Fishers of Men (ft. Curtis Vick & Blake Smith)

Hello, everyone. Today is Monday, March the 6th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. And you're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for future episodes, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. That's right. You guys can help us keep this conversation moving forward by supporting this podcast, sharing it online, leaving us a good review on iTunes, Spotify.

Anywhere you get your podcasting content, I should say, we're going to leave a link in the description of this podcast so you can do just that. You want to hit the verse of the day? I don't know what words you were trying to say. I was trying to say con-tasting pod-kint. I don't know why, but that's what my brain is. Pod-kint. It's early of a morning.

Nice. It's early. Ephesians 4, verse 25. Therefore, putting away lying, let each of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

That's a big theme in Ephesians, is that we're a body. When we catch a disease, when we get sick, physically, one part of the body is sending the wrong messages to other parts of the body. Things are getting crossed up. We're not communicating. My brain is like, hey, lift your arms.

My body's like, I'm too tired. I can't do it. It's not going to happen. They're not cooperating. That's what Paul's warning thing is in the church here, is make sure you cooperate with one another. Yeah.

A breakdown in one place in the body affects the entire body, so make sure that your actions, in so much as it depends on you, are contributing to the unity of the body. That's right. We've got a great show in store for you guys today. We've got two special guests that we want to bring in, along with Dr. Shah. We're going to get right into it. If you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes, send us a text at 252-582-5028. Again, you can visit us on ClearviewTodayShow.com.

We'll be right back. Well, good morning, afternoon, evening, Clearview Today listeners. My name is Jon. And I'm David.

And we just want to take a quick second and let you know about another way that you can keep in touch with Dr. Shah's work, and that is his weekly podcast series, Sermons by Abaddon Shah, Ph.D. As a lot of you may know, or maybe some of you don't know. If you don't know, you do now. And if you don't know, then maybe just hop off the podcast.

David. I'm just playing. Hop off the podcast.

I'm just playing. Keep listening. Dr. Shah is actually the lead pastor of Clearview Church in North Carolina. Every single weekend, he preaches expository messages that challenge and inspire us to live God-honoring lives. Well, one of the four core values of Clearview Church is that we're a Bible-believing church. So every sermon is coming directly from Scripture, which is great because that guarantees that there are timeless truths that are constantly applicable to our lives. This is a great resource because whether you're driving, whether you're cleaning the house, whether you're working out, you can always benefit from hearing the Word of God spoken into your life. And God's Word is always going to do something new for you every time you hear it.

Sometimes it's conviction and sometimes it's encouragement. But know that every time you listen to God's Word, you're inviting the Holy Spirit to move and work in your life. You guys can check out the Sermons by Avidan Shah Ph.D. podcast. First and foremost, check it out on our church app. That's the Clearview app. You can get that in the Google Play Store. You can get that on iTunes. But you can also find the podcast on the Apple Podcast app or on our website at ClearviewBC.org.

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All right. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Avidan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

If you have any questions or suggestions for new episodes, send us a text at 252-582-5028. Dr. Shah, welcome to the studio today. Today is a very exciting—exciting is not the right word. Wonderful is not the right word. I'm fishing for the right term. Oh, very nice.

Something smells kind of fishy around here, dude. I couldn't resist. Very well played. Very cool. Very well fished. All right. Well, if you guys are joining us for the very first time, Dr. Avidan Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, a professor over at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor and the host of today's episode.

You can find all of his work online. That's AvidanShah.com. That's right. And on today's episode, we have a few very special guests to us. If you're watching the video podcast, you've already met one of our video guests.

I think this is the first time we've ever had a guest where we had one—well, number one, this is the first time we've had two guests at the same time, I believe. Maybe not? I don't know. Maybe not.

Maybe not. But then this is also the first time that we've had a guest in the studio and then a guest remote. Yes. This is a first for Cleveland today. Very exciting. Yes. So, Dr. Shah, do you want to introduce our guests today?

Absolutely. Well, our guest is a dear friend and church member, as well as Curtis Vick. And Curtis came along with his wife a couple of years ago, and God began to lay on their hearts to come to Clearview and start attending church and bring their kids and raise their kids here at Clearview. And we really are grateful to the Lord that He brought you all to us. And then through the years of just seeing your example and how you lead your family—you've been through some tough times in the past year—but see how your faith and your example in leading your wife and kids, but also to the people you work with and the people in the community, in your family, how you have exemplified walking with Christ through the midst of difficult situations has been awesome to watch for us. So welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much. I'm excited to be here and excited to get going with this ministry and bring this event to Clearview.

It's going to be a great time. Absolutely. Amen. And now we have a Mr. Blake Smith, and you want to just tell us about your relationship with Blake.

And then, Blake, maybe you can kind of tell us the heart behind this ministry, how everything got started, how you kind of found where God was leading you to do this kind of thing. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, welcome aboard, Blake.

I guess that's the appropriate term for vision. Thank you. Thank you. We're very excited to have you and the group of guys that's going to be coming with you to the church coming up here in April. We'll go into more details about the dates and stuff later on. But I met Blake, actually, we've never met face to face, ironically, we've just talked over the phone.

I was looking for a way to have an event at the church that promoted fishing and walking with Christ and just being, you know, bringing people to the Lord in a different way. And that has transpired through this ministry. So, later on in the episode, I think we'll get into more of the details of how I actually came to this point and being able to get in touch with Blake. But through a contact of mine and through Chick-fil-A, I was able to get in touch with him and Blake, you know, called me back and was like, absolutely want to do this.

We're coming up in May. So we're going to make it happen and just excited to partner with you, Blake, and make this happen for our community and for the area. And if you want to tell us a little bit about the ministry, go for it.

Absolutely. You know, I'm really thankful, Curtis, not only to you, but also pastor and everybody for giving us the opportunity to come up there and to give you a little bit of a brief overview of our ministry. So for the past, oh my goodness, it's probably been eight years, we've hosted an event at Major League Fishing that was called Meet the Pros. Meet the Pros was a faith-based program that gave you an opportunity to hear from eight or nine different professional bass fishermen in the industry and then get to hear about fishing but also get to hear about the hearts and what's behind the scenes with some of these guys.

And, you know, it's what kind of prompted us. So we all moved from Major League Fishing to Bass Masters because they've established this league called the Bass Masters EQ Series, which has given us just a great platform, not only to further our careers in bass fishing, but also to have an opportunity to just evangelize and have more of an opportunity for outreach and to go from reaching 167 guys every month on tour to almost 4,500 guys throughout the year. This is really just an opportunity for us to not only reach the community, but reach the hearts and the souls of these guys that are taking part in the fishing tournament itself. So what we did is we put our heads together as a group of guys and then also with the help of Bass Masters to create the Bass Masters Legacy Night. Bass Masters Legacy Night is going to have, as you'll see on the flyer, just a plethora of awesome anglers that have a really, really, really deep involvement in the sport of bass fishing for a decade. But then also, you know, they all have amazing hearts for the Lord and have a great story to tell.

And I'd love for the opportunity to get to have each one of them share every night, but they don't get to do that just because of, you know, having only a set amount of time there to, you know, to speak and being able to offer that to the church and give everybody an ample time to talk. But what it's going to be is it's going to give guys an opportunity to get to ask lots and lots and lots of fishing questions, win some awesome prizes, and then four to five of those nine guys will get to share a story. And that story will be maybe their testimony or some form or fashion of when they came to know the Lord or, you know, of something the Lord was telling. I mean, one of the guys talks about tithing, which is pretty cool, you know, and how that changed his life, like how tithing and giving God 10 percent, the first fruits, literally was one of his first acts of service to God that it changed his entire life. And I hope you'll get to hear him, but all of them have a very unique testimony, a unique story that sets them apart off the water.

But we're really, really excited about it. So, you know, as for the night, how it goes is, you know, it really is a special night. And in the past six years through these events, you know, what we were doing, Meet the Pros events, which now transition into Legacy Night, you know, we've had over 850 people give their life to the Lord at these events. So, you know, talking about just the evangelical outreach of it, it's been pretty amazing. One of the other guys, James Neigemeier, who you'll get to meet that night, he'll be at the event. Him and I and Chris Wells wrote a devotional book that we'll be bringing with us as well called The Morning Bite.

And that gives you just a little bit more behind the scenes intimate look of the three of us and so that we'll bring some of those that night and give some away and stuff like that. But, you know, it just a lot of people don't realize that in bass fishing, you know, it is such an unreached people group and most people are like, wait, what are you talking about? We're in the south or we're below the Bible belt. So most of these guys know about the Lord. And that is true. But such a large percentage of these men have yet to walk into a church, the people that we encounter.

And I know that sounds weird. You know, we're living in twenty, twenty three and and, you know, there's it's just a different time and place, you know, but in all actuality, what happens is, is a lot of these guys, they work nine to five, Monday through Friday and Saturday and Sunday, they're on the water. So, you know, a lot of those guys do not come to church on Sundays. And this gives them a reason sometimes for, you know, I can't tell you how many men that we see for the first time walk into church in these events. Yeah, as a pastor, you know, that's one thing I've seen for the past twenty four years and even growing up in a pastor's home, I saw my dad going after men to to get the family because once once they come, I don't know how it is, but the whole family follows. But if it's the mom or the wife doing her best, it's just such a fight, you know, and especially if the kids and boys become teenagers, it's a fight. But if the dad is coming and he's involved and he's connected and he finds a way to serve or something like that, you know, beyond being saved, it's it's pretty much done. You know, they are going to be in church. Well, that's God's design for the family, isn't it? I mean, it's it's the man taking that spiritual leadership role.

And I think that's God blessing it. And Dr. Shah, I've seen you do that even with, you know, with going and hunting with men in the church and going and fishing, it is because that's where the men are. They're out in the woods.

Like Blake said, they're on the water. And so it's easy. It would be easy for someone like you in the academic world to say, well, listen, I'm just going to focus on what I'm good at. It's another thing entirely to be like, you know what, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to make those I'm going to make those connections. I'm going to make sure those men know that they're cared for. Absolutely. And I enjoy it.

That's a funny thing. I mean, it's not just like, oh, I got to leave the academic world and go fish. No, that's fun to go fish. And it's fun to go hunt, you know, and I know, Curtis, you do that as well, right?

I mean, you. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, I've shared my story hundreds of times about coming to Clearview. And, you know, the first Sunday we came, I remember looking at my wife and I'm like, we don't need to go anywhere else. This is now our new home.

And, you know, this church has drove me to be more of a leader in Christ in my house and be able to kind of guide my family the right way. And I'm forever grateful for that. But more importantly is how much you guys support me and my fishing endeavor. And I mean, I'm just a co-angler right now, but I got dreams. That's right.

You know, maybe one day instead of fishing with Blake, I'll be competing against him. Oh, wow. Look at that. You know, speaking of your wife, I was told to bring up the Power Pole story, not only because it's funny, but because the Power Pole story actually leads into kind of your involvement in this ministry.

Do you want to kind of start at the beginning there? Yeah. Well, I didn't echo how much Power Poles cost, so naturally when I was looking at putting Power Poles on my boat, I was very wary about spending that money. And I had a couple of fans behind me pushing me to go ahead and buy them for an event that was coming up. I actually got to fish the Bass Pro US Open a couple of years ago. It was an owner benefit tournament and we were like fishing for a million dollars. So that was wow.

I was really, really going after that. So for listeners who might be like me, who don't know what fishing is, is Power Poles, I can just assume they're very, very pro-level fishing poles? Well, they're actually shallow water anchors. So they mount to the back of your boat and... So they're not fishing poles at all?

They're not fishing poles at all. No, no. I was with you too, John. I was like, oh, okay.

The only Power Pole I know is from Dragon Ball, so I'm not sure, but I got you. Oh, goodness. Yeah. Blake, you have to pray for me on this one, man.

A couple of guys. Oh, I got you. I got to get them on the boat. However, well, I got an opportunity to go up and marshal the pro event on the Potomac River and that's where the tournament that I was going to be fishing in was. I'd never been on the Potomac River before and I was trying to get some insight on what was going on and everybody I've seen up there had... On the way up there, I just talked to a lot of people about something I need.

You absolutely need Power Poles, you're going to have to do it. My boss, Josh, and my second level boss, Doug, was kind of arguing me, I'm going to do it. Josh even offered to let me have him shipped to his house so I wouldn't get in trouble with the wife. Oh, wow.

Because this all was low-key. Oh, Josh. Yeah. We're doing this behind Beth's back is what we're saying.

Oh, no. Yes, but that was a plan involved, so I got to talk about my mother-in-law. She passed away back in September, but I always said at the beginning of this fishing adventure for me, I had two lifelong fans.

She was my number one fan and self-proclaimed fan club president, and then Dr. Shaw was my second. Absolutely. My wife wasn't on board yet until I cashed that first check and then it was like, hey, he might actually be able to make some money. Although they say the best way to make a million bucks in bass fishing is to start with two million.

Start with two. That's it. That's right.

But the power poles. So we're on the way to me and my mother-in-law. She actually traveled with me up to marshal that pro event and I get a phone call from the wife and we had just talked about, me and Pat were talking about these power poles I had bought and no one knew about it but me and her at that point.

Well, the wife calls to see where we're at and we're like 10 miles outside of the motel room and I was like, yeah, we're going to get checked in. I got to run up to the mall and buy me a hat because I forgot my hat at the house. You don't need no hat. Them hats are expensive. This hat's like 20 bucks. And so we hung the phone up and my mother-in-law was just dying laughing in the passenger seat. And I was like, what's so funny? She's like, she's worried about a $20 hat and what's coming to your house tomorrow. You have no clue. Yeah.

So she had no idea. The next morning or next day she gets home from work and I get this text message, picture message that, what is this? And so then I had to play like, yeah, I'm like, did you buy me a new Christmas present early?

Like, you know, it's convenient that I needed those from both. Thank you, babe. Thank you. But there was an ulterior motive too behind this because I knew she was going to be mad if I bought these power poles, but I was going to be gone for a period of time. So I was going for like a week. And so by the time I got home, so many psychologically, like this is planned. Yeah. By the time you get home, babe, that was so long ago. Well, actually, you know, I'm sorry, Beth.

I'm so sorry. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, then I was like, so she, absence makes the heart grow fond.

There you go. So when I get home, it's like, you know, we didn't address the power pole issue right away. So I had time to kind of smooth that over.

This dude is playing like 4D chess. Yeah. And well, anyway, so the power poles are still on my boat. They still work amazing.

I actually used them the other, just two days ago when I was out practicing on Carl Lake. But they, they, they work amazing and I'm still married. There you go.

And they're paid for now. So there you go better. And the good part is your mother-in-law who is now with Jesus, right? She took up for you.

She did. Yeah, absolutely. And my wife would often say that she couldn't get on me and I don't have that protection anymore.

And unfortunately, but I always say, what would your mom say? That's right. That's right. But yeah, so, you know, again, my mother-in-law, she was, she was a treasure to me and some, not many people can say that in the married relationship, but my wife would often say if we ever had to separate, God forbid, that my mother-in-law would move in with me instead of her. But, you know, I'm, I'm very blessed to be in the family that I'm in and the support that I have. And I can't, you know, I got to give the credit to my wife supporting me and carrying that support on too.

That's right. And the same thing that my wife doesn't ever look at is our tackle warehouse bill ever. Because when I need something for a tournament, it's, it's definitely something, I just buy it and it's, it is expensive.

It's an expensive sport, no doubt. But, you know, I mean, it's awesome to see when you read the gospels, Jesus is calling fishermen to follow him, you know, and the whole idea of catching fish. I've been on the Sea of Galilee many times, I can just picture Jesus, you know, walking by the banks and calling Peter and his brother and then John and James to come follow him. And the, I guess, the challenge to them is come follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. Right. You know, taking that analogy and just expanding that.

And then, you know, when they're catching fish, it's always overwhelming. So many more. And that's the whole purpose for this event that's going to be held here is that we want to catch as many souls as possible, you know, and, and using this as an avenue to do that and your ministry and through Curtis having this contact to do that. I mean, this is, we've been praying about this when Curtis came to my office, you know, sometime back and said, hey, I need to talk to you. That's the same day I talked to our team and said, no, we don't, we're going to have a men's event here. You know, it's time for us to do this because we were doing that back in 2019, we were working on something and then all of a sudden the world shut down.

That's right. So we're like, okay, it's time to do that and we're ready. And then he walked in and said, I have this plan and I know this gentleman named Blake and we are working something out.

I mean, what do you think? I was like, go for it. Yeah. And that support is actually, you know, I think you shared it with Blake on our first phone call together that is contagious. And the support not only pushes me to be better and pushes us to be better anglers and men of Christ, but, you know, if we didn't have that support, most likely we just fade off to, you know, like many others do. But that, it's just in general, you know, I'd led into the story about how I came to meet Blake or get to know Blake and that, it all started around that power pole story. And when I was going to meet, to marshal the pro event and I met Joey Sufentes and when I was trying to figure out how I could make this role, I remembered Joey had been on some of the meet the pro events for the major league fishing. Well, I called Joey or sent him a message and he was absolutely, I want to get it going, but I'm hunting in Kansas right now. You know, in two weeks I'll call you back.

Well, I mean, of course two weeks hit and I'm antsy, I'm ready to roll. So I sent him another message and he's like, yeah, I'm going to give you and get you in contact with Blake Smith. Well, ironically about three weeks before that, I got an email at work that was, Hey, we have this professional fishermen coming up to for the bass open. He wants to get involved with the local church. I'm not the operator, so I don't make all the decisions at the Chick-fil-A, but here in Henderson.

But I do, I do make some of them, you know what, I can't do anything about the event here at the store, but I have the perfect church for that. And so I sent the email back and then I want to say right after the second phone call from Joey I was sitting in the office one day and my phone comes up and I have a spam block on my phone. And when it comes up in a number rings, you know, it won't give me anything but where it's from. And I was like, who is this calling me from Lakeland, Florida, put my phone back down.

And then all of a sudden I was like, Oh, this Blake, I grabbed my phone and I started calling back. And so, you know, that is a funny story how that got started, but it's, it's a beautiful thing to be able to be a part of not only, you know, fishing and sports, but so many times sports in general becomes this, um, I don't know, almost like a cult following in and it promotes, you know, things that are not of God and of, of Christ in general. And, but one thing I can say about the sport of bass fishing is right before every tournament, I don't care which level you're at. Um, you're going to stand up on that boat and you're, you're going to, they're going to pray.

Amen. Um, and I've got every, every story I have with a fishing story and stuff like that comes back to that. I mean, I met a guy last year, fishing in a tournament that we were both sitting on the boat. We're talking about my mother-in-laws right after she was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.

And, you know, we kind of knew that things esophagus cancer is one of those rare cancers that it takes about 90% of the people I think, um, from, you know, and. His name was Mike. And he, I was telling him about the story and he asked me, he's like, you're in church. And that was a segue. You can see, you could sense something stern. And I mean, he sat there, he sat down and he said, do you mind if I pray for your mother-in-law? And I was like, absolutely not.

We need all the prayers we can get. Um, wasn't a great tournament for me, that tournament, I just got to say, but I will tell you that it was, um, it was a very moving moment and we both shared like, this tournament wasn't about catching fish. This tournament was about our testimony, sharing it with each other. So yes, I've got countless stories like that, the table across my bass fishing career.

And I've only been fishing for two years, so I can't wait to see what the future holds. Absolutely. I love that. And thank you so much, Curtis, for sharing and Blake for you for sharing as well. Thank you guys for being on the show today. I'm excited about this, this ministry, this opportunity to see, you know, not just, not just men get excited about fishing, but just like you were saying, Dr. Shaw, for us to be equipped to be fishers of men. That's right.

The gospel as wide and it's so wonderful. Thank you so much for being on the show and this event is coming up. Curtis, when, when we remind people when the event is one more time, it's going to be on April 29th from six to 8 PM. Okay.

That Saturday. So that's exciting. We'll, we'll put more information out there as we get closer. Uh, but if you guys have any questions or suggestions for future topics, make sure you let us know, send a text into two five two five eight two five zero two eight. Or if you're interested in the event, you can reach out to us. We'll keep you in the loop about when that's coming up and how you can be involved in it, especially if you're going to be local or you can, uh, visit our website, clearytodayshow.com and you can partner with us financially at the same place.

Every gift that you give goes, not only building up this radio show, but countless other ministries for the gospel of Jesus Christ, right? We usually would end the show with a user submitted question, but I just got to know, we got about, I think 45 seconds left on the clock. What is the biggest fish that either of you guys have ever called?

I'm so glad you asked that because I've been wanting to ask that the entire time. So Byron is on my Facebook page. I'm sorry, Blake. I didn't mean to cut you off, but mine is on my Facebook page. It is a 4.97 pound bass. Wow.

Um, it weighed 5.97 on the boat, by the way, uh, scales lied to me when I got up there. But anyway, um, that it is on my Facebook page. Check it out at victory bass fishing.com and it's V I C K T O R Y bass fishing. Very cool. Very nice.

On Facebook. So, uh, go check that out. What about you, sir? Man?

I listen, I don't even want to talk about it. Um, to be honest with you, um, you know, this is, it's bass fishing and I ain't trying to be in competition or anything like that, but, uh, but my largest bass to date is right around 14 pounds. Wow. Wow. My, my largest last year was 11, three and, um, but, um, yeah, but I live in Florida, so that's why I said it doesn't count monsters down there down here. And um, you know, so I, I, my, I, I really, it doesn't count. That's what I'm saying.

Like in my largest bass in, in the Carolinas, probably a four pounder. Okay. That's it. Okay.

Yeah. So, um, and I think that was in North Carolina at Lake Norman or I think I've caught some at heart wallet around the four pound range and I've caught some at Norman and around the four pound range. Um, but Florida, Florida bass are freak of nature. They grow a little bigger down there. They get big, they get real big down here. That's why we're trying to stock them in our lakes. There you go.

Do you know offhand the biggest you've ever caught? Oh, I don't. Oh, okay.

But I went with Thomas a couple of years ago and some of y'all saw those pictures. I'm blown away. I don't know how that boy caught all those fish, but Blake, I'm looking forward to meeting you sir. And, and, and the rest of the guys who are coming, I know when we get those names and and posters and advertisements out there, we're expecting a lot of folks to come and we're going to push it as hard as we can, but I don't think we have to.

I think God's going to use this and people are going to come and the Holy Spirit is going to prepare their hearts. That's right. That's right. That's awesome.

Absolutely. We love you guys. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time.