overarching focus of FIRM was to strengthen the local church there by strengthening and equipping the pastors with strong biblical preaching.

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You know, I think the preaching was some of the most impactful that I've heard on this side of the

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Rio or that side, you know, it didn't change the strength of the preaching, did not change, if anything, it increased at some of those conferences.

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I was really impressed that the focus was to grow the spiritual strength of the churches through their pastors, you know, and really there was a lot of preaching.

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I don't know if this is always the case, but I felt like that all the preaching that I was able to understand is, you know, with the translators,

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I felt like that it was pointing to me as much as it was

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Pastor Felipe or any of the other pastors that were there in the conferences.

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So, you know, that really stood out to me was the heart of you men was, hey, let's hold up the hands of our brothers while they shepherd these churches.

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And I just, it became evident to me that FIRM wasn't interested in going to pastor churches in Mexico.

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They were there to help pastors pastor churches in Mexico, you know, and which

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I personally have a conviction that, you know, the pastors need to be local just like the church is local.

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And I just seen that that was a strong goal of FIRM and they performed it well.

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All of you guys, the preaching and the ministry after services was excellent.

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There was a lot of questions that came up and the door wasn't shut to these people that had questions.

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They were, you know, about certain scriptures or certain doctrines or whatever.

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There was truly a ministry taking place and that's probably the main things that I seen that encouraged me.

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Yeah, you know, I was thinking and from Tuesday, or sorry, from Wednesday to Tuesday.

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So seven days there, the seven days once we got started there were 17 sermons over that time, two

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Q and A's, I think like four devotion times, another teaching segment.

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And then on top of all that, just a lot of conversation and it all centered around, you know, and you weigh in here, but you know, focusing on which at the conference in Tuksa we were talking about Hebrews 13, but really the whole point is

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Christ and focused on Christ and seeing the beauty of the church. And so, you know,

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I'm not asking yourself to weigh in on the controversy of Reformed Baptist or whatever, but I will state as a matter of a fact that the church is involved in FIRM, they're confessionally

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Reformed Baptist, you know, the churches down there that we were involved in, those two churches anyway, formally confess the 1689 as well as, you know,

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Providence and then the two other churches, Port Arthur, Trinity Baptist in Port Arthur and by the word

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Baptist in Hazel. You know, the reason I wanna ask you this question is cause I kinda wanna make a defense here, but I mean, would you say that these churches are just dry, boring churches or did you sense any experiential

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Christianity and all that? Yeah, so, you know, going into this,

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I didn't know, have any idea what to expect, but I seen right out of the gate as the church, these churches began to sing.

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They were singing with such fervor and passion. They were worshiping

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God, you know, with what appeared at least to be all of their heart, soul, mind and strength.

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You know, you've seen what appeared to be an experiential faith.

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It was more than just wooden doctrine for sure, you know, and I think that that was a great surprise to me and it showed in their, how they thought about the scriptures.

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You could tell that they held the scriptures at high esteem and they studied them.

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You know, the ones that I was able to talk with there from the churches really had a high view of the scriptures and of sound doctrine and, but it didn't stop there.

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Their faith was not dead. It had works. It was shown through their worship.

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It was shown through, their hospitality was second to none. I'd be,

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I would, matter of fact, I'd be surprised to find a church in the States that had the level of loving hospitality that we were able to see.

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So, no, it was far from a dead and dry religion that I experienced down there for sure.

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Yeah, you know, I think on one hand you want, or for me, I'm just saying me, you know, this, the

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Rural Church Podcast was where Brother Quatro stands on this issue with the second line of Baptist confession.

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I think there are some people who try to use it to be trendy and cool and they wanna get the tattoos or whatever, smoke the cigars.

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Like, whatever, that's not me. But on the other hand, you got the guys who are like, okay, well, this is, you know, we're gonna be the gatekeepers and there's, it almost kind of like drains the passion.

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And, but I think that you could verify that like, at least on this trip anyway,

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I know that you don't see all the things all the time, but it's not that, you know, like we're trying to preach an experiential

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Christ to know Him and the fact that we want these churches to know

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Him and these pastors. And also it's mutual. It's not just, hey, let's go down there and teach them. They teach us, you know, we learn from them.

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Their churches encourage us. Our church here is greatly changed and transformed and impacted by the ministry of those churches and those brothers and sisters down there.

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And I just believe that true, true theology, true sound doctrine must lead to doxology, praise, worship.

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You know, I don't know if I'm going off course here. If you got anything you want to say to it. No, I couldn't agree more.

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You actually preached a sermon down there that you got made fun of a lot, brother, from the other men, but I was with you a hundred percent.

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About the triangle. Yeah, about the triangle. Yeah, they were really picking on you about that two -sided triangle.

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But the points that you had in that was, can you remember exactly right off the top of your head?

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Yeah, so from Hebrews 13, eight, there's Jesus Christ is saying yesterday, today and forever, there's a truth there about theology, you know, the immutability of God, there's truth there about soteriology, the way of salvation never changes.

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And we spent a little time there, but the thrust of the sermon was that there's truth there about experiential

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Christianity, which is, I don't just have these thoughts, I just don't have these right on the seminary exam, if you will, but I live them and I live and know and worship the living

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Christ. Yeah, yeah. And that was, man, that hit home for me, was that last piece of that triangle that you illustrated in that sermon was the experiential side, because, you know, brother, one of the things,

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I'll weigh in just a little bit on that topic. You know, one of the things that does concern me in high church or high theology's atmospheres is that absence of experiential faith, experiential religion.

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And so it almost seems like the doctrine becomes

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God rather than God becoming God. And so that is a concern and I'm with you 100 % on just being a fad or a flash in the pan thing with the 1689, it's, you know, it seems like there's probably some in the world jumping on that bandwagon and just because it's cool.

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And, you know, I would like to, I'd like to get ahold of a faith and a people,

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I like to be around the people anyway, that they know their God and they know their

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Bible. And, you know, so that, and I seen that,

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I truly seen that out of those people there. And of course, all of that being reformed, 1689 confessing churches, but it was great.

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I didn't see a dead or wooden religion for sure out of them. But, and that's not to dismiss doctrine either, because in our

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Q and A's we spent about two, there was two formal

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Q and A's and there's about two hours each. And we spent, wouldn't you say we spent most of the time working through the fourth commandment?

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Yeah, yeah, we was on the Sabbath quite a bit. And it was just, you know,

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I mean, I know at some point you're kind of like, hey, what's the issue here? But it was encouraging to have those doctrinal discussion.

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You know, what I'm saying is on one side, it's not all head, no heart, but on the other side, it's not all heart, no head.

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It comes together beautiful. Yeah, yeah, amen. And I couldn't agree more.

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And I feel like that I've seen in my ministry, I feel like I've seen extremes of every side in the realm of Christian faith.

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I've seen it go, man, just take it to a place where it's, you know, where the doctrine, you know, or confession or whatever is ultimate authority.

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I feel like I've probably seen that. And I feel like that they've seen it where it's so loose that they don't even, you know, they may not even know what they believe or couldn't articulate it at all.

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But in this case, brother, what I did see from those churches, those people, was they had

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Christ full in their view and they were ready to tell everything they, you know, the

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Bible tells about him. So that was encouraging. Yeah, well, thank you, brother.

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I mean, you know, that's the heart of what we're trying to do is invest in these pastors, invest in these churches.

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You know, the conferences, we had some time with pastors, but the conferences were for the whole church, you know, and the nature of Hebrews 13,

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I thought Pastor Randall Easter did a great job of exhorting churches to love and honor their pastors.

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You know, and he's not, you don't hear, look, we're kind of afraid to preach those songs because it's like, you know, and, but then the other thing is they need to be preached.

36:21

You know, those passages need to be preached. Amen. Yeah, and I'll just interject here just briefly, but on a personal note for me as a pastor and going down there and listening to the same preaching that these brothers in Mexico and sisters were listening to, the biggest challenge that I walked away with spiritually was go be a godly pastor and love for your people, fight for your people.

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And I realized that, man, he preached some texts that I, you know, wouldn't,

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I wouldn't say necessarily avoid, but it just wouldn't be on the top of my list, to obey your, you know, obey your leaders, you know, and, but that was what he was assigned and God gave him good grace to preach it.

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And I think everything from the pastor to the parishioner there was encouraged by it.

37:18

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think, and I don't know, you weigh in on this, but I think like if you're listening to this podcast, you're a pastor, your church is not where you want it to be.

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And you're like, there's so many things, you know, so many things you might want to do. And it's like, well, there are things you can work toward and you should work toward and there are things out of your control maybe right now, but there is something in your control and I'm obviously would absolutely affirm the necessity of the entire sovereign grace of God on your life, even in your sanctification.

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But what is in your control is by the grace of God to say, you know what? I may not can control this or that right now in the church, but by God's grace,

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I can resolve to be the godliest pastor I can be. Amen. And that's going to,

38:09

I'm not saying you do that and then your churches will love you. I mean, the godliest man who walked the face of the earth, they crucify.

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And so, you know, I understand that, but having a healthy church is intricately, inseparably connected to godly pastors.

38:29

Amen. Amen. Well, brother,

38:36

I don't know what you, would you say, I haven't asked you this before, so I'm asking, you know, kind of putting you to the point, but would you say that to anybody listening, if they were like, hey, we don't really have a involvement in missions right now, is firm something you'd say, hey, you should look into that.

38:54

You should consider, or at least pray for these brothers. Is that something you walk away with? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

39:01

I mean, one of the things that was a big takeaway for me too, is

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I didn't notice at all firm or any of the representatives, you know, asking for any kind of support other than prayer.

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And, but on the other hand, if someone or a church is looking for a group to, to help more, you know, further than just prayer, this is definitely a worthy cause.

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Everything I seen down there was, was focused on Christ's glory, the church's strength.

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It wasn't, it wasn't disconnected from these local churches.

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It wasn't, and I mean local by the, the ones that here in the

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States or the ones there in Mexico, this was, you know, full -throated support for the local churches and the glory of Christ.

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So, you know, if, if someone's looking for a group to, to support, I would definitely,

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I would cast in my say for them for sure. I think they were, they done, done a worthy work.

40:16

And I, and I'm honestly not saying that just because you and I are friends or I, you know, any of the other brothers, because I went there to observe partially for this, for this very cause, you know, to see what kind of support can, can my churches get, get behind.

40:34

So, you know, that's kind of where I'm at with that. Well, I know when you're on like a, like a podcast as prestigious as the

40:43

Rural Church Podcast, you get a little intimidated. I understand. Sure. I mean,

40:48

I still remember the little people. I want you to know that. Right. Yeah, that's for sure.

40:57

Well, I feel like that I've stepped up in the world as of, you know, about 30 minutes ago. I feel like that, man, this is, this is as big as a

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CNN interview or something for sure. I don't know. I get the numbers.

41:12

I get encouraged by the people that listen, but I don't, I don't know who they all are. I get some feedback sometimes, but, you know,

41:20

I just think, I think about that and we can kind of land the plane, but I think about that verse in Zechariah 4, 10, where in the

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King James, it says, you know, do not despise the day of small things. And, and let me just say this clearly.

41:35

We're not asking for money. We're not looking for money. God's providing. He does provide. If the Lord lays it on your heart that you want to help with a trip cost, or you want to help with maybe if there's any needs with these pastors, you can reach out to me, but, but I do want to make this statement.

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I understand that some of the things that we're doing, brother, are they're very, very, very small.

41:58

Yeah, you're going down there and you spend a week. What'd you do? How many people got saved? How much did you build? Yeah, you know, show me something.

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And it's like, look, look, we're just going all in on the church. We're going to invest in these pastors.

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We're going to pray with these people. We're going to, we're going to answer their questions. We're going to try to open the

42:17

Bible and, and, and show them Christ. And we're going to try to invest in them spiritually and, and, and through the means of grace, like this is what we're doing.

42:27

And it is, I understand from the world's perspective. Well, that's you could be doing something better. But I just believe brother with all my heart.

42:36

I believe that investment in the local church. I don't care the big or small that that's where it's at.

42:43

And that, that is the mission of cross. Yeah. Amen. Amen.

42:50

Yeah. Well, I know you're almost back to the, the

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Ozark mountains. You got any, anything final you want to, you want to say? No, brother.

43:01

Listen, it's been a, it's been a pleasure to, to come on your podcast with you and Discuss some of these things and, and, you know, what

43:10

I will say to your listeners out there, you know, if there's, if there's not support,

43:17

I'll just come out and say this. If there's not financial support that you feel obligated to or anything like that, please pray for them.

43:26

You know, there's, there's more than just the spiritual warfare that, that goes on with, with some of the work they're doing, but just, just God's safety over them as they, you know, they go and do this work.

43:40

And I can, I can attest to the fact that they're, they're not going to stay in, in the nicest hotels.

43:51

And, you know, it's, it's definitely not vacation. It's, it's ministry. And so I would, you know,

43:56

I'd probably leave it with, if there's anybody out there that's, that'd be interested in anything, at least pray for them, lift them up to God in prayer and, and, and, you know,

44:07

God to keep them safe and give them power to do the ministry. Well, thank you for that, brother.

44:13

And thank you, whoever's listening out there. We appreciate it. Maybe this kind of episode does it, you know, you want to hear more about this or that doctrine or something, but, you know, this is something

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I'm passionate about. And so thanks for tuning in. And I do echo what Randall said.

44:31

Hope that you'd, you'd pray for us. So with that, brother, we'll, we'll wind it down.

44:36

Thank you guys for listening this week to the Rural Church Podcast. Don't forget about the conference, September 19th through 21st.

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If you can make it down to Perryville, we'd love to have you. It's completely free. You can meet Pastor Felipe, Pastor Jonathan, and maybe even

44:51

Randall Chronister will be around one of those days. So. Might see y 'all for sure. Amen.

44:56

Well, thank you guys for listening to the Rural Church Podcast and we'll catch you next week. If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

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God's doing. This, this is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poemos, the masterpiece of God.