Open Air Theology -Church Planting and Evangelism

You can say what you want, but you won't around me.

Sheep among misfits. A misfit in the trailer park at night. A misprint with a sixth sense.

Been sick ever since my brother died of an O .D. My two cents never made sense.

Either to me or anyone else inside of the sheep fence. My knife slipped on my right side.

Bottom line, the bottom line is I'm not right. I'm not left but this elephant won't find.

And I can't find my assigned seat to sit in. My theology don't fit in.

Black sheep of the Reformation. Sheep pen. I'm just another Baptist baptized again.

The bastard child. That's the child of Reformation. Bookshelf of dead men.

Cigars, bourbons, and beer cans. I'm Tom Shepard.

I'm with Open Air Theology. I'm a co -host. We want to welcome you to a show that we haven't been on for about three weeks because of technical difficulties and everything's getting ready.

But we're on. We're ready to go. We have a special guest with us today. But before we do, before we do the introductions and everything,

I want to show you guys something that I have that everybody else doesn't have.

The Open Air Theology mug. This guy's name.

You're ready to go. You can show us this before the show. That's messed up. Yeah. Nobody's seen that.

There we go. Open Air Theology. You can put your water in there.

You can put your energy drink in there. You can put your clock in there.

You can put your weed in there. You can't do that. You can't do that. But you can.

You can have your own Open Air Theology. What is that, a

Halloween one? No, it's a Winnie the Pooh one. That's a gay one. That is a gay one.

That's my wife's mug. I thought it was a Bigfoot one. You finally came around. You can put your whiskey in there.

That's right. That's right, Melissa. That's the kind of disc we all like right there. Hey, listen.

My name is Tom Shepard, Open Air Theology co -host with Braden Patterson and Jeffrey Rice.

I'm a member of Grace Bible Church in Birney. I head up an evangelism team that goes out to Fredericksburg, Birney, San Antonio, as far south as Corpus Christi.

Thank you, Emily, for liking my mug. Anyway, I'd just like to say hi to everybody, and I'm going to pass it over to that one right there.

Wrong direction, but okay. My name is Braden Patterson. There we go. My name is Braden Patterson.

I'm the pastor of Grace Bible Church of Moorpark, California. If you live in the

Ventura County area or you know anybody that lives in that area, I'd love to see you guys on the Lord's Day. My wife and I are going to be moving there on December 6th and the 7th.

We are ready to start worshiping with the people, the saints there in Moorpark, California.

Bittersweet day today with it being my last message here at Valley Baptist Church in Hagerman. A lot of tears shed this week during study.

We'll get to that, though. Braden Patterson has a YouTube channel called Reformed Ex -Mormon. Again, if you know anybody in Moorpark or in Ventura County, tell them about Grace Bible Church.

Pass the mic down to the infamous, notorious J -E -F -F.

I really don't like the new setup. I can't see any comments. Hit comments.

I don't have a comment button to hit. Anyways, my name is Jeff. I'm one of the pastors of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

Actually, this guy over here is a pastor. Yeah, he's smoking on that two -day cigar.

But if you're ever in Tullahoma and you want to come hang out with a couple of jack legs, we'd love to have you.

Now I'll pass it over to Big Red. I'm Red.

I'm an evangelist. Covenant Reformed Baptist Church. I just want to see people come to Christ.

Amen. That sounds good. You know, I can't see the comments on Facebook, but I can on YouTube, Brayden.

Is there comments on Facebook? Good question. I don't know. It should pick up.

Whenever I was a moderator, it picked up both of them on the site.

Oh, okay. Wait a minute. Okay, so I see. We've got some things to work through on it.

I don't know why you can't see the comments, Jeff. Can you see the comments, Red? Can you give us a picture of the screen?

We've had some technical difficulties recently. Tom set up a live thing yesterday. I don't know why he did that.

I did not do that. You did. Sorry about that, guys.

I definitely hit schedule for later. I thought I'd click for today, but nope, it was yesterday.

That was Brayden. As a matter of fact, we actually had a couple people waiting to listen.

I feel bad. I feel bad. He texted me and said, hey, are you guys going on?

What's this going on right here? I was like, Brayden. What you guys need to do is please subscribe to the

YouTube channel. Get word out about it. Share it on your different social media platforms. That would be a good lesson for you to do that.

Yeah, that is weird. I can't do anything about it.

I can just see you guys. I think me and Jeff probably have the same thing going on. Yeah, we do.

Because in the settings it says guests see viewer comments and posts.

It says that. I don't know.

As always, everybody, we are not professionals here.

It is completely obvious that we are not professionals. We lost

Jeff. We lost Jeff. Okay. We'll get it figured out here. We'll figure it out.

Anyway, what's the topic for today? We were talking about evangelism, right? We are.

Evangelism and church planting. Evangelism and church planting. Well, I think what we should do is we should talk about evangelism first.

And I think that they go hand in hand. And I know Jeff is very passionate about both of these topics.

And hopefully Jeff can get back in here. Because I know he's very passionate about this. As he is a church plant who has seen his church grow through evangelism and different ministry outlooks.

And I know Red can speak directly to that. And so, you know,

I think that the conversation is going to go hand in hand with each other. There we go.

Still not showing anything. Hey, Jeff, if you click on your icon to the right, it will pull up.

So if I pull up the comments, it takes me completely away from y 'all. I can see the comments, but I cannot see anything else.

Really? I'm either seeing the comments or I'm seeing y 'all. Okay. You have it on full screen then?

For sure. Okay. So try and pick it up. Because that's the same for me, Jeff. When I have mine on full screen,

I can't see the comments at all. So when I exit full screen,

I can then see the comments. I don't see how you exit full screen. Should be right.

Right hand corner is on mine. Right lower hand corner. Don't have it. Let me take a picture.

I'll show you. So like, okay. Move your little dealy. Your mouse.

I don't have a mouse. I got a finger. Move your mouse pad.

Don't have one. What is that?

We got. Now we lost Red. Oh, there's Red back again.

Oh, we're crying out loud. Let's see here. Well, we can.

You know what we can do. At least. Hold on. Can you say. Can you see this, Jeff?

Yeah, I can see whenever it's posted like that. Okay. So. Until we figure it out.

We'll post them all. Hey, Brady. Brady, you see that? Debbie's very kind.

Yes. Debbie said you look gay. Now, you.

Thank you. I see that beard coming in, too. Hey, thank you. Yeah. No, I appreciate you.

I started growing mine last week. I started mine like 28 years ago.

It's starting to be seen. I shaved yesterday. Shut up. Shut up.

Jason got some testosterone going. Shut up. That's from cigars,

I believe. My beard a little cigar smoke. That's right. Love it.

Hey, so when Jeff was just raptured just there for a minute. We were going to start the show.

We're going to talk about evangelism and church planning. But we got to talk about our

Lord's days first. Yes, we do. I say we let the guest, Red, go first, knowing that his pastor is sitting in spirit.

All millennial hug from above next to him right now. I'm looking at you, boy. How was church today,

Red? We had a wonderful day. I can't find my start my notes, but I had the bulletin that we have was filled up to the brim.

It was the second message, the second part to John chapter 14, verses 25 to 31.

And it was amazing, man. He's highlighting exalting the work in the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

And he actually hit on church planning today and evangelism and just how the spirit works in us and through the scriptures to teach us indirectly.

It's just a wonderful message. We had this wonderful fellowship meal and wonderful time of getting to know one another and just hanging out.

And I cut about three heads after we got through eating. Tell everybody what you mean by you cut everybody's head.

I cut. There's a few men that I cut their hair in a congregation.

Right. And so every other

Lord's there. So I'll give I'll give the guys a haircut. And when they look sharp and almost a foot washing ministry, but except with the head that way, they don't look like Jeff.

Yeah, that's awesome.

That's awesome. You know, you know, they I've heard that the best way you could tell if your congregation is taking or if they're good note takers is if you give your notes to your pastor afterwards.

And if he could preach from you, did you take good notes? If he could, if he could,

I was all over the place on my man. I had to read his prayer request, fill out one day.

I was like, what'd you put? I had to help him out while he was praying.

Red's got the gift of writing in tongues. Yeah. Man, I appreciate that.

Jay, I appreciate that. Jay, but the, the haircuts that I do, they're free of charge, you know?

So it was the idol that I held up for a long time, but I've been cutting hair for 20 plus years.

And so I just, I give that gift freely as God has given it to me. And it's also been an amazing evangelism tool, the tool on the, on the tool belt type of thing.

So I'm just thankful that God has given me that gift and that I can share. Yeah. What about you,

Jeff? What do you say? How was your Lord being in church? It was good.

I mean, it's just, you know, it's just something about how everything goes, you know what

I'm saying? Like it's, I thought we got something special. I do feel like, like I was off the beat today.

I just, I have a whole lot on my plate, man. Just trying to, I feel like I'm juggling a thousand balls and another ball got thrown at me today.

And so trying to, trying to maintain and manage everything that I got going on right now.

It's been, it's been pretty, pretty rough. And I really felt it today in the pulpit. But, you know,

I do feel like the, the message was clear, even though I probably wasn't feeling it or, or I probably wasn't as powerful and given the message as I normally am.

I think I was all over the place. I looked down a couple of times and I don't know.

Sometimes I just, I see, I don't see anything in my notes. I just have to freestyle.

Like my eyes kind of went in and out. I think it was just the stress that I'm under right now. So be praying for me.

But I do feel like the, for the most part, what I wanted to articulate was articulated, whether the delivery was as well as it should have been, but the fellowship is second to none.

Yeah. I mean, I just like, I would, I, our fellowship at CRBC up to get up against anybody.

That's awesome. Yeah. If you go and listen to the message, you would never know if that he was going through something.

Well, you know, it's, it's, I'm, I'm sure it is. And even when, when I go out on the streets and stuff like that, and I don't think that I do well.

And then the next thing you know, somebody comes to church that heard you preaching from evangelism and stuff. So God definitely works in our weakness.

You know, when we think we are doing something right, the power is in God's word. So we know that that's what we're going to trust him.

Before you and I give it, let's hear where you had on the church building real fast, Jeff and Red, where are you guys at on, on walking into the new building of covenant reform

Baptist church? So this, this coming Saturday, we'll be able to put the pews back into the sanctuary.

It takes four to five days for the floor to dry. They just got done putting a polyurethane thing on the floor

Saturday. So we're, we'll get the pews back, but also we have to line up things with accounting because the county has to come in there and kind of assess everything that's going on.

Give us a, I can't think of what it's called.

Like tell us how no, not an appraisal, but they have to tell us capacity.

And so we have to get our capacity. So we're waiting on the fire chief to get there, to check everything out.

So we were hoping to have our first Lord's day service, the 1st of December. It's looking more like maybe mid

December at latest, the very beginning of the 1st of January, the 1st, or then

January at, at the very latest we have a month, but we could be in it in another two or three weeks.

Well, that's good. Cause you can actually get some stuff done that you need to any loose ends or whatever. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. There's just a lot of little things. Like we got to put a lot of trim going around.

Well, I don't know if you would call it trim shoe motor, shoe mode, whatever you call the thing that's go around the base.

Yeah. A lot of that up and yeah, but we're hoping to have enough money left over after everything to where we can hire a professional photographer and videographer to kind of go through there and take some videos of the sanctuary and just kind of like 30 second clip of everything that's been done.

And then some pictures because we're revamping our website as well. So good deal.

Yeah. We're excited. I mean, praise God. I mean, just think of it. Look how God has worked.

I mean, we're still, we're going to have a church infancy, right?

So we planted it. So we plan it. It was May 30th,

Pentecostal Sunday of 2020. That was our first Lord's day service. We were actually sent out by crisis

King Baptist church in Syracuse, New York and, and their pastor at the time came down June 20th,

July 5th and laid hands on us and sent us out. Wow. So we're a little over four years old.

We're still in our infancy and we have this amazing church building given to us by God.

Like it's, it's pretty remarkable and unheard of. No, I know they're going to determine as far as code goes and everything, but how many can you actually fit in the sanctuary?

If you are not a hundred percent sure, anywhere from one 90 to two 20, something like that.

Wow. That's incredible. Yeah. Praise the Lord, dude. That's so cool.

How full was your church service today? I don't know, man. I don't ever count. I mean, it was pretty full.

Yeah. We had some family though. I mean, I sit up front,

I don't ever really, and plus like when I first get up there to make the announcements, like it won't be that many people.

Then I'll turn around to read the creed and turn back around and got more people. And then by the time

I get up there to preach, there's more people. We probably had about 30, 40, 30, 35 to 40 people or so.

Yeah. Cool. Well, I'm excited to hear, you know, when we start talking about evangelism, how that's going to fill up too.

So yeah, Julie said about 45 people today. Awesome.

That's awesome. With a couple of families out. That's pretty cool to hear. That is. And then

I'll let you go, Brayden. We welcomed a new family in today. Yeah. Membership.

Yeah. Doug and Angie. Praise the Lord. That's awesome. That's a sweet, sweet couple. That is awesome.

Doug we met doing evangelism. Yeah, that's amazing.

Evangelism is pointless. I don't know why we're talking about it. I mean, we're Calvinists. Do we really need to?

I mean, God's going to choose and save who he's going to save, right? Exactly. Yeah. Don't leave the stream yet.

We're being sarcastic if you aren't used to it. Go ahead,

Tom. Yeah. So we had two services this morning or this afternoon.

Well, actually today, I should say one in the morning. And then we just left one this evening talking about the regulative principle of worship, which is really good.

Actually kind of uncommon for a dispute church to do. So I'm really glad to hear that because, you know, as you guys all know,

I'm a 1689 black priest. And just, you know, how has

God commanded us to worship? And Michael Beck, my pastor, he really nailed it today.

And then really, he got on talking about, you know, how we worship in our singing in a congregation, how we worship corporately in a way that's presumed to God.

And that was really exciting. And then there's this kid that came this morning and this afternoon, and he's actually a product of evangelism as well from the

Pearl. And we went out evangelizing yesterday. It's interesting.

Whenever we go out evangelizing, the more pushback we get, the more fruit we get from that ministry.

And we got a lot of pushback yesterday. But the gospel went forth and God was faithful.

So worship today was great. And looking forward to Thanksgiving, this coming up Thanksgiving.

So it was really good. We had a good day. Well, Tom, aren't you going to be guest speaking somewhere beginning of June?

Yes. The middle of July. In January, you mean? Yeah, January, my bad.

It's one of the days. You got pushbacks. It's one of the days. So in January, I am excited because at Covenant Reformed Baptist Church in Tullahoma, Tennessee, I've been invited to speak on the

Lord's Day. And I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to preach on yet, but it's going to be a privilege.

God is faithful. It's something that I want to do, especially getting behind the pulpit before the conference.

I was looking for a pew sitter that could fill in. That's me. That's me right there. That's me.

So as you guys know, I mean, there's a lot of preaching that goes out in open air. But the fact of the matter is when you're behind a pulpit and you actually have a congregation that is stationary and looking at you and listening to what you have to say, it's a different animal.

Way different. Yeah. And also, you're going to be down for Third Friday. Third Friday.

Third Friday. Third Friday cigar shop. Saturday evangelism.

Sunday worship. That's awesome. You don't want to leave Tennessee, bro. That's right.

We're going to baptize you into the family. So my wife and I, my wife,

Debbie, who's watching, she should be watching still. I think she's going to be coming with me. We're going to go to Third Friday.

Well, she's probably not going to come to Third Friday. I don't know, honey.

You want a cigar? I brought my mom.

I brought my mom to Third Friday. She smoked a couple of cigars with us. We are not a respectful person.

Hey, we're a trailer park, baby. We're a trailer park around here. Hey, Jeff grew up in Woodbine.

I grew up in South Antioch, lower Antioch. I mean, we're pretty much from the same area, man. There she is.

We keep it trailer park, baby. Debbie's good. She don't want to do the

Third Friday. But no, honestly, I mean, it is a privilege, and I'm honored to be speaking, especially, you know, one of the first sermons that's going to be preached at the new church, too.

So, yeah, thank you for inviting me. I'm blessed to be able to go speak there. Thank you.

That's the second baptism, Melissa. Baptism by Holy Spirit.

Melissa's on it tonight, son. All right, there's a screenshot for you right here.

Screenshot. Hey, Melissa, you didn't get excommunicated from your dispensation. Hold on, hold on.

Leave that up there. Leave that up there. Leave that up there. Leave that up there. Boom.

And then she did this. How was your Lord's Day, Brandon? You know, guys, it was a real blessed day.

There was a lot of cool things that happened. This week was a somewhat emotional week for myself.

Monday was the bulk of my sermon study, and man, there was a lot of tears shed just because this was my last

Lord's Day preaching here in Hagerman, my last Lord's Day at Valley Baptist Church. And so I get one more

Lord's Day of being able to worship God with the saints here, but the last time to actually be behind the pulpit unless sometime in the future, visiting and whatnot.

But it was emotional. It was good. It was a blessing. I got to preach on Romans 11, 33 through 36, which is the,

Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and inscrutable his ways for who has known the mind of the

Lord or who has been his counselor, who has first given a gift to him that he might be repaid for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory forever.

Amen. And so great text to preach in. It was the text I read when

I was first ordained at the church, first called to the ministry there. And so I wanted to end my ministry here on that text because it is for from him and through him and to him are all things.

And so I wanted to glorify God with preaching from that text right there. And so it was sweet. We did a really good, there was several people that I haven't seen in a long time that got to come out and watch the preaching, partake in the worship and of course just come together in fellowship with one another.

And so that was really good. Nathan, my good friend, Nathan and Lindsey. Nathan is the gentleman who actually read

John 1 to me and is the gentleman that God used to open my eyes and he got to come hear me preach for the first time out here the second time or so.

And so that was lots of fun to see him. There was a couple other really good brothers and sisters in Christ that were able to come and it was just, it was good to worship

God with the saints with my family here in Hagerman. So is that the, so that's the last thing you're going to preach.

Is there going to be another Lord's Day you're actually going to get to attend or is that it? There will be one more Lord's Day to get to attend.

So there'll be next Sunday. And then after that, we are moving to Moorpark, California. So it's -

So you're no longer a pastor of Valley Baptist. As of December 1st is what we made the vote on.

And so this is the last Lord's Day. And so unless something, if something pops up in the next few couple of days, me and Rick will both handle it, but it's now

Pastor Rick of Valley Baptist Church. So - That's awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. And this will help Rick grow too, like in so many different ways, you know.

Oh yeah. I'm really happy for Rick. Me too. Me too. Yeah. That's going to be great.

Can't wait to see the move. And no, when's the first day when you're actually going to take the pulpit?

Yeah. So the first Sunday, I won't take the pulpit being there, which I believe is going to be the 8th because I'll just have gotten there on the

Saturday. And so because of the move and whatnot, they didn't want to put in the pulpit. We're doing a transition between me and Pastor Errol.

There'll be a celebration. I can't remember what day they said they were going to celebrate the 40th year anniversary of the church and his pastorate there, because he's been pastoring there for 40 years since the church planted.

He was the one that planted the church. And so they're just amazing. 40 years in pastoring a single church is unheard of, right?

And so that's admirable. This man is one of the most humble men. Oh, never, right?

And this man is one of the most humble men that I'm getting to know. It's such a blessing to be able to come alongside him and pastor this church.

He's going to be an elder at the church, so it's not like he's going anywhere. And so I'm really excited for that experience. But we'll have a transition period where I'll be able to preach on the 15th, then he'll preach the next

Sunday, and then we'll just kind of go back and forth and fill in and be able to have that transition in front of everybody's eyes and see that take place.

And then my installation service is going to be on January 12th as of right now at Grace Bible Church in Moore Park.

So January 12th is the official day on that I will be the pastor at that point.

So God is faithful. God is moving, isn't he? Yeah, answering prayers 100 % throughout the whole process.

I mean, big prayers, things that there's, I mean, just Jeff talking about the building, getting that and how many prayers and all the things that are just like, how did that even come about?

God has been active in this whole process. So it's pretty cool to see. I mean, the building, you go into Moore Park and making a pew sitter preach from a pulpit, unbelievable.

God can use a donkey, brother. There he is. That's Jeff's life verse.

That's my life verse. That's my life? I preached that today. That's my life verse.

Hey, so we have a question up here. As a matter of fact, this will actually kind of get us into the topic of what we're going to be doing.

What time is the pre -conference of evangelism Wednesday, February 19th?

And also we can introduce a new speaker that's going to be speaking at that conference.

Jeff, what do you say? What you got? So we haven't really sat down and nailed down the pre -conference time yet because the regular conference days, we haven't decided if it's going to be like a regular conference day or, because last year it was in the evening.

I was more so thinking that it would be afternoon, evening, because it is going to be a little longer.

I'm thinking it would begin anywhere from 12 to one o 'clock.

Okay, and those of you that are speaking, we have Brian Ninde from Hearts for the Lost. We have myself,

Jeff, Braden Patterson, and who's this guy over here? This big guy, this big foot.

There is a big foot. You're right. There he is. Just was a red big foot.

So tell us about Sam and how he's helped you with your evangelism and everything else.

Well, so for those of you, like I mentioned earlier, the church plant, we're a little over four years old.

And I have been on the streets, for the most part by myself.

Every once in a while, there'll be someone that would come out with me and stuff like that. But the red has been like, ever since he's been a part of our church, he's been faithful.

And he's probably like, you've heard me say this before. And I've also said it about you too, gentlemen, that when

I get around y 'all, all three of y 'all, I really feel my inadequacy concerning evangelism.

Like, I don't think that's my gifting. I do the work of an evangelist, right?

Because the scripture tells me to, I'm going to obey the commands of God. And I'm wanting to do things that I'm uncomfortable with doing.

So I've been open air preaching for the most part for over four years, well, for four years on these streets by myself.

And then red come to our church and he's been faithfully out there with me week in, week out.

And just, I mean, no matter where he goes, he's evangelizing to people. Like it's beyond me how he does it.

Like he's just a true evangelist. I don't even try, man. Look, there were some

Mormons that came to my house the other day when I wasn't even here. And my son tells them to come back and they came back.

And I was like, yes. Man, it was just awesome. And I got to share the gospel with these young ladies.

I don't even have to try, man. God just brings them to me. It's crazy. Yeah, he's a true evangelist in every sense.

And he's actually someone that we're looking, my co -pastor and myself are looking at red to be our first ordained evangelist of Covenant Reform Baptist Church.

That's awesome. Yeah. The gift is on him.

You have to be blind, deaf, and dumb. Well, if you were blind, deaf, and dumb, you'd still see it. Right. Hear it and just fulfill it like you would understand it.

Like it's just, he is an evangelist. Again, I don't say that to lift him up or to bring myself down.

It's just, you know, the truth is the truth. I don't have that gift, but I do, but I will keep that commandment.

And I think all Christians should keep that commandment. Yeah. You know, when we think about open -air evangelism and we think about, there's a couple of questions that a lot of people ask online about open -air evangelism and going out and doing street evangelism.

Number one, should that person that's going out and street preaching, should he be affiliated or a member of a local church?

And then number two is, what is the point of evangelism? Is it just to send the gospel out, to tell people to call on the be converted and then let them go their own way, you know, or is there actually a purpose and a method that God has designed to equip men for a specific purpose?

So why don't we answer that question, Jeff? And I know this is gonna kind of, the leading question is gonna get into why we do evangelism, what the purpose of it is, why we do need to be affiliated with a local church.

Talk about some of that. Before we do that real fast, I would like to encourage the audience to get your tickets to that open -air theology conference.

Get your tickets to the pre -conference because you're gonna hear all four of us speaking and preaching on this topic.

And then the reason that Jeff mentioned that we're gonna wanna do it afternoon, evening time for this conference is the plan currently is that we wanna put this into real world action where we encourage the people that are part of the conference to let's go hit the streets and go and proclaim the name of Christ.

And so this podcast right here, I think is gonna be really helpful for everybody that's wanting to get into evangelism, already is doing evangelism or anything along those lines, especially in light of what's gonna come on February 19th.

It's gonna, that day is a day not to miss. That day is a day to come out and proclaim Christ with us.

So it should be a blessed time, but sorry, I had to interject that real quick. No, that's a good point.

Just because it's a pre -conference doesn't mean that it's lesser conference.

It is just a extended day that we're gonna come out there. And if you don't know how to get evangelism started in your church, or if you feel that calling to be an evangelist and you should, maybe you don't have that quote unquote gifting like Jeff had said, but we are all called to share the gospel.

We're all called to be as witnesses for Christ to be able to at least share, be ready to answer man of the reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.

We should all be able to do that. But what's the purpose? How did God design it?

What is the, do we just go out there and throw out and call everybody to repent and believe and then let them go their own way,

Jeff? What's the purpose in evangelism? Well, I'll say that, that's something that's being done and it's something that I have done in the past, but it's absolutely something that I've been convicted of as well.

When I read the scriptures, I don't see where evangelism is separated from church planning.

Whenever you, in which I spoke about it today and the message that I gave, the purpose of evangelism was to grow the church, right?

As many as believed or baptized and were added to the church.

And so what you see if you, when you read the book of Acts, as well as the epistles, what you see is, is they would go from, they would go into a nation, they would plant a church.

They would evangelize, fill that church, plant another church, evangelize, fill that church, plant another church.

Once that nation had churches in it, they would go to a different nation, evangelize, plant a church, evangelize, fill that church, plant a church, evangelize, fill that church, so on and so forth.

That's how the gospel has always spread, right? Nowadays, you don't see that.

You see a church planted or, and then they're just trying to grow this one individual church into a mega church, right?

We need 50 ,000 people in this building, right? It doesn't make any sense.

The point of all of this is growth and reaching the community. What I really want to say real quick is

I want to, because every one of us are 1689, I want to say if you're a 1689

Reformed Baptist, we should really be ashamed of ourselves because when it comes to this issue, when it comes to this, we've dropped the ball.

We always, always, always have to explain to people what 1689

Baptist or Reformed Baptist is. Why? Because we're not planting churches. We should be filling the church, planting churches, evangelize, and fill, planting a church, filling the church, evangelize, and so on and so forth.

There should be a Reformed Baptist church in every community. We have people, Red, Red, you are my witness. We have people driving two hours to get to our church every week.

Yeah. There's not a Reformed Baptist church anywhere near them but ours. That should not be the case.

Right. Yeah. We have dropped the ball and we're always going to be dropping the ball.

We're always going to be looked at as, I've never heard of that. It's weird.

I don't know about it if we don't pick the ball up. It's, it's, it's interesting to me when, when

I talk to people, we have a church of 200 good, good

Bible -believing Christians. You know, they, they go to church. They are listening to the preached word of God.

And, and when we do evangelism, we go out and, you know, out of the 150 to 200 people that we have at our church, not that this is the only method.

It's not, it's not the only method that, that you go out onto the streets and evangelize.

I mean, we should be all, if you think that your evangelism ministry is built solely around just going out onto the streets,

I think that, that we've missed it. We are to be evangelizing in our everyday life.

Like you had mentioned, Red, that not just on the streets, but, but the, to preach and teach on the streets helps a person get better at evangelizing.

If you can, if you can go out on the streets and communicate the gospel with somebody, to find out somebody's condition, their condition, to show them their condition, the

Holy God has fallen short. You know, it's all a training process.

And where I'm going with this is this, is that if we think that out of a church of 200, and you're going out on the weekends to share the gospel and only 10 people are showing up, if we think that that's a good thing,

I think we're missing the mark there. I don't think that that's a good thing at all. Well, so, so, so, so real quick,

I mean, it's not, but, but that's, but it's really common. As you know, it's really common.

I think it's like 3 % of a church's income goes to any kind of an outreach. So first of all, the money's not going where their, their mouth is and stuff like that.

Second, I think that evangelism, because you mentioned earlier about evangelism and, and, and do we just go out and stuff like that?

I really want to challenge people to do neighborhood evangelism. Sure. And when I say neighborhood, I mean the neighborhood around your church, because the purpose is that you want to listen.

The main focus isn't to grow our church, but it is a secondary. Primary is for the gospel to go forth and for, for, and for Christ to save sinners through that message of Jesus Christ.

But absolutely secondary, that person that gets saved needs to go to a church. What better church than the church that proclaimed the gospel, right?

And so, and so we have to be kingdom minded. And in order to be kingdom minded in evangelism, you need to be doing kingdom work around the local church, right?

And no, you're not going to have as much foot traffic, but listen, if all you're in it, it's like with anything, if the only reason why you're doing podcasting is for the views, stop it.

The only reason you're doing evangelism is to be heard by hundreds of thousands of people. Stop it.

Right. Right. We need to be about the kingdom. And we do that about evangelizing around the local church in order to grow the local church.

So that church can grow and plant churches. Right. Sorry, I'll get off my high horse. Well, the number one, the number one focus, the number one reason to evangelize is for, is purely for the worship of God.

It's to glorify God. Right. You know, and if people get that in the forefront of their mind, that because it's commanded and we should do it out of obedience because of what

God has done by demonstrating his love, sending his son to die for us, that should drive us out into the streets.

Right. So the motive, you're talking about the motive of evangelism. Yeah. Brayden, what do you think about, is it necessarily wrong to have these sports outreaches and just,

I mean, for example, I, and I'm not picking on any one of them. Let's just discuss about how there's these sports outreaches that go to different events, you know, across the country.

They're attending a church in Dallas and they go to fly to California to go to Superbowl and share the gospel there.

Yeah, it's a good question. I, I thought you were going to go a different way with that because I would just, before I answer that specifically,

I would just add something that I think Jeff was talking about because a lot of times you have these big mega churches that want to hold on to people, get more accumulated attendance.

And so then the focus is more program driven to the church rather than outreach to the community.

And then also that then therefore lacks in the planting of the churches. And so you see very minimal evangelism efforts.

They want to try to draw people in with the children programs, with the Halloween trick or trunk or treats in the parking lot.

which again, if churches do those kinds of things, that's okay. But if that's where their main focus is, it's kind of wrong.

But to answer the question about sports reaches, I don't think there's anything per se wrong with a church or people doing a mission trip somewhere and looking at it as a mission trip.

I'm going to this high populated dense area to be able to evangelize. But if that is the only time you do evangelism and you only feel comfortable doing evangelism with those that you won't ever see again,

AKA in another state, not those that are your actual neighbors, not those that are actually the ones that you'll see at the grocery store, not those ones that you actually want to come to your church.

I think that's pretty telling to you as the individual and where your heart is in doing something. And so if you can only do evangelism by traveling somewhere, that's issue, that's issue big time.

I think so. And I think I'm going to go with Jeff too. The whole idea is to make disciples around your community in your sphere of influence.

We are ambassadors for Christ. We need to be reaching our neighbor across the street.

We need to be reaching the everyday person that we have, cutting our hair. We have a plumber come over.

We should be able to evangelize to those people. And we should also be able to point them to a church where they can be equipped and learn how to be a follower of Christ, not just to build up numbers and everything, but in order to build up believers so that they would go and find more people to share the gospel with and equip them to go out.

Isn't that how it works? I mean, we started with 11, right? We started with 11 disciples and it's just built over the hundreds or thousands of years.

I think that is the methodology of evangelism. Yeah. Hi, just real quick on the whole sports fan thing.

So I was once a part of Sports Fan Outreach and I really enjoyed my interactions with them.

I have really good friends and stuff like that that do it. And I would love to get some guys from our church and they go to one of their things and do that again.

However, that should not be your primary evangelism, right? Because it costs, you know, anywhere from $150 to $600 to go on some of these trips where you're traveling.

You know, like I went to the Super Bowl in Phoenix, Arizona one year.

Like I was traveling all over the place with those guys and I really enjoyed it. Like just being the camaraderie with the guys and stuff like that.

It was really enjoyable. But that should be secondary to your neighborhood evangelism.

I would say if that's all you do is travel around and do evangelism, you need to check your heart.

One of the main reasons why I do evangelism in my own neighborhood is for accountability.

You know, I can go downtown. Brad knows it. I can go downtown on a Saturday and speak to hundreds, if not thousands of people within a matter of a few hours.

And yet on my way home, I could flip some people off that are cutting me off too. And no one would ever know that I was just down there preaching downtown.

Right. But if I let my flesh get a hold of me here in the area where I live, here in the area where everyone,

I can't even walk into a store without people recognizing that I'm that guy on the streets that preaches.

If I start flipping people off who cut me off, I'm going to lose my witness.

And so that right there, you know it's true. We need accountability.

So another reason for neighborhood evangelism, one primary purpose is for the gospel to go forth and God to save us.

Second would be for the growth of the church. Third, I would say accountability.

We need accountability. When we go into the cigar shop, there's people in there from the community that recognize us, say hi to us, bring us water while we're out there evangelizing in the heat.

I mean, and I evangelize around the house, but I also evangelize, you know, around my church.

Right. And I think Melissa made a really good point there that we should be evangelizing in the area around our church so that we can guide other people to a biblical church, if not our own.

Right. I agree. And I want people to understand too, what we aren't saying is, so I'll give you an example.

I mean, some of the places that we're looking at to share the gospel at, we're looking for events as close as possible to our church, but also where there's people, where there's people to be able to hear the gospel.

If I can reach 800 people versus one, I'm gonna go to the 800 and everything and be able to proclaim the gospel to the 800 people.

For example, we go to Fredericksburg. Is that my microphone that's doing that noise? It might be.

I'm hearing feedback from IM. But we go to Fredericksburg during the Christmas lights and right when they're getting ready to turn on the

Christmas lights, we have about 800 to 1 ,000 people that are standing around waiting for the

Christmas lights that are getting ready to pop up. And so we can, it's a short period of time of the year where we can actually go to a park and preach the gospel from the scriptures to 800 to 1 ,000 people all at once.

And so it's a great way. Will all those people get a track and even know what church

I'm going to? No, they won't. But I am getting the gospel into people's ears. So we're not saying that that's not the way to do it, but our primary focus, like you said,

Jeff, is to make it a focus around our church. I'm like Jeff.

I started out, I started out, the very first place

I went to was an abortion, a murder mill. And that's where I caught the bug. The Lord saved like three babies that day.

And then the guy that God used to save me is an evangelist.

And he invited me to sports fan outreach. And I started going to the

Kentucky Derby and I've been down to St. Petersburg, Florida for a Grand Prix race and just several different places doing college campus outreach preaching.

And it was really good training, not only to preach, but also one -on -one evangelism because open air preaching causes people to stop and come and talk to you.

And that's a majority of how we get people when we're evangelizing and preaching the gospel in our area, they come over to us.

They want Bibles. They want tracts and information about our church and we give them the gospel.

We don't let them leave there until they have the gospel. Are you actually saying that open air preaching works, that people are interested in that?

Yeah. Not only that, but we don't have any foot traffic. Wow. We're setting up preaching to traffic, people driving by.

And so what we do is, you guys read, I bought two Bose speakers and you can hear, like you can be a few blocks away in your home, listening to your soap operas, watching soap operas and you can hear us.

We turn the babies up. We have signs out there talking about giving away free

Bibles and offering to pray for people. And normally, yes, Red, normally we have about four cars to stop and that can be anywhere from four to 14 people.

Right? Whenever it's just Jeff and I, man, there's times where we've been out there and we're running around like chickens with our head cut off.

If he's preaching, I'm running around giving Bibles and tracts and sharing the gospel. Witnessing.

So if you have one person doing the open air, what do the other people do while you're doing open air reading?

So how do you guys do it? So if Jeff's preaching, of course

I'll be trying to encourage him as I listen with amens and keep on keeping on brothers and holding signs or when people come over, because like Jeff said, we don't have any foot traffic.

They drive over and we'll just walk up to the car and we'll talk to them and see what their need is.

Some people need prayer and we always give them tracts. We have folded up church information with tracts in them and that have the gospel on them and we'll share the gospel with the people that stop.

And if they want a Bible, we'll give them a Bible and we'll invite them to church.

Yeah. You remember Braden, you came out there to an NTSA football game with me and different animals because there was a lot of foot traffic there.

And we had about 12 people that day come with us. It was a good amount of people. That's for sure.

It was awesome to see. Yeah. Share your experience with that. It was great.

I will say this just real fast. Somebody, Jake, our brother in Christ, the ex

Jehovah Witness, did say that somebody is having an issue with the mic just heads up. I don't know if it's me or...

Talk to me. Hello? I'm pretty sure it was Red. I don't know though or not.

And now Jeff's... You know what you do. Hey, Jake, how are we sounding right now, just me and Braden?

We sounding good? It's better. So it's either

Jeff or Red. Red? I'll mute mine.

While y 'all are talking. And when I talk, I'll unmute. I don't think it's you either,

Jeff. I don't think it's you, Jeff. I think it might be Red. Red, you do that. You unmute when you're ready to talk. It's all good.

I'm a newbie, man. This is my first... Hey. ...open air theology show, any podcast.

I've never been on a podcast or anything like that. Y 'all supposed to be teaching me. We got you.

We got you. Listen, we podcast by ear. Okay? I know some of y 'all might not...

You must be new here, because have you not seen this show? I don't think there's ever a time that it's actually been smooth sailing through the whole thing, ever.

Or you're watching ads on YouTube together. That's what makes it great. We have wrong set up dates.

Look, open air theology, we get our evangelism on point, our podcast, you know. It could use some work.

Some prayers. No, you know, so to answer that question, to go back to it, Tom, I thought it was fantastic.

Actually, it's something that I want to take your whole set up and implement it and set that up exactly like how we have at our church here, coming to Grace Bible Church.

I was actually talking to the church administrative personnel gentleman there and just telling him about the wonderfulness of it.

I was showing him videos of you preaching. I actually was showing him, Jeff and you read as well, just showing how this is what evangelism, open air should look like, is this.

And so I got to show him the things that you had shown me, Tom, and the way that you guys have it set up with the speakers, the whiteboard, the gospel tracks, the people, the personnel, the different amount of speakers that you have rotating.

I thought it was fantastic. You know, I did want to mention, though,

I think when it comes, there's two things that, there's a lot more than two things.

There's two things, though, right on this topic that I despise when it comes to Christians evangelizing.

There's a lot of things I despise. I'm a 1689 federalist. There's a lot of things I despise.

But two things, and that's one, a Christian that is not obedient and unwilling to share the gospel.

That's very frustrating. That's very frustrating. And there's reasons why we even get into the why that's frustrating.

And then the second thing that I don't like is when people are a jerk while being able to communicate about Christ.

Those two things, I think, go hand in hand and you're not, it's not great for the kingdom of Christ, I think, when you're being like that.

And so, you know, I think - Can I add one more? Yeah, go ahead. Can I add one more right there? One who's not a member of a church.

Oh, yeah, for sure. You're a lone ranger in it. You know, at that point, I don't even think you're doing evangelism.

You're just out there doing stupid things. I don't even think that you should go to a football game outreach on a

Sunday during church. Like I have to say, I don't think you should have any form of ministry if you're not in a part of the local church, period.

You know, like I know some people who are part of a local church, but during football season, they don't go to church because of the football game.

They miss church to evangelism. That's crazy. First things first, you have to be fed and you have to be a part of a church where you're growing in holiness.

You're going to go out there and witness to people, tell them to go to church and you're skipping church to witness to people. That's putting the cart before the horse.

I know. None of this stuff makes sense. An angry evangelist, man, get a life.

I'm not a good talker. Like I don't, I have a hard time just talking with people in general.

And so I really had to push myself to be social. And I think that just for instance, you know,

I thought that the evangelism was great and I love open air evangelism, Tom. So don't think I'm taking anything away from that.

But Tom and I sat for an hour and a half in a cigar lounge, smoking a cigar, talking about Christ with an unbeliever, with two unbelievers, one unbeliever and then another gentleman who just had some severe trouble going on in his life.

I just, this last week on Friday, I went to a cigar lounge and it was in Meridian, it was after flying and was sitting down with a gentleman another hour and a half, if not longer, of a gospel conversation with somebody.

And I think we can't like, I think it goes back to the whole, what we were talking about.

If you just go to the football game to evangelize in another state, but yet you can't do it in your own town, that's wrong.

If you can only evangelize where you're talking out loud in a public situation, but you can't do it privately and personally, one -on -one and one -on -two, one -on -five individuals, really,

I think it goes back to the whole purpose of why we're doing evangelism. Of course, it's to glorify God and part of enjoying

Him forever is to be obedient to Him and listen to His commands. And that also plays into the glorifying Him.

But if we understand the salvation that we have in Christ, He is worthy to proclaim.

One time I was evangelizing at a temple opening for the LDS in Pocatello and I still remember a gentleman getting off the bus and I was strategically placed to open air evangelize.

I'm trying to hand gospel tracts out. I don't think I handed out 10 gospel tracts the whole time I was there because none of them were taking them.

I got like 200 of these nice Paul Washer ones, like not even 10. I was just like, man, I should have not even got any of these.

But one of the guys got off the bus and he said, don't you have anything better to be doing right now?

And I sincerely and I truly believe this. I said, no, to proclaim Christ is the best thing

I could be doing right now. And you've got to remember that Christ Jesus, God who is exalted upon His throne,

He became flesh for you and I. And in His flesh, He also gave us a great pattern for evangelism.

And it wasn't that He just sat back and said, go and do it. No, it says that when He began His public ministry that He went into the city of Galilee preaching the gospel of God, saying that the kingdom of God was at hand.

Repent and believe in the gospel. And so Christ Jesus Himself, our God who deserves all praise and glory was humble enough to have awkward conversations.

Get out of my sermon, man. Hey, sorry. What do you guys think that there's a distinction between proclaiming the gospel to a crowd and in a major distinction actually having that one -on -one conversation?

What's easier for you each individually? And then not that you're gonna rank one method over the other because I can think of benefits of both one or the other.

And I'll just give two real quick. If you're having a one -on -one conversation and that one person is in front of you, you're not proclaiming to five people.

So when you're saying all of sin and fall short of the glory of God, the guy that you're preaching in open air is going, oh, you meant that for that guy.

I mean, you're not making it personal. But that one -on -one conversation that you're having, they should say, listen, man, the

Bible says that your heart is wicked, that you are a sinner, that you violated

God's law, that you hate him. He can't get around that if you're having a one -on -one conversation.

So there's not one method over the other, but what's easier for you guys? And what's harder for you guys?

What do you feel more comfortable doing? Or is it just as the Holy Spirit leads you? I enjoy both of them.

I mean, to be able to proclaim, to hurl, to scream out loud the magnificent glories of God, like that is just,

I don't know, like it's just something that I love and fell in love with.

Like in fighting, like if you watch UFC and stuff like that, you get a lot of guys, they'll come in there and they'll, you know, like there'll be a ground guy, right?

There'll be a wrestler or a jujitsu guy, but whenever they finally land a knockout, they fall in love with their hands, right?

And so now they're trying to knock people out. And that's kind of how I feel, because when I first stepped into evangelism, it was one -on -one.

And so one -on -one is definitely my first love when it comes to evangelism. I love the intimacy of it, the face -to -face telling them, no, look me in my eyes.

This is serious. Like, you know, when they look away, I said, no, no, right here, look me in my eyes.

This is serious. Like, I love that intimacy that you get from it. But man, I absolutely 100 % would be lying if I say

I didn't fall in love with being, you know, hitting someone and knocking them out with the herald of the gospel, standing on that box and just proclaiming truth with all passion flowing forth from me, right?

I absolutely love it. But to pick one over the other, I don't know. Again, I feel like the

Lord has used both in my life, right? So I got people who come to my church that I have witnessed to one -on -one who the

Lord gave salvation to. And I have people who come to my church who just drove by and seen me preaching.

And then that Lord, the next Lord's day, they came because they seen us preaching. And so both methods absolutely work in our neighborhood and they will work in your neighborhood as well.

Amen. What about you, Red? There you go.

I enjoy heralding the gospel. I believe that open air preaching is one of the greatest privileges that a man can be given.

The world is your pulpit. And I'm honestly more comfortable with hostility than I would be with, you know, standing before brothers and sisters.

At least people are being seated and watered. Red, while you're preaching,

I'll throw a can at you. That'd be great, man. I'll be right at home. But I do enjoy arguing with people.

Anthony can attest to that. And I think Tom can too. We had a great time during No Quarter November, the beginning of it there.

And just I love arguing within the brethren and without and just, you know, calling heathens like myself, like I was.

Like I enjoyed calling them to the foot of Christ to behold the glory of God.

So, Red, I got a question for you. If you were to give a minute -long answer, I mean truly a minute, why would you say somebody should come to this pre -conference in February?

And also, just give a strong presentation of why evangelism is important.

Well, if you know me and Jeff, you know I can't do anything in under a minute. I preach like two hours when we're out on the street.

And it gives me a hard time every single time. But man,

I've been to every conference thus far. And this conference is where I met

Jeff, where I met Brayden. This past conference is where I met Tom. And God has grown me through these men, through their ministries, through their preaching, from behind the pulpit and in the streets.

And God has glorified himself in these men. And I'm thankful.

Watching Jeff and his faithfulness behind the pulpit and in the street is what drew me to this church.

And just the way that God has used Jeff, not only to humble me, but to grow me and to give me more tools to see people come to Christ.

And I'm grateful for that. And those are really good aspects of coming to a conference and why evangelism is important.

These conferences are evangelizing people. And people in our community, they see us gather and they're gonna see us out on the streets.

They already see Jeff and I and other people are part of our congregation out in the streets proclaiming the gospel.

And sharing the good news of what God has done for wretches like us and calling them to come to salvation, to come and freely drink from the fountain that overflows and never ends.

So just that, the awesomeness that I've been able to partake in and what

God has done through you guys and these conferences is untold riches.

Amen, brother. Amen. I wanna answer that to Melissa. She said, how do you deal with hecklers?

And there's actually a couple of different ways we could deal with hecklers. Number one, we have to understand that they're just manifesting their hate out.

Their sin's gonna show itself up for what it is. And I would rather deal with a heckler, a person who's honest with themselves, that they hate

God, that they would rather love their sin more than Christ.

I think it's when you flip it on them and you show them that Christ will even forgive you.

Christ will forgive that you are shaking your fist at him. Christ will forgive that you hate him with all your heart, that you would rather live the way you wanna live, the way you wanna believe in your own self -righteousness, that you wanna be the captain over your ship, that you want to be your own master, that you wanna serve your own idols and reject him.

There's hope for you, you know? There's hope for that person. And that's what the gospel is.

If the gospel can say to somebody like Anthony and myself and Jeff and Red and Brayden and all the people that were making an idol factory out of our life, that God's mercy is more for his elect, you know?

And if you, there are sheep out there and through the means of preaching of the gospel, he will bring his sheep to repent.

And such were some were we. So that's why we do it. And God is glorified in the preaching of the gospel.

So a heckler, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord. And either you're gonna do it now, you will do it later. Yeah, if I could add to that.

So depending on the context, so a heckler in my context where I'm evangelizing really wouldn't do much.

But if you're somewhere with a lot of foot traffic, say like downtown, so in downtown Nashville, there's been two things that has taken place to where I've had hundreds of people watching me at one time.

And one was rain, right? I'm out there preaching and all of a sudden a downpour started happening.

And I positioned myself to where I was near an area where there would be tents.

And so hundreds of people gathered under this tent and I was like 20 feet away from them with my bullhorn proclaiming the gospel, getting soaking wet.

So God brought rain upon me that day in order for people to hear the gospel.

The other way that hundreds of people at one time were able to listen to me was through a heckler.

God bless good hecklers, right? So they can take your audience from two to a hundred within a matter of seconds if they're really good.

So depending on the heckler and depending on your context, you're able to use that heckler to gain a crowd of people to hear the gospel.

So again, in my context now, where we don't have a lot of foot traffic, it wouldn't help me out much.

But for the most part, there are bullies and you just stand up to a bully. But if I was somewhere where there was a lot of foot traffic, one of the things that I pray for is a good heckler.

Sometimes we even manipulate it, right? Sometimes if we're needing an audience and I have a friend up there doing real good,

I'll pretend to be a heckler and I'll start harassing him in order to get a crowd so people can listen and so on and so forth.

If they would do the same for me. So it is what it is, right?

Yeah, you know, Ryan does that a lot. When we, the last time he was out, we went to UTSA campus and you know, there's no need to manufacture a heckler on a campus.

I mean, they all, all the students out there want to argue and everything. And so, but that's his deal. And just like you had said, one heckler, next thing you know, you got a crowd of 50 that are around listening to this debate.

What are you looking up, Brad? And I see you looking at your Bible. Oh, you guys got me all teary -eyed thinking about Stephen.

Acts seven. He's a crybaby. I know, it gets me good. Chapter seven, verse two of Acts.

It says in Stephen, What kind of Bible is that, Braden? You know, it's the nicest Bible in the world.

And I'm gonna cry over it if you make me look at it too long. Get that second class

Bible out of here, Tom. Same with you, Jeff. This is the nicest one right here. Wait until y 'all see mine.

You can knock Tom's off his throne, second place throne. Speaking just on hecklers, you know, it got me thinking about the hecklers in the

Bible. And I don't necessarily can think of off the top of my head of a heckler per se, in the sense that we would think of such.

But Acts seven, two, and Stephen said, Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory.

Stephen or Stephen? Stephen. Stephen. Let's call him

Stephen, Braden. Did I not say Stephen? No, you said Stephen. Shut up. You're interrupting story time, guys.

You said Stephen like you say Tellahoma. Okay, story time,

Braden. Go ahead. How do I deal with hecklers, Melissa? I call them gay. Stop it.

Gays? Are you saying we're heckling you? Maybe. All right,

I'm going to get back to God's word. Thank you, Braden. Okay, let's do that. Acts seven, verse two.

And Stephen or Stephen or however you want to say it. Stephen. Stephen said, Brothers and fathers, hear me.

The God of glory appeared to our father, Abraham. And then he goes on to give a prolonged gospel presentation to a multitude of people that are there.

And in all of this, Stephen is stoned. And I'll just read verse 59.

It says, And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice,

Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Now, somebody stoning

Stephen is much worse in sin than somebody heckling the open air evangelist of today.

But read the very next verse in chapter eight. And Saul approved of his execution.

Yeah. What are you saying? Hold on. They're doing something else. I'm going to remove your thing.

Keep going, keep going. I was in the middle of something. What? I heard you.

No, I didn't get done with it. We're listening to you, brother. And the point of where I'm going with this is that you don't know where there might be a heckler.

Or there might be somebody in the crowd that's approving of the hecklers. And you never know. That person might just be called of God.

And they might come to know him the very next day or the next week or the next month. And so it just really goes back to what you said,

Tom, is that you pronounce mercy and the gospel and forgiveness even in their sin of what they're doing right there, even in their heckling.

Absolutely. That was my two -minute sentence that took me like eight minutes to get out because of heckling.

Well, it's all Anthony's fault. It kind of is Anthony's fault because he did this.

Look. I didn't see that.

God damn. So you're sitting here talking about Stephen and Anthony comments on that.

Who brought Anthony up, though? You're talking about kicking midgets through the field goal. I mean, you're talking about Stephen and he's talking about midgets being kicked through a field goal like at circus time.

I would definitely like to see a midget kicked through a field goal. I'd pay good money for that.

Do you guys want to hear something pretty classic? So here in Hagerman, there was a town nearby that has a midget wrestling competition that people pay to come watch.

And I ended up missing it. But I was like, I've got to go to that. And people around the community was like, you can't go to that as a pastor.

And I was like, why not? These midgets are making money. It's like watching MMA stuff.

You're watching midgets wrestling. What's wrong with that? They should be the entertainment portion of the Open Air Theology Conference.

Bro, sign it. Line it up. Line it up. We'd probably sell some tickets then.

Pre -conference. Midget wrestlers. Is there any

Christian? Is there a Christian midget wrestling? Midget wrestling and evangelist.

Sanctification. We got a free post -tentative Lux Bible. Mugs. Some of the best preachers around.

And midget wrestling. No place. No other conference. You know, we could make it into the Olympic Games where we're trying to kick midgets through the field goals.

First one to make it through wins. Yeah. First one wins a PTO Bible. I bet you

G3 don't do that. G3? I'll fight you, Anthony, for that. I'll fight you,

Anthony, for that. But I want to come off the heels of what

Brayden just said and kind of highlight what this heckler that was called of God said in Titus chapter 3 about hecklers, you know, about how we should conduct ourselves, not only in evangelism, but just in life in general, in our everyday pursuits at work or wherever we're at.

He says in Titus chapter 3 in verse 3, For we ourselves also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another.

But when the kindness and affection of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not by works which we did in righteousness, but according to his mercy through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the

Holy Spirit. So we should we should have that at the forefront of our mind, especially when we're when we're faced with hecklers.

Yeah. Amen. Well, and that's the other thing, too. And I think you could build on that, too, is is right after Stephen was murdered, it said in verse one,

Now Saul, in hearty agreement, was putting him to death. And on that day, a great persecution began in the church of Jerusalem.

And they went out and they were scattered to all the regions, Judea, Samaria, except the apostles.

And they went out. And as they were scattered, what did they do? Did they go hide in their homes?

Did they stay within their church building? Did they just sit in the pews and and just sing songs?

No, they went out and they preached the gospel. They went out and they shared

Christ, the exact same message that got Stephen killed. So they went out.

They weren't afraid. They weren't feel for a man. They knew their marching orders and they went out and they preached the gospel.

That's what we're called to do, church. Sixteen eighty nine church. That's what we're called to do.

That's all I got to say about that. Hey Melissa, if Melissa would just kick a midget,

I would I would read the Bible for her. Melissa, you just got to get it on.

You got to get it on video. That's all you got to walk up and kick a midget. It's your now.

I know how Braden fell. I just got through doing that spiel and went into the midget. And it was listen, you cannot listen when she brings over.

I feel everything falls apart. Okay. Like who doesn't love a good midget kicking?

All right. Well, you're supposed to say the

M word. I don't think that's right, guys. I think this one's getting taken down.

I'm good with it. I mean, look at how many people we got watching.

One hundred and forty now. That's awesome. Quadruple. We got this video shared around all the midget

Facebook following groups. What's up, my midget? They're going to come over and start kicking us in our shins, guys.

Oh, my gosh. Can you imagine? I mean, just going to be all over Facebook by the Presbyterians.

Those 1680 guys don't like midgets. I mean,

Braden's got midget hands. I mean, I do. He's part midget. Melissa, don't dare try to come kick my hands.

That don't count. Melissa, if you kick Braden, I'll count it, okay? It's like CT Edwards said, it's that easy to get a

PTL Bible. It is that easy. Listen, listen, if you know me and if you know any of my friends,

I'll tell you, as long as I'm having fun, that's what I like.

If you can make my day more fun, you get what you want, okay? I have enough stress in my life.

Make me laugh. We good. It will be a compact Bible. Yeah, it'll be a

Bible for a midget. Hey, I call those full -size, all right? I want to see

Braden hold this Bible. That's too big, dude. Oh, man. That's a compact

Bible right there, isn't it? No, this is a full -size. No, this is pretty good. So, yeah.

Hey, can you get your whole fingers around it all? In the circumference?

Bro, my wife's hands are bigger than yours. Dude, okay, this is actually a good test. I'm going to touch my thumbs in the back.

Where do your fingers end up on the front of your Bible? And mine is an Allen.

So, mine is an Allen SCR, the new one. This is a big boy.

Well, but then, Tom, you and I have like the same Bible. Because we all can't hold up different Bibles to show the size of the hands.

Well, no, because this is my LSB. So, this is a Schuyler without a cover.

If anyone wants to see a Schuyler without a cover. That's about it. That's the difference between Jeff and mine right there.

I can't keep up. Jeff, you need to sign her

Bible, too. From your favorite dispy. Melissa, why are you still dispensational?

You watch this show all the time. Which, thank you. Tom, stop trying to be mean.

And stop running off the watchers, man. You would have thought that it would have rubbed off, though.

We just lost all our midget viewership. And now we're going to lose

Melissa, our dispensational friend. I have a huge head.

Well, thanks to Flex, Melissa. I appreciate you. So, Melissa, I heard you're on Carnivore on Facebook.

Are you doing the Carnivore diet these days? Jeff doesn't read

Bibles. I actually have.

Hey, man, money talks. Now, certain things I won't rebind. I will not rebind a Passion translation.

I will not rebind a Jehovah, a New World translation, Book of Mormon, so on and so forth.

That's awesome. Well, keep up the good work, Melissa, on the

Carnivore. I've lost like 14 pounds on it. Have you? That's good.

All in his hands. I'm on that seafood diet. Jeff got me kicked into the backseat earlier.

I'm talking about head coverings. I told

Erica, Pastor Jeff said, you need to cover your head while we're in the congregation. And she put me in the backseat.

Your wife doesn't cover rib. No, we, we. She asked me about it after we got to the congregation and we spoke.

I spoke with her briefly about it, but we didn't, I didn't go into a bunch of detail. They explained it really good today.

It's my responsibility. But. And he, he. He told me today.

It's my responsibility. But, you know, I, I just, I tell my wife what the

Bible says. And I pray that the Holy spirit does his work. And I don't try to hold her to my conscience.

I'm the same way. So I would, I would hold to it. My wife does not hold to it.

But my wife doesn't hold to it, but she covers. Cause I tell her to Jeff is

Jeff is brutal, man. I don't play. I don't play my wife.

Tell me to shut up. No, seriously, in all seriousness.

I mean, seriously. As I buy,

I'm good. We're not covering. I got it.

I made it clear that it wasn't my job to make her to do anything.

Nah, I'm I'm messing with Jeff. He, he did. He said, it's a scripture.

He scripture says. What is says the Paul wrote it through the Holy spirit.

I'm just messing with him. But. Um, you know, I don't cover whenever I go to church.

I still have stuff in my hair, but usually I'm wearing a hat like Jeff, but whenever I'm in church,

I don't cover my head. Yeah. All right, guys, I'm going to have to get off here.

I got to go smoke a cigar. Me too. Any last words there, Brayden? I can't smoke in my house.

Me too. Oh, what, what last words? I don't hold a govern, and neither does my wife.

I'll say that. Yeah. He doesn't have a variety of views on this show. The first Corinthians chapter 11.

Everything else is God breathed, but that chapter. Nah, it's God breathed.

So everybody, real quick, before we sign off, there is a conference, February 20th through the 22nd in Tullahoma, Tennessee, hosted by Covenant Reform Baptist Church.

And Jeff, Jeff Rice is the pastor of that church. You're going to see a whole bunch of people there.

Great preaching. Please come, sign up. It's only $100. It's not going to break your bank.

Anybody could do $100. You guys come to the conference and come fellowship with us. We'd love to see you there.

You're going to be seeing Big Red on the 19th. You're going to see Jeff and Brayden and myself, and we'll go out and get cigars and do evangelism one -on -one and open air street preaching.

So thank you guys for joining us and hope you guys be back next week. Is there anything else?

I'd like to say again, if you're ever in Tullahoma, please come check us out,

Covenant Reform Baptist Church. Me and Red, we would love to see you, shake your hand, hug your neck, take you out to eat, whatever that looks like.

Well, oh, my bad. Our church has a meal every week. So we like to feed you, hang out with you.

But so again, if you're ever in Tennessee, come hang out with us. And as my last words are always, hallelujah, hollaback.