CODE RED - Benji Cash

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Cash. Welcome, man. Thanks for driving over and joining us today. Gotta ask. I don't think I asked this in the. In the last conversation we had any relation to Johnny. [00:00:19] Speaker A: No, but I got asked. Got asked that all. All the time growing up. My dad's got a cousin named Johnny. Oh, really? So back when I played ball, I'd have Cash, obviously, on the back of my jersey. And all the time. Are you related to Johnny Cash? And I said, yes, but not that anybody else would ever know. So not the Johnny. [00:00:35] Speaker B: So have I. Did I tell you that my uncle was really good friends with him? [00:00:39] Speaker A: No, I don't think so. [00:00:40] Speaker B: So, yeah, so my. My dad's one of his older brothers that was a baby of 12 kids. And so one of his older brothers became a, you know, moderately famous musician in Nashville. And it was back in the rockabilly days, and so he and Cash toured together. [00:00:57] Speaker A: Wow. [00:00:58] Speaker B: If you ever see the movie Walk the Line. [00:01:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So there was my wife, and I just recently watched that probably three, four months ago. [00:01:04] Speaker B: You'll maybe remember this. So they're at a hotel. I think they're on the Louisiana Hayride or something, and they're blowing up trees. And Cash is talking about. He's tired. And so a guy comes up, says, oh, you need to try these pills. That's my uncle. [00:01:23] Speaker A: Come on. [00:01:23] Speaker B: That's my uncle. [00:01:25] Speaker A: So what a legend in the family. [00:01:27] Speaker B: Something to be really proud of. But back then, everybody was speed, basically, and they all took it. [00:01:34] Speaker A: Wow. [00:01:35] Speaker B: But. And they had no idea how addictive and how much it would mess him up. But he. He gave it to him. He never knew. He thought that Johnny had taken it, you know, before. And he didn't know until Johnny wrote his biography that he was the first one to give him speech. So. [00:01:55] Speaker A: So he's accredited to the rise and fall of Johnny Cash. And. [00:01:59] Speaker B: And of course, Cash came to Christ. My uncle did not at the time, and Cash quit touring with him. So June was very concerned. She wanted Johnny hanging around Christians and Gordon. My uncle was cut from the tour. And then several years went by, they both went separate ways. And a guy named Bob Harrington. I don't know if you've ever heard that name. He was called the chaplain of Bourbon Street. [00:02:31] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:31] Speaker B: He came through Nashville, did a crusade, led my uncle to the Lord, and they went. They got back together, did some gigs together and all this. So it was pretty cool. [00:02:43] Speaker A: That's cool. Yeah. [00:02:44] Speaker B: You know, and. [00:02:45] Speaker A: But that's too funny, though. [00:02:47] Speaker B: But I had to ask. [00:02:47] Speaker A: I thought. I don't know. [00:02:48] Speaker B: How? I didn't ask that the last time I. When I first met. [00:02:50] Speaker A: No man. My catch side is my dad's line is from Noonan, Georgia. Dirt poor. Just. I mean, my dad was the first one in his family to graduate from high school. [00:02:59] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:03:00] Speaker A: First one to. I think up until. I mean, recently, he was the first one to even go to college and. [00:03:05] Speaker B: Wow. [00:03:06] Speaker A: Graduate college and. [00:03:07] Speaker B: Very cool. [00:03:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he kind of made a name and for the Cashes in Georgia. [00:03:12] Speaker B: Oh, very cool. Very cool. [00:03:14] Speaker A: Met my mom after he got saved. He was doing ministry in professional baseball. Got some mutual friends, connected with my mom, who was from Toronto in Boston at the time. And so they ended up living in Indiana for a little while and then moved to Dakula, Georgia, which is where I was born and raised. Spent pretty much all of my life until we moved out to a small town called Monroe before we ended up down here in Jacksonville. Yeah. [00:03:37] Speaker B: What about the professional baseball? What was the nature of that? [00:03:41] Speaker A: Yeah, my dad. So he played in the 80s back with the Astros and the Dodgers. You know, one of the stories. [00:03:48] Speaker B: Are you a junior? [00:03:49] Speaker A: No, no, no, I'm not a junior. Tim Cash is my dad. I'm Benjamin Timothy Cash. [00:03:53] Speaker B: Okay. [00:03:54] Speaker A: We share. [00:03:54] Speaker B: I'm trying to. I'm thinking through my. So I probably started. What years did he play? [00:03:59] Speaker A: Gosh, he was in the mid-80s, 83, 4, 5, 6, somewhere around there. Never made big leagues. [00:04:05] Speaker B: But I was about to say I may have his card. I'm not thinking I've got the like 84 to 86 sets. [00:04:11] Speaker A: Yeah, he's got some out there. We. We realized. So I ended up playing with Kansas City in their minor league system. And really. So we found we both have baseball cards on ebay and his is worth like 60 cents more than mine. Oh, wow. So we. We were comparing who's got a more valuable baseball card. Oh, yeah. But yeah, he played and then got saved while he was playing and ended up working for Unlimited Potential Incorporated. They did a lot of stuff running like camps and clinics for young kids, we with professional players and did mission trips all over the world. So that's what he did for a long time. Chaplain with the Atlanta Braves for a number of years, worked in some leadership development stuff with the Kansas City Royals. So baseball, man, that was. That was what we did growing up, man. We followed Jesus and played baseball. That's what we did. Very cool. [00:04:53] Speaker B: What position? [00:04:54] Speaker A: He pitched and then I played first base and pitched in high school, college and professionally finished up in first base. And so we've he pastors now, so we've always bonded over playing ball and pastoring. [00:05:07] Speaker B: And is he up in. Up in that same Loganville, Georgia? [00:05:10] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, His. His church is across Loganville. They kind of. The claim to fame for that church is his church office is Burt Reynolds old mansion up there, really. So that he. He. He stepped into the position as pastor years after the church had been established and the church before him had acquired Burt Reynolds old house. And so, you know, that can. [00:05:31] Speaker B: That can actually. That a big asset if you're. [00:05:35] Speaker A: Yeah, man. People around there love some smoking. The Bandit. So we've had folks like, can we just come see? And my dad's like, I guess you can go for a tour. His office is Bert's old master bedroom. [00:05:46] Speaker B: Very cool. [00:05:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it's kind of weird, but those walls can talk. I'm sure. [00:05:50] Speaker B: We. When we came here one day, it was in the middle of COVID So when they were vaccinating people, the. The local health department wanted to use our campus because it was just set up well for what they wanted to do. And so they've got all the shots set up in our. In our gymnasium. And at the time, you know, it wasn't political. Nobody had a strong opinion on if you should do that or shouldn't do that. So we were just, you know, opening our doors to the community and trying to, you know, help people out. And so it was just beginning to become a little bit controversial when, you know, in the military, when they were mandating. [00:06:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:36] Speaker B: So I wondered, okay, should we stop? You know what. How is this going to affect our reputation in the community? And then a guy walks in. He had long hair, he looked familiar. He gets his shot. Somebody comes over and says, you know, that guy is. I said, no. He said, that's the lead singer for Lynyrd Skynyrd, man. Van Zant. So. So the little brother became the lead singer after the plane crash. [00:07:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:04] Speaker B: And got to know him. Christian guy. He's down in your area. He lives down around Pontevedra. But he. Great testimony. He just released his first gospel album. And so for, you know, the guys who were like, starting to say, we're down on the vaccines, but we like Lynyrd Skynyrd. [00:07:23] Speaker A: Yeah. It bridged a gap there. A little bit of local cred. That's so cool. That's too funny. [00:07:30] Speaker B: So how did you come to Christ? [00:07:31] Speaker A: Yeah, so we. Man. I grew up. Dad was in ministry my whole life. My mom, she's been following Jesus since before my mom and dad met. And so, man, we grew up in a really solid, good foundation Christian home, man. I mean, we grew up going to a Baptist church, Bethlehem First Baptist Church, Hebrew Baptist Church, coming in that Dakula area. And I loved it, man. I genuinely remember growing up loving church. [00:07:55] Speaker B: And both those are good churches. [00:07:57] Speaker A: Phenomenal. Yeah, yeah, they're phenomenal. And, and still, still rocking and rolling really well. And you know, so I think early on my faith was I was a fearful kid. And I was a kid at. From 4 years old until I was, you know, older. I'd probably reconfess the prayer in my mom and dad's bedroom four or five nights a week, you know, more afraid I was going to go to hell than I had any concept of what it meant to follow Jesus. And so I had doubled down on. On the, the sinner's prayer, man, a hundred times as a kid. And I remember being more in middle school and had an incredible. Mr. Deloach, I think was his last name, Sunday school teacher that I really remember. Like, man, I want to follow Jesus and got baptized when I was younger and loved the youth group and. But man, I starkly remember being probably in middle school and hearing our youth pastor talk about the percentage of kids after high school that will walk away from the church. And I starkly remember sitting in that youth group that night. That won't be me. Like, how could it? Like, I love. I love the church. I love coming and worshiping and man, like that, I don't see how that would ever be me. And lo and behold, man, I graduated high school and went off to. To play ball at Middle Tennessee. And I mean, made a stark decision to walk away from it all and kind of kept enough in the back pocket because I knew it would appease mom and dad, you know, so still went to church sometimes, got involved at FCA up there, but I went through a period to where a lot like Solomon, I was like, man, what have I been missing under the sun? That's not that I haven't experienced. I grew up with great man, I look back, like, great boundaries. Not overbearing, very healthy guidelines as a kid. But man, I was like, what am I missing out on? Like, these other guys seem to be having a lot of fun. And so I walked away and ran pretty hard. Thankfully it was a short season of that. It wasn't extended amount of years, but it was enough to bring me to a place in June of 2014 to really, really break. And I remember being my being in my apartment that year up at school was like, all right, Lord, I'm. I'm tired of. Of trying to do this on my own. And I just. I'd had my second Tommy John surgery at that point. I'd had two of them when I was in college. Blew up my arm for those who don't know pitching, and had basically a reconstruction of my elbow and went through that once, came back, was not following Jesus during that rehab, during that process. And it was spiritually, physically, emotionally. I mean, it was just a bad, bad year, year and a half. And so anyways, you know, June of 2014, gave my life to Jesus and said, okay, I really want to follow you. And, man, it was. It was sketchy, and it was rough, and it was just kind of stumbling about. But I had a guy, Brian Harrell. He's still the director of FCA up at Middle Tennessee. And that dude took me under his wingman and poured into me. And right after I got saved, there was a guy that was leading the FCA there who was graduating out. And Brian's like, man, I want you to start leading next year. And I thought, I don't know. There's no way. You know, I was just going out on the weekends with these folks, and now I'm supposed to lead him in a Bible study, and I don't know how to do that. But, man, he just invested into me, and he poured into me. And so, like, six months after I gave my life to Jesus, he's like, I want to walk with you to. To do this. And so, man, Brian was made a huge piece of just showing me, like, hey, man, you can lead. You can do this. And so, man, we stumbled about in the faith, and we stumbled about trying to follow Jesus with a bunch of guys who I was just going out with the year before, and. And by God's grace, a buddy of mine, Austin Narell, a teammate, he gave his life to the Lord right about the same time as. As I did. And so a lot of Friday and Saturday nights, we sit there and think, well, what do we do? We used to go out now, what? And so, man, I remember sitting in his apartment, like, do we just, like, watch a sermon on tv? You know, so we'd pull up a Francis Chan sermon and just watch a sermon and think, this has got to be better than going out and drinking and things like that. And so that's really where I started following Jesus. So. Wow. Yeah. [00:11:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it was real similar. Real similar to me. Dad came to Christ when I was a little kid and got heavily involved in church. From there, I never thought of myself as not being a believer, but my life wasn't really in gear either. So in college, everything became real. And I guess I often wonder. I wonder if you go through this, if we get to heaven, do you think. Do you think you were converted as a child, or you think that it really happened as a college student? What's your thoughts on it? [00:12:36] Speaker A: That's a good question. I really do look back in that seventh or eighth grade and was like, man, I really think I gave my life to Jesus then I want to get baptized. I think I knew contextually in my mind what it meant to follow Jesus. I didn't realize until I was 19 what it meant to fall in with my life. And I think there was a big difference there. So I don't. I don't have a good answer for you in that one. Yeah, no, I don't think it probably. I would say I think it would have counted back then. I know it counted in June of 2014. You know, I'm kind of. [00:13:10] Speaker B: Kind of in the same boat, I think, for what I understood and what I knew as a child, I believed it. And. But when we moved, my dad's business grew. We moved to a new city, and the church that we were in, the pastor's good guy, don't mean to throw shade on him, but he would preach kind of the things we all agree on. So, hey, we all know we need to pray, you need to love people, kind of those things that everybody agrees on. And it never would challenge areas that may not be in alignment with gospel, you know. And so at 19, I stumbled across a radio preacher, and I did hear some of those things, and it was very appealing to me because I felt like he was taking a stand. And my life changed. The fruit began after 19, but it was real similar story soon after. I mean, months. I was kind of being recognized as someone that maybe God is working in and small group leader and outreach leader. And then probably within a year kind of made official that God's calling me to do something different here, you know? [00:14:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:31] Speaker B: So at that time, had you met who's now your wife or. [00:14:35] Speaker A: No. So we. So she's about four. Four and a half years younger than me, and so I didn't know her. In college, we. When I signed a play with Kansas City, I was in my second year of pro ball there. Her family had started going to my dad's church. And so I was sitting in my hotel room one afternoon, I remember my dad sent me a picture of her and was like, you need to get to know this girl. And I looked her up on Instagram and I texted her back. I said, man, she looks like she's dating somebody. He goes, no, no, no, it ain't like that. You gotta trust me. And I said, no, it's definitely like that. These pictures don't lie. He's like, no. So I thought, whatever. So kind of let that go. And a couple months later, it's two days after I got back home for that off season, and I was going to go to the gym with my brother to work out on a Sunday afternoon, and she was going to go to the gym with her brother, and our brothers were. Had become buddies at that time. And so I knew that she knew who I was, and I had obviously known who she was. And so I walked up to her and introduced her, introduced myself to her. And that night, my family invited her folks over for dinner. And so we kind of chatted a little bit then and started talking that week. And the long, the, you know, short version is, is she was, in fact, was dating this guy. And we met and basically said, hey, I, you know, I. I'd love to talk, but I don't want to. I'm not going to talk if you're dating somebody. And she basically said, just give me a minute. And about three days later, she dumped that guy. And we went on our first date a week later. We dated for 10 weeks, got engaged, and we're engaged for six months. And we got married about 10 months after we met each other. So we. We wasted no time. [00:16:10] Speaker B: Very cool. [00:16:11] Speaker A: Very cool. [00:16:11] Speaker B: Now, at that time, did you. Did you have any kind of vision for where you would be now as a church planter, or is that on your radar? [00:16:20] Speaker A: No, not one bit. So I got done playing. We met in that off season is when I was. Was done playing at that point and signed my papers, wrapped it up, and I thought, all right, I don't know what we're going to do. I got $200 to my name, 250 bucks to my name. We want to get married in the next six to nine months, and I don't know what we're gonna do. And so we just started praying like crazy. We're like, God, we want to honor you. We want to honor you in our relationship. We want to honor you with what we do in our lives, but we don't know what we're supposed to do. And at that time, man, I had great dreams and aspirations of wanting to open and run a crossfit facility. We started training and coaching CrossFit together and loved that, loved that community. 2018ish, I guess it was. We probably started kind of doing it together now. [00:17:05] Speaker B: When did, when did CrossFit kind of take off? [00:17:08] Speaker A: Gosh. And they kind of started like mid 2000. I mean they probably got popular with froning in those guys, like maybe early 2010, somewhere around there. That's, I think when probably the popularity started to kind of grow. [00:17:24] Speaker B: And where is he from? From Middle Tennessee. [00:17:26] Speaker A: He's in the. I think he's in Cookville. Okay. [00:17:29] Speaker B: So east. [00:17:30] Speaker A: Yeah, East Tennessee. Okay. It's like the fittest place in the world now because all those guys moved out there. [00:17:35] Speaker B: Yeah, he's got quite an operation up there. [00:17:37] Speaker A: He does, yeah. We fell in love with that whole world, man. And so we got married and thought, man, I'd love to coach full time and. But we were praying so like, had no money, didn't know where to live and so kind of bounced around, like worked a little contracting job here, worked a, you know, little corporate gym, doing something on the side there and was coaching CrossFit. And so kind of in that season of like, Lord, we want to. We don't know what we want to do, honestly. We know that we want to follow you and serve you and we're just praying that you'll provide for our family. And so in that, God ended up leading us to a ministry called NG3, where we served on staff, we do or did character development in high schools, mentorship, discipleship groups, all that stuff in high schools, and so helped lead out of that for a number of years and did some great ministry in high school students. And NG3 is still doing great ministry, predominantly in Georgia, but bouncing around in some other states and stuff as well. And so that's kind of where the Lord initially first led us into ministry and was not on our radar. Wasn't anything that we thought we even really had a passion for, honestly. Like, we love Jesus, but ministry wasn't on the radar. But man, up until that point, God had never answered prayer so clearly as he did about when we were praying for. Should we step into full time support based high school ministry? Like, what does that look like? And that sounds terrifying, but she. [00:18:55] Speaker B: And she knew she was marrying a minister. [00:18:57] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we were already married at that point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we got married. And about within that first year of marriage is where the Lord kind of brought this to us and we prayed. And I'm telling you, like God's answer to prayer Was, was crazy clear. And so we didn't even have a choice. It's like, Lord, we, we've got us, we've got to say yes. So yeah, we stepped into full time ministry, 100 support base, like local missionaries basically. And we were doing that for a number of years. And in that we got connected with a couple of churches, was on their teaching teams, like beginning to preach a little bit here and there, lead some discipleship groups. Like God began to give us some really good influence in the local church. And then in that in 2021 is where God first began to lay a burden on us. That. All right, we know that we're, we're being led to pastor full time and we just kind of, you know, subtly and slowly just like prayed, all right, Lord, show us when, show us where, show us how. And that's been a four year journey now to lead us to eventually where we are now. [00:19:54] Speaker B: Let me, let me dial in a little bit because I'm curious, the last time we talked, how long ago has it been since we, I was, I. [00:20:01] Speaker A: Think we came down here six months or April or June. It was in June. Yeah, one of those trips down. [00:20:08] Speaker B: And yeah, we connected. Bob Baumgarner introduced us and encouraged us to look at what you were doing. And he introduced, he is, this is kind of how you're, you're introduced when you're not there. [00:20:19] Speaker A: Okay. [00:20:20] Speaker B: He's like, yeah, man, this guy's got a lot of potential. He's, he's made some good connections here. He's one of these CrossFit guys now. [00:20:26] Speaker A: Okay. [00:20:26] Speaker B: So just know that. [00:20:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:28] Speaker B: And so at that time I'm, if. [00:20:31] Speaker A: You'Ve never done it, you're like, what does that mean? Then you do CrossFit. Like, okay, there's a, yeah, you know. [00:20:36] Speaker B: There was a time when it was like, what was that a cult or what is that? You know, and, and then so he said he's one of these CrossFit guys. And so when we talked at that time, it wasn't on my radar. But my wife was doing Orange Theory and I was just going to the gym anytime fitness over here and we really wanted to work out together. And I couldn't get comfortable with Orange Theory. It just didn't seem like a guy place to me. And she liked that kind of team environment and all that. So I said I might could get comfortable with CrossFit. And kind of one of the big selling points for us here is that I knew nobody associated with CrossFit. All of the people at our church, there's two or three gyms that they went to. As far as I knew, nobody in our church would crossfit. So we go to the first class, and if you're in a established church like ours and you're preaching in a suit and tie, they don't recognize you in street clothes. [00:21:39] Speaker A: Sure. [00:21:40] Speaker B: So I walk in and met everybody, and a lady went, zach, Pastor Zach. And I'm like, yeah. And she said, oh, I go to your church. 1200 people I didn't know. I didn't recognize her. [00:21:56] Speaker A: Sure. [00:21:56] Speaker B: And the next thing we know, we started, like three days a week. The next thing we knew, several of them were going to our church. And it was very cool, that tribe. There's something about Christian discipleship that dovetails really well with a crossfit mentality. I don't know that I completely understand that. Do you? I mean, is there anything you can speak to on that? [00:22:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So, like, my wife and I. So, yeah, we've been doing CrossFit for a number of years. I'm a big runner, too. And so somebody asked us recently, like, what do you do for fun? I was like, man, if I got an hour, I'm gonna go for, like, a long run or we're gonna go do a CrossFit class. Like, we love that world. We love those people. And so one of the things, though, so to your point, the parallel that I think compares so well with the faith is that there's something super spiritual about shared suffering. We know that in Scripture, we know that in the faith, we know that. You look at the early church, and it's like, man, there was this shared suffering that I think one unified through the spirit, but also the suffering that they were bearing with one another, man, it drew them close. And so I think there's that dynamic that you see in CrossFit where it's like, man, you're suffering. Like, there's this aspect of. This hurts. This is hard. We need, I'd say, shared suffering and community is the other biblical aspect there to where, man, I need community as I suffer through this thing that I'm attaining. And that could be, you know, a certain lift or a bar muscle up or just getting off of some type 2 diabetes medicine, you know. And so I think. I think that's kind of where you'll see some of those comparisons. [00:23:35] Speaker B: That's a great insight. I'm preaching this Sunday on Luke 22:23, the Garden of Gethsemane. And the idea that, you know, as he drank the cup, as he went through that suffering. Anything that we go through is going to be less than that. And but looking to him, we can, we can find our own strength through suffering. And so that makes a lot of sense. I may steal that from you this Sunday, if it's okay. [00:24:01] Speaker A: Please. That'll fit right in. Yeah, that's not trademarked or anything, but man, I think so. So there is, there's this idea for us or this dynamic for us of like, man, we like the, the parallels from the faith into the faith fitness world, but man, they're like, they're just lost and hurting people there. And so CrossFit for us has done a couple things. One, God has used it to build relationships for some of the most influential people in the ministry we've done in the years past that could be volunteers, we've had donors, we've had even just relationships with the, the, the pastor to the church that we were part of, where I ended up being on their teaching team and all these things, like met all those folks in a CrossFit gym. And in the same, the other side of that coin, man, some of the most hurting and lost people that I've ever met come into a CrossFit gym and they're the rugged as you've probably encountered, man, there's just some rugged down and out rough neck dudes, man, and girls that come in there. And so there was a gym that we just left from CrossFit Oconee in Watkinsville, Georgia. I mean just man, one of the most incredible group of people a part of that facility. The owners were just the most gracious, just phenomenal people. And my wife and I, we wanted to go work out but we knew like that's a mission field for us. And I'm huge on Marketplace ministry, man, I think I love the local church and clearly as a church planner like wanting to cultivate a time of worship and gathering and to build the local church. But I love the commissioning into your week as your mission field. And so CrossFit for us has just been one of those weekly mission fields. And so part of the facility we were back at in CrossFit Oconee we had there were three guys from that gym just since March that we were able to walk with that gave their life to Jesus. We baptized another five of them throughout the spring and the summer. And we had, you know, on average about 10 guys are meeting in a weekly Bible study and we started hosting and we led for quite a few months Sunday night church out of that gym of people that didn't Some went to church, some didn't, but they. We just built that rapport working out together in that community and that shared suffering and all that stuff that said, man, we just want to love on you and point you to Jesus. And God gave great fruit out of that. And so even as we plant down in the beaches area in Jacksonville, like, cross it for us is by no means like the avenue, but it's just a super strategic. [00:26:20] Speaker B: Right. [00:26:21] Speaker A: Marketplace ministry for us. [00:26:23] Speaker B: How do you in, like, when you. When you're going into that, you know you're going to be in a gym there, you know, you're going to be going through the same routine, but you also. Do you carry an agenda into it or do you kind of go into it with no agenda beyond just pointing people to Christ? [00:26:42] Speaker A: Like, that's good. [00:26:43] Speaker B: I would just wonder how, like the gym owner, do you approach him and let him know, hey, man, this is what I'm doing. How does that all happen? [00:26:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it's good. So my old boss with NG3, Matt Williams, one of the things that I love that he used to say and teach us was learning the art of intentionally wasting time with people. And so there's not, I would say there's not an agenda that we go in to say, hey, we're going to be a part of this gym. And hey, owner, you need to know I'm coming to. I'm sharing the gospel somebody, or I'm going to have a Bible study out of here. Like, none of that takes place. But we go in really intentionally say, man, I want to intentionally waste time here because from the outside looking in, it seems like wasting time because you're like, man, you just kind of linger around. You just work out in there a lot. Like, you just spend a lot of time there. But for us, very strategically, some of the deepest, most impactful relationships and conversations are had by that just kind of lingering and hanging around those people. And so you get done working out and everybody, you know, half the class may piddle off to something else, the other half leaves. But just like finding a person and saying, like, man, I just want to. I'm going to linger around you. The amount of conversations that have started, like, hey, man, do you have any faith story, like any, you know, anything along those lines and the opportunity that's come out of those questions and the discipleship and the sitting in an office reading scripture with the gym owner, that's come out of that is incredible. And so we don't go in with an agenda per se, but we know God, we want to be used here and we want to intentionally waste some time here because I trust that you'll. You'll begin to highlight those people that, man, we can just have touches with that again has led to salvations and discipleships and baptisms and stuff. [00:28:19] Speaker B: It seems like so much of that has changed from like our parents generation when it was all over golf, what they did over golf, that's changed to different, different kind of environments. Something I was reading about a couple of weeks ago, it said that the. What golf was in the business world now is like biking, like, like people riding long distance. [00:28:42] Speaker A: Sure. Some kind of fitness activity. [00:28:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And so between, like CrossFit for me, I fish. I would go fishing a lot. So tomorrow I'll be on a boat with a guy who's really poured into me and a young guy, 19 years old, struggling with the call to ministry. I'd be pouring into him, but I've never. I love that phrase, intentionally wasting time. [00:29:04] Speaker A: Yeah. You know? Yeah. Some of the hobbies, like. And I think for a lot of people inside the local church, it's like, well, Pastor Zach's clearly gifted to be a preacher and there's leaders in the church that like, we come. And this is where Jesus conversations happen. It's like, no, no, no, You've. You go into a mission field every time you go to your kids sports field, your gym, to your grocery store, to your work. Right. And so beginning to help shift that perspective to say, man, I just want to be super intentional with the time that may seem wasteful in the places that I naturally have a hobby for or God has naturally bit me in gifting towards. And so again, man, like, if it's fishing, it's like, I want to use that as an intentional time to pour into this kid. [00:29:50] Speaker B: Slow down. [00:29:50] Speaker A: Yeah, totally happen. Yeah. So running for me too. Same thing, man. Like, I've just discipled guys through running. Had a guy, just got off the phone with him on the way here that gave his life to the Lord a couple months ago, baptized him. He's now dates my younger sister. But this dude was far from Jesus, but had some mutual friends, like, knew my wife a little bit. He was going to train for his first half marathon. He's like, I know you just got done running a marathon. Will you train me? And I was like, boy, will I. And, man, he couldn't. He couldn't run. And so he couldn't talk when we ran, but I could. And so, man, I started sharing Jesus with a man. He's huffing and puffing, just trying to get through a four or five mile run. And every run I was like, man, we're talking about Jesus. And this dude, like nine or ten months later gave his life to the Lord. [00:30:34] Speaker B: Wow. [00:30:34] Speaker A: And so whether again, that's the gym or fishing or surfing or, you know, things alike, like, Lord, I just want to. I want to use the natural hobbies and giftings and bends that you've given me to be open to sharing, sharing the love of Jesus with them. So. [00:30:50] Speaker B: So your life, the Lord has brought you to Jack's beach area. How did you zero in on the map to say, that's where I'm called to. To serve? [00:31:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So when my wife and I first got married, it was right after our first son was born. I remember, I. I've. And I wish we had a picture. I could throw up for you, man, because somebody captured the picture. It was really cool. But I was holding my son on my shoulders. We were in Destin, Florida, looking out over the water. And I so starkly remember, like, Lord, I just long to, to be in a place like this. Like, my soul just finds such joy and rest on the coast. And for my wife and I both, her childhood dream was to. And this will kind of tie in a minute was to live on the coast and raise a family on the coast with her cousin. Like, that was like a dream. I want to live at the beach and raise kids with her, her other girl cousin. And so from right off in our marriage, like, we just love the beach. And so every anniversary, every time we had a chance, like, we're just gonna run down to the beach for a few days. And so my wife's cousin ended up marrying one of my really close friends, and he was going to get stationed and finish out his time in the Navy down in Mayport. And we had some other friends that were from Jacksonville beach that had since moved to Monroe where we lived. And so we'd heard of Jacksonville. I was like, let's go check it out down there for like three or four days, this was two and a half years ago, and came down here for a few days and we just like, man, like our. As best as I can explain, like, our hearts fell in love. It's like, gosh, we just love this place. And so we kind of like passively prayed about God. Would you open up a door for us to go down there somehow for like a year? And seemed like highly unlikely things that the church that we were part of kind of seemed like progressively moving towards pastoring. On staff at that church. And a year later we were going to come back down here again for our anniversary in June. And there was just this stirring of like, Lord, I don't, I don't know that we're supposed to be at this church for no foul reason. Like, gosh, the pastor who's pouring into me, the people. Like it seemingly was perfect. There was just this unsettlement in my spirit of, I don't know, that's where we're supposed to be. And so we came back down here for another four or five days. And when we were driving back June of, of, of, what is it weird? 20, 25. So June of 23, driving back from that road trip and I told my wife, I said, it feels so silly. I said, I just feel like weeping. Like I'm just sorrowful to the place of tears that we're, we're driving away from that place. And so I got back and went into my closet where I pray and just wept that afternoon, that evening in prayer. And I remember praying like, lord, this seems so silly to be weeping in prayer over this, but I can't, I don't know how to express otherwise than that, this just soul longing to be there. And so months and months and months prior to this, I really felt like God had given me a clear word that when we were going to begin to pray, to transition off staff ministry we were with, into pastoring, we had to do a, we're going to do a three day fast. And he kind of gave me the picture of Nehemiah as he fasted and prayed before he sought favor with the king, you know, to go back to Jerusalem. And so he had given me that picture. I remember telling that to my dad like months in advance. Almost like accountability. Hey, I feel like God told me this thing. And so we get back from that trip and three days later, very clearly on a Sunday afternoon, God said now. And so I went for a walk and I was like, lord, I don't want to enter into a fast of some kind of like manipulative, trying to. If I fast and you owe me an answer. Yeah, like totally. Like it wanted to be void of any selfishness there. And so went for a walk and, and came back and said, you know, to my wife, I said, I really feel like the Lord's saying now's the time to enter that fast. And so, man, we fasted and prayed for three days. And again God gave some like wildly clear words to us in that time. And so we then submitted that to spiritual Authorities and pastors and mentors over us to say, hey, here's what we feel like. But you know, we don't want to be young and naive and immature and just say we're just going to take it and run. But we affirm or caution us one way or the other. And man, all the spiritual authority we submitted that to came back and said, we absolutely affirm it's to go down there that God's leading you guys to Jacksonville beach and it's to plant. And so that's kind of how that, that journey began. [00:34:56] Speaker B: So you got clarity and direction on Jack's Beach. That's going to be the, the outpost that God's put you in. And I'm assuming you started kind of meeting people, connecting with other ministry leaders. I, I got your name from our, one of our, what used to be called Director of Missions here in Florida. The, he's the leader of First Coast Churches, which is the old Jacksonville Baptist Association. Bob Bum Garner. How did you and Bob get connected? [00:35:28] Speaker A: Yeah, so we. So to answer kind of two of those questions there. So one of the things that God was real clear on in that fasting time was, hey, I'm releasing you guys to go, but not for 18 months, like very clear on that. There's an 18 month period come from the 18 months. Honestly, many came in a dream. So one of the ways God has spoken to me over the years is through dreams. And so he gave me a dream the very, the very first night of that fast and basically gave us an 18 month time frame and then affirmed that again. And just a word that he gave at the end of that fast. And so we knew that we got 18 months of preparation. And again we took that to kind of a mentors and stuff and said, no, we agree God's. You need to go through a season of real deep preparation in a lot of ways, right? And so in that preparation season, we came down here as much as we could. I was probably down here maybe once every two months, three months, even if it was just for a few days at a time, just to try to, to meet people, to, to understand where we were coming and culture and all those kind of things, right? And so on one of those trips we were down here and the pastor of the church that we were a part of, we were down here for 4th of July a couple years ago. And he's like, hey man, are you, are you open this week while you're there to meet with some people? And I was like, man, I'll meet with anybody you know, at this point, we just kind of got this call to plant, I'll be with anybody. And so that person was Bob Bumgarner. And so Bob was good friends with a guy named Alan Terry, who was an elder at the church back up in Monroe. So there's all these kind of mutual relationships. And so that's who connected us with Bob. And then Bob eventually connected me with James Peoples with North American Mission Board. And kind of that's how I ended up getting connected with Nam and the SIN Network. And so Bob to James, James to, you know, kind of that whole world. And so that's kind of where they came from. [00:37:11] Speaker B: Bob is one of those guys that a surprising number of people who either are doing great things for the kingdom or are on the verge of it have Bob somewhere in their story in the background. [00:37:26] Speaker A: That's great to hear. [00:37:27] Speaker B: You know, he's a networker. [00:37:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:30] Speaker B: And he's. He's a little bit. I think of Bob a little bit like Yoda. Out of nowhere, you'll have a conversation with Bob, and they're always enjoyable, but you'll be kind of relaxed. And then suddenly he'll drop some wisdom that it's just. Man, that's a word that was really good. So when we came to First Baptist, Bob had met with the search team just prior, like, during the interim time, they lost pastor. Pastor was pretty burnt out, and things just weren't going in a good direction. So they'd gone for like a year. In an interim, they brought Bob in. Bob coached them through the search process. And really, I inherited a lot of the work that he had done to prepare the team. And so he and I have been close to this day. [00:38:24] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:38:24] Speaker B: And he's just been a good friend in ministry. And so when he said. And he doesn't frequently reach out and recommend that we give somebody a look for support or whatever that may have happened. Come to think of it, I'm not sure it's ever happened with anybody else. [00:38:42] Speaker A: Wow. [00:38:43] Speaker B: So for him to directly say, I'd like you to spend some time with this guy and check into him for support, that was significant to me. And so we meet with people all the time, but I was just curious where that came from. You know, whatever it was that God was doing in. In his. On his radar, man. [00:39:07] Speaker A: You know, I appreciate you sharing that. It's cool to hear. [00:39:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:10] Speaker B: And I know you've. You've met some people. 1122 got connected with them. They're. They're kind of in Your corner as well. [00:39:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. God's been super gracious, man. The, the different church partners that have come about in this process is great. I mean, so going back to growing up, going to Bethlehem, when it was Bethlehem First Baptist Church and now Pastor Jason Britt who's the lead pastor there. We've family has been good friends like Jason at Bethlehem. He is currently. Yeah, he's there right now. [00:39:37] Speaker B: Oh, that's where he went. [00:39:39] Speaker A: Yeah, so that's left. [00:39:40] Speaker B: But I didn't know where he had gone. [00:39:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So Jason Brits there and so when we were going to plant, they were going to be our kind of Main Baptist church with the SIN Network kind of partnership there. And so Jason's like, well, man, you need to connect with my brother ryan who's at 11:22 because they've got some good stuff to do, kind of just residency wise, preparing church planners, all that kind of stuff. And so, okay, God's made some of those really cool connections. [00:40:03] Speaker B: So Ryan, it's Ryan at. [00:40:04] Speaker A: Ryan Brits at 1122 in Jacksonville. Jason, his brother is the lead pastor at Bethlehem. [00:40:09] Speaker B: How long has Jason been at Bethlehem? [00:40:11] Speaker A: I mean, he's been there. I'm throwing a shot in the dark, but he's been there for probably 10 years or more. He's been there for a while somewhere in that ballpark. [00:40:18] Speaker B: So Ryan, I may have told you this. Ryan and I were in Israel together with Mark Driscoll. [00:40:26] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:40:27] Speaker B: In 0809. And so we, and they, every pastor that was on the trip, they made him like a group leader. And so he was in my group. And so we got to know each other through that. And we were both from the south, most of the people were west coast. And then, you know, all these years go by, then maybe last, last year, maybe 18 months ago or so, we were sitting around a campfire with Al Mohler talking about ministry and all this stuff. And we kept kind of looking at each other going, I know you from somewhere and I can't. And then somebody said something that triggered it and it's like that it was Israel. [00:41:11] Speaker A: That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. [00:41:13] Speaker B: Who would have dreamed everything that's happened since then. [00:41:15] Speaker A: Yeah. To be an hour from each other. [00:41:16] Speaker B: Right? [00:41:17] Speaker A: Yeah. That's cool. [00:41:18] Speaker B: But they're good people, man. They've got, they've got a lot going on over there. And it's cool that to be in their backyard that they're, they're still supportive. [00:41:26] Speaker A: Of what you're doing, man. They've been incredibly gracious. Just their, you Know their resources to just say, man, we want to help teach you and train you and let you peek behind curtains. Like, to have such a great church like that in the backyard's huge, man. Just having somebody learn from over these next months and just glean what we can. And so, yeah, so as you. [00:41:46] Speaker B: As you've begun to just study the whole prospect of church planting, and we're in the middle. We've got our first satellite campus that we just purchased land. We met with architect last night. It's coming up to kind of hit critical mass. [00:42:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:02] Speaker B: You know, we need to commit to it. So as you've surveyed that land of. Of being a church planter, what are two or three of the main things that God has showed you that to be successful? What does a person need to know? [00:42:19] Speaker A: That's a good question. Maybe I'll. I'll answer it this way. So I sat down with a pastor a couple months back and he had planted a huge church, really incredible church in the Atlanta area. So he and I were sitting down and kind of talking about his early days and some of those things. And so one of the things he talked about, he said for a church planter or even any church in general, but even a church planner, I was struck by. He said, man, every church should have the same mission statement. In essence. Like, we all have the same mission, man, we're called to love God, to love people and make disciples. Like, that's what the church's mission in this world is. Right. He said now a vision statement for a church is what he called a holy discontentment. He's like, so. So what are the things that are like individually as branches of the local church in the world? Like, what's. What's Pastor Zach or Pastor Benji's holy discontentment of the way that we want to most effectively address loving God, loving people, making disciples in the culture context of where you are. And so some of the things I'm learning are just like, man, how do I study my area really well to see what are the. What are the things that stir me personally, but also that I feel like are going to be most important, effective for the culture and the community where we're going? And so that's. That's one of the things we're looking at is like, man, we've got a holy discontentment for as we talked about, mission place or marketplace? Marketplace. Missions. Yeah. Thank you. To where, man, we want to be really effective in just going to where the people in the beaches area are. And so there's man, run clubs and CrossFit communities, and surfing's huge. So it's like, man, we're going to be really intentional to be effective in where our people like to hang out and, like, you know, where they like to corral what I say beyond a shadow of a doubt. And this will come as very cliche for church people, but, man, prayer is just so, so vital. And God has taught me so much about prayer in the last year and a half. It's one of the things during that fast when we were praying about coming here the very first night, God wildly convicted me of my prayer life and basically told me, you don't trust prayer the way that you say that you do. And ultimately, you. You will lean on man's abilities and resources more than you will on trusting that I'm the God that holds all that in my hand anyway. And so, man, he's been God for the last year and a half, has just really transformed my faith in prayer. Basically, say every morning, I want you to come get on your knees in your closet, and you've got to start in prayer. And you've got to, you know, scripture says, like, pray without ceasing and pray all the time and pray for all things. Like, you've got. You've got to be a man of prayer. Eugene Peterson, in his book, the. One of his pastoral books, he talks about that the pastor holds the office of prayer, too. He's like, man, like, we've got to be men who pray. And so I would say one, like, learning your people, learning your context has been super important. The devotion to prayer and the amount of times where I'll feel my flesh, like, rear up and like. But I can just. If I could just go do it and grab that thing and kind of, I could probably force something to happen. And God convicts that immediately. And I was like, or you could trust me and pray. And I promise you, the details and the timing will be so much more specific and so much more intentionally worked out. And so, man, like, we've just resolved to do a lot of prayer. When we moved just about a month ago into Jacksonville and got down here, I was like, lord, I don't know how we're going to do this thing. And again, I felt God saying, that's why you got to come meet me back in this closet every morning. And so the first thing I do, I get up, put on some pants, man, walk into that closet, and I just get on my knees and just begin each morning praying through my family and my kids in the church. And, man, we pray a lot. So I'd say those are two fundamental things. [00:45:58] Speaker B: So you do it. You get out of bed. That's the first place you go. [00:46:01] Speaker A: First thing I do. So one of the things God was real clear about, man, he said last June, he said, the first thing I want you to do before you do anything else is get up out of bed and come straight to the closet. And so back when we were in Monroe, unless I was traveling or out of town, every morning was in that closet. And then we moved, and we were in an apartment for a certain time, and, you know, I had to pray at my couch, and I couldn't wait to get back down to the house we moved into because I had a closet again. [00:46:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I tried that. I tried. I tried to do first thing. And the Lord said, I think I want you to have a cup of coffee. [00:46:32] Speaker A: Your prayers aren't real clear without coffee. Yeah, listen, the amount of times that I sit in there and my eyes. And I'm like, God, have mercy on me, because I'm struggling this morning. But it's just that. Just kind of that discipline where God's like, I want. You've got to start here. That's where every morning. [00:46:48] Speaker B: So difficult to explain to new followers of Christ or young preachers or whatever, how. That. I don't know that we can't explain how it works totally, because it's not like putting coins in the slot machine. You know, that. That you keep praying you'll hit. You'll hit the number one day. You know, it's not like. But at the same time, I'm the type person. I'm very entrepreneurial. So if I have something that I believe God wants us to do, I'm very tempted to get ahead of him and go make it happen. And when I do that, I'm always busier than I ought to be. And suddenly the stress is up, and it's not a joyful walk. And so that's something God's shown me in the last couple of years, is, yeah, you could go and do something that would get you a win that looks like that. But let me do it. Let me do it. My yoke is easy, my burden's light, and walk with me and don't try to get ahead of me, and it'll be better, it'll last, and you'll be happier in the process. [00:48:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I think there's a lot of ways that we. We obviously can hear the Father speak scriptures. One prayer is one. But. But I've been listening to Ray Vanderland recently teach, and he was talking about, he lived with a Bedouin family for a number of weeks when he was doing some study over in Israel. And he said, one of the things I did for 10 days, he said, I followed around. They're like 14, 15 year old daughter and her two siblings as she shepherded her sheep for 10 days. And he's like, man, we're out in the middle of nowhere. And he said, what I observed while watching a shepherd manage sheep is, is he said, sheep will always follow the shepherd's voice to a fault. Like if you're standing on the other side of a cliff and you call your sheep, they'll kill themselves by jumping off that cliff to try to get to the shepherd. He said, now what you'll also see is goats always know a better way. He says, if you watch sheep and goats in the Middle east being shepherded, the sheep will follow, but the goats always think, I think I know a better way to get to where we're going, right? And so when Jesus talks about me, like being sheep and having to follow the shepherd's voice, for me, the closet's the place to where I set aside each morning to say, lord, I really want to know the voice of my shepherd good word. And there's a lot of mornings where, man, I don't walk out of there with any revelatory anything. But there's times where, and you know, being in ministry, but even just following Jesus, you go to bed with heavy hearts and you wake up and you're pouring out your spirit to say, lord, I don't know what to do, or I'm burdened in this area or I'm seeking counsel for this or direction in this. And I've learned to, to hear the voice of my shepherd speak in that closet. Because Jesus says, amen. The end times, we're going to shift, sift the sheep from the goats, man. And I don't, I don't want to be the goat that wakes up thinking, I know a better way to do what needs to be done today as a husband, as a father, and especially in ministry as we're called to pastor and shepherd people. If I'm a goat figuring out a better way, then, man, I'm gonna be shepherding probably a bunch of other goats into a bad situation, you know. And so the closet for me is a place to hear the shepherd speak. [00:49:59] Speaker B: I think in ministry, somebody years ago, it might have been Rick Warren or somebody who said, you'd never go to bed with everything done that you wanted to get done that day, you know, so he said, just go ahead and get over that. [00:50:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:14] Speaker B: Because that doesn't happen. [00:50:15] Speaker A: Right. [00:50:16] Speaker B: And that was super helpful for me because I thought, well, it's happened in everything else I've done. But in ministry, there's always a conversation you could have had, you know, a note that you could have worked up better. [00:50:30] Speaker A: Email that didn't get read. [00:50:32] Speaker B: Yeah, there's always stuff. And so somewhere along the way, I learned how to just be okay if I got 80% of it done and. And, you know, go rest. Well, let him be God. I don't have to be. I don't have to be in charge. He can be in charge. And letting him carry that load and that burden. And then in sensing the voice of God and direction about things, just remembering that I'm always fallible. And if I have, you know, there's probably been three or four decisions and this could be totally different for you, but for me, there's probably been three or four decisions outside of like giving my life to Christ that I could say no, I could go to my grave swearing this was definitely what God. Like the person I married, I knew. It's like, I'm going to either marry her or die trying. Because this is what he said to do. It's called a ministry. It was like that. It did not feel like something that I had a vote in. It was like, you're going to do this. And he confirmed it in so many ways. But at most of the times when things day to day, to be able to have a level of humility to where I say, I think this is what God is saying, you know, this is where God is leading. I'm thinking about our viewers that are trying to figure out how to discern the voice of God. You don't have to. You rarely, I would say, have a slam dunk, you know, lights are flashing. [00:52:20] Speaker A: I know, I know, I know. Kind of moment. [00:52:22] Speaker B: Yeah, that happens. But if you wait on that Colin Powell, I think he said you, you generally go to war with 70% of the information. And most of the time it's that whole deal. It's a lamp unto our feet. You get what you need to go next and you don't have that clear spotlight out in front of you. Have you found that to be true? [00:52:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And one of the phrases I heard. So Pastor Adam Flint, he's on staff with Acts 29 and teaches at 1122 as well. He and I were spending some time recently and he used the phrase, I think it was like in his doctoral dissertation, he. He wrote about basically using the phrase, to the best that I can discern, here's what I feel like God's leading me to do. And that stuck with me because I think there are those times where I'm like, man, I know one. If we're walking with the father, Jesus says, you'll know the voice of your shepherd and you're not going to stray. So then there's something very practically real that, man, I can know the voice of my shepherd. Now, that takes intentionality and quiet. And all these things are really here. And there's times where, man, you know, you know, that the shepherd said to go or to do. And then there's some times where you said, I'm like, I'm pretty sure. And in prayer and then alignment with Scripture to the best that I can discern, here's what feels like the right thing to do. And I had a mentor years ago, say, and if you're wrong, don't think that God's grace isn't enough to say, well, that was. You were close, but we just got to veer back, you know, a little bit farther that way. But it's like, man, I've. [00:53:52] Speaker B: I tried, you know, and there are. There are also those things that. It's like when your. Your child ask, you know, dad, do I get the red lollipop or the blue lollipop? [00:54:02] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, good. [00:54:03] Speaker B: There. There are a lot of times where you're like, just pick one, baby. I don't. You know, it's good. I think there are a lot of times where in life, if we feel like we've got to have clear revelation about, you know, which car we buy or whatever, sometimes God is just saying, I've given you wisdom. Yeah, I've given you principles. Apply those, move forward. [00:54:28] Speaker A: Totally, totally. I agree with that, man. Yeah. Yeah. There's times where I think in big decisions, like uprooting your family and moving to plant a church. God, I need you to give me some really clear answers. That's a big decision. And there's a lot of decisions along the way since then, where I think it's to the best that I can discern with what you just said. I think it's a great word, like with the things and the tools that you've given me in Scripture and in wisdom. And this is what I feel like is the right decision. And so I think there's a place. [00:54:55] Speaker B: So in the whole. The whole plan of planting, what phase are you in right now? Are you, have you, have you started gatherings? Are you doing Lord's Day gatherings or are you. [00:55:06] Speaker A: Yeah, not yet. So we, so we are. I'd say we're, we're really in the building of the core team phase. So we're kind of set. We, we. We've pushed back to where we're planning to prob. Sometime late fall. October ish is kind of the target. Like October ish was when we're going to plant. And so of this year. Yeah. And so right now I'd say we're really into adding to and building our core group. There's about eight of us right now. And so we're over the next weeks and months. I mean, just, you know, we're talking about intentionally wasting time places, building and getting to know people and, and we'll begin to invite them into a space to do some more vision casts down the beaches area in the next, next coming months. And so core team is kind of the phase I'd say that we're at. Yeah. Core team and support raising and things like that. [00:55:49] Speaker B: And I know you kind of take the. God kind of assembles the team. Are there certain skill sets that you're praying for that you. [00:55:57] Speaker A: Oh, totally. Yeah. So. So, so back to the. The conversation with the pastor who talked about the having a holy discontent. He said, man, when we were planting and praying for a core team, he's like, I was super specific. I was like, God, I need people who are good with kids and good with students and good with finances and give with social media, give with, you know, whatever things are applicable for your church. And so I've taken that to heart. And so every morning I've got a journal that's kind of bullet points, the main prayer things that I don't want to forget each day. And when I get to the core team, I'm just specific. My God, we need people who are good with. And I kind of fill in those blanks. So, yeah, man, there's specific prayers of, of just here's what I feel like we need. And then again, you're going to organize the team. And so I need you to bring me what I don't even know that I need. Right. [00:56:40] Speaker B: You know, I know you. I know there's strategy and tactics. So the strategy itself, when you launch, you said you're looking at like, October timeframe. Will you launch, like open air? I know. I'm trying to think. Somebody told me you were doing something on the beach. Is that just more the outreach or do you plan to have a church on the beach? [00:57:03] Speaker A: No, not a church on the beach. So as far as, like, where I hope to meet, so, you know, building a core team, working through, you know, just deep diving of discipling those guys and training those guys for the next month, once we come to launch, we want to have a high emphasis on what we're going to call Acts groups, be your small groups or discipleship groups or whatever. We want to really be intentional building those out. Because it's my hope, and this is where that holy discontent comes from. When I read Acts chapter two, my hope is that hospitably opening a door to invite somebody to your dinner table is a lot more effective than just inviting somebody on a Sunday morning. Like, I can. If I invite you to my house for dinner, I'll probably get a yes out of you a lot more often out of 10 people than if I say, come to church with me on Sunday and you don't go to church. Right. And so I want us to be super intentional with building our AX groups, man. And the default being, well, what do we do, man? We're going to be devoted to his Word. We're going to break bread, we're going to pray, and we're going to fellowship. Like, if you have any questions of what do we do in Acts groups, we're going to eat, we're going to pray, we're going to get in the Word and we're going to commune together. Right? And so then from those ACTS groups, you know, we'll obviously have a traditional Sunday gathering. And for me, one of the clear things that I feel like the Lord's leading us to, to the best of my discernment, is to meet in a place that I feel like God said doesn't feel like church to the unchurched. And so we're praying for a specific place in the Jacksonville Beach Mayport area to say, lord, give us a building space that just doesn't feel like a church in steeple. Honestly, culturally, for where we are. I heard a stat recently that said once you cross onto the beach side, like, less than 30% of people even claim to be followers of Jesus or Christians. Oh, wow. And so I'm still, like, trying to verify some of those stats. But if that stat is true, just for the sake of the. The conversation, then then I really do think that God's word of get to meet in a place that doesn't feel churchy. So whether that's asking a CrossFit gym. Hey, can we use your gym floor on Sunday mornings? Can we? Pretty it up a little bit and meet in here or is there a, a local restaurant or like, what kind of context for a non believer in the beaches area is like, I don't really want to go to church, but I, I trust you. I've gotten to know you. I'll show up to that place. So there's kind of some strategy and what we want to do there. And so we're, we're just praying through that of what's kind of that environment that you want us to meet at on Sundays and then be really intentional with hospitality during the week in homes. [00:59:27] Speaker B: So the strategy that you have for ministry of intentionally hanging out and wasting time and building slowly in a lot of ways inviting people into your home, that's very different than, let's say the big launch of, you know, you do a quarter of a million in marketing and you know, you start big and Hope you retain 80% of that or whatever. But nonetheless, I'm assuming you eat and you have to make a house payment and all those kind of things. So in the funding aspect of it, how is that working? What is your strategy and do you have any kind of round numbers to say by October? Here's where we really need to be at? [01:00:22] Speaker A: Yep, yep, totally. So one of the things that you look back on the previous years of life and, and working for NG3, having to raise support at a lot smaller level. When my wife and I sat in the assessment for the SIN Network last October and they were talking about a lot of church planting stuff, and I remember my wife and I looked at each other, we're like, this is super exciting because this isn't a lot of brand new stuff. This is, you know, context and how it's a little bit different. There's some nuances, of course, but a lot of this stuff, like this is what we've been doing already. [01:00:51] Speaker B: And so where did you do your assessment? [01:00:53] Speaker A: We were at First Baptist Jacksonville. Okay. Yep. [01:00:57] Speaker B: I was supposed to be there. [01:00:58] Speaker A: How about that? [01:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah, something came up that, that cool. [01:01:00] Speaker A: Would have made it. [01:01:01] Speaker B: I was gonna be the, the preaching assessor. Right. [01:01:04] Speaker A: So yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, so we were there last October. [01:01:07] Speaker B: Did Josh Revis do it? [01:01:09] Speaker A: The guys that were there. [01:01:10] Speaker B: Okay. Was. He and I were working together on it. So I just wondered. [01:01:15] Speaker A: That's cool. [01:01:15] Speaker B: But that's cool, man. You went through that. [01:01:17] Speaker A: Yeah. And so we sat there, we thought, praise God. Like, we've been doing a lot of this stuff. And so when we sat down and started kind of praying about the number, like our little. How much money we need to raise to plan a church. We've kind of felt like $300,000 was kind of that right number. And so same thing. We had talked to Pastor Adam Flint and I were having a conversation a long time ago and I was like, man, is that, is that too much? Like, that sounds kind of crazy. And he's like, no, like, if anything, that's probably. Yeah, if anything, go above that. Right? And so we're like, cool. So the number that we kind of started praying for was $300,000. And so just since March of this last year, we just did our, our final numbers. We were able to raise a hundred thousand dollars just this year before we even moved and started. And so as a church, before we even launched, we were able to cut over $20,000 in missions giving, you know, to Hadassah's Hope and to some other global partners. And some people like, man, we want to help support, start supporting missions now, even though we're not lost, right? And so radical generosity is one of our, one of our core values. It's one of our family core values will be as a church. It's like, man, we're going to start giving long before because I've just seen God be faithful in that as a family, and I'm going to lead my church into that as well. And so for the next, you know, from now until October, the prayer that I've got is like, lord, will you press that down? And will you double, triple it or quadruple it? And so my hope is that between now and October, we'll raise another 200. That'll put us a little over $300,000, which to us is a really healthy number. There's a podcast, I wish I could remember the guy's name. He was giving some stats and he's like, they've basically found that for church plants, like $322,000 on average is kind of like the really healthy number that we've seen churches launch with. And I heard that, you know, a week ago, that's who it was. Yep, that's who it was. Yeah. So he's like that equivalents to like 500 people and $322,000. Like a super healthy. There's longevity there. And so I thought, praise God, man, that's been our target all along. [01:03:11] Speaker B: Was shocking. The number of the fall off rate of those that had less funding than that. You know, it really, it makes sense. I wonder sometimes with those stats. I think a lot of times you look at a church like ours Debt free. It has some good cash flow and has some money in the bank. So we can go out and we can put, you know, half a million into a church plant and started out, it'd be pretty successful. Give it time to, you know, Runway there. I wondered on those stats how much of it was. Was that, you know, but yeah. [01:03:50] Speaker A: Oh, gosh, man. I'll tell you, none of it has been. It has all been individuals. It's been other churches and it's been individuals. I mean, God's. So this goes back to the little prayer thing of God. I just trust if you can manifest manna in the desert and if you can take a couple pieces of fish and bread and you can feed again. Ray Vanderlin was talking like, we, we read that story of, of feeding the 5,000, and if you ask any Christian, do you believe that story is true? Like, all of us would say, yes, we believe that story is true. And he said, there's this rabbi one time that looked at the students. He goes, then why don't you live like it's true? Like, if you believe that you serve the rabbi who can multiply bread and fish, why don't you live like you trust that in your family or in your church or in whatever the context, right? And so that goes back to the whole prayer thing for us of God. I believe that that's the God that you are. And I believe that if you're calling us to do this, My dad has said this many times. I've heard him. He's like, if God calls you, he's going to cover it. And so I believe God, I know that you're calling us to do this thing. And so, like, Zach, I'll tell you, like, genuinely, there is not any angst in my spirit about, are we going to have enough money to do this thing, man, we went through a period of time, even this transition to where I was, like, halftime with the organization I was with. And then I knew this is the date where that paycheck ends. And I don't know what's going to happen in the way God's provided in the last six months for our family. It's just been unreal. And there's been. I remember specifically being in my kitchen and having about a two and a half second, like, spur of angst. And I thought, absolutely not. I will not allow that to begin to, to wig me out because I serve the Jesus who can multiply bread and fish. And so again, man, we saw $100,000 come in and we didn't we, we needed a little bit of that, but we've got money in the bank already. And so we're submitting budgets for actually the launch year. And I'm like, God, I just know that you're going to provide. And so that's been not at all through, like, one lump sum church saying, hey, we're back in. It's been through close friends of mine, it's been through family members, it's been through other churches, given, you know, some. Some gifts along the way. And so, I mean, accumulatively, God has pulled together the funding that we need thus far. And I'm like, lord, I'm just going to keep praying and I'm going to keep trusting that there's no limit to. [01:06:04] Speaker B: What you can do for that, because he is. It's unbelievable what we've seen God do in that regard. Unbelievable. When they brought me to this church and, you know, everybody's got their areas of spiritual strength or success or whatever. That's always been one where I've just been able to trust him. And he's always raised up the right people at the right time. But when they brought me to First Baptist, there were $12 million in debt. And so the search team said church was running like 425. And they said, how do you feel about, you know, a church of our size that's not making budget with $12 million in debt? I said, it'll be fine. And they said, if God's in it, if he's calling us here, he'll take care of that. And they said, well, you know, but how are you gonna. How are you gonna deal with that? And I said, I said, I look at it like, kind of like Willie Nelson told the irs, if you say it quick, it doesn't sound like that much. [01:07:13] Speaker A: That's awesome, man. So that's good. [01:07:16] Speaker B: It's not much to him. [01:07:17] Speaker A: No, it's not, man. If he owns the thousand cattle on the hillside, then I mean, man, he'll provide. And so that's where one of the convictions where during that fast where God's like, you rely on man's ability to meet that need more than you genuinely trust mine. And God has shifted that radically in my heart to say, man, we're going to go and make the asks to say, hey, will the church or the individual man, will you guys give to what we know is a kingdom, initiative of the Lord? And if you say, no, that's okay, man, praise God, because it's going to come from somewhere else. And so the Places that we've seen God give of people we've asked. And man, the, like, the end of year gifts that we had, people texting us on New Year's Eve saying, hey, we want to give a gift at the end of the year. I never asked these people for a dime. And we had tremendous amount of support come in on the last day of the year. And so we're like, amen. [01:08:05] Speaker B: So, you know, I know our church. As soon as we're done with this, you're going to meet with a lady to discuss support through our church. I know they're going to support on some level, but as far as individuals, if somebody said they're watching this two or three weeks from now and they say, man, that vision resonates with me, maybe they've got a daughter in Jack's beach and they want to invest, how would they go about that? [01:08:33] Speaker A: Yeah, the easiest way to give right now is you can go to thegatheringjacks.com the gathering, Jax. Jax.com and on the menu tab, we've got a give link. So we've got all that stuff set up to where super easy to give there. That's probably the easiest way to. To tell viewers to. To contribute that way. [01:08:49] Speaker B: Okay. And. And as far as prayer goes, you know, when it's praying toward October. [01:08:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:54] Speaker B: And toward that core team building. [01:08:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Just continue to pray. Yeah. Support raising and core team. And. And then just. Just for God to really localize the specific location of where we'll gather on Sunday. [01:09:05] Speaker B: Absolutely. You never know. I mean, the. I've got two or three ideas I'll give you after the show's over, but that people that I know down there that may have a facility they would love to have in. So love it. And people watching, you know, is your contact on there? Can they reach out to you? [01:09:23] Speaker A: Yeah, email address, stuff like. That's all on the website. [01:09:25] Speaker B: We'll put all that in the show notes and. [01:09:26] Speaker A: Perfect. [01:09:28] Speaker B: Well, brother, our prayers are with you. [01:09:29] Speaker A: Pastor Zach, thanks. This is awesome. [01:09:31] Speaker B: Let's do this again maybe in a year and see. See how things have gone. [01:09:34] Speaker A: Super exciting. Thank you guys for having me. [01:09:35] Speaker B: Thank you, bud. [01:09:36] Speaker A: Yep.