How To Impact Your Community!

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Introducing first, from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, the Russian nightmare, Nikita Kolod. Now, the devil's nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. Today, it's a pleasure, a privilege to have Bill Crooms with me.

Bill, welcome to the Man Up show. Oh, I'm glad to be here, Nikita. Well, it's great to have you with us, Bill. I know recently I had the privilege and the opportunity of ministering there and in your community. So, for those out there in the listening world, let's start with where that was.

Where was I when I was with you? And let's just share a little bit about Bill Crooms. Well, my friend, as you know, I'm pastor at East Side Baptist Church in Eastman, Georgia. It is rural Georgia.

It's right there in the middle. You know, we have a medium-sized church, as most churches are, and I'll tell you, I've been there for about a year, and the love and the care that this church has for its community is amazing. They are eager to reach out, eager to share who they are and what they believe with others, and so you came down, and we had a wonderful time in the community. I'll tell you, so many people responded, even after you left and came, and visitors, people who were there for those three meetings that you held in our area, with positive responses, responses for Christ, and we are grateful that you were able to come and bring the gospel forth.

Yeah, so Eastman, Georgia, so really middle Georgia, right? And it was interesting. I'm like, I just feel like I've been there before, and I still believe I have.

I just can't remember specifically what for, but it just seems so much like I had been, it just felt like I had been there before. And I know, you know, we did a men's breakfast, which, a great turnout, right, for the men's breakfast. We'll just start with that, right?

Absolutely. We had more of a, that men's breakfast is something that we do once per month, the first 30 of every month, where men from the community, men from churches come, men of all ages come, and we have breakfast and have a guest speaker, and that guest speaker is bringing the gospel. The gospel is going to be in a sermon format or a teaching format, and you came and gave a wonderful presentation of the gospel and a great message, and our men there, they were just, you know, at the edge of their seats, ready to hear, and really what God was doing in your life. And I really admired the presentation, because that morning, you had three events to do, and that morning, you did more of a conference-type delivery, and then that night, we had a recovery celebration for those who are in recovery in middle Georgia area, where we had different recovery groups come in, and they were able to eat a good meal, and then they were able to get spiritually fed by you, and that was just a great worship time there. And so the two events there, both packed out, but two different deliveries, and then- Well, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Let me pause right there, okay? Because I want to highlight that, that was a highlight for me. Before you go further, that was a highlight for me, because I mean, if I remember, if recollection, my memory serves me well, they were van loads of guys who came in, right? Van loads of guys who came in, and I was kind of blown away, but you said there were guys from all over the country, like Iowa and Florida and Alabama. In fact, one guy came up to me afterwards, 64 years old, and he had just gotten out of prison two days before, and he said the fact that he was even able to attend that night was a miracle of God, that he made it from Alabama to Georgia to that recovery meeting that night was just an act of God. And my heart went out to him, right?

Because 64 years old, I'm like, hang on a minute, hold on, I'm 64, okay. And so, but to kind of sense the life he's had, the challenges he's had in life to just beginning out of prison at the age of 64. But that was one of many stories, right? And they were men there of all ages and black and white and brown and just a composite, a diverse crowd. And then a lot of the guys, other guys who came up to me afterwards, and I mean, it was, I think you said, correct me if I'm wrong, like 20 to maybe 25 different states that night represented at that recovery meeting, right?

That's right. It was, you know, when you have these type of events, the church and what we're doing at Eastside, we're trying to have that gospel impact. And it's not all about just having numbers of attendees in the church for how many people we have enrolled, but we want to have a gospel impact for the kingdom.

And that means that these men who came in many, many states, and I was just talking to men, they were telling me where they were from. They got this gospel message, and now when they graduate their recovery and they go back home, whether that's Iowa, Alabama, we had people from Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, they going back home with the things they've learned, not only in their faith-based recovery group, but the things that you were able to present to them and how you were able to touch them and minister to them, because there was a great move of God there that night, and God moved on many, many hearts. And those people take that message back to their wives, their children, their parents, their families. And while when they left their families, they maybe were not well-received.

Sometimes in recovery you have pushed your limits with your family, and maybe sometimes even grandma will give up on you. And so when they go back, now they are well-equipped to repair those relationships and to administer the gospel that they've received maybe to their family members and to give that forgiveness. Yeah, so what I'm hearing you say is really kind of the ripple effect. There can be a real ripple effect, one from the recovery program itself, and then certainly our service together there that night.

And remembering some of what the message the Lord put upon my heart to really anyone that sits in a Kolob for Christ meeting probably or comes to a camp or comes to a conference is probably going to be challenged by me most likely and or encouraged. And what I remember too about that night, Bill, is it was kind of like two waves, right? And you said there was a great response, like we opened up the altars and there was a flood of guys who came to the altar. And there were actually, which I was somewhat surprised, even some women there that night in the recovery program that were in attendance. But the altars were flooded, and then I sensed that God was not done.

And so I put really kind of a second invitation out there, and then there was a second wave of people that responded to the altar as well. And it was really just an amazing sight to see and a real honor just to be a part of. And Bill, part of why I wanted to have you on the show too is just as an inspiration and encouragement to our listeners out there, whether on the radio program or the podcast, which goes all over the world, is to perhaps your story might inspire someone else. Because what I love about you, Bill, in the short time we spent together was your vision for your community.

Now, Eastman, Georgia is not a metropolis, okay, for those who maybe don't know. It's a small community, but yet you are impacting your community. I remember you said it was about 6,000 people in the town. Is that about how many? That's right.

Within the city limits, I think about 6,000. And part of your vision is to be able to, over the next, whatever, couple, three years, that your church essentially knocks on every door of your community to let them know that Jesus loves them. Absolutely. And part of that vision is to have that impact to, this is our community. You know, we have a mission in the Philippines where we're supporting financially to build a church there. And there's a missionary there who we serve monthly by sending money and supporting.

And we have that there. But sometimes when we think of missions, we think of just that, something that's foreign or something that's in another state. But we want to begin in our own community. We want to begin in our own homes and our own neighbors. And so the idea of where God is leading us is to go to every home, and where we go is we deliver food to the home. We tell them that we love them and that we are there for them if they are in need of prayer or if they have spiritual matters. Whether they come to our church or not, we are there for them. And that's the process.

It takes time to get through a community like that, but not just the homes. We're also going to the local businesses. And we go to those businesses and we might take a candy tray or a muffin tray or a cookie tray and just drop that off and tell them we love them. We're there for them if they need that prayer. And this open doors, you know, we've been able to supply car seats for young ladies who may need that for an upcoming baby.

We've been able to supply gas cards for people who were just trying to get back and forth to work and just trying to get back and forth to college, just needed gas money. And so we just were showing acts of love toward people. But with every act of love, we want to make sure they understand it came from Jesus. And so our vision is to have an impact on every person in our community.

And I believe that when we're in obedience to the Great Commission, God works in our lives differently than when we just sit on our hands and expect people to walk through the door. That's good. And so whether it's reaching out to recovery addicts or the local community itself, what I'm hearing is find a need and fill it.

Then take action and go after it and fill it. And that's what you're doing there in Eastman, Georgia. And then, as we said, the ripple effect of that, right?

And so how long? Let's back up just for a moment. So I mean, we kind of dove right into my time there because we hadn't got to the Sunday morning ceremony. But well, maybe we'll get to that.

Maybe we won't. But let's say you're a native of Eastman. And you said you've been there about a year. But, you know, and I know you have family, right? Talk, tell our listeners just quickly or briefly about the family and how you got to Eastman.

All right. Well, I grew up in a smaller town with about 500 people, Cadwell, Georgia. And I have a wife.

Her name is Kim, a beautiful princess. I have three daughters and two sons. And we are a blended family. God has blended our family together. He has been a wonderful blessing to bring us together. And I'll share with you that each one of my five children, as we were growing in this blended family, one of the first challenges that arose was how God moved in my life as we came together. I believe, well, the children needed discipline and they needed discipline and they needed to do things right. You know, everything dot their I's and cross their T's. And for a blended family, I'll encourage people.

Sometimes that's the wrong direction. And for me and our family, I realized that the children just needed love. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com Nikita Koloff here and I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement? Well, maybe it's a minor announcement.

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You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. They needed they needed me to put their arms around them and say, I love you. I care about you.

I'm here for you to be there for them and the things that was important for them. And and, you know, I found that when I looked, we put this blended family together and we and and love began to abound. Christ's love began to abound in all of our relationships. The discipline wasn't the issue. It just it just went away.

There was no issues with that. And and so I'm I'm real proud and happy for how God has moved in all my children's lives. They're all older. And and so that's been real good. And my my wife, Kim, she is a nurse. She's also a psychologist.

And she serves in other capacities and just real proud of her. Well, and, you know, and there are in today's world, you know, that's got to be an inspiration for some because there are a lot of blended families out there. But that message, what you just shared certainly is can be apropos not only for a blended family, but for a traditional nuclear family as well. Sometimes, you know, we want to as as the man of the house. We do want to come down with the rule of law, so to speak.

Right. And we can get at times a little too legalistic right on on on the rules and what a great point you make in that maybe we just start with love, embracing these children, embracing wives, wrapping our arms around them and and coming from a posture of love that things like discipline just kind of take care of themselves, like you said. So that may be a really a an aha moment for somebody out there listening or an epiphany right now for somebody listening. And so you've you how long you've been in ministry for how long, Bill? Well, I've been a pastor for about 15 years, but I've been in ministering and many different roles prior to that, received a call early in life to go into the ministry and just ignored that call and did a lot of things that I thought would church things that I thought would fill that void.

And it did not. And then I did get the call again. And I'll tell you, I dove in head first out when he when he made that second call, he made it clear to me and through the message and basically what he shared with me through a sermon one morning at it at one church. And the next and that night I was at another church and heard another sermon, two different pastors, and I got the same message from God.

And it was you are useless to me. And the next day I went and signed up to to go into to to school to get my bachelor's in ministry and to get some type of education that would help me prepare for what God wanted me to do. And education is not doesn't have to be for everybody. There are many who do it wonderfully without that.

But for me, I needed that. And so I've been pastor now for 15 years. So two two different churches, two different pastors, same day, same same message.

And so the Lord took a two by four to hit you between the eyes. Bill, are you going to be are you going to continue to be Jonah here and run in the opposite direction? Or are you going to submit? Are you going to yield?

And these are words, man, that none of us like receive real well. Right. Words like submit yield.

Right. You know, surrender. And so you surrendered. Put the hands up and said, OK, OK, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. I'll answer the call that you have for me to really the plan, the purpose, the mission.

Right. And for our listeners out there, I want you to understand, you know, you may not be called called, so to speak, as we say, to ministry, you might be called to to sell life insurance. I don't know, to sell cars like the man I'm looking at right now, the Christian car guy, Robbie Dilmore.

You might be called to to be a nurse. I mean, there's there's lots of different callings. While at the same time, all of it and any of it is a ministry. Right.

It's a ministry. A stay at home mom. I have I have daughters who, you know, some of whom are stay at home moms. I have one who's a very successful entrepreneur, you know, and one who's successful in the music world. Right.

Writing songs and singing songs. And and so, you know, lots of different callings out there. And so you submitted, you yielded, and now, you know, you're seeing the the fruit of that decision. Right. Yes, sir. And, you know, for encouragement for those that may be listening, you know, you you may be at the home or you may be thinking or you may be riding in the car.

You're listening to this podcast. You say, you know, I want to do something for the Lord, but I can't go. I'm at work. I can't go on an overseas trip.

I can't go out of stage. You know, I'm waiting on a men's group to organize and or or a ladies group to organize and to do something. You know, you can do the small things, which is, you know, when you go into my motto in life is be amazing. And when you go into a store, just hold the door open for the next person. You you invent ways to talk to people. You and you, you find ways for conversation and that you can minister to people, that you can offer prayer, that you can deliver the gospel.

It could be you just by yourself with a friend or your child, go and have a canned food drive. You know, those things when and when you're doing those things, you people will participate and you're engaging in those conversations. And now you have an opportunity to share with people your beliefs in Christ or to pray with those people.

There's just all types of avenues. You don't have to wait for something big to happen to love and to share Christ. You there's it doesn't have to have a worldwide impact as far as television cameras having to show up or or applause. It can just be something that's quiet.

It can be something that you don't know what to happen or what or what happened. And maybe until one day when you're in heaven and you see the results of it. Well, and again, it's a great advice.

I hope you're listening and paying attention to what what Bill is saying, because once again, I'm reminded of the ripple effect. Right. And, you know, be faithful with the with the with the little things scripture says. Right.

And then the Lord can open certainly open more doors or or bigger doors. But, you know, Bill, before we run out of time, pastoring isn't the only thing you do. It's part of what you do.

But you do other things as well. Right. Yes, sir. Well, I work at them with the V.A. system. I am a food chief with the V.A.

system. And I have a wonderful chief over myself that does a wonderful job. And we partnered together and working for the veterans can team service and serving veterans for our V.A.

system, serving them food. And we have a there's a retail store where veterans can come in and they can get the things that they need. And so we do that. And as well, you know, I like to think I like to cook barbecue. We enjoy doing barbecue and we have something that's called on Mission 365 where the barbecue is free. And you just if you want to make a donation, whether it's ribs or brisket or pork butts, whatever that is that we're cooking, the plates come with scripture on it and people want to make a donation.

They can. And then we we support different types of missions. We we have a missionary over with a country that borders the Ukraine and people are flooding into that country, leaving Ukraine. And so we're we've supported him. We've supported some of our local recovery groups.

Just different ways of of letting people partner with us. And so there's my avenue and what I want to do is highlight as many as many godly missions and ministries as possible. And so we'll go and interview. We have a homeless shelter over in Alabama that we we we partner with different different ministries, a homeless shelter here in town, Hands of Grace Ministries up in Warner Robins and all of these. These organizations are already out there. And my my goal is to connect people to them so that they can support them, not necessarily start another ministry, but to connect people with existing ministries through the on Mission 365, the cooking of the plates.

That's good. It's in other words, you don't necessarily again, going back to you say you don't have to reinvent the wheel, you know, but but there's certainly many people in need, whether it's a veteran and, you know, thank you for serving our veterans. And I know I'm grateful for every man and woman in uniform out there, whether a first responder, someone who is fought, fought in a previous war.

And so grateful for all of them. Bill, if somebody did want to support what you're doing, you know, or they're in middle Georgia, how could give us a Web site? How could they find out more about what you're doing and if they was on their heart to contribute after hearing some of your story? OK, what they can do because that is go to it's on my Facebook, Bill Crooms. Just look up and look me up on Facebook. And on my Facebook, I have some different links to these different organizations. I can I can they can message me on Facebook. I can send them that link that will directly allow them to give to the organization.

For example, Hands of Grace. During the wintertime, they need gloves. They need hand warmers, blankets, because for the homeless who are outside these cold winters and we post a link on our Facebook and people get that link and they begin to give.

So they might get a barbecue plate and then they might in turn buy a blanket or in turn buy some hand warmers or something like that. And so really, it's just through the link they go, they give directly and they can find me on Facebook, Bill Crooms. OK, Facebook, Bill Crooms, C-R-O-O-M-S, Bill Crooms. So I want you to check that out. And God puts it on your heart to support after after hearing Bill.

So does this man not have a great vision? And do you not sense the heart of compassion that this man has and in the impact, the impact that he is making there in Eastman, Georgia? And so I just would encourage you to check him out on Facebook.

And if it's on your heart to support him, by all means, do do that. And Bill, I look forward to perhaps coming back and partnering with you myself again sometime down the road in the future. I know we will. Well, I'm grateful and I am thankful for the opportunity. We never got to the Sunday morning service, but that's OK.

I know we had a great time there on Sunday morning speaking to the to that to that crowd, in addition to the to the recovery group and then all the men there at the men's breakfast. And so I appreciate you being a part of the Man Up show today. It's my pleasure, my friend. And thank you as well. Each and every week tuning into Truth Radio Network and listening to the Man Up podcast. I just want to thank you for being so faithful.

Go out and have a God blessed, God filled day. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers, support and generous gifts. May God bless you for your continual contributions. Go to Koloff.net and donate today. I, Nikita Koloff, be sure to check out the Man Up show now available on television, broadcast and podcast. Go to MorningStarTV.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings or better yet, download the Truth Network app today. If you are enjoying the Man Up show, would you help us spread the word? Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe and leave a comment. Nikita Koloff here.

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