Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Well, and for us, I think, at this stage in our life, I think holding those holiday expectations a little more loosely because it's awesome that our kids are going to have their own children wake up in their own homes, whether that's in Jacksonville or in Nashville. That should be what's happening and to be excited for them while still. I told Brad the other day I was decorating the tree and I was like, I'm a little sad. Yeah, I'm a little sad.
But I am so happy for them that this is the phase now. They get to enjoy and they get to build their traditions and their memories and.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: Hey, guys. Welcome back to Code Red. My name is Zach Terry and I am your host on this episode of Code Red. I have a co host. My wife Julie will join us. And we are talking to Brad and Vicki Sykes. They are dear friends of ours we've known in Jacksonville ever since we've lived here. And Brad and Vicki have made a tremendous impact for the Kingdom of God as laymen. They are realtors in Jacksonville, but they're far more than that. They're making a great impact for the kingdom. And we want you to hear the principles that have made their marriage last and thrive.
So get ready. This will be a great episode. Welcome to Code Red.
Brad and Vicki Sykes, welcome to the Code Red studio.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:01:43] Speaker C: Good to be here.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: We're excited to be here.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: We love hanging out with you guys. And I love to tell the story about how you and I met, because it just seemed to be one of those providential meetings that we're like, how have we not got to know each other? And all this time, what Bible study was it that we were a part of?
[00:02:03] Speaker C: So it was with Ben Goldsmith, who's with Campus Crusade Crew, and we were doing what he calls a since 67 Bible study.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: That's it. Yeah.
And so you shared during that.
My son's in country music and you've got a couple of kids that are involved in that industry and a son in law.
[00:02:22] Speaker C: Well, I remember us being on this. And by the way, that was Covid. So it was a zoom Bible study.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:02:31] Speaker C: And I'm trying to think I could probably name two or three other guys that were on that Bible study. And you know, when you get on those zoom calls, you're kind of seeing who's on there. And I see Zach Terry, I'm like, I don't know this guy, but I know he's pastor up in Fernandina.
And it probably took two or three Bible studies that we were on before you texted me in the middle of the Bible study. Now, I don't know if we were both distracted or what.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: It's like we read this verse before.
[00:03:00] Speaker C: Exactly. We were way beyond that, texted me and said, hey, we need to get together either after the call or sometime soon. We have a lot in common. The other thing real quick is we had a mutual connection through Tommy Nelson. Right. At Denton Bible Church.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: And you're from Texas originally. So is that how you were exposed to Tommy or.
[00:03:22] Speaker C: Yep, yep. Sure was.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: And just you've. You've had him at a couple of events in Jacksonville.
[00:03:27] Speaker C: Well, he's been our guest on SWAT radio numerous times over the last seven or eight years.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Is he retired?
[00:03:36] Speaker C: He is.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: You know, he is. Back when we were dating and in college, it was the Song of Solomon series that he did that kind of impacted us.
But, you know, Julie and I, you guys are a little bit further down the road in parenting than we are in Vicki.
So our kids are about to go through where your kids are at.
And we've admired the way that you guys. A couple of things. One, the way that you've parented, the way your relationship. We can tell that you guys still love each other, but you're not pastors, you're not ministers, but you're making a really big impact, specifically in Jacksonville.
And so that's something that we admire, and we've always looked up to you guys. And so we just kind of wanted to pick your brain a little bit. And how did you guys meet? I'm just. Tell us that story.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Well, we met at school at tcu. So I came from Chicago, down to school in Texas, and on sorority bid day, I met Brad at a sorority mixer is how we met.
And we spent some time talking. And then a few days later, I'm kind of embarrassed to say, I saw him across campus, and I waved him down because I was like. I kind of like that guy.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: She was the same way.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: I kind of like her side.
[00:05:07] Speaker C: There wasn't a lot of spiritual.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: She actually pulled me over.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: There really wasn't a whole lot of spiritual at that point. I just liked him. I enjoyed hanging out with him. Obviously, I thought he was pretty cute, and that's how we met. My big sister in our sorority actually set us up.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: Were you guys believers at that time?
[00:05:25] Speaker C: I was.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: I would have told you that I was okay, but I wasn't.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: So culturally, you'd been raised around the church.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: I actually hadn't been raised that way.
I made a profession my junior year in High school, I had come out of an alcoholic home and there was a lot of tension in my home. And it led me down a really dark path into an eating disorder that almost took my life. And so at that point, I gave my life to Jesus, but really nothing in my life changed.
It was during my pregnancy with our eldest. So Brad married me, thinking I was a believer.
I was in the Word all the time, but my life just wasn't really changing. There wasn't. I mean, I studied, but it was more academic than driven by my heart.
And when I was eight months pregnant, I felt I sensed the Lord saying to me, not out loud, but saying to me, you know all about me, but you don't know me.
And I literally fell on my face and surrendered. And from that point forward, my life began to change.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: That's so awesome that that happened before you gave birth.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Yep. I was actually raised, actually baptized. Eight months pregnant, almost nine months pregnant with our daughter. So we laugh and say our daughter sinner's been baptized twice. Oh.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: I know the. I know the path for you guys kind of began in, I guess it would be like in retail.
Have you guys always worked together? That's another thing.
[00:06:59] Speaker C: No, we have not always worked together.
Yes, we met in college.
I initially went to college to play golf.
I came to Christ my senior year in high school through my brother in Law, Tim McKenzie. And Tim was just amazing. I mean, really taught me discipleship, really gave me a heart for God's word.
And. And then I go off to college thinking I'm going to play golf. And, you know, it didn't, didn't work out that way. And so when I kind of decided golf was over for me, I went to work for a local in Fort Worth, a local clothing store, very high end men's apparel store.
And so that was my first entrance into the retail world out of college. Was actually hired by that particular company that owned that store.
And then I, soon after that got hired by Ralph Lauren and worked for Ralph Lauren in Houston and Dallas.
Anyway, so that was my first entrance kind of into the retail world, which I stayed in really most of my career, or at least certainly stayed in the apparel industry for about 14 years.
Had our own business, we had our own clothing store in Houston.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Were y' all working together at that time?
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Yeah, a little bit. I was mostly at home with the children.
[00:08:22] Speaker C: Yeah, okay. She was homeschooling and so.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah, so. So at what point did whataburger and all that come along?
[00:08:31] Speaker C: So in sometime in 95 and you know, I don't know how far back you want to go.
So Sometime in about 1995, there was a guy that came into my business one Saturday afternoon, actually Saturday evening, I remember vividly that night. Vic and I were set to go to one of these fundraisers, dinners or something, and you had come to the store to pick me up. And the manager of the store, of that particular store called me and said I was up in my office, and he said, hey, Brad, I think Vicki's here to pick you up, but before you leave, I want you to meet a guy who's here. I think you guys would really connect. So I, you know, five, 10 minutes later, I come down onto the sales room floor. It's later in the, you know, Saturday afternoon evening time.
We were probably close to shutting down anyway. And I see this guy at the front counter and he's got a pile of stuff up there. And it was my business. So I always made an effort to go meet people.
And so the manager of the store kind of waved over at me. His name was Greg. And he said, hey, Brad, I want you to meet Greg Feste. And so I go over and meet this gentleman named Greg Feste.
We chatted for a bit and, you know, where are you from? What do you do? So to speak.
But his name kind of just rested on my mind for a minute because I thought that name is interesting name, Feste.
And so as we're kind of wrapping up our conversation, I said, hey, Greg, you didn't by any chance go to tcu, did you?
There was an SAE next door fraternity of ours. A guy named Greg Feste was there, but this is years after college. And so.
But when I asked him if he went to tcu, this look on his face just kind of went, oh, no.
And he said, yeah, as a matter of fact, I did. And it was. He goes, those weren't my better days. That's all. I think he said something along those lines. I said, interesting. I do remember you. I remember that name. Anyway, I said, hey, I got a scoot, but I'd love to connect with you. Do you have a card? And he got a card out and he handed it to me, and I looked at it and it said, malachi Financial.
And I said, greg, Malachi is in the last book of the Old Testament. He said, yep.
Well, anyway, there was kind of an immediate connection. I said, do you know Christ? He said, yes, and he had come to Christ a couple of years earlier, anyway, that began a relationship with Greg Feste that, you know, God in his sovereignty and his providence connected the two of us on a Saturday evening in my business.
And over the next probably two years, he and I became very close friends.
We talked a lot about business.
And so that's. He came to me in, I guess, late 97.
We were kind of looking to possibly either relocate our business or maybe just go out of business. And Greg and his partner, Chris Herndon, approached me about partnering with them in a business called the Mattress Firm, which was based in Houston. They had no franchisees at that point. They had about 60 stores in Houston and Dallas. And Malachi Financial handled a lot of the investments for Christian professional athletes. So NBA, Major League Baseball, NBA guys. And there were about probably half a dozen players for the Jaguars who were clients of theirs.
And so.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: So that's. Is that what got you?
[00:12:21] Speaker C: So that was. The connection was, hey, we would love for you to partner with us.
You'd move out to Jacksonville. I couldn't have pointed to a map where Jacksonville was.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah, we were the same.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: I mean, genuinely, what year was this now? Yeah, so that was in 97.
So we made our first trip to Jacksonville in October of 97.
In fact, yesterday we were at the River Club, praying up there on the top floor of the River Club as we're looking out over the city. And I told Vicki, Vicki was with me, and we're looking west, and I'm looking specifically at i10 coming into the city of Jacksonville. And it was emotional, actually, because I'm looking out at the interstate and I'm realizing that's the road. We came into this city thinking we're going to be here for a couple of years at the most, and then we'll go back to Houston.
And now 28 years later, in fact, December 5th will be 28 years that we've been here.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: So did you become, like, an employee? Did you invest?
What was your.
[00:13:27] Speaker C: Yeah, both. I was a partner.
I was a partner with them, managing.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Okay. So. So you should know this. And I'm going to ask you.
There's gossip all over the Internet about Mattress Firm being a money laundering operation.
[00:13:41] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: You've heard this?
[00:13:42] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: So is this true?
[00:13:44] Speaker C: This is not true.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:46] Speaker C: At least not that we owned it.
Yeah.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:49] Speaker D: Really?
[00:13:49] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we were very fortunate that, you know, when we got to Jacksonville, and I say Jacksonville, we lived in Jacksonville, but we were opening stores throughout the state and we. We had success right off the bat, you know, and it's interesting because I came out of a. An apparel part of the retail world into A what I would call soft goods type business.
You know, in other words, if I bought that shirt you're wearing and I bought, you know, a dozen of them to put on my shelves in my store, I would hope to sell eight of those.
That would be at full price. Yeah, that would be great. And then I'd sell the rest of them that, you know, 25% or 50% or 75% off.
Well, in the mattress business. So there's what we call turns in the retail business. And so, you know, you would hope to get maybe a turn and a half, maybe two turns in a season.
Well, in the mattress business, you were turning a mattress, one mattress, eight to ten times a month.
So we might put a mattress in a store. Now we had maybe 20 mattresses in a store, but you might take any given mattress and you could turn that thing eight to ten times a month.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: I'm curious as to what the money laundering.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: So here's where it comes from. They pop up all over the place. Not just any kind of mattress store. It's not specifically mattress fur, I was gonna say.
[00:15:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: You know, so you'll see mattress stores pop up, but you don't see a line of customers trying to get in. So there might be one or two people in there at a time.
And it's like. But it appears every store's got, like, five mattress stores, and we've bought, like, two in our whole marriage.
[00:15:37] Speaker C: So it's time for a new one.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Yeah, it probably is. I think we actually just got a new one. We did one of the two we bought, But I get attached to mattresses, by the way.
[00:15:47] Speaker C: Same very comfortable mattresses.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: I was just curious. I was like, gosh, what do people think is happening?
[00:15:51] Speaker B: And so there's somebo. A rumor somewhere that, you know, I think it's a money laundering operation because it appears that this is very lucrative. And you don't see a ton of people in there.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: People are playing dice in the back.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of a breaking bad.
[00:16:06] Speaker C: It's a very saturated business, though it wasn't when we got in it, you know, and that's a whole nother conversation about how you. How we built that, you know, and we built it with a kind of a fortress mentality that if we had a store at the intersection of Main and Main, we would. And we might have another one seven miles away. Well, we changed that model and said, okay, we've got a store at Main and Main.
We need another store at Main and third, two blocks down.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: Why?
[00:16:38] Speaker C: Well, because we wanted to build a fortress. We wanted to build our business so that anybody who else looked at Jacksonville or Tampa or any other city, they would go.
We can't get into that market because if one person, if one company has, you know, let's just say 25% of the market share, that's hard to break into.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: True.
[00:17:00] Speaker C: And that's true in the burger business or the mattress business.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Well, in the church world as well, you know, absolutely. Same kind of thing. When we planted our second campus, we did it relatively close. We're down on Highway 17, and so we're building out there. We bought 15 acres, building a $4 million building out there. But it's the same kind of thing for us in that we had the natural barrier of the intercoastal, that there's something mentally that Even though these two buildings are 15 miles apart, people who are that far out do not want to drive onto the island, you know, and so we have to reach them in a, you know, totally separate market, you know, and they're different people. They're different makeups out there.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Well, your campus is beautiful.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: Well, thank you. Thank.
I'm sorry we didn't get you to the right place to begin with, but we'll have to do a tour up there sometimes. Have you been in the campus before?
[00:17:55] Speaker A: I haven't.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Yeah, we need to do a tour.
We had a worship leader seconds as a interior designer, so it's the coolest.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Well, honestly, driving past the playground, I was like, that's. If I was a kid, I wouldn't play that.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: It's awesome. It's awesome.
[00:18:10] Speaker D: It's new, so, yeah, it's really nice.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: But they redid the entire building, and, I mean, he's unreal. He's just very gifted at that. So it's a nice place to be.
We try to make it to where if you live in this region and you go to your lawyer, you go to your doctor, your realtor, whatever it might be, and then you come to church, you're not feeling like you're in a totally different culture. You feel at home there.
So they've done a really good job at that. And the church has done well and grown.
At what point did you guys pivot to real estate and did you do that together?
[00:18:50] Speaker A: So, yeah, so actually, I stayed home. I feel unbelievably blessed to have been able to, while our kids were growing up, stay home, homeschool, take care of the home. All the things that really my heart really desired.
Brad really provided that opportunity for me. But Then as our kids started going off to college, I could see, well, I'm not gonna have anything to do.
And so when our youngest was in her junior year, she had just entered her junior year.
Brad was at a place where he was thinking, I'm really done having employees. I don't really want to do this anymore. But I love real estate.
So he said, what do you think? Should I do it? And I was like, absolutely. You'd be great at it. You're great with people, all of that. And then I said, what if I joined you?
And that was in 2000, the end of 2015. We actually started our business at the beginning of 2016.
And it's been wonderful. People joke all the time, like, how do you work together? And I think maybe early in our marriage, like in our 30s or 40s, I don't think we maybe understood each other's personalities enough for that to have necessarily gone as smoothly as it does now. But I think we're at a place in our lives where we really value each other's strengths. We're not intimidated by each other's strengths, and we just sort of allow each other to play to their strength, and so it works out really well for us.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: When did we start? So you retired from photography really about.
[00:20:27] Speaker D: The beginning of 2024.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: And then what, like, some weeks you're.
[00:20:32] Speaker C: Up there every day, but, yeah, two.
[00:20:35] Speaker D: Or three days a week now. We work together.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: How's that going for you?
[00:20:38] Speaker D: It's going great. I feel like I have the best of both worlds because I can have freedom to focus on things at home and be. I feel like I'm sort of relieving of his mental load of things that when I was working full time, I just. Neither one of us could really focus on as much.
But then I still get to be a part of so much more, and our schedules are so much more aligned.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: I love that she's not on payroll, so it's just as a volunteer.
So we have the Maximum Life and the church are separate. So she's working mostly with Maximum Life and doing, you know, correspondence and marketing for it.
[00:21:16] Speaker C: Right.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: But. But yeah, we. Her office is right next to mine, and every day. And so far, that's gone really well.
[00:21:23] Speaker D: It's gone really well. I think, like you said, we kind of get each other at this season in life. So I kind of know when he needs quiet or, you know, whatever we've.
You know, And I know, too, sometimes that he just needs a lunch buddy, you know, or whatever, you know, sometimes. So it's just. It's good to figure out.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: And so a lot of the equipment that we have in the studio was her photography equipment. So she had a great photography business. And then we repurposed it to capture these conversations. So she knew more the technical side of that. I knew what I was going for, so we just kind of worked together on it.
[00:22:03] Speaker D: And he's been so great to just allow me the freedom to write or challenges me if I have an idea to, like, run with it.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:10] Speaker D: You know? And so, like you said, I'm really, really blessed that I get to sort of still have a good challenge mentally, but also explore cooking and all the things that I like to do at.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: Home in this area, this region.
Gosh. How far apart are we, like, from our church to where you guys live?
[00:22:30] Speaker C: That's a good.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: Is that 40?
[00:22:33] Speaker C: I was going to say 30.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: So it's.
Even when we first moved here, we thought of this as way out of Jacksonville. And Jacksonville is just growing so much that this is kind of becoming a suburb of Jacksonville.
[00:22:47] Speaker C: For sure. For sure.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: And so our paths cross quite often in whether it's not for prophets or people that we know, friends in common. You guys have been involved in Hadassah's Hope. Julie's working with them.
I know several of the other.
Several of the other ministries that we've been a part of. You guys have, like, tell us. The chamber. The Christian Chamber.
[00:23:13] Speaker C: Wow. Well, I was going to say. So, Julie, you said you're a volunteer. I feel like I'm a volunteer sometimes.
I feel like she's carrying the bulk of the weight.
And part of our kind of transition into real estate was we both have a heart for ministry. We both have a heart for discipleship.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Did you ever wrestle with that?
[00:23:34] Speaker C: Like, should you go full time into it?
And, you know, I sometimes say I got in real estate so I could fund my ministry.
I just. Both Vic and I have a heart for discipleship. We have a heart to counsel, to give good biblical counsel to couples.
And so that's kind of. We felt like, okay, what's a business we could do that would allow us kind of the freedom to serve in ministry where we feel like God is calling us? I think sometimes I feel like God's called me in too many things and I need to. Or maybe he hasn't called me. I've just thought he called me. And so, yeah, I've been a part of a number of different ministries, Chamber being one of them. The Northeast Florida Christian Chamber, which was part of. I'm Trying to think.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: Jeff.
[00:24:24] Speaker C: Yeah, Jeff Dalrymple. And.
Well, so, first of all, interesting how that got birthed. You and Trey Brunson invited Jeff and I, the four of us, to go to lunch.
And that was not, you know, Covid. Late Covid. Sometime. And so.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: And then you guys have went out.
[00:24:44] Speaker C: And cornered the world. We met at Corner Taco in Five Points and had tacos there.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:24:50] Speaker C: Jeff and I, literally four of us around a table, and Jeff and I just locked in.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: You had some things that you were developing. He was working on the child protective ministry, ecap, and both of those things. At that point, I'm like, you know, I don't know that that's gonna ever pan out, because I didn't know Jeff that well. I didn't know what kind of skill set he had.
But he's built a phenomenal work there that he's kind of stepped away from and taken a position with the sbc.
And so, yeah, now we still get to see each other occasionally at.
We'll have Sit around a fireplace and burn a cigar or something like that.
[00:25:32] Speaker C: Well, it's interesting. I mean, the birth of the Northeast Florida Christian Chamber was Jeff and I just talking about, you know, if God's commanded us in his Word to go make disciples, where are we going? Well, we're going to work. Okay, what does that look like? I mean, yes, we're going to make them at home. Yes, we're going to make them in the neighborhood. We're going to make it work also.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Well, and, you know, talking about wrestling with a call to ministry, there's so many ladies and men that we as pastors will hear. You know, I'm struggling with a call. There's one guy in my first church that was a great football coach and was leading kids to Christ left and right.
And he began to wrestle with the call. And it's like, that's God's business. God can call who he wants to call. I wouldn't be surprised if he called you, but I kind of hope that he didn't call you to work in the church because you're doing so much that's fruitful in the world, and I can't do that. I can't go into that locker room, talk to those boys like you can, you know? And so it's been cool for me to see just as a Christian couple that are not in the traditional sense in ministry, but still doing so much to impact people when you form the Christian Chamber. And I guess what I'm getting At is as Jacksonville Grows. When you began that, we didn't think of our congregation really as a part of Jacksonville, so why would they be a part of the Christian Chamber of Jacksonville? But as Jacksonville has grown.
Do you know Ron Armstrong, the chosen for mayor? So Ron's become a friend. Ron Reese, he was on Code Red because our media ministry is really more in Jacksonville than it is here. You know, we're on the radio multiple times a day down there.
The number one viewership that we have in the world is Miami, strangely enough.
And we can find hotspots, but second to that is Jacksonville.
So I told her, I said, I used to kind of go to Jacksonville to get away from things, and now people know who we are down there, you know, So I got to act out. I got to behave.
So Ron came in and asked about doing an episode of Code Red, and so brought him in.
Just our hearts were knit together and wanted to help this guy get his message out.
But more and more, our people are beginning to think of themselves as part of the suburbs of Jack's, you know, and that area has just had a history from First Baptist days, when just a miracle of a church was, you know, took off. Homer, Lindsay, were y' all part of that work at any point?
[00:28:22] Speaker C: Not. Not Homer.
Are you talking about it just at first.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: Jacks.
[00:28:26] Speaker C: No, we were at first for about five years. I think it was about five years. 2010 to 2015, roughly, really, through my connection with Dr. Brunson and Trey Brunson.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:28:39] Speaker C: Trey and I met routinely. I think we may have even served on a board together. I can't remember my connection with him. We had been a part of a church in Jacksonville called Christian Family Chapel, which, interestingly enough, we're back there again.
We found that church, or God led us to that church in 1998, sometime around there, and served and taught. Our kids kind of grew up in that church. And then in 2009, we just felt like God was calling us to do a church plant.
I think, you know, I had some connections with Vodi Bauckham.
I liked what he was doing. I had read one of his recent books about, you know, family discipleship and that kind of.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: And it was family integrated worship.
[00:29:28] Speaker C: I made a trip or two out to Houston, which was my hometown. So it was a good connection just to kind of see what that looked like. And so we did a church plant, a family integrated church plant. And I think it was 09.
Sadly, things just didn't work out, and we were kind of. Now after, you know, since 98. Since 97. 98. You know, kind of homeless. Church homeless. And so we thought, hey, you know, before we go back to Christian family chat, why don't we just visit around? Yeah. And so First Baptist was one of the churches, interestingly, not. Not that we didn't want to go there, but our kids wanted to go there.
My boys actually really loved Trey.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: Was Troy. And student ministry there?
[00:30:12] Speaker C: Yeah, somewhat. Probably more college singles, that kind of thing. That's the toughest group because we were involved in a couple things together.
You know, I kind of had a rule about ministries that I was a part of is that from time to time, my kids might be with me.
And I said, in other words, Zack, if you said, hey, Brad, I want you to serve or whatever, I go, hey, Zach, from time to time, my kids may be with me.
Are you okay with that? Yeah, yeah. And so my two sons got to know Trey quite well. That's cool. And so that was kind of the genesis of us ending up at First Baptist.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: Okay. See, the interesting thing for us is we got.
I don't know, from their perspective, we may not have been as close as I felt like we were. We got fairly close to going to Valleydale, where Dr. Brunson is now. They were searching, and we had several contacts there. They came up, had long interviews in our home, and I'm packing, thinking we're going to Birmingham.
And they called back and said, you know, we're going to kind of keep the search plane flying. We're just not ready just yet.
And, what, maybe a year or so later, they had just called Dr. Brunson when we came here, probably. So a lot of people in this county were driving over to First Jack's because of the preaching.
And so they began to look for, was there anything closer to home that has expository preaching and all that.
And so every Christmas, we're like, we probably should send Mac a Christmas card, because it's been great for us and some of the best people that we've got that knew how a church could operate and all.
When you think back over how many years has it been for you guys married?
[00:32:04] Speaker A: It'll be 40 years.
[00:32:05] Speaker C: It'll be 40 years on February 1st.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: If you had to narrow it down to, let's say, three things that you could say, these are transferable because not everybody can work together, not everybody can homeschool.
But if you narrow it down to three things that have kept you married that long, and you seem to be having fun.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: Yeah, we are having a lot of Fun.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: What would you say you would pass on to a young couple today that's helped you get through that time?
[00:32:41] Speaker C: You want to take that one? So I got it.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: I have a couple that I would start with. I mean, we do laugh a lot. We find humor in a lot of things. We try not to take ourselves super seriously all the time. The second is spiritual.
I would say that both being committed to building his kingdom more than building your kingdom, own kingdom. I think a lot of divisions happen in marriage. A lot of conflict happens in marriage when we're more interested in our kingdom, whether it's our kingdom in the moment or what we're trying to accomplish. But if we both are committed to, hey, we're pulling in the same direction. His kingdom is the point of what. Of what we're doing.
Even if you're having a conflict, like, how do you handle that?
I would say those two things are very, very, very important.
[00:33:30] Speaker B: I want to ask you to unpack a little bit more when you say you laugh a lot, because that's so underrated.
Having fun together. GK Chesterton said that the successful man or woman is the one who takes God very seriously but doesn't take themselves so seriously.
And how do you. What do you guys do for fun? Like, what keeps you.
You know, it's kind of like looking at something outside of yourself, like if it's a piece of art.
I think Lewis said that friendships are born. Not when I'm saying you're awesome, but when we're both saying something outside of ourselves is awesome. Right. So what kind of things do you guys do? What are your dates?
What do you do for fun? Vacations, whatever?
[00:34:16] Speaker C: Well, I think, you know, as I look back on our years, you know, we were young and married. I mean, we were young and dumb, as they say.
We weren't affluent. We. We scratched for every penny we could get to pay the bills. And. And I think when that happens, it forces you to be a little creative, you know, and it forces you to be together. You know, I'm not running off to go play the next great golf course that's out there or some concert we're going to go to. You know, I think we.
I know we're all searching. We're in a culture time where it's all about the experience.
You know, we enjoyed being together. We just enjoyed hanging out together, watching movies together, you know, going to little places to. I don't know. I just.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: So a date night for us might have been us walking through a Barnes and Noble and sitting on the floor and reading a book that maybe we couldn't at the time actually even afford to buy.
Right. I think I was talking to another couple this morning at our Bible study, and we were talking about the value of actually not having a lot and how it actually bound us together.
We weren't in search of the next Instagram moment we were present. And whether it was sitting on the floor of Barnes and Noble, reading a book or walking through an antique store and dreaming about the things we would love to have one day, I think those were the kinds of things that we did. And then as far as not taking ourselves seriously, we just poke fun at each other all the time.
[00:35:50] Speaker C: Like, all the time. Yeah, we have a lot of fun. And I even think as we were raising a family and five kids when we moved to Jacksonville, even though business became good, it wasn't always good. And I think we, you know, whether it was trips for Thanksgiving or, you know, trip at Christmas time where we wanted to go see my family, listen, we packed the car up, drove the 14 hours from Jacksonville to Houston, and it's those times I wouldn't listen. Those were some of the sweetest times.
Is there friction? Oh, absolutely.
But you want people to experience those so that they. You're stuck in a car for 14 hours.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:35] Speaker C: You're going to work through some problems.
You know, we're very quick to get out of the problems as opposed to, hey, we're in it. Let's deal with it. And I think that was true for us.
We, you know, I am so bad, if I need to run to Home Depot, I want Vicki going with me.
You know, now, you know, people ask us all, how do y' all work together? Well, we love being together. We actually enjoy being together.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: You can tell. You can tell. A Pastor Tim Anderson was a mentor of mine back home, and. And he said, dialogue daily date, weekly depart quarterly deport annually. I've kept that. We've tried to kind of keep that as our center that we work back toward. And that's the number one piece of advice I give to young couples is, you know, have a rhythm, and if you don't like the person, it's hard to do, you know.
[00:37:30] Speaker C: And you talked about, you know, two or three things that I think. I think I will say, and I think Vicki would probably affirm this, that when I took responsibility as the head of the home, spiritually, you know, I think there's a tendency among men that we're out there, we're charging forward in our businesses or whatever, it Is we're doing and whether the wife is managing the home, in the home, raising kids, whatever it is, maybe there's a job going on, we tend to dismiss the spiritual growth of our mate, our spouse. And so I think probably 30.
Yeah, 30. Over 30 years ago, I had a guy challenge me to not just pray for my wife, but pray over my wife to literally put my hands on her every day.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: When do you do that?
[00:38:27] Speaker C: And I do that in the morning, every morning and have done that for over 30 years.
[00:38:31] Speaker B: And you both kind of are early risers, right?
[00:38:33] Speaker C: We are.
So it's nothing. You know, I don't want to make bigger to do than it is, But I think if there's one of three things I would say, as the head of my home, actually just going through that simple process of, again, not just saying, hey, babe, I'll pray for you, but genuinely saying, I'm gonna actually put my hands on you and I'm gonna pray for you today.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Was that when you first started? That? Was that difficult, or was it.
[00:39:01] Speaker C: Yeah, not difficult.
Awkward. Yeah.
[00:39:06] Speaker B: I'm very private in my prayer time. I pray for Julie every day. But we to this day, it's a little bit difficult when we pray together. And she prays totally different than I do. And I can even be a little critical. I don't tell you this.
Get to the point. He knows where you're going.
[00:39:22] Speaker C: It takes me to know one.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: But I wondered. Yeah. Was that this is totally how you were wired, or did you have to.
[00:39:30] Speaker C: Kind of go into it? No, it was. I still remember the challenge this guy gave me. He said, I want you to start. In fact, actually, the initial challenge was 30 days. You think you could do it 30 days? He asked me.
Now, I got to tell you, I'm a deacon at the church.
I've got the spiritual resume.
And, you know, I would have thought, I'm good. And he asked me, hey, when was the last time you prayed over Vicki?
And initially, I had to let that kind of set for a minute.
Well, I pray for my wife. He goes, now I'm talking about, when was the last time you actually prayed over her? Like, put your hands on her, prayed over her?
And I said, well, let me be honest. I can't remember the last time I ever did that. And so he challenged me. He said, how about you think you could do it for 30 days? I said, yeah, I can do anything for 30 days.
And I remember the next morning waking up, and it just so happened to be at that season of our life. I Was getting out early because I was traveling a little bit.
And I remember seeing her laying in bed and I thought, I need to go do this. And so I probably put my keys down, walked over to the side of the bed, put my hand on her forehead, prayed for her again, nothing extreme.
It was weird, it was awkward.
I never saw her open her eyes.
So I'm like, I'm out and I head off.
And I remember her calling me sometime at lunch that day and her saying, hey, just wanted to say thanks for praying for me today. Now, I gotta tell you, it wasn't just his challenge. It was her recognizing that I had done something that maybe was a little challenging for me.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: Right.
[00:41:16] Speaker C: And so that motivated me to do it the next day.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: There's a ministry to prayer when in First Corinthians, where Paul says, if you're. If you had the gift of tongues and they're praying in tongues, don't pray in tongues unless there's an interpreter.
And it occurred to me one day, well, if you're talking to God and God understands what you're saying, Paul would say, but the one that's hearing can be edified if they understand what you're saying. And it occurred to me that, wow, there's a real ministry in hearing one another pray, you know. And our kids, early on, we would do that at night and we used to tuck them in, you know. And I remember one time in particular, I think it was Carlie was really upset with me about something, but, you know, she'd gotten in trouble, probably had to go to bed early. And so she was crying and I go and I tuck her in and she like took my hand and put it up on her head because she didn't want to miss that. Even though we were kind of at odds, you know, that meant something to her.
[00:42:17] Speaker D: Can I ask a question about you guys? When you had the five children, I'm not sure how close in age they are, but just having. How did you find time for alone time if your family didn't live in the area, that sort of thing? I know that's a really practical question.
[00:42:36] Speaker C: Oh, that's just. That's a good question.
[00:42:38] Speaker A: So our kids are from oldest to youngest. There's a 13 year gap.
So by the time we got to number five, we had a built in babysitter, which was super helpful. And we did date every week. So we would. Even if it was, you know, we're gonna go sit at Barnes and Noble and, you know, read a book, we would do that.
[00:42:58] Speaker B: And what that's so dad said dad was a baby of 12 kids.
[00:43:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:04] Speaker B: And so it was the same way with his parents. You know, how did you do? How did you work? How did you. You know?
And it was always, well, the older ones would just take care of the younger ones. And that's part of the good of having a big family.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: And we just really felt like it was important for our kids to. To see that this was important.
[00:43:20] Speaker D: Right?
[00:43:21] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:43:23] Speaker C: I always say the most important ministry that I have is ministering to her.
Because I think that we were in Nashville maybe three or four months ago, having dinner with three of our kids and their spouses and grandchildren, and we got on the topic of marriage. And probably the greatest blessing my kids have ever said to me is we wanted what you guys have.
[00:43:50] Speaker B: And I've heard the opposite. This is one of the saddest things I've heard as a pastor is when they say, look, whatever we do, we don't want it to be like mom and dad. We would rather not get married than for it to be that way.
[00:44:01] Speaker C: I don't say that in a prideful way. I genuinely say that we say it all the time, in spite of us, that God's grace. And you can look back over your life, you can look back over the last year and see how God is weaving things together for our good and his glory. And I'm reminded, you know, I think of even the house we're living in, that's a house we bought two years after we moved to Jacksonville. Once we had finally, I told my partners, I'm not coming back to Texas, at least not anytime soon. And we bought this house, and we're still in that house. And our kids would probably kill us, don't mind us.
But as the family grew, you know, the natural tendency is we need a bigger house, we need more square footage. And we just kind of said, no, we're not gonna do that. And our kids, five kids, three bedroom house. So three girls and one bedroom.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: And that has to be a challenge if you're in real estate.
[00:44:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's definitely a temptation.
[00:44:58] Speaker C: Yeah. So it's. I don't know. I think there's all sorts of little things that we probably did as we look back on that we didn't know we were doing that God used in a very fruitful way. And I'm so incredibly thankful for that.
[00:45:12] Speaker D: Well, we've been talking about since we have a senior, as our youngest is a senior, that we need to be aware of what's coming because we always hear Those stories of, you know, emptiness syndrome and how you don't know each other like you thought you did. When they all leave.
[00:45:27] Speaker B: We've just seen so many people divorce right. When the youngest one moves out.
[00:45:33] Speaker D: And so. But I think it's obvious, like, that you knew each other really well before they left. You didn't wait. I think a lot of parents think, well, when our kids grow up, then we'll date, then we'll get to. We'll go out and go away for the weekend together. But it's. It's so important. I love to hear that you did that when they were still young.
[00:45:53] Speaker C: Yeah, I think there was, you know, and obviously, you look at a big family as a dad, even as a mom, it's hard to get, you know, private time, quiet time, all those kind of things, you know, is that really we made the family. That was our. You know, if you had a hobby, great. Our hobby was the family.
Now, we did a lot of things. We did a lot of activities. Our kids were very involved. We had, you know, two of our kids were Division 1 athletes in college. There was a certain discipline to that.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: But, you know, I think we discovered this week, I'm preaching through Genesis. And so we were in chapter 24, Isaac and Rebecca. And I discovered something which I love because after all, 30 years, more than 30 years in ministry. So to discover new things is a lot of fun to me. But I discovered this week it referred to, when Rebekah hears from the servant, you're the one for Isaac.
It says, she went back to her mother's household.
So it just stood out to me. And I wondered why that seems out of place, because she's talking to the dad, the dad and the brother.
So I did a quick study on it, and anytime they're referring to romance or marriage, it was always referred to as the mother's household. If it was anything else, it was the father's household.
And so I'm curious, when, as the head of the home and the leader of the home, when did you defer to Vicki?
And maybe this is more her strength in parenting.
Were there certain areas where you just kind of deferred to her and let her kind of manage the home, lead the home, or how did that work for you guys?
[00:47:47] Speaker C: You might answer that.
[00:47:48] Speaker A: Well, so I don't think I ever led our home.
I do think that there were strengths that I had that were different than Brad's.
[00:47:56] Speaker C: So.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: Especially, like, as it comes to raising children, for instance, I was the one they would come to with their hurts.
Right. They would come to me with their hurts, but if they needed encouragement or strength, they would always go to dad.
I look, I mean, and you know, we have a crazy story about how our kids dated, which is not typical.
So in our family, if you wanted to date our daughter, you had to talk to dad.
It didn't matter how old you were.
So it was a natural weeding process. It really weeded out the boys from the men, if that makes sense. Because a boy would be like, yeah, I don't think so. But a man would be like, yes, I absolutely am very comfortable talking to your dad.
And so we did that with all of the young men who came and wanted to date our daughters. And when they wanted to marry our daughter, Brad would spend a good bit of time, one on one, discipling them.
And so that was just part of our thing. And the girls knew it and they look back now and they value it. I don't know. And I think they actually valued the protection during the time.
I mean, were there ever bumps? There were a couple of bumps in the road for sure, but by and large I think they just value.
So but if they were, you know, if somebody hurt their feelings at, you know, swim practice, I was the one.
[00:49:20] Speaker C: Who was going to get right.
[00:49:21] Speaker B: Did they? What was your role? I know from radicals, he and I have talked about it, but what was your role when your kids started getting serious about marriage?
Helping them discern if this is the right one.
What, what part did you play in that?
[00:49:39] Speaker A: So we wanted all of our kids to understand marriage roles.
So if you're looking for a man, for instance, you're wanting to see, is he a Christian? First of all, does he love the Lord? Can he lead you? Can he lead you? Can he provide for you? Was important to us. Not can he provide the world for you, but are you going to starve to death?
And so just those kinds of conversations, you know, I don't know what else.
[00:50:09] Speaker B: Would we have done when it moved into the engagement process? How did you get to know, especially when it was daughter in laws.
[00:50:19] Speaker C: Did.
[00:50:19] Speaker B: You spend time with them one on one or how did that.
[00:50:24] Speaker A: Yeah, we intentionally tried to get to know the girls we love. Both of them, our boys did amazing. In fact, one of them, when he started dating his now wife, I was like, if you mess that up, I will kill you. Because I love them, I love her, but I love them both. So yeah, just spending time getting to know them. I think what we really wanted to see was were they a match for our son like could we see this being a good thing and praise the Lord like they've all dated, they've all married people who love the Lord. And.
[00:50:59] Speaker C: I think that, I think it's a challenge, I think, in the church because when you get to our age and our kids are growing up and they're dating and they're courting and they're considering marriage, we're 45, 50, 55, 60 years old. Looking at these 20, 25 and 30 year olds expecting something that they're not, they're not sanctified in that area, possibly.
So I think there's a lot of grace that needs to be extended. There's a lot of faith.
But I think you have to spend time with people.
I mean, while somebody may not, may, may not be as mature as you'd like them to be in that area, you got to look beneath that, look at the roots that are there, look at the families that they're coming from.
I get that. What jobs have you had? What kind of work did you do as a kid? Have you had a job? You know, it seemed kind of basic. Right. But I think that was. Vicki's really good. She's very gracious about that kind of stuff. I mean, you probably have heard some of our stories about, you know, some of the boys, some of the boys, some of the men who were interested in our daughters, you know, that she wasn't particularly fond of initially. But we were like, okay, let's go down this road and see what this looks like.
[00:52:21] Speaker B: The chemistry, Watching the chemistry with guy, girl, relationships with kids, I've noticed with Cole, he's gone on quite a few first dates, he's had a couple of more serious relationships. But I've noticed with Cole that one girl in particular really brought something out of him.
He was more calm, he was more confident.
And it didn't work out long term because they lived too far apart. But it really showed me that the different chemistry a girl can bring bad out of a guy or good out of a guy. And it was just, it was interesting to see that I liked him better with her than, you know, another girl in particular.
[00:53:07] Speaker C: I think it's important to clearly, you know your, your children better than anybody else. And I don't think they know what they're looking for sometimes.
[00:53:18] Speaker B: True.
[00:53:19] Speaker C: And, and I think it's our, there's a stewardship of helping them understand. I mean, our. One of our sons, brilliant, I mean, brilliant guy. And, and he, I mean, you give him any instrument, he can play it. I mean, he's that kind of just his retention of information. Just like every once in a while, I'm like, hey, bring it down on the lower shelves so I can get it.
[00:53:43] Speaker A: I don't know what you're talking about.
[00:53:44] Speaker B: Kindergartener.
[00:53:45] Speaker C: His expectations in a wife, I gotta be honest, were unrealistic. You know, Vicki used to tell him, hey, Jake, you're not gonna find a supermodel who likes to watch C Span.
[00:54:02] Speaker B: Trump's probably already got her anyway, so.
[00:54:04] Speaker C: Probably, you know, and it's kind of saying, hey, this is. You know, I appreciate your high expectations and you absolutely should have that.
But, you know, listen, all the surface things, as Tommy Nelson once said, it goes downhill from here.
[00:54:21] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:54:21] Speaker C: Physically, it goes downhill from here.
[00:54:23] Speaker B: Plump like a. What was it he said? Plumps like a weenie on a grill.
Quarterback, you know?
[00:54:30] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:54:31] Speaker B: Let's lean a little bit toward.
When we're shooting this. We're about a week away from Thanksgiving, moving into the holiday season.
What has been the place of tradition and holidays for your family?
[00:54:46] Speaker A: So this year is different, but typically, when the kids got married, we ask that they, if possible, get on a similar schedule. So we don't ask for all the holidays. So we just say, hey, if we can have Thanksgiving one year and Christmas the next, that's awesome. I think that's going to change for us in the next few years because all the grandbabies, now, you really want them to wake up in their own houses. But that's been what it's been like with adult children.
With our kids when they were little, you know, Thanksgiving morning was maybe one of their favorite. There'd be monkey bread cooking in the oven. They'd be waiting for the parade.
Just lots of food, family around the table.
It's still that way. It just won't be that way this year because we're traveling for Brad's dad's 90th birthday.
But that kind of thing, our memories.
[00:55:39] Speaker C: I mean, probably like you, I can smell it right now. Yeah, I can hear it.
[00:55:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:45] Speaker C: So I'm the baby of three.
My mom and dad were married 55 years when my mother went home to be with the Lord.
My sister and her husband, been married, I think, 45 years.
My brother and his wife been married 40 years. We've been married 40 years. We're all very close. We all love the Lord.
And that has just continued in our family. So our kids, all five of our kids, they love each other.
The spouses all like to hang out. I mean, I'm sure there are things that Little quirks that bother him, you know, so.
[00:56:20] Speaker A: And our children are really very dissimilar from one another. They don't all. They're not all the same.
[00:56:26] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So it's a, it's a, you know, from a tradition standpoint, it's just fun. It's just a fun place to be.
We don't really have a lot of a schedule, you know, when it comes to family. And I think to your point, we're trying to transition.
You know, you're looking down the road going, hey, the reality is We've got our 15th and 16th grandchild on the way.
That's a lot of kids. There's just a lot of things going on.
The expectations that we're gonna always have a Thanksgiving or always have a Christmas, it's not realistic.
And I think as, you know, parents and future grandparents, you're gonna. You're gonna have to compromise, you're gonna have to give, and you're going to realize, hey, you're the patriarch, and it doesn't mean, hey, come here.
[00:57:16] Speaker B: It's not that it's about you. It isn't, but it is. Sometimes the leader goes first.
[00:57:22] Speaker C: I think when Vic and I were early married, and again, it's kind of going back to those early years of marriage where. And this is probably true for most couples. You know, you're tight, budget's tight. You know, Vicki being from Chicago, we were living in Dallas and it just wasn't. And Vicki's an only child. And so there was somewhat of an expectation that we would come to Chicago for holidays. That wasn't. That was not happening. And we didn't have the money to do it. And it got to the point where it required a conversation with my father in law to say, hey, we're our own family and we're going to start our own traditions. We're going to start our own. You're welcome and you are absolutely. We would want you here. And so that shifted. So from us, an expectation that we're going to go to Chicago for Christmas or Thanksgiving shifted now. Then they started coming to us. And so I think as we get older, we need to keep that in mind.
[00:58:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I think some of those things we went through before my father in law passed away, I was able to say to him, because we had the same kind of situation. I was the only child, and she had two siblings and. And her parents, I think, had a very strong idea of us being with them for all the holidays. And we tried to accommodate it as far as we could, but There would be times where I would just have to say, this is not good for our family, you know, and before he passed away, I was able to talk to him and just say, you know, I probably got that wrong. Pushed too hard, you know, could have been more gentle, maybe in the way that I said it. But I don't regret the decision that we made for it. And he said, I don't regret it either. You did the right thing. You were leading your family.
And so that was just a gift, you know, to see, because we didn't have, you know, in this next generation, my grandparents, they went to heaven, they came to Christ, but they didn't have a Christian culture in their home. So we really didn't have anybody to look at and mirror that after. And I think today these kind of conversations are so helpful because most of the people who are watching this have not seen that those transitions lived out in a healthy way, you know.
[00:59:43] Speaker C: Well, you said something that really I love and I appreciate. I think as men, we have to be the chief repenters in the home.
We have to be the ones who are the ones who say, I didn't handle that right necessarily. So I appreciate you saying that.
[01:00:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I can remember when dad. Dad apologizing.
He didn't need to apologize a lot because usually I was just having a bad attitude. But Dad a couple of times it stands out. When he told me he was sorry, he gave me a hug, told me he loved me. And I can remember those vividly. It's strange what you remember, but it was his humility and willingness to just.
To not always be right that really did make a big impression on me.
[01:00:36] Speaker A: And for us, I think, at this stage in our life, I think holding those holiday expectations a little more loosely because it's awesome that our kids are going to. To have their own children wake up in their own homes, whether that's in Jacksonville or in Nashville. That should be what's happening.
And to be excited for them while still. I told Brad the other day, I was decorating the tree, and I was like, I'm a little sad. Yeah, I'm a little sad.
But I am so happy for them that this is the phase now. They get to enjoy and they get to build their tradition and their memories.
[01:01:16] Speaker B: How do you do gifts?
Fifteen grandchildren.
[01:01:20] Speaker D: Fifteen grandchildren.
[01:01:22] Speaker A: What box of cereal do you want for Christmas?
So we do larger gifts. So, for instance, for our daughter, who. One of our children, 16, sounds like a lot. One of our daughters has nine children.
And so everybody else is just starting their family so she kind of tilts the scale at this point a little bit. But for them, we tend to buy something large that everybody can use.
[01:01:49] Speaker B: So a family gift, so it's a more family gift.
[01:01:52] Speaker A: And then for the other kids, it's just. There's still just one or two in each family. So just how we do this is the first year we will not do adult gifts because there are so many children.
[01:02:02] Speaker C: Right.
[01:02:02] Speaker B: And what do you get?
What do y' all do for each other? Do y' all still do gifts like normal? Or is that.
[01:02:10] Speaker D: Nope.
[01:02:10] Speaker B: What do you do?
[01:02:12] Speaker D: Nope. Nope.
[01:02:14] Speaker A: We haven't bought, I think because there are so many kids and we're so focused on doing that, we haven't really bought each other a Christmas gift in probably four or five years.
[01:02:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember that with my parents when they kind of hit that, it was like, what are we going to get each other?
We want something.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: I did say this year because we will be having more of an alone Christmas. We might want to buy each other.
[01:02:33] Speaker C: A gift this year.
[01:02:35] Speaker A: So maybe we'll.
[01:02:36] Speaker B: Maybe this is the Lord's.
[01:02:37] Speaker C: Maybe.
[01:02:40] Speaker A: I may have a will wish list.
[01:02:42] Speaker C: Actually, one of our favorite antique stores is right here in Amelia Island.
[01:02:49] Speaker B: If people want to just kind of follow what you're doing and your progress with your family and ministries and all these things, what are some ways that they can look you up and get to know you?
[01:02:59] Speaker C: Well, I know Vicki does a lot of writing. She's on Substack.
[01:03:04] Speaker B: Don't you love Substack?
[01:03:05] Speaker A: I love Substack.
[01:03:06] Speaker B: It's a great, great app for it.
[01:03:08] Speaker A: I do love it. I do love it. So you can find me on Substack. My name is Vicki Sykes. My handle is Mama V.
So life.
[01:03:16] Speaker D: And I think you write and I love your subset.
[01:03:18] Speaker A: Thank you. I write. My writing is aimed mostly at young moms, women. It's really for women of all ages, but really trying to undergird that generation of women that are coming up.
Mostly we talk about life. I do every once in a while venture into politics. It's pretty rare. But it's just when I think a mom needs to speak into that.
[01:03:41] Speaker B: Awesome.
[01:03:41] Speaker C: Yeah, that's good.
[01:03:42] Speaker A: So there. And on Instagram.
[01:03:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:03:45] Speaker A: Facebook, find me anywhere.
[01:03:46] Speaker B: We'll put all that in the description.
[01:03:48] Speaker C: Okay.
For me, you know, I mentioned earlier I was very fortunate that when I came to Christ, I had my brother in law who genuinely discipled me. I didn't know what that was back then.
And as a result, over the last 40 years, well, certainly the last 25 to 30 years. I've put a lot of emphasis on just meeting with young guys or anybody, any man who wants to get together.
I just feel like. And I think discipleship takes place in a lot of different shapes and sizes. It can certainly happen in the pew, it can happen in a classroom, it can happen in a small group.
My experience is there's a lot of growth that takes place when you meet one on one one with another man. And so I had the benefit of that. And as a result, that is the high traffic lane that I live in is really discipling men.
I do a couple of Bible studies throughout the week.
I do a study on the west side on Tuesday mornings. I do a Bible study called the Jacksonville Business Fellowship every Friday morning that is open to anybody who wants to come. And again, that's.
[01:05:00] Speaker B: Where does that meet?
[01:05:01] Speaker C: That meets. Actually, there's a little coffee shop right on Hendricks in San Marco called Happy Brew.
And we, we grew out of that location. And fortunately the church right there at Southside Methodist Church, the pastor there said, man, you guys need to just go take the Family Life Center. So we actually meet at the Family Life center across the lawn from Happy Brew. And then Happy Brew brings over the coffee.
[01:05:28] Speaker B: And do you.
How would they like, you don't want 20 people just showing up.
[01:05:33] Speaker C: Yeah, we do. Absolutely.
[01:05:35] Speaker B: Is there any way, if they wanted to give you a heads up, how would they? I know some of our people showed up one day for it, so.
[01:05:41] Speaker C: Sure. In fact, there was one there today. Right. As a matter of fact, I don't know what's the best way, but you can just find me on Facebook or.
[01:05:50] Speaker A: Instagram and honestly, you can just show up.
It is not a study that you have to be prepared for.
[01:05:55] Speaker C: There is no website, there is no social media.
[01:05:57] Speaker A: Yeah, Brad will teach. And then we have table time afterwards.
[01:06:00] Speaker B: Just about how many people?
[01:06:02] Speaker A: Right now we're at about 30.
[01:06:03] Speaker B: Oh, great.
[01:06:04] Speaker A: So there's room for plenty more.
[01:06:05] Speaker B: And it's at what time?
[01:06:07] Speaker C: So there's a group that meets at 6:30 in the morning for prayer. It's a sweet, sweet time. We used to have three or four people show up. We have probably 12, 13 people show up. And so we pray from 6:30. We have a little time of song and then at 7 o' clock it starts.
[01:06:25] Speaker A: So most people show up at 7 and then we get them out promptly at 8.
[01:06:29] Speaker B: Excellent. Well, guys, thank you so much for coming over here. Thank you all for your friendship and just investing in our life. And we just are so excited to share you guys with everybody. That means so much to us.
[01:06:41] Speaker C: Love what you're doing, doing. And so appreciate our friendship.
[01:06:44] Speaker B: So thank you.
[01:06:45] Speaker A: Thank you, guys.
