A Pastor's Passion

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This is the Truth Network. Kingdom Pursuits, where you hear from ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into Kingdom Pursuits. Now, live from the Truth Booth, your host, Bobby Dilmore. Well how fun today. I got an old friend and a new friend with me on Kingdom Pursuits. How does God take your passion and use it to build the Kingdom? I thought that I would be out there enjoying hummus and they have these meatballs at the Middle Eastern Christian Festival which, by the way, is going to be live next week.

They put it off due to the weather. So Pastor Lloyd, if you want to eat the best meatball, long meatball you've ever had in your life. And they have all the food and all the fun and circle dancing. It's all going on in the Middle Eastern Christian Festival next week that we had to move that, but instead I, on short notice, these two pastors came in and were helping me out. And clearly, if I can tell you, these are poster children for how does God take your passion and use it to build the Kingdom. So my new friend is Pastor Russ Fox.

He's with Southgate Baptist Church and he's working on a book that's going to make Annie Bowersock's energized ministry's heart go pitter pat because it's on pastoral care called Caring Well for Your Pastor. So welcome, Russell. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

We're so excited. So how did you, I mean, you are a pastor, so is that a little self-serving? Well, honestly, the call to ministry came out of the blue. No one was more surprised than me. And then the call to write was similar.

No one was more surprised than me. So it's a very humbling experience. I'll bet it is. Yeah.

I'll bet it is. But how long have you been a pastor? Actually about eight years.

Okay. So it was a late call in life. And it's been a tremendous blessing.

My wife and I have been so fortunate to have been called to serve in a couple of churches that are just filled with loving people and they have cared well for me. And that's just such a blessing. Oh, cool.

So it's based on those personal experiences. And so also with me, an old friend has been on with me for years, actually, and sort of with a new church though. So we got Pastor Lloyd Taylor and he is now with Bible Fellowship. You retired from the other one. And he came back out of retirement to start Bible Fellowship. So welcome, Lloyd. Thank you, Robbie. And it's actually not retired. We resigned.

The ministers, I don't think ever retire. But yeah, we're in a brand new church and excited about what God's going to be doing. And thank you for having us here this morning. So how fun you can imagine Robbie's going to do this. So speaking of Bible. Now the fun begins. Cause now it's time to play shenanigans. Speaking of that, you know what I've learned, Pastor, is you never want to run with your, you know, we're speaking of Bible.

So either one of you are welcome to answer this. Do you know why you never want to run with your Bible? You know why you never want to run with your Bible, Pastor?

I don't think I've heard that one before, Robbie. Why you never want to run with your Bible. There you go. Well, here you go. Because, you know, your Psalms get kind of sweaty or your palms get sweaty. How do you want to say that?

Your Psalms get sweaty. All right. All right. I see.

All right. So I bet you know this one. When is medicine first mentioned that you guys being pastors, you're bound to know this. When is medicine first mentioned in the Bible? Well, I don't think I know that one either.

I don't know where you find all of these from. So interestingly, when God gave Moses two tablets. All right. We're going to see if you can get this one. What's a missionary's favorite type of car? He knows this one.

All right. We're going for Pastor Russ. What is a missionary's favorite car? The Accord. Close. He loves Accords because they're all in one Accord, but his favorite car, because he's a missionary, you know, he's an evangelist.

He's a convertible. You liked that, didn't you, Grayson? All right.

All right. We got one more, but by the way, I'm not going to ask this one. Tuesday's Thieves. They did. They stole my Bible journal.

And I just want you to know that my thoughts and prayers are with them now. You like that, Grayson? I got to tell you, my Bible riddle today is a little lighter, you know, a little funnier. So don't think this is all that complicated, okay? It's really not, but feel free to call in at 866-34-TRUTH if you know this. What does God call his nose? What does God call his nose?

If you know the answer to that, it is there. It's 866-34-8-7-8-8-4-8-6-6-3-4-TRUTH if you know what God calls his nose. And if they call in and guess that, Grayson, tell them what they'll win. Oh, Robbie, they're going to win some amazing coloring books and a CD from Pastor Lloyd. Right, Pastor Lloyd is actually amongst many things. He's a recording artist, has his own songs, and you're going to get that CD and a pair of coloring books all in the Kingdom Pursuits prize package. If you can tell us what God calls his nose.

866-34-8-7-8-8-4. Pastor Lloyd, do you want to tell us? Well, I do want to say it's not a coloring book, Robbie. It's a fully illustrated picture book for children called pumpkin details. I created that from a pumpkin man and it tells the stories of the mischievous pumpkin head. So it's a beautiful, fully illustrated color picture book for children.

The parents would love it. It's a great time of year around October and pumpkin season and that type of thing. So there's two books and one CD that has 22 songs that I have recorded and did the lyrics and music for all of them except for one. So this pumpkin man, is he sort of a CD character? He actually does use magical pumpkin seeds.

Yeah, he probably stalks people. You liked that, didn't you, Grayson? Okay.

But anyway, you can win all that. All you got to tell us is this and I got to tell you, it's absolutely delightful the answer to what God calls his nose. Oh, Andrew. Andrew is calling in.

He may know the answer to that or maybe he's got a weather report for us. So Andrew, you're on Kingdom Pursuits. Good morning. Hey, good morning, Robbie. How are you?

I am wonderful. Do you know what God calls his nose, Andrew? Close. Tammy is at home as is often, but I bet you want to give us the weather report. So go ahead, Andrew. Okay. So, most of the flight of the day was under 4 inches of rain, Andrew? Yeah. Wow. For those of you who don't know, let me just share with you that Andrew has long been a member of our special needs Sunday school class at Calvary and Andrew is actually blind.

And so when he's giving you these weather reports, he's not reading them, okay? He's given that from his remarkable memory that he has. And so thank you, Andrew. And I know I will relay your message and how you love Tammy and I'll tell her you called, okay?

Hey, Robbie. I've got something to tell you. Did Tammy pass away? No, Tammy did not pass away and no, Tammy's mother did not pass away. It was her niece, her 36-year-old niece passed away. So that's why Tammy was at a funeral last week, but she was at a funeral in Texas. And so I'm sorry for the confusion on that issue. It was her niece that passed away, not her mother and not Tammy, by all means. Oh, okay.

Well, you know her, right? But yeah, Tammy's sad about that and I will tell her that you passed along that. So thank you for calling, Andrew, and for that weather report. Oh, yeah, you're welcome. God bless. Bye-bye.

All right. I know you know what God calls his nose. And you've got to call us.

866-348-7884. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom. And today we're so blessed to have with us my old friend, Pastor Lloyd Taylor, with Bible Fellowship, and Pastor Russ Fox with Southgate Baptist, and he is working on this book on pastoral care.

And he's also, from what I understand, right? Pastor, you help out Andy Bowersox with his ministry Energize? Yeah, well, we're working together on this project actually.

Oh, really? Yeah, I'm a huge fan of Energize Ministry and have grown to love that brother and just what they do. So, man, I think it's so cool that you're basing it on some ways that your congregation loved on you well, right? Yeah, they have.

They do a great job of supporting us and loving us. And that's provided quite a contrast from the stories that I hear from other pastors and the things that I read about and, you know, right now we have a bit of an epidemic in pastoral suffering. A significant percentage of pastors are considering walking away, dealing with depression, anxiety, isolation. COVID really is, you know, it's brought so much division as people, you know, to mask or not to mask, that is the question, or, you know, to meet or not to meet or to Zoom or to whatever. And it causes, you know, people out and taking sides and all that stuff.

And you're right. Yeah, that's certainly a big part of it. The reality is that most pastors were running pretty much at their maximum load before COVID. COVID has really just exacerbated some of the issues that were underlying issues.

My pastor, my home church pastor would always say, this problem, this octopus has a lot of tentacles. So this issue of pastoral suffering is not a simple issue with a simple solution. There are a lot of underlying factors. Think of health as a three-legged stool. You have emotional health, physical health, and spiritual health. You remove one of those legs, you're in trouble. And, you know, ministers right now, in fact, I just read a survey, doctors, ministers and attorneys are among those with the highest rates of addiction and suicide.

It is, it's a difficult call. But even Moses needed help. You know, Aaron and her raised his hands. And I think sometimes we, pastoral pain is, is in many ways, a byproduct of not getting the help, not asking for help, not having the relationships with either people in the congregation or outside the congregation that can help them kind of hold their arms.

And there's a lot going on. So you kind of resemble that remark, right Pastor? Are you? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. You've experienced it on all sorts of levels, really for decades, right? Because you've been a pastor a long time. Yeah, a little bit over 40 years.

Of course, I started when I was two and a half. I'm kidding. But I have been in the ministry a long time. And I was just sitting here thinking that really, the last few years, I've only had, I could probably count on one hand, the number of people that have reached out to see if I'm doing OK. You know, my life has been wrapped up in caring about people, but very seldom do pastors have people who care about them in the same way.

And it's really sad. I was telling my wife, I said, I had a pastor call me yesterday and ask, just how are you doing? And I said, you know, he's the first person that's called in over a month to just see how I'm doing. And that meant a lot to me.

And I have to remember I needed to be doing the same thing. So I constantly reach out to people, text pastors and let them know how they're doing that, you know, asked how they're doing that type of thing. But I think it is a very, very important ministry. And there are a lot of pastors walking away from the ministry and most of it out of defeat, discouragement. Absolutely. You know, I would imagine and it's just, you know, me talking off the top of my head and I'm no expert.

But, you know, I imagine a lot of people out in the congregation are somewhat intimidated, you know, by their pastor like, you know, I, you know, he doesn't have time, you know, he doesn't want to talk to me. I'm just a nobody. Right. And, you know, you know, you think, wow, should I reach out and touch someone? But you don't want to bother him. Right. Because, you know, he's a busy man. He's got responsibility or people are hurting and all this stuff.

But what I hear you saying, both of you, is that, ah, wait a minute. Yeah, they need you. You know, your pastor needs you. And anxiety and isolation are two contributing factors.

In fact, in a recent faith life survey, those were the two top reasons why pastors were considering walking away was isolation and anxiety. And the interesting thing is no matter what life is what line of work you're in, you know, Satan's got your number in that you're the only one that's dealing with this right this minute. Right. You are on your own.

I don't care what you're doing. You are the only guy. Elijah. Right. Right. You know, and so it's interesting that, you know, Elijah got a dose of humility, right, when God said, wait a minute, buddy, a whole lot more people, you know, and wow, you want to reach out and touch some of them. Right. You know, and I love the fact that you've got a lot of friends, Pastor Lloyd, that you reach out and talk to that are in the ministry. Right.

Yeah. And I don't mean this to sound like a pity party. It was mainly a reflection on Brother Fox's book. But it's just I think it's a neglected type of people, the pastor and the pastor's life. They do so much for other people. And I'm not just saying this to be self-serving, but they do so much for other people. And in my counseling ministry, having counsel with a lot of pastors and missionaries, it's the same thing. The isolation, the rejection, the feelings of failure.

It's all there. And like you said earlier, with the pandemic hitting as it did and not knowing what to do in our churches, people became angry at their pastor upset with their pastor, you know, that type of thing. So it's it's the humanness. We really want to be human. We want people to know that we're real people. And I think folks appreciate a pastor like that. That's down to earth.

That is not afraid to be human. Yeah. And the neat thing about your church is at this point in time, you're up close and personal, right? Yeah.

Yeah. We have we had seven members when I took the pastorate and we're up to, I believe, 12 now. So we've grown significantly.

Well, that's why, you know, what a neat thing. I think, you know, clearly that with smaller groups like that, it's very, you know, there's a lot of intimacy, right? You're going to know each other and you're going to get to know the pastor and you're obviously going to get very close to him in a fellowship of that size. And what an opportunity to build relationships, right? A must serve.

Yes, sir. And we're trying to do that. I do want you to know it's a small congregation, but we have a large building that can seat almost 200 people. So we want to invite anyone that wants to come and visit. So our goal is to rebuild the church or to see it revived and becoming the lighthouse in the community that God has called it to. So I'm curious about the name Bible Fellowship. Well, again, I did not create the name, but I like the name Bible Fellowship Baptist Church. And so what we're we come up with the theme that this is where the Bible is at the heart of our fellowship. And so we are trying to focus on Bible preaching more of a traditional type of church.

But again, where we create fellowship based upon biblical teachings. Right. And what a neat thing to have your experience there with that, with those families. Right. I appreciate that.

I hope so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, you know, it's not like you don't have a worship group because I have to know that. Right. That's another one of your giftings that God gave you is you love to play musical instruments and sing and write songs and do all that.

Right. Well, God has used it. And it's in the ministries that I've been involved in as a missionary, as well as now a pastor in what we consider like a mission church. It's really helpful to be able to play an instrument and maybe sing a little bit.

Oh, you can definitely and you've got family members that. Yes, sir. With the like, love, right?

Yes, sir. Actually, Robbie, my grandson, who is 19, is my congregational music leader now. He joined our church, and I'm really proud of him.

19 years old. Wow, that's a blessing. And not a big part of church though is just it is family. And isn't that cool when it includes your own family?

Well, yes, sir. And I hear that the best way to build a church is back door evangelism, where people are actually bringing family members to church. I mean, we can do a lot to reach out into community, but it's usually word of mouth.

And one family member tells another family member or neighbor or friend. That's how the church can really reach a lot of folks. How about you, Pastor Russ, your church? Yeah, we so pre COVID, we were doing pretty well, a little larger than the average, but not a mega church by any stretch.

It was about 125 prior to COVID. Like a lot of churches, we're probably off about 25, 30%. But, you know, working on the word of mouth and the back door evangelism, like you're talking about just a really in I don't know that we're really post COVID nation now, but it certainly seems to the numbers have certainly tailed off. And I think there's a lot more comfort with meeting and in fellowshipping and sharing meals and things. And so pushing folks, you know, to get out and share the gospel or to show your neighbor's love. And, you know, you can do that virtually anywhere in the grocery store checkout line. It's a simple act of kindness. Correct.

Yeah. And I, you know, it's, it's a neat thing really when I, you know, I, I am now, I guess, assistant pastor of a church in Ashboro, which is West Ashboro Baptist Church, interestingly, all three back. But anyway, and, and were you to come there, you're going to find that it's, there's several families that are generational in other words, they're there, their grandkids are there, great, great grandkids are there, their uncles or nephews, their nieces. In other words, everybody in this church. And you know, it's probably 250 people or something like that, but man, they're all related. And, and when you show up, you feel like you're part of the family.

Right. And there, and like we are all brothers, as you talked about, pastor. So when we come back now, I'm really shocked that nobody knows what God calls his nose. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom, as well as, I know you all are dying to know what God calls his nose.

And so I'm just shocked that somebody hasn't at least Googled it. 866, like we got prizes to give away here. Good ones. We have the pumpkin head stories, chronicles, pumpkin head chronicles. Is that what it's called? The adventures of Mr. Pumpkin Head.

Okay. Pumpkinny Tales, as well as Pastor Lloyd's CD. All you got to do is call us and tell us what God calls his nose. 866-348-7884. We have with us Pastor Lloyd Taylor with the Bible Fellowship, his new wonderful church that we're finding out more about. And Pastor Russ Fox with Meridian Baptist Church, Southgate, excuse me.

Why did I not work? She's with Southgate Baptist Church in Thomasville, North Carolina. And his book he's working on on pastoral care, Caring Well for Your Pastor. So I've been dying to ask this ever since I found out about your book here. So what did your congregation do that you went, oh man, I need to write a book. Well, you know, to be perfectly honest with you, I was sitting in a meeting of fellow pastors, an ecumenical movement that has kind of been going on in Davidson County. And the longer we kept meeting and the more I kept meeting, being a biblical counselor, I watch body behavior, I watch for word choice, different things, expressions and all of that. And what I didn't hear verbally, I saw a lot of pain, a lot of guarded pain, stories that people didn't want to talk about, things people didn't want to talk about. And it's like the Lord just burdened my heart for these brothers that were struggling, that I'm physically right next to, that don't feel a freedom to share their burdens. And began to pray about that and think about that. And, you know, one thing led to another series of not coincidence, what we call coincidence, God calls providence, you know, it just kind of blossomed into this project. And it's been very eye opening. So you didn't answer my question, but it's okay. They loved us well.

I know they loved you well, but I wanted some practical like, what exactly? But before we do that, I know the whole world is wanting to know what God calls his nose. And we have Lewis calling from Virginia. Lewis, you're on Kingdom Pursuits. Thank you for taking all of us off the hook. And tell us, Lewis, what does God call his nose?

I'm going to go with everything. He calls his nose. Oh, I love that. I love that.

I'd never thought of that. What did he say? He calls his nose everything. He smells everything. You know, when you think about it. And he knows everything. He knows. Yeah, yeah, you nailed it. Because you know what God really, he calls his nose, God knows.

Have you thought about that? No. So, Lewis, I mean, you couldn't be more right.

I mean, clearly. And, you know, it's interesting to me, if you look in the Solomon and Solomon, how many references are made to the way things smell? How delightful are your spices, your spikenard and your calamus, your saffron and your cinnamon and your aloes and your frankincense and your myrrh? Oh, it's coming on, man.

I mean, God's nose is awesome. And so I thank you, Lewis. I appreciate you calling in today. Well, thank you. God bless. I'm gonna put you back on hold, and they're going to get your information.

God bless you. So moving back to my question, like, practically speaking, I know that you felt loved. But, I mean, do they call? Do they take you to dinner?

I mean, what practically did they do? So some of the ways that our congregation has lived on us is, one, we have an altar, a time at the altar for prayer. And our deacons rotate leading the prayer. And I can't think of a time when there's been a prayer that they haven't thanked God for us and prayed for us. And I think there's something very important about hearing people's heart of gratitude and concern for their pastor, you know, and pray that and mean it, you know, just you hear it in their voice, you hear it in their words. And they've also supported us with gifts.

They invite us to meals. And they've just been a tremendous blessing. I actually love to just hear them call me pastor. Yeah, that's sweet, isn't it? Yeah, when I first took this church and one of the elderly couples came out and said, I guess we can call you our pastor now. And that really is something that makes you feel good. It makes you feel that you're their shepherd, that you belong, you know? Yeah. I remember the first time after being called to a particular church, they called me pastor and I turned around.

I was looking for who they were talking about, you know. But yeah, once you get past that, you know, that kind of that, there are a little bit of a tear in, you know, being called and chosen and set apart for that. It is a comfort because there's an intimacy in being someone's pastor. And I think one of the challenges that pastors face is that many congregants don't think you should struggle. Like, we come to you for help. You don't come to us for help.

And I think there is kind of some problem thinking there. But our church, to your question, is they pray for us. They love on us. They show us that. In fact, they've given my wife flowers. They've done a good job. They really have. And it's such a blessing.

It really is. And such a powerful question when you think about it. And I can remember trying to name it, think of the name of the girl that was a Disney star that used to be on the Suite Life of Zack and Cody anyway, you know, back in the day.

Big, big, huge Disney star. And I got a chance to interview her because she was on the movie What If. And I don't know, God just put it on my heart in the middle of the interview. Like, Robbie asked her how you can pray for her.

You know, of all the things to ask somebody like, you know, you're kind of intimidated by who you're interviewing. And I just, her name was Debbie. And I said, how can we pray for you?

And she wept. And she said the same thing that you just described. She said, nobody's ever asked me that. She meant nobody had ever asked her that. Can you imagine in your whole life, nobody has ever asked you how they could pray for you? And she just went on to describe, you know, in this line of work, you know, all these things that are thrown at you in the way of temptations to do things that you want to do and honor God with your career. And when she shared, I've never forgotten the experience because God just put it on my heart right at the second to ask her that, which I never would have thought of, like you said, right? I wouldn't have thought of that in a million years.

Like really, you're going to ask, you know, this Disney store? But that's what happened. And like, often I suppose to care well for people is to simply listen.

Yeah. Listening is such an important quality that I think our culture has moved away from. You know, there's a real intimacy and power in just listening to the words people are saying. Because so often what happens is people are talking and we're thinking about what we want to say instead of listening to what they're saying, right? Or we're distracted by technology or what's going on around us or whatever it is, we're not listening.

We're not paying attention. You know, we see it all the time, people sitting through a green light because they're not paying attention. Well, that happens in conversations. And a big part of listening with our ears is listening with our eyes, paying attention to body language, facial expression. I mean, oftentimes people can say the right things, but you see in their heart that something's not right by their body language and by their expression.

Yeah, that's absolutely, that's very, very, very well said. And, you know, it reminds me of a joke that's actually not funny, but yeah, it has to do with these scarecrows that could tell, I mean, these, these crows that could tell that that was not a real human scarecrow because he didn't have his device in his hand. And that's not funny because, I mean, how many kids are out there? My dad is looking at his phone, you know, and what a, what a scary thing. Are my pastors, you know, not, I mean, when I'm talking to my pastor, I'm not on my phone really. Anyway, when we come back, you're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the Kingdom. And I love, love, love who I have on my show today, two people who have a passion for pastoring, which is shepherding, right? And I don't know if you ever saw this in the Song of Solomon, you may know it's my favorite book, but what the, what the husband calls his beloved, it's all translated beloved in it, but when you look at the root of the word, it's shepherdess.

Okay. That's what he calls her, right? Because, you know, what does shepherdesses do? They love on the sheep, right? The good shepherd loves the sheep. And so we, whether or not we have the term pastor on our name anywhere, right?

Every one of us in our own way is shepherding the people that are in our lives, to some extent, but God's given us people that we have a chance to do that. And I love, I think, no, I just think it's so cool, Pastor Lloyd, that you have this church of this size to watch it come from that. And, you know, as we've been friends for a lot of years, I get a chance to talk to pastor quite often. And your heart is always like, God, I want you to do something with it. Show me what you want for this church, right?

Yes, Robbie, I appreciate that so much. It really, to me, the thing that amazed my wife and myself, we visited the church when we were looking for a church home to to be a member of after I resigned my previous ministry. And even though they were small, we were just amazed by how faithful, how loving they were. And that kind of drew us to to the church. We had opportunities of pastoring other churches, larger churches.

But for some reason, God placed us there. And what we have been excited about is just seeing our friends. We have friends from previous ministries and doing missionary work in several different states that have sent us a prayer letter. Some have sent donations to help us with the ministry because we're struggling. We're not a large church in size. And financially, we're we're making it. But we've had friends that have jumped in behind us and partnered in the ministry and have been able to send donations, some personal donations, some from other churches, which have allowed us to do some amazing things in the church.

Could I share a couple with you, please? Well, one thing, if you were to try to find the church, you would have a hard time because there's no road signs. The church has a beautiful sign in front of the building, but no one knows it. It exists hardly because there's no directional signs there. So I begin praying that God would provide us with signs and then give me a sign, not a sign sign. I know.

I'm just kidding. And so what I wanted was it to say Bible Fellowship Baptist Church at the end of the road with an arrow pointing to the church. And that's right. But I wanted it at the end of each end of our street that our church is on. Well, the Lord has provided that not only that, but we're going to be able to provide six of those signs, both sided, double sided. So this will allow the community to know we're there now just through the church signs. And that was provided for through donations of people, part part from our church, but also from people outside the church that have taken an interest in the ministry. Well, the next thing I wanted to do was saturate the community with knowledge about us. So what we did is we had two outreaches where we invited folks to come and help us pass out pamphlets in the neighborhood and in two different settings in that or occasions of doing that, we passed out over four hundred pamphlets, four different four hundred homes. But I still felt a burden that we needed to do more. So I started looking into a direct mailing campaign. And it was so expensive, so expensive to send direct mail. But I took the little town, Bethania, Pufftown, where our church is a part of tobacco bill, part of the Rinaldo Road area, Winston, Salem. And I selected seven thousand residents. And I began to pray that God would provide the money to send out seven thousand direct mail.

There are eight and a half by five cards. And so we are able next week to have the signs put up and the direct mail will arrive at the mailboxes next week. And it's all been and then God puts on King of Pursuits in an amazing.

Yeah, it's so cool. Well, we only got a couple of minutes left. So Pastor Russell. What tell us about the book? How's it going to get there? What do we need to do to make sure that that that that book gets out there? We got to pray. Oh, we got to pray.

We got to pray. Just if you're listening, just pray about this, support their pastors and pray about this this project, this book. You know, my burden is that God would be glorified ultimately, but that he would use this as a tool to minister to the ministers.

Well, let's just pray. Jesus, thank you for the heart that you've given these men and for for each other. And I just pray that you would move this book forward. I pray that you would put it on Andy's heart and you would you would put it on Pastor Russell's heart exactly what they needed in the book and then provide the publishers and everything so that it would be distributed. Lord, I thank you for the visions that you give us.

And I pray that you would take these passions and build your kingdom in Jesus name. I pray. Amen.

All right. Thank you for listening today. And we got so much truth coming at you because Encouraging Prayer starts right after this, followed by Masculine Journey. Then the key to call off.

It's time the man up. So much truth coming at you on the Truth Network. Thank you. Thank you. This is the Truth Network.