Ken Salisbury/Jeff James- From Retirement to Restoration

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Learn more at arnicare.com. That's a-r-n-i-c-a-r-e.com. This is Rodney from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we explored manhood within Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Sit back, enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network.

Now, The Devil's Nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. Two special men in studio with me today, these men near and dear to my heart. Two pastors, men of the cloth, men of the word.

From Village Chapel down in Kannapolis, North Carolina, Pastor Ken, Pastor Jeff. Welcome to the Man Up show today. Well, welcome. Thank you for having us. Yeah, always good to be with you guys, around you guys. Always an inspiration for me. Of course, Jeff, we have a much longer standing history than Pastor Ken over here.

We've met more recently, but I want to get into your stories here in a minute. How you got, Pastor Ken, how you made your way to Village Chapel in K-Town from being a Northern Yank, yeah? Yeah, that's right. Upstate New York, Syracuse. Upstate New York, Syracuse.

We're gonna talk about that in a minute. And of course, Southern Born and Bred, is that right, Jeff? Yep, Kannapolis. Kannapolis, North Carolina, K-Town. K-Town.

As we affectionately call it over there in North Cackalacky. So let me... Jeff, let me start with you, and just for our listeners out there, a little backdrop. Like you said, we go way, way back. We first met, I think it was through a nutrition company, was it not? Yeah, like 2008, 2009, something like that. Maybe before.

Yeah, 2006, 2008, somewhere in there. And we had met, we had not... Even though we were living in the same town, we had never really crossed paths before, but we met through that company, and that led into this long-standing relationship to, here we are now. Yeah, man's ministry and ministering to, man, a lot of guys over the years.

A lot of guys, and just people in general. And I know now... And both you guys are on staff at Village Chapel, we'll talk more. You've been there since the inception of Village Chapel, and Ken's come aboard more recently, but... And of course, you have been instrumental, you've been a part of Man Camp, and been instrumental, and once you attended one of your own, you've been back in just full support of the camp itself and on staff, and just been an amazing, integral part of what's happening there. Yeah, I would say, after I attended, I really got hooked, or sold on the idea of what God was doing through that ministry, and just loved seeing lives changed, and honestly, loved seeing the growth in myself through doing ministry. Yeah. And at Village Chapel, you kind of oversee a number of the ministries as well, right? What all you do?

Right, like the... I guess you would say the teaching part, we call it Village U, so taking someone from a new believer to hopefully a seasoned Christian, and their ministry walk in all the levels of that, and just putting leaders in place that facilitate that. Which is so important, because one of the things I feel lacking, and I'm gonna jump over to Pastor Ken here, and say one of the things I've found lacking in the... I stopped counting at 1200 of number of churches that I've preached in and ministered in at this point, but is discipleship. What I'm hearing Jeff say, Pastor Ken, is discipleship. That's important over at Village Chapel. Oh yeah, absolutely. In fact, our mission, our vision is to be a village for the city, but our mission is help people become totally devoted followers of Christ.

And Jeff really works on that in the sense of life groups, the Village U, and that is vital to us. And Ken, you've been in ministry for how many years, roughly? About 37. 37 years, yeah.

Okay, so here's what I find interesting. So you're essentially, I guess, would you... And I know that people aren't hung up on titles, I know you're not, but essentially lead pastor though, right? That's right, yeah. So you're lead pastor, but interesting, you moved down from the north. Correct, yeah. And I just learned today, Jeff just found out he's gonna be a grandpa for the first time, but you have several grandchildren who lived in the area, and that's why you retired actually, is that correct, and moved down here? Yeah, actually our grandkids, we have five.

Okay. And they were kind of scattered, one was in Albany, New York, one was in Oklahoma, those families, and they decided to move down here. To the Carolinas. To the Carolinas, to this area, and we said, well, what are we doing in the cold north where there's all sorts of snow, and we said it's about time, and we just felt God was leading us to come to this area. And Kannapolis, we found a house, and before we even sold our house, and then we bought a house down here, and we sold our house in Syracuse, first church we visited, very first. Right, now, because you retire, you're like, hey, we're just gonna go... That's what I said, I said, I'm done, I'm gonna do DoorDash or something, I'll get some shoes if I have to.

But we just wanna go enjoy the grandkids and all that. I had about three months off, but the very first church that we visited, the very first Sunday, and I didn't know Jeff, they didn't know me, I was coming incognito, I was hiding, I was visiting. You came as a visitor.

Yeah, yeah. We need to find a home church. This guy, Jeff, gets up on the stage and introduces their search team, their lead pastor, and I look at my wife and I go, are you kidding me?

I can't even hide. And then they found out that I was a pastor and moving down here, and then God brought us together. It was a really neat story how God brought the two... In fact, you spoke one of the Sundays as a fill-in, and I actually talked to you a little bit, and... Yeah. I think you were part of that prayer group that prayed for us because I asked you for that. Yeah.

If somebody asks me to pray, I am gonna pray. Yes. So, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I do remember, yeah, I was kinda... And I'm like... Because a lot of times I'll say, hey, what can I pray for you for? Sure. Whether it's a waiter or a waitress at a restaurant or running into someone like yourself in a church service.

Sure. And so the Lord began to already essentially work on your heart like, hey, you thought you were gonna retire and step away from, quote, ministry, but I've got another plan for you, essentially, is where that led. Right. To where you became... So you began to dialogue with the staff and the search team and all of that, and really felt prompted of the Lord to... Because you specialized, King. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have specialized too in coming into two churches that not necessarily, I don't know, maybe struggling is the right word or... But explain that a little bit about what you've done in the past with other churches. Right.

Yeah. So my wife and I have been involved in two church plants. We also helped with the merger of an older traditional church with one of the church plants that we were leading. And the passion that I've had and continue to have is transitioning, helping churches transition and move through stages where they can grow and develop. And really, it's really become a church planting church, and that's what we're working on with Village Chapel. We want it to be a church that is planting churches and developing leaders. I was actually talking to Jeff on the way here that that is my passion. My desire, my passion is developing men who can lead in ministry, whether as elders, deacons, but primarily ministry, either as a church planter or in pastoral ministry.

And so we really... I want to put my emphasis for the remaining time that God has me in leadership in ministry in that way. And so like if there's a church, let's just say out there, maybe struggling in some sense of the word presently, I think I understand even from your vision, the two of you and the church as a whole, that you're even open to meeting with or stepping into that scenario and helping that pastor or helping that church get to a healthier place. Would that be fair to say?

Yeah, that's exactly it. And right now I've got people that I'm praying for, men that are in ministry that I'm mentoring or trying to help, because somebody did that for me. And early in my ministry I had a pastor that kind of took me under his wing.

I didn't know what was going on, but he was mentoring me and helping me, pouring his life into me, and I want to do the same and help those guys become what God wants them to be and develop them. And you've been predominantly upstate New York prior to your southern experience, correct? The whole time, except I went to school in Philly and Indiana, but I didn't stay there, I just went to school for Bible college and seminary. And the whole ministry experience was upstate New York in the cloudy city of Syracuse.

The cloudy city of Syracuse. Did you know at an early age, Ken, that God was calling you into ministry, or how did that transpire? I did not grow up in a Christian home. Our church was the woods or the pond where we went fishing or hunting in the woods, and we were not church folks. In fact, I came to Christ after about three years of searching, reading the Bible on my own. Then I started attending a church in my neighborhood and came to Christ at age 17 and felt the call of God at that time, and went off to Bible college and then later to seminary.

So you were proactive in searching that out? Yeah, it was, well, it was the Lord drawing me. There were no Christians in my family. My older sister had some influence. I think she did bring me to a church that preached the gospel, but I didn't understand why.

I was about 10 at the time, but that was, I think, the beginning of that whole process. Okay, okay. And so let me jump over to Jeff here for a second. So, Jeff, as you're hearing Pastor Ken's story, and of course you had an integral role in his getting, if you want to say, hired on as the lead pastor. And so, do you remember that day that you introduced the search committee and then got a chance to meet this guy? By the way, he was avoiding me. I said, oh, he's one of the pastors.

I'm going to try to hang out with this guy. He's like, he was like, oh, no, I'm not going to do this. Well, it was kind of funny because it was good. It needed to be done. Okay. Yeah, I didn't want to show partiality in any way, you know, with the search team. But after I announced our search team and introduced everyone, then I went up to Ken. We talked because he was a guest. And so, you know, and then- For first time visitors, right? First time, yeah. Oh, he was very friendly until he found out he was a pastor. And then he said he was a pastor and I was like, what's going on here? You know?