Legacy, Leadership, and the Local Church: A Conversation with Patrick Coats

[00:00:09] Speaker A: You know, I've heard a lot of stories about preachers, kids crashing out what helped me. Even though I had a grandfather who loved me well, who I sat on his lap during ministry, it was still a hard thing to walk under his light right in ministry until I found out that my identity was in Christ. And that gave me the freedom to just be Patrick. [00:00:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Welcome to Code Red. I'm your host, Zach Terry. On this episode, we are welcoming Patrick Coates. Patrick is a regional catalyst for the Florida Baptist Convention. He has a tremendous impact from where we serve in North Florida, really South Georgia, all the way down Cleveland, close to Miami. He's reaching people from every stripe, every ethnicity, and he's helping the kingdom grow. He also has a tremendous book that he's written about being the grandson of a prominent pastor in Miami, of a. At its time, a mega church down in Miami, and the impact that had him growing up in that home. You're going to want to hear his story and share it with others. Welcome to Code Red. Patrick Coates, welcome to Code Red Studio. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Man, it's great to be here, Zach. Thanks for the invite. [00:01:38] Speaker B: You've been over. You've worshiped with us a few times over at First Baptist, and. But I don't think you've been here, have you? We haven't had you in the studio. [00:01:44] Speaker A: This is incredible. [00:01:45] Speaker B: So we've. We've done this for maybe a year, and we, as I was explaining earlier, we try to do it on the church campus, but we'd have to set it up and tear it down with every episode, and then you have to worry about kids at the school and all that. So this gave us a little bit of separation so we can focus and do one thing. Well, you know, you are the catalyst for the eastern region of the Florida Baptist Convention or Association. How would you say it? [00:02:12] Speaker A: Yeah, everybody. Everybody struggles with that title. Yeah, I'm basically one of the. Several years ago, 10 years ago, and you were part of this transition. The convention moved from everything out of Jacksonville to kind of having leaders, directors, state convention directors in the field that lived in the neighborhood, understood the context, and so they came up with the title Catalyst to kind of be the guy that kind of stirs up, listens to what churches are doing and stirs up ministry activity. And. And so I'm the East Region Catalyst, which is from Fernandina beach all the way down to Stewart, actually. So I have the largest geographical area. [00:02:53] Speaker B: Well. And you have a great reputation. [00:02:54] Speaker A: Oh, man. [00:02:55] Speaker B: And you've been a great help to all of our churches, we appreciate you a lot of our people, and I'm sure this is just true all over Florida. But at First Baptist, we've got people who. The majority of our people came from the Catholic background. So that's always a learning curve for them a little bit for us. And when they look at what Southern Baptists are doing, their math goes to the Catholic ecclesiology. So take a minute and help us understand the difference between like an association, a state convention, sbc. How are we set up differently than the traditional orthodox approach? [00:03:32] Speaker A: Yeah, and everybody confuses this. So what makes Southern Baptist special is the local church autonomy. We use that word that's kind of the underpinning words in Southern Baptist life, where instead of there being ecclesiastical top, like the Pope and everything is handed down, the local church drives everything we do. We learn from what you guys are doing. And our goal is not to kind of tell you what to do, but to partner with you to help you bring resources around prayer and help you do it better. So the local church drives everything. And so you got the local church autonomy and then you got the local association. And each of these entities are self governed. They have their own power structure, meaning with their board, executive committees, and we partner together. Then there's the state convention. So you have the church, the local association, the state convention, and then nationally, which only meets two days a year to do business. All of those partnerships works together along with our international mission agencies and North American Mission Board, which does our mission statewide. And so each one of those are self governed, but we partner together to help, you know, strengthen the church's common mission. Yeah, yeah. [00:04:52] Speaker B: And I think about. [00:04:53] Speaker A: It's. [00:04:54] Speaker B: It's difficult for, I think, other movements to understand sometime the. Each one of these institutions, each one of these conventions, they are autonomous of one another. [00:05:06] Speaker A: Right. [00:05:06] Speaker B: So like the state convention really has no authority over what first coast churches is doing. And our church, even though we give to the first coast, we're not. It's two separate entities, so they don't have to get our approval for anything. And it's a unique deal and we've been fortunate in Florida. And I know I haven't met a pastor or state worker yet that didn't agree that we just got a great community here. That whether it's pastors in Miami or, you know, we're really South Georgia up here, but there's a. There's a camaraderie and a like mindedness. Yeah, we don't have a lot of arguments here. I mean, people seem to Be agreeing on the important things. And if there's disagreement, they just let each other kind of coexist and do their thing. Yeah, and that's been special. [00:05:57] Speaker A: No, that's been incredible. And I serve in some of the national spaces and I get to travel around with the National African American Fellowship. And yeah, Florida is different. Like our unity and our meetings is not contentious as brothers and sisters coming together because we have our shared mission and we keep the main thing. The main thing. Christ is at the center of everything we do. [00:06:21] Speaker B: You mentioned you served for the African American Fellowship. Your grandfather was kind of a trailblazer in bringing predominantly African American Baptist churches into the SBC in the state of Florida. Tell us about him and his impact on you. [00:06:38] Speaker A: Yeah, so my grandfather was the first African American to join the Florida Baptist Convention in Florida. And so he joined, I think, in the 60s somewhere. And. And he was a influencer. How did that. [00:06:53] Speaker B: How did that happen? [00:06:54] Speaker A: Man going tell you, this is a. [00:06:56] Speaker B: It can be easy. [00:06:57] Speaker A: This is. This was during the Martin Luther King time. So this was when the height of tensions, Civil rights movement, Jim Crow, all that stuff. [00:07:05] Speaker B: King was coming to St. Augustine, Jacksonville. [00:07:09] Speaker A: We, you know, so what happened was he had two white pastors at his church. There were three large churches in Miami, Riverside, White, which was led by Pastor E.M.T. ore First Baptist of Parine, which is Christ Fellowship Church now, which was led by Tommy Watson, were friends of his and they just loved each other. They were brothers. In fact, one of the things at my grandfather's funeral in 2002, Em, they were so close that he said at the funeral, he said, if. If Joe Coates was. If I saw him on the news and they were reporting that he robbed the bank and he had the bag in his hand, I would think that he was helping the robber, you know, come to Jesus. He was. He was holding it to turn him in and help him turn himself in. That's. That's what he thought of. And so those guys saw what he was doing, told him about the programs that we had in our convention. And that's what makes our convention great. Is two things, in my opinion. Well, three, our disaster relief, our Compassion Ministries are equipping our helping churches to better reach their contacts and think about how to create programs and such. And I'll come back to my grandfather about that. But then also our missions, you know, you can participate in reaching lostness in places that you could never go to. [00:08:39] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:39] Speaker A: And so we're second to none in that. And I'm just bragging on us with that. But my grandfather, they introduced a Sunday school program back then that they couldn't get to work, and he bought into it, applied it, put that thing on his church, and literally. And this is not preacher's number, Zach. Literally. When I grew up, our Sunday school at Glendale Baptist Church in Miami had 1500 people on campus. [00:09:09] Speaker B: That's incredible. [00:09:10] Speaker A: My Sunday school class was on the puppet bus with three other classes, so they used every space on the campus. There were classes on the lawn and circles. It was radical. And so they gave him a program that, in theory, they had, but he made it work. And so he went around during his time talking about how to develop and reach church through Sunday school, which was bent towards evangelism more than discipleship back then. And so that relationship with those white brothers who, when the church grew, they went to the bank, and as he told me, they told the president, Carol Murphy, at Coconut Grove bank, get Joe Coates and Glendale, whatever they need, our churches would vouch for you. [00:09:55] Speaker B: That's awesome. [00:09:55] Speaker A: And so those love relationships, they have figured something out way back in the 60s that we're still struggling with today. [00:10:01] Speaker B: That's amazing. That's amazing. Is Sunday school in a historically black church? Is it. Is that normal to have small groups? [00:10:10] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. [00:10:11] Speaker B: Because I think, you know, growing up, dad. My dad would be Paul Bear and some of African American funerals, and he was the one white guy, and we would go, and we were just like, it's so different than what we're used to in worship, you know, and it was just. It was always fascinating. It was longer services. You know, they would go for hours. And I. I didn't know. I didn't know if they did Sunday school, because that's a long day. [00:10:35] Speaker A: Yeah, well, they started with Sunday school. So Sunday school was early in the morning. And, you know, those churches that. My grandfather, when he became Southern Baptist, and he presented it and equipped the other, you know, black friends and brothers that came in with him who was seeking his influence. But everybody adopted these programs that were effective during that time in building ministries. [00:10:58] Speaker B: Well, yeah, a lot of our audience, again, they don't know Southern Baptist at all. So historically, the Southern Baptist. The split happened over the Civil War, right. And so in the south, you had churches that wanted to support missionaries who had slaves. And the Northern churches didn't agree with that. And so the split really happened there. So that handicapped us in the black community in what should be a great working relationship. So much common culture between the two, but that did. That was a stumbling Block. [00:11:31] Speaker A: And we were together at one time, so. So the National Baptist rolled out of that split. Oh, I didn't realize that convention rolled out of that split. [00:11:37] Speaker B: Okay, okay. So for, for that to happen. For that to happen in the 60s. That was groundbreaking. [00:11:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:11:43] Speaker B: And how so you, you weren't there when that happened? [00:11:47] Speaker A: I was, I was born in 70s, so I was, I was a part of when it was really catching momentum and stuff like that. Yeah. [00:11:53] Speaker B: What was it like to have a grandfather who was in any community, if a church that size? That's a lot of influence. Yeah. And you see a lot behind the scenes. How was that? [00:12:04] Speaker A: Well, you know, that's, that's, you know, I wrote that book to kind of share that story, but that's the pressure of growing up in a church with a grandfather with that influence was, Was very difficult. And, and church is ugly, you know, and that's not even a, a cultural or racial thing. It's just ugly business. People are cruel. And I ran from the call for a very long time because of what I saw behind the scenes. You have this one guy who has just committed his life to reaching people, helping people, and serving faithfully. And then there's this, you know, ugly stuff that's going on around church and through church and attacks on him and his family from people who he tried to love. So me as a kid growing up in a, in a preacher's home, I resented that and, and, and pretty much ran for the call for quite a bit until, you know, until I was eventually tackled. [00:13:01] Speaker B: Did you, did you love the church? Or were you, were you, were you jaded? Like, how did you process it? [00:13:06] Speaker A: Hindsight, I, if I had to do it all over, I love what God did. But in the moment when I was a teenager, there were some really hard, hard moments because the pressure for us as preachers, kids was to not just be kids. They were treating us as saved, seasoned adults expecting things of you that. Expecting anybody else. [00:13:34] Speaker B: How did they parent you through that? Did they bring you into those conversations and help you process it, or did they shield you from it? [00:13:40] Speaker A: Well, I think I got the best of my grandfather who, who raised me, by the way, because I was with him during the peak of his ministry. So he had grown a bit as a shepherd, as a pastor, and he. [00:13:54] Speaker B: Probably had a staff at that point. [00:13:56] Speaker A: So I was on his lap, so I was able to walk with him through some stuff. But then what was instrumental to me was there was some deacons and some strong men in the ministry that pulled me to the side and kind of coached me, came to my football games and kind of helped me along. And so I always says it. What was beautiful about a church is when everybody together is helping the community. Kind of the village thing, you know. [00:14:24] Speaker B: It is, it does, it takes, it takes a village to raise a child. I agree with that. [00:14:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:29] Speaker B: You know, if I took out in my life the influence of the other families in the church, that they brought things to me or were there when my parents couldn't be, whatever it might be. And even today, you know, when I'm trying to sell people on our church, it's. I hope they like the preaching, I hope they like the worship and all those kind of things. But it's worth, if you didn't like any of that, if you just meet some of the old guys, it's worth being a part of First Baptist because of that, because they're, you know, I lost a father 10 years ago and I've got three or four now, you know, that are in that, that same age range. That can be what he would be if he were here, you know, this church eight years, we've just finished, and it's been ridiculously a good experience for us. They like minded people culturally. We speak the same language. So I grew up in an entrepreneur's home. They're predominantly entrepreneurs in the church. So we, we, when we describe a win, we're talking about the same thing. My previous church was in Huntsville, Alabama, where Space Force just put their base. [00:15:40] Speaker A: Okay. [00:15:41] Speaker B: It's Redstone Arsenal. NASA has a big facility. The space station Mission control is there. [00:15:47] Speaker A: Okay. [00:15:48] Speaker B: It's the highest PhD per capita in the United States. [00:15:51] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:15:51] Speaker B: So whatever you think about Alabama, what comes to mind, this is not Huntsville. It's very different. It's more like Silicon Valley. [00:15:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:16:00] Speaker B: So when, when I pastored there, 70% at one point of our congregation were engineers. The, the median average and modal age was 35. So it was young church. And no two men or women really agreed on what a win was, you know, because their job was finding out what's wrong, making it better. So we would meet and talk for hours. And I'm thinking, but the numbers, the baptisms were through the roof. The numbers are up, giving's up. I'm happy. Why are y' all not happy? You know, and it was just their job was to not be happy, you know, And I realized that really after I left that it wasn't personal. Yeah, it really wasn't. That's just how they fix things constantly. But There were a couple of seasons that you came in, in that search team process. They're like, okay, we want to reach the young people. It's like, okay, well, you understand you can't do what you've been doing. If you do what you've been doing, you'll get what you've been getting. We'll have to change some things. Oh, yeah, we get that, Pastor. We're good with it. And you get in and you start changing things. And they're like, no, we don't really want to do it that way. We don't want to reach them that way. And it's. It's all trappings, like blue jeans instead of a suit or whatever. So we had some power struggles with that church, and we always tried to guard our kids from it because it meant a lot. We really wanted them. They don't get to pick where they go to church. They're going to go with us. And we wanted them to enjoy the Bride of Christ. We wanted them to have a good church experience. And so after we left and we would start talking about it, Julie and I would talk about the war stories and like, oh, you remember that night, man? You know, and times when God came through and it clicked with our kids. Oh. Because suddenly all of their friends seemed to leave the church because their parents were. They didn't know. Their parents were mad at me, but they just went to Sunday school one day and three of their friends are gone. And it clicked with them what we had done and how we had protected them from it. And I think at that time, for their personalities, that was probably the right thing to do here. We've tried to bring them into the mix more so they really know what Dad's dealing with. [00:18:20] Speaker A: Right, right, right. [00:18:21] Speaker B: Because it doesn't make sense if you just see dad come home on a Wednesday night and he's just in a different gear. It doesn't make sense if you don't know that a deacons meeting is not always fun. [00:18:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:31] Speaker B: You know, and so we've tried to kind of shift gears a little bit with them. How do you. How do you raise your kids? How did you do? [00:18:39] Speaker A: So. So I learned from. From maybe the mistakes, some of the mistakes of my grandfather David. Youth First Baptist, Orlando, many, many years ago, preached from David and Absalom Story. [00:18:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:56] Speaker A: On Father's Day, I never forget this message. This is actually a great Father's Day that. That. That I surrendered to the call to ministry. [00:19:04] Speaker B: Wow. [00:19:04] Speaker A: He preached the title too much King, not enough dad. [00:19:07] Speaker B: Wow. [00:19:08] Speaker A: And some preach yeah. I'm telling you, man, he rocked it. Never forget. I actually have a CD of that sermon. [00:19:15] Speaker B: Wow. [00:19:15] Speaker A: From way back. But that. That. That message helped me to understand that I have to balance carrying my kids along so that they don't hate church while also leading a congregation. And so I think. I think even Francis Chan once talked about some of the spiritual failures of America right now is that we, the parents of our generation, hide our interactions and our struggles and our low points with God from our kids. But when we do that, they can't see God working with us. [00:19:52] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:53] Speaker A: So. So we're always a superhero. Yeah. Oh, I never seen my dad cry. I've never seen mom cry. Well, what would it look like if your kids saw you calling out to God, knowing that you, you know, you pray, you know, you actually read your Bible early in the morning, see you prostrate or down on the floor in your devotional time, and, you know, you're the great, greatest influencer in your. In your kid's life. And so from that moment, we decided, my wife and I, hey, we're going to do it differently. My grandfather did do a great job with me, but. But there were some. Some. Some kingly things that slanted towards the church more than the kids. And how do we. How do we kind of balance and clean that part up? [00:20:35] Speaker B: That's a good word. [00:20:36] Speaker A: So. So that's what we worked on. [00:20:38] Speaker B: I think it was one of Billy Graham's daughters. I read a book once that she said she got married and it was tough. She argued and then went through a divorce. And when she was talking to Ruth about it, she said, well, you and dad never argued. And Ruth said, no, we argued just like anybody else does. We just went in the bedroom to do it. And they kind of occurred to them that their kids hadn't seen them work through some of those things. And some of our people will feel bad and they'll say, you know, I don't want to argue in front of my kids and all this. And I know there's a line there, but. But they do need to see us struggle and work through some things. That's how they. They get their. Their medium of. This is what normal Christianity looks like. You know, mom and dad aren't immune from the things that are tempting and, you know, that I'm struggling with. Tell us about your family. I know your wife is a great teacher. She's got a great reputation as Mr. Deladies. [00:21:34] Speaker A: And, yeah, I met my wife and youth group at Glendale. Oh, cool. She. Her Family moved down from. From. I think Jacksonville was where. Where they were. [00:21:45] Speaker B: I gotta ask you this. So as. As in the pastor's home, were you kind of a celebrity? [00:21:51] Speaker A: Yeah, man, I was Prince. [00:21:52] Speaker B: The girls wanted to. [00:21:53] Speaker A: I was Prince. Connect with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, it was like that. And we met in a youth group. We were in the church writing on the back of the tithing envelopes, doing service and doing all that kind of stuff. And actually in eighth grade, I had a vision. I don't know what it was. And God kind of. I believe it was God showing me that she was going to be my wife. And we weren't even like dating at that time. We connected when I graduated, maybe around 21 years old. We got married at 23. Her, her grandfather, she. We have a similar story. She was raised by her granddad. Her grand. Great. Her grandmother passed away from diabetes complications at 40 years of age. And. And so she was kind of the caregiver for that point. And he was a Pentecostal preacher. Oh, wow. That was driving from Miami to Fort Pierce, back and forth. [00:22:47] Speaker B: How cool. [00:22:47] Speaker A: So she was following her grandfather. I was hanging on to my grandfather. And so God brought these two preacher kids together. [00:22:55] Speaker B: And so how many kids do you have? [00:22:56] Speaker A: We, we got married at 23. We got three kids. The first is a boy and two. Two girls. All of them are adult kids. [00:23:04] Speaker B: So we. Our story is real similar. We met in church, met in Sunday school. Three kids. We have two girls and a boy. [00:23:11] Speaker A: Okay. [00:23:11] Speaker B: But our family, we had no. Both went to church. But I came to Christ in college and she came to Christ early and we had no ministry experience. And that was good and bad. Part of it gave me a fresh perspective. I didn't have a whole lot of preconceived ideas of how it should be. But at the same time, I didn't know what was abnormal. And we've had to figure that out the hard way over the years. Her ministry, I know she's worked with Julie. She's. They've done some events. God's really using her. [00:23:47] Speaker A: Yes. [00:23:48] Speaker B: You know, in a big way. And is it in. Has she got a teaching gift? Is it more encouragement? [00:23:54] Speaker A: She's an educator by trade, so she's done it all. She's been a principal, lead teacher, reading coach. And so she's kind of gotten that out of her system. But, but, but she has a call on her life to, to speak to women. God just does something when, when she kind of shares and her compassion, her heart to hear and to Just strengthen and encourage women. So in our transition, she was doing it in Miami, but in our transition to this, you know, role, this new role in Jacksonville, God has opened doors and kind of expanded her reach. And so she's been doing a fantastic. [00:24:33] Speaker B: That's awesome. [00:24:34] Speaker A: Just touching the lives of women. [00:24:35] Speaker B: In the nature of what you do, you see how different churches operate. And it's a pretty wide spectrum in Florida. [00:24:41] Speaker A: Yes. [00:24:42] Speaker B: And yes. Give me a little bit of the lay of the land, like on, on, you know, our church is probably more traditional. I'm sure you have some that are very contemporary, some that are probably more charismatic than others. Different, different spectrums. What are you seeing in Florida? And I know we have, we have Haitian churches, we have, we have Asian that are built around a particular ethnicity. Tell me a little bit about that, that mission field. And then what are you seeing that God is blessing in these different churches. [00:25:15] Speaker A: Yeah, so that's the cool thing about this job. My job is there's 400, close to 480 churches in my region. And man, I've seen everything. I've seen the rural church that, man, I went to a campfire meeting with the morning bench. Never seen that. Just, it's like out of the moon. [00:25:37] Speaker B: It's still there. We have snake handling churches in Alabama still. They're still there. [00:25:41] Speaker A: That's incredible. The motorcycle church ministry, you name it. There's a church for any cowboy churches. Yeah, cowboy church. Then there's the large church, small church, the church plant that are doing it in different ways and so schools or in storefronts in different parts of town. And, and we love it. We, we want God. We want God to work in any medium that. Right, that, that, that he lays on a. A person's heart. But the beauty of what I get to see from my, my seat is man, in each of these things, these expressions, God is working in a unique way. And so it's not like what's effective or what's good or bad. God is using all of these different church expressions and man, he is moving and pushing back darkness. [00:26:36] Speaker B: Hey guys, I want to personally invite you to join us for a very special evening. Our annual Maximum life celebration dinner. This is more than just a meal together. It's an opportunity to hear from others, our heart about the vision God has given us for this ministry. You'll get a firsthand look at the ideas and the initiatives that we will be launching this year before anyone else hears about them. And of course, you will enjoy some wonderful food, some fellowship, and be surrounded by like Minded believers who share the same passion for seeing lives changed through the power of God's word. God is opening some incredible doors for maximum life. And we believe that this evening will be both encouraging to you and will help us step forward together into all that he has planned. The details are available right [email protected] events and that's also where you can reserve your spot. I hope you will join us for this special night of vision, fellowship and celebration. We cannot wait to see you there. And Julie and I, when we. When we go on vacation, we try to go to a church that's very different than ours because the leadership in me is always comparing and contrasting and trying to get ideas. So when we go to. We went to Charleston and we went to a church that was high church, very liturgical, loved it. God spoke to me through it, but there was nothing there that I came back and said, well, we want to do it that way. I could really just disconnect and enjoy it, you know? Are you seeing. When you. You mentioned, like, I think, about youth ministry, back when we were younger, churches were kind of growing through the youth ministry. We've got a traditional youth ministry. Gabe Zavala is our student pastor. Yeah, traditional approach. We still do disciple now weekends, you know, all those kind of things. But I'm hearing less and less of that in new churches that are starting, or maybe, maybe it's once a quarter, they'll do a big youth event. But the traditional approach of having a student pastor on the campuses and all that, is that still normal or what's happening in that world? That's not my world anymore. [00:28:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we were great back in the day, but I think those initiatives were the fruit of our Southern Baptist WMU Women's Mission Union, where they were doing the Royal Ambassador program. So they grabbed them early, taught them missions, and that group was already connected. [00:29:13] Speaker B: So the kids ministry gotcha. [00:29:14] Speaker A: That created the youth ministry. [00:29:16] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:29:17] Speaker A: Another thing that's happened, too, I think, in the explosion of the mega church. And don't hear me say that mega church is bad. I think all churches are great, and I think God's doing it. But I think with the explosion of that and everybody trying to be there, I think we are a generation that has gotten away from calling out the call and raising up the call. And so churches, the greatest ask that I get in my role is, hey, do you have a youth pastor, a student minister? And so we've gotten away from equipping the next generation of ministry leaders. And so that leads the Void. So. So churches that are, are, are peaking or on the way up and they've got these kids, they can't reach the kids or catalyze the kids because there's no young leader that fits that church that can connect and really do a good job with that, that group. I think we got to get back to that. [00:30:11] Speaker B: And it seems like there was a season that might be coming to an end. It seemed like it's waning. [00:30:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:15] Speaker B: Of the guys who would typically be your great student pastors were becoming planters. [00:30:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:30:20] Speaker B: You know, and so that, you know, it's not that it's oversaturated. We still need more churches. But I think people are realizing that that is one of the hardest callings that you have is planting a church. And it's not as cool as it used to be. It seems like people are thinking twice and looking for. Is there a discipleship opportunity or student pastor opportunity. But. Do you know the name Scott Dawson? [00:30:43] Speaker A: No. [00:30:43] Speaker B: Have you ever met Scott? Look up Scott Dawson. Scott's in Birmingham, Alabama. He's kind of a traditional Billy Graham style evangelist. And that's my background was mass evangelism. Scott would, you know, he still do. Does big events, thousands of people, you know, harvest type events. But he recognized that you had seminary, which, you know, that's pretty expensive to go through a DMin program and the pay for a student pastor, the math doesn't work. If you have to go and pay your way through school. And then the income you're making as a student pastor, that just doesn't work out real well. So he created what's basically a trade school for vocational student pastors. And this may be people who are strong in worship or teaching or whatever. It's a great program. And man, the Lord provided he's. There was a campus, a bank in Birmingham, Alabama. I mean, a main campus of like, you know, just three or four sizes bigger than our church. Campus of 20, 30 acres, multiple stories. And the bank didn't need it anymore. They were, they were relocating. They needed to sell this property. And I don't know how the finances worked on it, but it was better off for them to sell it to Scott for a dollar. So Scott buys this property, massive property, basically free of charge. And then he's like, what do we do? Do we. We can't afford to fix it up. And it still looks like a bank from the 90s. Yeah, it was dated and they didn't have money to go in and do much with it. So a tornado hit the property no joke. [00:32:27] Speaker A: Wow. [00:32:28] Speaker B: And the damage was just enough to pay out the big check, which was enough to build it back and redo everything. [00:32:35] Speaker A: Only God can do that. [00:32:36] Speaker B: I mean, when he, when he started talking about before, he knew that they were, they thought they were going to buy the property. And so Scott comes and, and we're just kind of on an advisory board for Scott. So Scott reaches out and he says, we're trying to raise some money to do this. And I'm not going to tell him because he's, he's got more experience than me, but I'm looking at it going, you can't afford that. That's way too much. You know, and he had no idea where it was going to lead. He's not only taken possession of it, he's, he's renovated it. And kids by the dozens are coming to this thing looking for help. And then Scott's that guy who when the church is searching for a staff member. [00:33:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:16] Speaker B: He's got somebody not only ready to, to work, but they're trained, they're equipped if they want to go on to like a, a, a buff or something like that next they can further their education. But, but, or seminary or whatever. But it gets them equipped enough to serve most churches. [00:33:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:35] Speaker B: You know, and what, what is the average church size now in, in Florida? [00:33:39] Speaker A: I, I would say, well, the average Southern Baptist Church is 150. [00:33:43] Speaker B: 150 people. And so that's. Usually they can, they can afford a full time pastor at that point, but maybe a b. Vocational worship, maybe everything else is b. Volunteer. Right. Is the majority, for that reason is the majority of ministers in Florida, are they mostly bivocational or what would you say? [00:34:04] Speaker A: I want to go back to a point you made to talk about spiritual fathering. So I think the problem with. Because all of the reports are saying that Gen Z has a heightened level of spiritual sensitivity. They want to know about God. They want to know they're pursuing. Right. So the harvest is ripe. Yeah. [00:34:26] Speaker B: Everything we're seeing, it looks like if it's not a revival, it's really close to it. [00:34:30] Speaker A: All right, so what happened to us is we lost a shift with the market crash, with the advent of technology and with how the world has changed. The church had survived off of outsourcing from. For a long, long time. And when I say outsourcing, we would say, okay, hey, you feel the call to ministry, we'll go to the seminary. And you and your wife got married young. You go stay on campus. Well, the world has changed. Young people are not saying that they. [00:35:00] Speaker B: Can afford or well, and most of it is home based online. [00:35:07] Speaker A: So that has shifted. I can do school online now. And so I think and the seminaries have changed their perspective to meet those needs and create the online programs. But I think that we have gotten away from fathering and even with our church planting the evangelical church, not just Southern Baptist, there was a time in the early 2000s where everything was church plant. And so we were putting these, these young people in. Into pastoral worlds without unequipped. Unequipped, without fathering, without leadership, without mentorship. [00:35:45] Speaker B: And so what's the percentage? I don't know if it's changed, but at one time, yeah, church plants didn't make it. [00:35:51] Speaker A: And everybody's not a number one. [00:35:52] Speaker B: Right. [00:35:53] Speaker A: And so who's going to help the guy with the inclination of a call understand what that call is? Get call clarity. And then after you get called clarity, after you're walking with a trusted pastor, then there's the seminary pursuit, the life learning, vocational work. And so we move those things around and I think we're in a season where God's kind of just like that program you talked about. God's now waking us up to, hey, we've got to father these young people so that we can give them permission. Hey, I see something in you. Maybe God's calling you. Let's talk about it. [00:36:28] Speaker B: What are you wrestling with? What does that look like? I'm going to be honest with you, that's one of those things that, that we don't have figured out. I think Gabe does a good job at it in student ministry. Just taking these guys to lunch, you know. But, but beyond that, if it's a 20 something that's not in the student ministry and he's sensing a call, we don't have a pipeline for that. It's really well developed. Where have you seen that? Who's doing it? Well, and tell me a little bit about what they're doing. [00:36:54] Speaker A: Yeah, over at first Callahan, I brought a program that we piloted with along with the Northeast Florida Central. Northeast Florida network of churches. And I share with Lynn about this need that we've got to call out the call. So I talked with because this was pressing on my heart maybe five years ago and I went to one of the executive committee meetings of Southern Baptist and met with some of the older guys and I was like, man, when I grew up there were like 20 guys, young guys waiting to get Sunday night preaching right. Yeah. Well put me in college. [00:37:31] Speaker B: In college I was probably one of of 17 or 18. [00:37:34] Speaker A: Right. [00:37:34] Speaker B: That was called a ministry. And in our previous church, we had probably at any given time about 8 or 9. We don't see it as much here. [00:37:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:43] Speaker B: And you'll have some guys that'll come that'll indicate that they, they're wrestling with a call and then they'll kind of back away from it. And so I've not figured that out completely. [00:37:53] Speaker A: So here's. And there's no silver bullet, but here's what has worked. Churches that have, have heard this call. Right. That that senior denominational leader told me that we got, we got away from in our invitation or our altar call, in a sermon. Moment after we present the offer to Christ through salvation, the pastor would say, hey, somebody here, God's tugging at your hall cart and you're sensing the call to ministry, come talk with me. And we stopped praying for the call. [00:38:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:28] Speaker A: And so churches that have just done those two things, they've seen a response. [00:38:33] Speaker B: We started back to that. [00:38:35] Speaker A: So with that response, what Lyn did was he started, he went guns blazing with this program. He didn't even have any students committed a month before he launched out. And then when he launched, there are 10 students right now in that program from different churches. [00:38:52] Speaker B: What does that look like? [00:38:53] Speaker A: And so there's 10 to 12 essentials. And this is a blueprint that can fit any church that has classes on the called. I feel like I'm called. Well, what Discerning. Called to discerning. What am I called to? What does that look like? Classes on preaching, spiritual disciplines and discipleship. How do I live for Jesus and walk with him? [00:39:18] Speaker B: So how many weeks is it? [00:39:20] Speaker A: So it's an in person class in his context. And usually the classes are typically between four to six sessions. [00:39:27] Speaker B: Okay. [00:39:27] Speaker A: And he does them on, I think he does them on a Tuesday night. [00:39:30] Speaker B: And he do a couple a year or like, how do you. [00:39:33] Speaker A: No, he runs. He runs through those 10 classes through a one year program. And even our buff, our Baptist University of Florida is working with them to make that a certificate program. Okay, so now we're walking with these guys. Here's what I always heard from the guy, the pastors that I looked up to, man, I got a chance to, I got a chance to be poured into by Adrian Rogers, you know what I'm saying? So this idea of Father and Paul to Timothy and Titus, that's what we've gotten away from. And so, so we need a spiritual father. I learned how to do funerals from walking with a pastor who just let me stand by him and said, hey, we're at the graveyard. I want you to pray during the committal. Watch me. [00:40:13] Speaker B: And that. And that's not taught in seminary. [00:40:15] Speaker A: You can't get that. [00:40:16] Speaker B: You don't know how to do a business meeting. You don't know how to do it. You know how to baptize. First person I baptized, I was. I was preaching at a church as a. As an evangelist, and they didn't have a pastor. Somebody came to Christ, they wanted to get baptized that night. So I'll do it. It looked easy, and it was. We've got a video somewhere. It was a. It was a large girl. And what I didn't know is there you're supposed to bend your knees when you tell them to bend their knees. I didn't know to tell her to bend her knees. And so, you know, baptizing in the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, take her back. And she floated up. She grabbed the side of the baptistry. It was hilarious. It was hilarious. And I'm sitting here going, I've got to get her under that water. It won't kill count. And so I'm saying, turn loose. The whole thing's on video. And after that, I told somebody what happened, and they said, well, they got to bend their knees. Yeah, well, that changes everything. Nobody told me that. That you've got it. You've got to make them do this. Put your hand on top, you know, so they can't grab the side. Nobody told me that. And so in business meetings, I didn't know who Robert was and what his rules were about. I didn't know any of that stuff. And I'm thrown into the deep end. And we were fortunate that we always had a growing, thriving church. But those basic tools of ministry, I didn't get at Southern Seminary, and I didn't have a pastor to pour those into me. And so. But I think because of that, I don't know. To do that for others. [00:41:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:45] Speaker B: And a program like that sounds like it might be helpful. [00:41:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And that. And that's. That's what I think we got to get back to. To leadership development at every level. [00:41:54] Speaker B: Right. [00:41:55] Speaker A: And. And I think when we. When we Father the called and. And all the other ministry leaders and equip them in the church in that local church context, we just talked about how me as a preacher's kid, I had this hero giant of a grandfather, but it was that one deacon that spoke into my life, that came to the football games that fathered me. [00:42:17] Speaker B: Right. [00:42:17] Speaker A: And added to what I had in my grandfather, that helped me, shaped. Shaped my compassion, my ministry, my call, and helped push me forward. And so we cannot outsource. We need all of the systems and all these other things, but nothing takes place of what God uniquely designed to happen in the local church when we do life together, community together. [00:42:38] Speaker B: And I think as a pastor, learning how to let go of everything and trust some other people, trust the. Whether it's somebody that's bringing something from the outside that may be a better program than what we have. You know, we've got to have the humility to do that. My son, who's 21, he comes in the other day and. Or just turned 22, he comes in the other day and he says, 22, right. [00:43:02] Speaker A: Okay. I have the same problem. [00:43:05] Speaker B: I saw her smile, and I thought I said that wrong. He comes in the other day and he's. He says, I'm going to lunch. Who are you going to lunch with? Johnny Burbank. It's one of our guys. So what are you going to. What are y' all talking about? He's like, just some stuff God's doing in my life. I need some. I need some advice. And I'm like, why are you going to him? That's what I'm thinking. Why are you going to him instead of me? And I had to sit back and say, no, you know, I'm thankful he's going to a Christian man, you know, and he can talk to him about some stuff maybe he can't talk to me about, you know, And I'm grateful we have a church that has men that he will go to. [00:43:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:39] Speaker B: You know, and, but. But yeah, sometimes it's like, if God's going to do something, if it was a great idea, he would have told me about it, surely, you know, but that's not the case. That's not the case. So what you're observing is specifically in. We can't say minority community anymore, because I think. I think 6.6percent is white right now, you know, globally speaking. So when you think about what's happening in these different movements, I've been reading and we've seen we're reaching more African American folks than we've ever reached Hispanic folks we've ever reached. And what I've been seeing is that movement has changed some, and there's a generation that no longer builds their life around what's happening down at the church, what happened there, and what do you attribute it to? [00:44:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So the generation that was entangled in the church became the simplest way to Put it is we all became American. And that's why when I lead in the African American spaces, I tell them that there's a new paradigm. The millennials and generations younger than that see themselves as black American. I think, I think rather than, rather than African American. Okay, right. And so, but the point is that, that we're all Americans. And so there's this American culture now we're vying for, for who owns it and who dominates. But there's, there's. There's just this American culture. And so what has happened to the black church is the black church has looked at the Rick Warrens and the Purpose Driven Life and the Willow Creeks, and they said, oh, the. These tools will work for ministry. My grandfather, even way back when, who was immersed in Black National Baptist, saw that they didn't have the tools to help his church grow. And then he had these two friends who told him about, hey, there's a Sunday school program. And so God is raising up these seasons where the equipping trumps the cultural identities. And so we get, we gravitate to what we need. So now the church today, whether it be the black church or the Hispanic church, are really American churches. And so the systems and blueprints that breed success that are working in American churches is what everybody's driving. [00:46:13] Speaker B: Gotcha. [00:46:13] Speaker A: Which is why everybody's singing the worship songs now, which is everybody look at like, they've got the bass guitar now they've got the band. All of that is how the American church is moving forward. [00:46:25] Speaker B: Well, and we've seen it, you know, in Nassau County, First Baptist, between both campuses is somewhere between 12 and 1500 and worship. So when you get to that size and you have problems that churches of 500 can't help you solve any longer. So even though we don't consider ourselves Jacksonville, we dually aligned with the First Coast Church over with Bob Baumgartner, because Bob could help us solve some problems that at the time, we didn't have a director of mission here or whatever they're calling them, Catal Associational Missional strategy. This week, another one of those. So Chris is here now and doing a fantastic job. We, we didn't have that at that season. So we, we partnered with both associations because we had some issues that we couldn't, whether it's staffing or whatever, we didn't have the tools in the more rural association to fix. And we're very much a rural part of the state, but it has thankfully grown. 2020 for everybody was a big shift. Right? You Had Covid, you had Trump, you had George Floyd, right up the streets of Mont Arbery. When we came out, this was a breakthrough moment for me where I realized, okay, something shifted as we were coming out of COVID It was after really Ahmaud Arbery, and people were having to have conversations that we weren't comfortable having. And some of the leaders in our community came together and said, why don't we take the larger churches and let's do something like we're doing right here and talk about it. So I won't call the churches, but. But we knew we had great fellowship as brothers, but we knew politically we probably disagreed on some things. Right, right, right. So we come together and we're in kind of a green room. Before we went live. It's. It's myself, it's a black guy, Hispanic guy, another white guy, and we're in the room and. And I said, because I knew, I've imagined I'm probably the most far right of the group, politically speaking. So we came together and I said, guys, I think this is a great idea. I said, but I don't want it to be awkward. And I said, if we go in public and it goes into certain issues, I'm going to speak my conscience. And I don't want to. I don't want to be a bad guest. I don't want to be awkward. So if you don't want to go there, I'm fine. I'm not going to bring it up. We all agree on this is the problem, and when it's evil and. And it's sick and we got to fix it. How you fix that, we might disagree on. Okay, so. And we did. We, you know, a couple of the guys just saw a couple of things differently than I did. What I didn't expect was the black pastor looked at me and he said he agreed with where I was at. [00:49:26] Speaker A: Right. [00:49:27] Speaker B: And we had more in common than I did with the other two politically. He came out of a military background, and we probably voted for the same people. You know, we probably have the same concerns with other movements. And that surprised me. He was from a more traditional background. So we started talking. We had great fellowship. I noticed his church looked more like my church than most of the others did. Our people at First Baptist kind of have to build their. Their calendar around what's going on at church. It's a K through 8 school. We have a preschool, meals on Wednesday nights, a little old school in that sense, worship. We've got a. We've got a contemporary option and a more traditional option. They're politically engaged. So they're coming to church for faith. They're coming to church for food, fellowship, political engagement, social change. And I'm looking around and I'm realizing that's odd. That's not like most churches, except in the African American community. And they've been there and done that. And so we began to like, learn from each other, you know, and I never would have seen that without 2020, you know, coming through it. But, but it provided an opportunity because, because at one time it was like, okay, we'll come together at Thanksgiving. [00:50:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:50:59] Speaker B: But now there's initiatives in the community that we can come together and co labor on. He's reaching more white families than he's ever reached before. [00:51:12] Speaker A: Wow. [00:51:13] Speaker B: I'm having more people of color than I've ever had before. And it's just a different world than we once had, you know, but, but it's been, I've observed that some of the young couples that would come in, they were just as out of the church. They hadn't built their life around the church the way I assumed they had. So they've had to be acclimated. Where does that secularism come, come from? [00:51:41] Speaker A: Well, so that's, that's what I'm sharing with you, that one of the misnomers about the African American or the black American is that the blacks are more conservative spiritually. Those who grew up in the church, more of a traditional, way more almost legalist, like, don't worry, you know, my wife grew up in a church where they couldn't wear, you know, skirts, pants and all that kind of stuff. So, so we're from that background. And as, as, as socially, in order to get the good jobs and get education, we move towards the pinning or leaning of the dominant white culture. And so blacks have moved to become more American. [00:52:22] Speaker B: Black American. [00:52:23] Speaker A: Right. To be American. And so that's the shift away from the foundational, you know, strong conservative stuff. And so as they're now blending and assimilating to people they work and play with. [00:52:37] Speaker B: Right. [00:52:38] Speaker A: That's, that's the shift that's moving over. And so I think we're in a new paradigm where that generation is gone. And now it's just, it's not really a black and white, it's just this, this American culture that we got to grapple with that all of the ethnic groups are wrestling with. Even second generation Hispanic, Haitian are wrestling with it. [00:52:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I look at it in South Florida more, probably more than Hispanic church. What I think of musically because I have. My background's in music and not worship secular music more. It's what I was trained in college for. I love the cultural dynamics, whether it's from the black community, the Hispanic community, whatever it might be, that I don't want to lose that. And I don't know how to honor it in an effective way because it doesn't sound the same. If you haven't grown up with that, that culture, we're not able to reproduce it. Well. I remember Calvary Chapel down in Fort Lauderdale. They did the best job of letting the Hispanic influence influence their worship. And I would listen to Sunday morning before church in Kentucky. I would be listening to their worship set because it was just phenomenal, you know. But I love the church looking more like the kingdom in the community. I fear to a certain degree that we're all going to become this vanilla. [00:54:07] Speaker A: Yeah, well. And that's the thing makes sense as we move further away from the whole slavery and the civil rights moment and young kids like myself. So my grand. My uncle that I grew up with, he experienced the white only water fountain. Well, I never experienced that. So when George, Floyd and Ahmaud Arber, his level of pain and passion was different than mine. Because I grew up in South Miami, right down the street from the University of Miami. And I was one of five black families in a white neighborhood. So I had white friends that I grew up with. So I grew up in this different multi ethnic paradigm. You follow what I'm saying? So my worldview is different. And so. And so as we. The further we grow away from the silos and the more we become American now the problem is what is American now? That secularism is broken. Yeah, that's being. And that's what we're working through. So I think we're working through the pains of what does it look like to be American? And those ethnic things are breaking down as the generations go. [00:55:21] Speaker B: Probably one of the best, and I hate to say hires, because he's a called man, he's a pastor. But Dan Beckwith. Dan was at Shiloh in Jacksonville. He was with H.B. charles. He had that experience. And I don't think people recognize a predominantly black church, predominantly white church. They govern differently. And the. The pastor's involvement in different things. [00:55:44] Speaker A: The pastor is a pastor. He's the. He's the pastor. [00:55:45] Speaker B: He checks a lot. [00:55:47] Speaker A: He's the pastor. [00:55:48] Speaker B: It doesn't matter. You may have that in your title, but it doesn't matter. You know, so when Dan came over, Dan Was used to that model. [00:55:57] Speaker A: I'm. [00:55:57] Speaker B: I'm the opposite. I'm not a micromanager. I do what I do. I stay in my lane. And trust you to do your job. [00:56:04] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:56:05] Speaker B: And so Dan really deferred to me, and he's like, pastor, are you okay with this is how you want to do it? I'm like, if it works, it's fine, you know? And we ended up having just a great working relationship. But it was. It was really fascinating to see somebody who had worked in both. Both of those cultures. But what he helped me with is I don't know what's offensive or what's not offensive. So he would come in and he would say, you know, yeah, if you're gonna. If you're gonna reach the black community here, you're gonna have to be careful, you know, with what you said here. [00:56:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:41] Speaker B: Because I know your heart. No, you don't mean anything by that. But it could be taken offensively. And so he helped me kind of understand. And it worked. [00:56:48] Speaker A: We. [00:56:48] Speaker B: We did, but it was a couple of times. We've got one young lady who's a judge in our community now, very accomplished, and some of her family, because I would take a political stand, they felt like they couldn't worship at our church. I look at it like, no, me and Julie may disagree. You know, we don't always see things the same way. So I'm happy for you to be there and vote differently or whatever, but I speak my heart and trust you to speak your heart. It's not personal. But she came to me. One of her family members emailed me and was kind of offended at some stuff that I'd done, and I'm just clueless. I'm like, help me understand it. And so we go to breakfast one day, and she kind of helped. Gives me the context for it, helps me to make. She's like, I know where you're coming from. Totally get it. But uncle doesn't get it, you know? And I'm like, well, let's let me meet him. [00:57:49] Speaker A: And uncle might be the uncle from that generation. Water fountain. Totally had the pain. [00:57:53] Speaker B: Totally was. So she gets. She gets installed as a judge, you know, kind of her dream job. Well, she calls me to come and do the invocation for the. The ceremony, and her family's there, and they're very honoring to me. But I'm realizing, oh, this is the guy that sent me the email. And so we get to know each other, and it's like, you don't understand what I did at that moment, what I said there, that's not like top tier to me. That's just. They asked me what I felt about this politician or whatever, and I answered, but it's not like I'm going to break fellowship with you over. I don't know that he agreed. I think he felt like it was more of a personal thing, but it was. It was totally generational. And that's fascinating to me. [00:58:37] Speaker A: And that's what we're working through. We're working through those generational pains. I think the greatest problem that we have, and I wish the church would get this. And I'll tell you a story that happened. Reason why Florida Baptist has a lot of synergy. It was during this CRT moment when that came out. [00:58:56] Speaker B: What crt? [00:58:57] Speaker A: Critical racism. [00:58:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:58:58] Speaker A: Crt. [00:58:59] Speaker B: I didn't know what it was then either. [00:59:01] Speaker A: I know a little more now, but that's the thing. Nobody knew what it was, but I forgot about it. But. But our seminary professors, who didn't speak out on any of the hot button issues, they kept silent, made a statement on crt. We were like, oh, why did they get into this fight? And so some of our white brothers in our family called a meeting with some of. Some of our black leadership. And, man, unbeknownst to us, they thought we were getting ready to leave the tribe. Yeah, but Tommy Green had done a good job, and Dr. Sullivan was good during my grandfather's time, but Tommy Green really did a good job of bringing all of the ethnic tables together and creating the family moment and meeting out of the annual meeting. So what we did was we had hard conversations in the right spirit. And so the one thing the church doesn't do today is we don't talk. We stay in our camps, we stay in our bubbles. Everybody's an enemy, everybody's at war, and we don't talk. Man, a lot of things can be accomplished when we just sit down at the table and talk because that. Then we can understand one another. I told one pastor who said, hey, what do you think about this problem? Because the seminary said it. Florida now has to deal with this because there are some African American pastors and ethnic pastors that are upset that they got into this political moment. And I said this. And this broke the ice. I said, this is what I don't understand about Southern Baptists. Anybody who's been married for a while knows that when you say something to your wife, that upsets them, offends them. Even if you're right, you don't Double down and say, well, you know, and the Greek is right. You know, every man knows you let. [01:00:52] Speaker B: It go, you gotta get along, and. [01:00:54] Speaker A: You bring flowers, you put your arm around them, and you move on. And so as, as, as beloved children of God who are to be imitators, as Paul says in Ephesians 5, why can't we put aside some of those issues that don't matter kingdom wise and say, hey, this may be a persuasion or a conviction of mine, but it doesn't outweigh my love for one another because that's how the world knows that we're disciples. And when I said that, they laughed and they said, you're right. [01:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:26] Speaker A: If we would have just. That's how we could have diffused all of that CRT talk. If we would have just said, hey, some of our, Some people were offended by this issue. None of us really know what it is. Yeah, we need to pun on this. Hey, we hear you, and we don't want to dive deep. [01:01:42] Speaker B: That's where I believe programs like this are helpful. [01:01:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:01:46] Speaker B: And somebody asked one day, they said, is this something you, you want to do long term or kind of. How do you see this whole. I personally believe. I wish every pastor in Florida would do this because it does give us a platform to have these conversations with our people watching. And for one, they, they can see, work through some of the issues or, you know, if it's just saying, like, for me, sometimes it's just ignorance. [01:02:11] Speaker A: I don't know. [01:02:11] Speaker B: I don't know what's going on here. Help me understand it. And that's the side of ministry, how you flesh it out that people don't get to see very often. [01:02:20] Speaker A: And we don't because we don't come together. People never get to know that. I love Zach Terry. [01:02:25] Speaker B: Right, exactly. [01:02:26] Speaker A: Zach Terry is my brother, you know what I'm saying? So even if we're political, we vote differently or whatever that is, that doesn't come between the love I have for my brother. You know what I'm saying? [01:02:36] Speaker B: Right. [01:02:38] Speaker A: In heaven. You understand what I'm saying? [01:02:39] Speaker B: Absolutely. [01:02:39] Speaker A: And so that's how we move forward and that's how we lead our people who we influence for. [01:02:44] Speaker B: And I think, I think my. The breakthrough for me is that I'm surprised, man. A lot of times I've got more in common with Hispanic brother or black brother, whatever it might be. In so many way. We do family, you know what we celebrate much more than I do some of the guys that I should align with you, you know, but when we. [01:03:07] Speaker A: When we talk more, we realize, man, we got the same problems. [01:03:10] Speaker B: Right? That's right. [01:03:10] Speaker A: We all got the same issues. [01:03:12] Speaker B: But tell me. Tell me about your book. And. And is it you've written a few books now? [01:03:15] Speaker A: No, this is. I wasn't. I'm not an author. I was just trying to dump this story. I had a. Actually had a trustee of mine in my church plant who. Who had heard me. He was riding in the car with me a lot. He said, man, you got to write this down. So I wrote this book for my kids called the Curse of a Good Name. My son was wrestling with the call to ministry, and I saw the pressure on him, trying to. You know, we had that moment where he cried and was like. What was blocking him from surrendering was. You know, he's got his grandfather who's a legend. He's got an uncle who was a powerful preacher, evangelist. And then, you know, me, you know, I don't think I'm a big deal, but he does. And so he didn't feel like he can live up to that. And I was like, man, you don't. God is not calling you to be any of us. He's gonna. He's gonna take you and use you in the manner that he wants to use, and it's gonna be beautiful. It may be greater than what he's doing with me. And so, yeah, I wrote it so that they can. You know, I've heard a lot of stories about preachers, kids crashing out. And this book is for anybody who's leading or somebody's watching you. You influence somebody. And so what helped me, even though I had a grandfather who loved me well, who. I sat on his lap during ministry, it was still a hard thing to walk under his light in ministry until I found out that my identity was in Christ. And that gave me the freedom to just be Patrick in every space. And I wanted that for my kids, and I penned a book for them and for anybody else who's struggling with their kids who are wrestling with the weight of your pressure and the great work that you're doing that, hey, you don't have to replicate that. You can be you, and God's gonna do something amazing through you. Just how you're wired. [01:05:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I look at. I look at. It seems to be normal. You either idolize or demonize somebody, you know, and we want to honor our parents, but, you know, I look at my dad, and there are some things that I really want to emulate. I'll never be able to live up to some things that he did, you know. And at the same time, there was a breakthrough moment for me. We're in this. It was at his church. They had a men's event out out in the woods in a cabin somewhere. And they invited me to speak at it. This was where my parents went to church. I went to church in high school. So that in itself was, you know, kind of coming full circle a little bit. So I go in and I speak at this event. And they do these silly things that guys do where we try to, you know, put men in a situation where they're going to cry a little bit, you know, so they ask, who was your greatest spiritual influence? And so we have a three by five card and we're riding it out and they're going around the room and somebody says, well, you know, Billy Graham never. He was always morally upstanding, never had a big fall in his life. He was kind of my. My influence. I don't know who I put Adrian Rogers or somebody, you know, and. And then it came to my dad and he put me and I'm like, wow. Really? [01:06:34] Speaker A: Wow. [01:06:35] Speaker B: And he's. He's weeping. [01:06:36] Speaker A: Wow. [01:06:38] Speaker B: And just to see that and go, I never thought. But dad, when I came in the ministry, he began to come to my events and hear me preach. And dad, after that he started growing, became a deacon. I never connected the dots there. And to see that he looked at me. We would go through things in church and I would go to him for advice and he would say, well, you know, just as a. Because he became a member of my church as a member, this is what I see. But he said, you understand the good Lord called you. You do what he says do, regardless of what I think about it. And he had a. He had a holy respect for that calling. That really helped me define it. [01:07:23] Speaker A: Wow. [01:07:23] Speaker B: You know, so. So if your kid is called and. And you know, they're going to do some things differently than you would do it, but that's a holy thing. It's a sacred thing. You know, when you do have to kind of learn to let them be who God's called them to be, that's tough. That's tough. [01:07:41] Speaker A: You know, so the title man, I had a lot of people that I pitched the idea and they were like, man, curse is too strong, man. Use another word. But. But I don't. I have not found a book that expresses the real pressure that preachers, kids or kids of people of influence go through. And so while it's. While Burden probably was a better word. I stuck with curse because God gave it to me. But the other reason is because for the person who's. Who's dealing with it, it feels like a curse. [01:08:14] Speaker B: It could probably weight. [01:08:15] Speaker A: It's a heavy weight. Yeah. And it could probably recognize that we've. [01:08:19] Speaker B: Got so many families who they're. They're in their, you know, 60s and 70s, and they're so disenfranchised from their kids. Kids see the world totally differently than they do, and it probably would be good for the parents to read. [01:08:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:32] Speaker B: To just see that maybe. Maybe they're feeling some stuff that you don't know about, you know? But. Well, Patrick, thank you for coming in. Thank you for your friendship, and thank you for having me and all you do for the kingdom. If you ever need anything, let us know. [01:08:44] Speaker A: Bless you, man. Thank you. It.