How Baseball Is Opening Doors for the Gospel

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam, [00:00:30] Speaker B: Brian, welcome to Code Red. [00:00:32] Speaker A: Thank you. I'm honored to be here. [00:00:34] Speaker B: I have to remember, and I'm going to be careful. We want to not say too much about what you're doing and where you're located and all of that. You're serving on the mission field. Serving in Spain. [00:00:46] Speaker A: Serving in Spain. [00:00:47] Speaker B: But we don't want to aggravate any persecution or any problems locally there for you. [00:00:52] Speaker A: Right. [00:00:53] Speaker B: So you grew up in Missouri. How did you come to know Christ? [00:00:58] Speaker A: I grew up with Christian mom and dad in a small town in a town called Cahoka, Missouri. And we were part of First Baptist Cahoka there every time the doors were open. My dad was a deacon. And even from a really young age, I remember believing that God was real. My mom loved to listen to Christian radio everywhere we went. So the voices of Chuck Swindoll and James Dobson were in my ears all the time. [00:01:24] Speaker B: I came to Christ through radio. [00:01:26] Speaker A: Really. [00:01:27] Speaker B: I love to hear that. Our radio ministry is something we spend a lot of time on because of people like her that are discipled through that. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Yeah. I even remember my mom loved to go visit the folks in the nursing home. She had a real heart. Still has a real heart for people in the nursing home. And I remember sitting outside the nursing home listening to Christian radio as a little guy and realizing I needed a savior. Church camp is another big part of my story. And I could take you to the exact spot of a small Baptist association church camp where I remember praying, God, I don't deserve your forgiveness, but I need it. Those were really important moments in my life. But as I grew, had doubts and wondered if I truly believed as a young guy or not. So I couldn't probably say the exact day that it happened. But through Christian parents, through a healthy local church, God saved me. [00:02:25] Speaker B: Amen. Was there a time when missions was kind of placed on your radar? [00:02:32] Speaker A: Yeah, that was one beautiful thing about that church was that we would have missionaries come in and talk. And I was part of RAS on Tuesday night. I don't know if that still exists. [00:02:43] Speaker B: How old are you, Brian? [00:02:43] Speaker A: I'm 41. [00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah, there's not many 41 year olds that remember as RAs, but Julie was [00:02:49] Speaker A: GA GA Girls in Action. [00:02:52] Speaker B: I grew up in a missionary Baptist church, so they didn't have all that. But I've heard so many people, I wonder why they quit. Because it was such a good program, it seems like. [00:03:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it was kind of like a Christian Boy Scouts, but our pastor, we would make boxcars and birdhouses and rake leaves for the old ladies in church. And he would always tell missionary stories in Ras on Tuesday after school. And I was fascinated when missionaries would come and tell their stories. I was actually telling this story with somebody at the global impact celebration that we just had this weekend that my perspective was I want to be a missionary even as a little kid because I wanted to go help people and I got to go on short term trips. I got to go help build houses for poor people in rural remote parts of Jamaica with my great uncle and my dad, which really had a big impact on me. And I remember all the other guys, I was a teenager at that point. All the other guys couldn't wait to get back to Missouri or Illinois. And they were, they were hanging in there and doing their work, but they weren't loving it. And I was loving it. And I was like, I just don't want to go back. And I think God put something in me that I've always been interested in people who are different than I am. And from other places I was gravitated towards kids who didn't look like me. Maybe being from a small town and just having a curiosity for what was outside. But when I was in high school, providentially, somebody gave me a book. I was 17 years old working at a Christian church camp as a counselor and the pastor, the preacher there for the week at the church camp, he gave me a copy of Loved by God by R.C. sproul and desiring God by John Piper. No, I'm sorry. Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper. And those books really changed my paradigm. [00:04:40] Speaker B: You would think those are heavy books [00:04:42] Speaker A: for a young guy, 17 year old. But it changed my life to shift from we do missions because people need it, because there are suffering people out there in the world which are true motivations. But the idea that God deserves to be known and worshiped all around the world and he's not known to go kind of from a person centered view of missions to a God's glory centered view of view of mission. So I went to college and majored in English because I figured if I majored in English I could go anywhere in the world and any country, even closed countries would accept me. And so that's. Those are some things that God really used. [00:05:17] Speaker B: Was so much of your ministry now is related to sports and baseball in particular. Was that a passion as a child? [00:05:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I've loved baseball forever. Being from Missouri, St. Louis Cardinals were a big part of our family. Summer rhythms going down to the Cardinals games. [00:05:35] Speaker B: What's your position on no, no, no. Pete Rose was the Reds, right? [00:05:38] Speaker A: He was the Reds, Yeah. Yeah. [00:05:40] Speaker B: You got a theory on should he be in the hall of Fame or not? [00:05:43] Speaker A: Oh, I think it. I would say the hall of Fame is not a hall of perfect people. And so I would probably put Pete Roseanne as the all time hit king. [00:05:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:57] Speaker A: And I would have it on his plaque. [00:05:58] Speaker B: I don't disagree. What he did put an asterisk there. [00:06:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And the guys who took steroids and the guys who had all other kinds of things in their life, I'd put them in. [00:06:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I had a. Growing up, I was a card collector and so I remember. Who was it? Mark McGuire's USA rookie card. When I got that, that was kind of a holy grail moment for me. And you know, when he broke the record and then it came out that he was on the Juice and all of that, man, it was such a. But back then, you know, you have Mike Tyson, you've got Jordan, and it's like, I don't know that anybody was all natural at that point, you know, but there was a moment of disillusion to where it was like, what do I do with my childhood? [00:06:42] Speaker A: Right, right. I was 13 that summer when he broke the records. Him and Sammy Sosa and Ken Griffey Jr. I would wake up every morning, watch SportsCenter and wanted to see who and yeah, for. [00:06:53] Speaker B: Do you remember Mark McGwire when he hit that ball, he missed first base. [00:06:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And came back and touched it. [00:07:00] Speaker B: The ref made or the coach made him go back and touch it. And I was watching CNN after that. Larry King. It's funny, I do what I do now, always. When I was a kid, I watched Larry King and he asked one of the major umpires why on national television, because obviously it went over the fence. It was a home run. Why did they make him go back and touch first base? He said very simply, that's the rules. So I've used that in evangelism to say, doesn't matter how faithful you are in second and third, when you get home, if you didn't touch first, which is meeting Jesus, God's going to call you out. It'll preach. [00:07:38] Speaker A: It's the truth. It's the truth. [00:07:40] Speaker B: So when you began to consider missions as a full time calling, Right. At that point, had you met your bride? [00:07:52] Speaker A: No. Our first conversation, we were both freshmen in college. Our first conversation was about a lot of things, but one of the topics was how we each dreamed to be missionary. [00:08:02] Speaker B: So she was there as well. [00:08:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:03] Speaker B: And was she local or was she? [00:08:05] Speaker A: No, we're both from Missouri, but about 400 miles between our two hometowns. So opposite corners. Yeah. [00:08:11] Speaker B: So what kind of preparation did God take you through? Did you do college? Seminary? What did that look like? [00:08:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I went to Southern Baptist College called Hannibal Lagrange University. Majored in English, but tried to take as many Bible classes as I could there and had some great professors. Very involved in a local church where Cassie and I led the children's ministry for a few years and then later helped plant a new church where we had a small group in our house and I served as a deacon. So a lot of church preparation. And I tell friends that being part of helping to plant that church was the best pre field training for me because the intentionality and the way to plant a church, you really have to orient your life around reaching people. And then I took some seminary classes at rts, Charlotte Reformed Theological Seminary. I don't have a degree from there, but I've done some classes and I'd love to continue. [00:09:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great school. So how did you go from there to the field? Like how did you decide? I've always thought that's a tricky season in a missionary's life, deciding to go independently or to go with an organization. But how did you make that decision? Obviously prayer. [00:09:27] Speaker A: But sure, yeah, prayer. We tried to have a lot of conversations with our pastor and the elder team. We wanted their voice loud and clear and naively. When we were young married, we thought maybe we'll just move somewhere and we'll just live there and be there on our own. And we learned quickly wisdom from older folks saying you have to have an agency, someone's got to get you ready. So we explored various agencies and man, we did not have a sense of there's one country, one people group. Some people have that real burden for one part of the world. But we were open and the Lord through prayer and conversation made it clear to go with the agency that we're with now. It's a non denominational agency based out of the Northeast and we love them, have been with them for 16 years now. [00:10:15] Speaker B: Do they specialize in sports? [00:10:17] Speaker A: They do not, no. They'll do anything around the world. They always want to see a church planted. But there's medical missions, education, evangelism, discipleship, all kinds of things. But trying to focus on a local church being planted. I was a high school teacher, English teacher, and I was a part time coach and my wife worked at a bank and we had a couple little babies and we said, we'll go anywhere. And they asked us to consider a country in Africa at first. And we thought, full steam ahead, that's where we're going. I'll mentor these young men. And I was so excited. And the Lord closed that door and they said, would you consider Spain? And I thought, missionaries don't really go to Spain. You go on vacation to Spain. Cassie and I both had to see it with our own eyes and be educated about how post Christian a lot of Europe is right now. There was a strong Christian presence. Culturally, there's a lot of still history with the beautiful cathedrals and everything, but Spain is really a place that's very spiritually dark. And our hearts just, in a surprising way were broken for Spain. And in 2012 is when we moved there, but awesome. It was a long journey with a lot of prayer and inviting feedback from people who know better than we do. [00:11:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I've met some missionaries who from their earliest days have sort of an idea of where they're going to go. But more and more, I'm meeting people who are just open, you know, who needs the gospel? Where can we serve in the greater work of the Lord? In a place strategically. [00:11:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:49] Speaker B: And so when you went to Spain, were you thinking sports ministry as an open door? [00:11:55] Speaker A: Not at all. Knowing that baseball's not a big thing in Spain, I figured that was just kind of part of my life that I needed to lay down and that was okay. But our oldest son really loves baseball as well. He and I would play catch in the park, and through friends, we found out about a place to go play. And so I started to dream a little bit. There's an open field. I didn't even know in our city there was an open field like this with grass. So we started to play and I put up signs and said, oh, I'd love to start a kids league. So I just wanted to teach little kids how to play baseball. [00:12:26] Speaker B: Are they aware of, like, do they know what baseball is? [00:12:28] Speaker A: Yeah, they've seen it on tv. [00:12:30] Speaker B: So it's not like rugby to me. Like, I really don't know what they're doing out there. [00:12:35] Speaker A: Well, it's similar that they. They've heard the name, They've. They know to bat. [00:12:40] Speaker B: They don't know who the players are, the teams and all that. [00:12:42] Speaker A: Okay? No, no. Immigrants who moved to Spain from South America do understand baseball, but Spanish people don't. And so my plan was just to teach little kids baseball. But it grew. The dads came, the dads wanted to play. So it really exceeded my expectations, but I had no goals or dreams to start a baseball ministry. [00:13:02] Speaker B: How do you leverage that for the gospel? [00:13:06] Speaker A: When we moved to Spain in 2012, we were given good advice that people are very distrusting of religion, of Christians, because of things they've seen and lived through there. And so we try to be prudent and wise to earn trust and then talk about Jesus, demonstrate love, and then talk about Jesus. And I thought with baseball, let's just take a risk. Let's see if I can talk about Jesus from the first day and freak anybody out. And so far, we haven't pushed anybody away. So when folks come, we try to say, we're here because we love Jesus. We'd love to tell you about Jesus. [00:13:40] Speaker B: I appreciate that. I think sometimes, unintentionally, a missionary can almost come across like a bait and switch. [00:13:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:48] Speaker B: And it's like, oh, I thought you wanted me to know baseball. Yeah, you really have something else. And that can almost discredit the gospel if we're not careful. So I really appreciate you doing it that way. [00:13:58] Speaker A: A friend said to me, he said, let's not spend our whole lives building the bridge and then never walk over it. [00:14:02] Speaker B: Amen. [00:14:03] Speaker A: And that's a good challenge to make sure. I do feel like if no one's ever been put off that I talked about it too soon, am I taking enough risks? Because we all get nervous. No matter how long you've been a Christian, you don't want to push anyone away or be weird. So I need to take that risk. But the kind of person who will come play baseball usually is in our city is a person who's looking for community, looking for friends. And so I think that represents kind of what Jesus was all about. People who were sometimes on the margins and without a community. I think if your life was all put together, you'd be playing soccer like everybody else. [00:14:45] Speaker B: Right. Good word. So I know when Billy Graham would go into an area, like when he went into Portland, his team would spend months learning the people who were there and what their disposition was toward the gospel and religion in general. And Portland, for example, was very private. You would have people who were committed believers, but they didn't speak about it. And so that changed the way he approached evangelism in Portland. Spain has a 2000 year history of Christianity, good and bad. Strong Catholic presence in Spain. What else did you learn historically that flavors the mission field there? [00:15:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Spain, in a lot of ways, is a young country because of a civil war they had in a dictatorship that they had following that civil war. So the current constitution has only been in place since the late 1970s. [00:15:45] Speaker B: Really? [00:15:46] Speaker A: Yeah. So I didn't realize that very young in the current constitution and democracy. So the Civil war is a phenomenal thing in the sense that people were killing each other on each side. And when the civil war was over, there was this unspoken agreement to not talk about it anymore. Neighbors who used to be against neighbors. And we just turned the page. [00:16:10] Speaker B: Wow. [00:16:11] Speaker A: And we just. We're going to have a democracy and a constitution from one day to the next. So that creates a spirit of distrust. That creates a spirit of, I'm not going to talk about the hard things and be honest about my past. So when folks think about religion, they remember there was a dictator who forced everyone to be Catholic for generations. There was nothing else you could do. You couldn't have any kind of evangelical or Protestant church meeting. There's an old lady, a friend of mine invited her to church and she said, young man, I don't even go to the real church. I'm not going to go to yours. So evangelicals or Protestants are viewed as, you know, kind of the minor leagues or a cult. We get lumped in with Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses as a cult. So you got to spend a lot of time saying, actually we take the Bible seriously. We love Jesus. We are not Mormons, we are not Jehovah's Witnesses. We don't have some kind of. [00:17:08] Speaker B: Do they have a big presence there? [00:17:09] Speaker A: Unfortunately they do. Yeah. [00:17:11] Speaker B: I wasn't aware of that. [00:17:12] Speaker A: Yeah, Jehovah's Witnesses especially are out on the street a lot with really well done displays asking questions like, how do you have peace with God? Or how can you get eternal life? And their literature is very well done. So it's a heartbreaking thing to me. The people who get deceived by Jehovah's [00:17:28] Speaker B: Witnesses, do you see a difference between what would be to us, like our grandparents generation in Spain here, you know, it's almost like three different people groups. My age, my parents, grandparents age, and then my kids and the things that they're dealing with and thinking through. There's not much crossover there. The questions they're asking are specific. Do you see that in Spain or is it an American phenomenon? [00:17:56] Speaker A: I'm hearing something the last couple years post Covid really is there is a spiritual hunger and openness in Spain's young people. I think a lot of it has to do with the Internet and social media. There's a desire for answers that Wasn't true for the generations before them. So there is a hunger for things in a fresh way. That's the most encouraging thing that I see and I think well done Christians who create content. That's well done. It's having an impact. [00:18:29] Speaker B: It's very important. Tell me about the experience of your family. At what age were your kids when you made the move and how has the transition been for them? [00:18:40] Speaker A: Yeah, each kid is a world. They each have their own ups and downs. But when we moved there in 2012, we had a four year old boy, a three year old girl and a one year old boy. So very young. We were 27. [00:18:52] Speaker B: Tough time to move. [00:18:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And our oldest son, he had a hard time. Missed his grandparents a lot of since then. Now we've had two more boys born. So we've got five kids total, four boys and a girl. After a couple years, our kids started to thrive, but the first year was really hard. [00:19:09] Speaker B: Is that common in Spain to have larger families? [00:19:12] Speaker A: No, no. We really stand out. [00:19:13] Speaker B: Okay. I wondered because it's like you got the Mormons and the Catholics. You have five kids. That's probably adding to it a little bit. [00:19:21] Speaker A: There's some serious Catholic families that have four, four or five kids. You'll see that. But in general, a married couple will have 0 or 1 children most of the time. [00:19:29] Speaker B: It's awesome to hear that God's given you so many kids, especially on the mission field. [00:19:34] Speaker A: I'm so grateful. Yeah. [00:19:36] Speaker B: So some of them, a couple of them, that's all they've ever known. [00:19:39] Speaker A: Right. Essentially grown up on the field. [00:19:42] Speaker B: What are the challenges that they're facing? [00:19:45] Speaker A: I always ask for prayer for our kids to have Christian friends sometimes in their schools. We've done everything. We've done parochial school, public school, private school, Montessori school, depending on the kid and their needs. And when we were back in the States for a time, we did homeschool. We've done it all. And I always ask for prayer for Christian friends sometimes in their schools. They're the only Christian. A couple of our boys as little guys, when it hits them and they'll say, are all my friends going to hell? And so I pray for them to not feel the burden that they have to save everyone that they can trust Jesus with their friends. But that's, I think the richness in America of having godly examples, other Christian friends your age is a real privilege. If you have a church, that would [00:20:35] Speaker B: be a cool thing. I've never thought about it, but to think about when we do A gic. And the kids are there to get them around our teenagers so that they can build those relationships. This week, Tom Nelson preached. On Sunday, we were talking after the service, a little girl walks in. Zach Zetler, who is our children's pastor's daughter, her best friend on the planet, goes to Tom's church. And I don't think they've met, but a few times. They know each other through gaming or something, you know, they connected. They're both Christians. This kid's a faithful believer at Denton and she's here. And we live in a time where that can happen. Right, right. But I've never thought about when you guys come in, Julie. I don't know how much Julie and your wife talked about it, but her passion before we met was to go to the mission field. And so she had this heart of teaching the kids of missionaries overseas. And I bet if we got together, got our heads together on it, we could figure out how to do that. You know, you guys, kids are plugged in over there. They're able to get online and our kids are so. Yeah, I bet we could. [00:21:53] Speaker A: Well, the Wood family, who's come over on short term trips, Josh is a pastor here, his two sons are friends with my boys and his daughter Jada and my daughter Cora went out and got a hamburger the other night. And school, it was, it was cool to have a friend, a built in friend. [00:22:09] Speaker B: Yeah, we need to, we need to foster that because that could be a, that could be a big win that we would not have a hard time making that happen, you know, because our kids are fascinated with it. You know Hernan, who was on previously. [00:22:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:22] Speaker B: He's one of my best friends in the world. [00:22:24] Speaker A: Okay. [00:22:24] Speaker B: And our kids have grown up together, so they're all Instagram buddies and they're texting back and forth and they're all in that stage to where his oldest has gotten married and ours have begun to move out, go into their careers. So they're cheering one another on. And we went down on our sabbatical, we went to Honduras on our sabbatical, which is not where you typically go on sabbatical, but we went to Roatan, little island off the coast, and we flew over and took the kids and they spent a week with the Sierras, you know, and that, that does something that gives them an advantage of just having friends in another country, not to mention all that they can learn about each other's, how they're growing in their faith and how they're navigating life, you [00:23:14] Speaker A: know, it makes life richer. [00:23:16] Speaker B: It does. It's been a treasure for our kids, but I bet we could replicate that. What else do you see that a church could do, a local church here could do to serve and make? You heard the illustration of if you go down, and I don't love this, but I get it, if you're going down in the hole, we'll hold the rope. Spain. I think we can look at the mission field wrong, you know, seeing it as you're marching into this horrible place. It's a beautiful place, beautiful people that need Jesus, you know, but as you're going, how can we better serve as a sending church, a supporting church? [00:23:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Every time now, FB first has sent two teams. Every time a team comes, I think that really builds the trust. And I get a sense that the folks here who are praying for us pray so much more seriously now that they've seen their own eyes. I said to a Sunday school class, if you're taking a vacation, just come see us for a day. You don't have to do a whole mission trip to our city, but if you're in another part of Spain, come see us for a day. It'll change your prayer life. There are little things that folks who actually read our updates, which I, you know, you can see how many people open that email, the folks who actually read it and just write back, we are praying for you. A lady here came up to me and she said, I've been praying for this and this. Specific things that I said, and it meant a lot to me to say, you actually, that's awesome. You actually did it. [00:24:45] Speaker B: And missionaries, they're not one size fits all, you know, you have a unique personality. Your wife has a unique personality. We've got missionaries that we've supported that Julie connected. We have a young lady in Afghanistan and she's in a very secret work over there, but she's a single lady, Julie's age. They've connected and it's just like it would be anywhere else. What friendship looks like for her is different than Gabby and Julie, you know, and so it's been interesting to see. Like I would not have thought when we began this conversation, you've mentioned three or four things from the books you've read to where you've studied and all that, that we have some commonalities there. I would not have presumed that of a missionary doing what you're doing and learning that, giving an opportunity to just unpack some of those things. It's not that. Well, he's a missionary. I Need to be nice to him. Now we have some real things in common that you can build on, but you've got to have conversations to do it. [00:26:02] Speaker A: You've got to spend time. [00:26:04] Speaker B: What else comes to mind? [00:26:05] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. The prayer, the encouragement, the seeing us face to face. You all have been an incredible partner church. When the mission team here hears about our lives, I think those folks are always trying to think, who can I connect this to? How can I network what's going on in Brian and Cassie's life with somebody here? And it's all about relationships. [00:26:29] Speaker B: How did you meet the Ericksons? [00:26:31] Speaker A: The Ericksons are my wife's aunt and uncle. [00:26:34] Speaker B: Oh, I didn't realize that. [00:26:35] Speaker A: Aunt Retta. [00:26:37] Speaker B: Well, and she's got a. Is she. She was on the board for one of the major missions agencies. [00:26:44] Speaker A: Yes. [00:26:44] Speaker B: Is she on the board for yours? [00:26:46] Speaker A: She was on the board for our agency. [00:26:48] Speaker B: She's such a great asset for a. Not for profit. [00:26:51] Speaker A: Yeah, she's incredible. [00:26:52] Speaker B: We're like, there's part of us that goes, so we've got the church and we've got Code Red. I've got her plugged in with some stuff with the church or maximum life, it's like. But, man, we try to share her, you know, from Walmart, all the things they learned in logistics and organizations, they're [00:27:10] Speaker A: huge assets to have that life experience and a genuine love for people and desire just to bless others. Praise God. [00:27:20] Speaker B: What about visits? We've sent a couple of teams over. Is that something? I've. I've talked to some guys that say it's helpful, but we can't do it every week. [00:27:31] Speaker A: Right. [00:27:31] Speaker B: So what level of. How often would you like to see a team come over? [00:27:36] Speaker A: Right now we have opportunities for three times a year, two baseball camps and one English camp. I'd be open to more of that. More mature people who have experience traveling are easier to. If somebody's really stressed out and they've never been before, it's more work. The more time somebody comes, the easier and the bigger blessing it is. [00:27:58] Speaker B: That makes sense. [00:27:58] Speaker A: But I'm a big believer in your church is coming over to see you in person. Builds that, blesses both ways. [00:28:05] Speaker B: So, you know, I hope our people are watching. I think they will be, but I told you that these things get a lot of views and there's a lot of other pastors and church members that are watching and I don't know how much we can share about how if they just, you know, strange when God moves your heart to support somebody or get to know them a little better. What would be the best way if they sense that, what would be the best way for them to connect with you? Should they go through us to do that or not? [00:28:38] Speaker A: I think they can go through the church. We have good communication. [00:28:42] Speaker B: We'll put our links down and an email at the church. They can reach out to us if they want to learn more. Can they get on your email out? [00:28:52] Speaker A: They can. [00:28:52] Speaker B: So we can share that? [00:28:54] Speaker A: Totally. [00:28:54] Speaker B: Okay. What else could we do? How could we pray for you? [00:28:59] Speaker A: I would love prayer for our church. I love our church. [00:29:02] Speaker B: Tell me about your church. [00:29:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it is a church plant in a lot of ways. Still kind of a teenager. We have on a normal Sunday, maybe about 130 people. [00:29:12] Speaker B: That's impressive. [00:29:15] Speaker A: You can pray for us to know what to do with that number. [00:29:19] Speaker B: I never dreamed you would say that number. I was thinking probably 30, 40, which would be a successful church. [00:29:28] Speaker A: I remember one August church service back in 2012 when we had first moved to Spain and worship was a CD player, My wife and I and three little kids. One Spanish guy off the street who walked in and one single lady, another cross cultural worker lady. And I remember thinking to myself, what are we doing here? [00:29:47] Speaker B: So do you teach there? [00:29:49] Speaker A: I do. [00:29:49] Speaker B: Okay. Are you the primary teacher? [00:29:51] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's one reason you can pray for us is since June, I'm the lead pastor. The planter was another missionary. He's moved back to the States and we miss him. And I'm learning, drinking from a fire hydrant on how to be a lead pastor. So we have a good elder board. There's three other guys who are elders and they're a huge blessing. I couldn't. Couldn't do it without them, but I feel my need. So when I say something you can do for us is pray for us. The church has grown, which surprises me in spite of me in these last few months. And we're asking ourselves, do we need to do a second service? How do we manage this growth in a healthy way? And I often find myself, I don't know what to do. [00:30:32] Speaker B: Well, I do as well. I feel the same way. But if we can help in any way, we will as a resource. But I could probably introduce you to people who solved that problem in your context. So much of it is introducing friends to friends. Would it be okay if I prayed for you now? Please, Father. We began by just lifting up the people of Spain. Lord. On the heart of Paul. Father. Taking the gospel there. Jonah going there with the truth of God's word. And Father now Brian and Cassie. Lord, we just pray that you would prepare the field. It seems you've already done that. You've given them great fruit. But Father, we pray that you would continue to glorify yourself. God, I think about the books that he read early on as Piper said that missions exist because worship does not. There are people there in Spain that should be worshiping Jesus. And Father, we pray that through Brian's work and Cassie's work that they would meet him, they would fall madly in love with him that they would put him before all else and God that their tribe would just increase rapidly and greatly for your glory. And God that when we get to heaven we would meet many Spaniards that know Jesus, that are our brothers and sisters. And it's in that mighty majestic name of Jesus that we pray these things. Amen. [00:32:00] Speaker A: Amen. [00:32:01] Speaker B: Brother, thank you for joining me on Code Red. [00:32:03] Speaker A: Thank you. It's a privilege.