Welcome to Truth Talk Live. All right, let's talk. A daily program powered by the Truth Network. This is kind of a great thing, and I'll tell you why. Where pop culture, current events, and theology all come together.
Speak your mind. And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host. Okay, welcome to Truth Talk Live. We are on the air sharing the good news of Jesus, and we have a special guest with us today on the show. I want to welcome all of our listeners everywhere to the program.
I'm Stu Everson. It is great to be in the seat today with Pastor Scott Newton. Pastor, it is good to have you with us, making his debut, well, you've been on before, with Bowersocks.
But it's been a little bit. We are all across the country today. Dayton, Ohio, 106.5 FM. Toledo, 106.5. Jacksonville, Florida, 91.7 FM. Brunswick, Georgia, 91.3 FM.
St. Augustine, 91.9 FM. And we are so glad that you're with us, and we're glad for a whole new week of programs. And here's a hot question for you. If your church stopped existing, would your community even notice it? Pastor Scott, what do you say to that? Yeah, I say to that, that's a great question that every pastor probably needs to be asking themselves. You know, we're not out here trying to compete, we're just truly out here trying to make a difference.
And is this the one you want me to use? Yes, we got you. And so we ask ourselves that question. We're in a little town here in the middle of North Carolina, and we're just trying to make a difference on the community around us. So that's just a good question for most leader, pastors, boards, staff members to be wrestling with. Yeah, I want to ask it again, because your church is trying to give an answer to that question, just by your very existence. If your church stopped existing, would the community around you even notice it?
That question has really put a lot in your heart, hasn't it, Pastor Scott Newton, Hope City Church, Wahlberg, North Carolina, kind of in the central part of the Piedmont, kind of near High Point, right in the middle of High Point, Winston-Salem, Kernersville, Greensboro, North Carolina. But it's a message you want every church, every pastor to think about and be encouraged by, right? Yeah, you know, it doesn't have to be about the numbers, it truly just has to be about the impact. And the way the Kingdom of God works is one is a big deal to God. So it's not like you're out there, we're not trying to build our church, we're really not. We're just trying to be faithful with what God has given us. But what we've learned over the years is this scripture that says, to whom much is given, much more will be demanded. And so, like, God's been so good to us. And so we can't just sit there and hopefully try to have a good attendance for Sunday morning. No, we've got to understand that he's called us to, as you've said many times here today, is to be the hands and the feet of Jesus and get out there and impact one person's life. And what you'll see is, when you're faithful with that, God continues to open other doors where you're faithful now with way more than just one.
But that has to be the heart behind it that's driving it. And you've got a lot of people with plenty of food doing just fine in your church, but at some point, your heart broke for the thousands of kids leaving school hungry every day. And that led to a big Renewal Revival and a movement that is touching a whole lot of people. Yeah, you know, this wasn't something that I went out looking for, you know, about 2008.
So, I mean, that's 17 years ago. I just realized that God put in my heart that if there's somebody that is hungry in your community, you've got to be able to meet that need. Hunger is a basic need. And so the Lord just put that in my heart. That wasn't something I was looking for. It just came and I knew that it was from God and so I had to act on it. And I didn't know what it was going to look like. I didn't know the impact that it was going to make.
I just moved. And that's like some of the greatest things or leadership things that I could tell you is, when God puts something on your heart, don't worry about the outcome. Your obedience is what matters. And so I just was obedient and started serving people food that was hungry. And it's turned into what we now call Hopefuls Incorporated, about 17 years later in the making. Wow, Pastor Scott, I go to your church. There's a coffee shop. It's called Given Coffee. And a guy walks up in a suit and spends $100 for a latte. Another little family comes in.
They can barely pay $5 for three lattes. Tell everyone about what's going on there. Yeah, it's in our church.
It's in our building. So that's a little awkward for some people. But once they get past the awkwardness, they come into one of the greatest coffee shops that I've ever been to. I mean, the lattes are good.
I'm going to tell you right now. They got sweet treats. They got nice little healthy treats.
But what's better is the purpose behind it. Like, it's great to have a nice latte. It's great to have a nice place to do a meeting or jump on some Wi-Fi. But what's awesome is all the proceeds from that coffee shop get pumped into Hopefuls Incorporated. The coffee shop is pay what you can. Just pay what you can. Yeah, we have people who come in who don't pay full price. And sometimes they don't pay at all. They still get the same service.
They still get the same love. And truly, at the end of the day, the profit that's coming out of that coffee shop is going to serve hungry children in our community. But when I get my Cinnamon Honey Latte, and it's already there. It's brimming. It's beautiful.
You know, it's hot. But I look on the cup, and there's a kid's name on it. Why is there a kid's name on my latte, Pastor Scott? That's a phenomenal question. We get asked that all the time. Like, is this a real kid's name, or did you just make it up?
No. Hopefuls Incorporated serves children in elementary schools in our area dinner, Monday through Thursday. And we'll talk more about that in a second. But a permission slip has to go home to this family. And if they're receiving a Hopefuls, that child's name actually gets put. It's just a first name, and it gets put on that coffee cup. And because the slogan for giving coffee is a place where your coffee matters.
And it matters too. Let's just throw out a random name, Tommy. And Tommy's a kid who's eating dinner because of Hopefuls Incorporated, because you drank our latte. He won't get another meal. Yeah.
Now we're going to get into this, the backpack to the stomach cycle. We're going to get into how other churches get involved, how you can get involved. We're going to get into Pastor Scott's testimony. Who is Pastor Scott Newton? How do you get a pastor in this church? This guy was on his way to play pro golf and do a hundred other things. And he's in the pulpit of Hope City Church, Wahlberg, North Carolina. Where is Wahlberg? Well, a lot of people know Wahlberg from this church and what God's doing there.
I'm Stu Everson. This is Truth Talk Live. And we're challenging you to think, how can God use you to make a difference in your world?
Not just to sit on your blessed assurance there in the pews, but you really want to call your people out. And this is what's happening. You have people, you have volunteers. I mean, we were talking a little bit with Robbie Dilmore, the Christian car guy, about this ministry.
And he and I were both blown away by it. I mean, this would cost a major corporation a lot of money to put all these meals out to all these schools. But tell us about that and the machinery behind it. Yeah, you know, Stu, one of the things that I really am, I'm moved by it and I'm proud of it, is that we have amazing people at our church, and they do volunteer. They're in there on Mondays and Wednesdays. They're serving, they're delivering, they're doing it. But beyond just the people at our church, we have people in our community and beyond that do not attend our church, that have never been to our church service. And they're in there on Mondays and Wednesdays delivering and prepping these meals. I have a friend of mine who runs an amazing real estate company here in the Triad. And his team comes twice a month, two Mondays out of the month with his real estate team. And they give us like three hours, twice a month, prepping, making these meals to go in these kids' book bags.
So I'm so excited about it. It's making an impact, not just on our church. Our church loves it, right? But that's what they're supposed to love. But I mean, I'm talking about just people who are in this community that are doing other jobs, that may not even go to church, may not even know Jesus.
They may know him, but they don't love him. And they're coming to serve, and it's impacting these children. And the ministry is called Hopefuls Incorporated. Yes, sir.
The church is Hope City Church. You keep them separate. Yeah, they're separate. But people kind of put two and two together. But your goal is just to be the hands and feet of Christ and just to get some food in these kids' stomachs. What is going on with childhood hunger? Talk about that real quick and how real it is even in America. Yeah, if you've been in the news over the last couple years, you've heard some pretty scary statistics.
Hit us with those numbers when we come back. And what is the deal with getting in their backpack into their stomach? How did this pro-golfer turned pastor end up at this church? And what's God doing there? More with Pastor Scott Newton here on Truth Talk Live. Don't touch that dial, and we'll talk about how you get involved. You can make a difference right here, right now, in this world for Jesus.
Hang on. Well, I'm a talk show host who loves Jesus, and I've got a guest who is not just in love with the Lord, but sharing the Lord as a pastor and in his church. He is Pastor Scott Newton, and we talked on the air just as much as we talked on the air.
Hey, God bless Grace and our technical team for getting us all right, coming out of that first segment into the second segment. Pastor Scott, there you are, man, as promised. Now, who's the health nut in your family?
Who's the one that's the clean eater? You've got to take that to her, because that has zero carbs, zero sugars, zero calories, and zero artificial sweeteners. Yeah, she'll tell me to drink this.
Well, she probably will. But here's what, we have 136 million either pre-diabetics or diabetics in our country. So Jerry Smith, founder of La Blue Water, Mighty Muscatine Products, he's passionate about Christians taking their temples. He wants a pastor to be healthy. I mean, you're also still playing golf.
I mean, you're still active, professionally qualifying and all. And so I just am grateful for these guys. We're thankful for vinetastic.com promo code TRUTH for being underwriting partners of this program, and that is for your family, for your health.
And they are, I don't understand all these things, but I do know that from reading the label, there's over 300 parts per million of antioxidant polyphenols in every bottle. Man, that sounds phenomenal. I want to take this to Pickleball tonight, right? If you can take it to Pickleball at Roy's, if you can spell everything I just said.
No chance. Elagic acid, gallic acid, resveratrol, elagitenins, gallotenins, caffeic acid. I mean, I need to go back to chemistry just to understand all these. But it's really good for you, and our bodies are the temple. So thank you, vinetastic.com promo code TRUTH for partnering with us and for making this available to all of our, you know, you want something to drink, right? We like to have something cold to drink during Pickleball, after Pickleball, golf, whatever, church, whatever. And so I probably drink two or three of these almost every day. And the kids, it's like you're drinking your healthy things, you know, without artificial sweeteners, too. So we're grateful for them.
Thank you, vinetastic.com promo code TRUTH. Pastor Scott Newton, how did you come to know Christ? Tell us a little bit about your testimony.
Who is Scott Newton? Well, I remember seeing this beautiful young girl in high school, and I mean, she was there was something just amazing about her and I was drawn to her. I thought it was just my eyes, but truly looking back on it now was the Lord moving me, introducing me to this amazing young lady. She was a sophomore in high school. I was a junior in high school and I started dating her and her dad was a pastor. So I wanted to spend more time with her.
And so guess what? I did on Sunday. I went to church.
How about that? I went to church with her on Sunday evenings. And so I married her seven years later and we're still married.
It's amazing. But in 1992, I was sitting in a church in High Point and the preacher wasn't even preaching. And but they gave an altar call.
And it was I'll be honest, I don't even remember making the decision to go up to like kneel at the altar to receive Jesus. But I found myself there in February of 1992, got saved, had a long journey. And my journey just real quick took me through college golf to professional golf.
And in 2003, I burn out playing golf. I was in Phoenix, Arizona. And to this day, I remember my sister was caddying for me and I told Marcy, I said, Marcy, I think I'm going back home. I was out in the West Coast doing the thing.
And I said, I'm going back home. And that was in 2003. And in 2003 is when the relationship with Jesus actually became activated in my life. It wasn't just like a knowledge that I was saved. It was something that I was I was putting more of my life into. It started serving at the local youth group at my church and went with them to a youth conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, in December of 2003. And I was just there with observing and watching, making sure all the kids behaved.
And I remember the speaker speaking from the stage that night. He was giving a message about being called into ministry. It wasn't something I was looking for. I didn't want it.
But I honestly, Stu, you know, I've told you a bunch of stories over the last couple of years and even today. Like, I wasn't looking for this stuff. Like, God knocked, the door was open, and I was just obedient to go through it.
It's the same thing with hopefuls that we'll talk about in a minute. I wasn't looking for this. I remember the guy speaking there about being called into ministry. And I was working at a cabinet company at the time.
And I just knew that I knew. It's one of those things that you almost feel that you know that you know this was God calling me into ministry, of all things. I mean, I never preached a sermon. I've never spoken.
I've never led a Bible study. I was just basically a bodyguard for our youth group. And that was in December of 2003. And in January of 2005, I preached my first sermon at a little country church in Mocksville, North Carolina.
And there was a lot of God things in between 2003 and 2005. But I just knew that that's what God was calling me to do. And I went. I left literally the results and the next steps up to Him. And that's what I encourage people today.
I'm in 20 years in ministry now. You don't have to be the smartest. And they've read those books that tell you don't have to be the fastest.
You don't have to be the brightest. You have to be obedient. And the outcome is left up to God because obedience leads to God outcomes. And so, you know, for people who may be listening, you've probably had a dream, I guarantee you. And you probably thought, oh, no, that's silly.
No, go do it. Obey and leave the results up to God. You know, I started serving hot dogs out of the trunk of my car in 2008. That's how this whole thing started. I just knew this was God saying, go to the streets where the people are. They're strung out on drugs.
It's dangerous. That's where we went. It started with 50 hot dogs in a little plastic bag, weenies, nasty old boiled hot dogs, hot dogs, mustard ketchup and bottles of water. And I gave them out on Friday nights with another friend of mine. And that's how it started. I was just obedient. And now look at what we're doing with Hopefuls Incorporated.
So I want to get into that. But just for everyone that's listening, if you and Stu were shooting hoops 10 years before any of this. Oh, yeah.
Or hitting the bag of balls. And I said, do you ever think you'll be pastoring a church, a growing church in High Point and feeding 300, 500 miles a week in the public school? No chance. Set the world on fire. You know, my wife, it's sort of a joke, but she grew up in the church. She grew up in the pastor's home and her mom and dad are great people. Her dad's a phenomenal pastor.
But she would like almost set out to go the opposite direction. I'm not marrying a pastor, you know, and God has the final say. And he does have a sense of humor because here I am. We've been married since 99.
So 26 years. Well, so building a church, leading a team, shepherding the flock, raising your family in that church, doing all that. It's one thing. But suddenly, when you went 2.0 on this feeding program, Hopefuls, tell us how that started. And you alluded to it with the hot dog thing, which is pretty remarkable. God put something on your heart for people that were hungry, like physically hungry, not getting food, especially children. What happened?
What set you off? Oh, man, I think it's just understanding that it's a basic right and need for every person. And so I just knew that there was a need. I knew there were hungry people, so I just went. Again, I didn't know what God was going to do. And for the people listening, that's all you got to do. You just got to take that first step.
And it turns into 100. I didn't see this kind of stuff back in 2008. I probably would have run the other direction, honestly. But I just knew there was hungry people in our community. And it's the church's responsibility to be the hands and feet. Matthew 25 says, I was hungry and you fed me, right? It doesn't say I was hungry and you sang me a song. It says, I was hungry and you fed me. And so that's all I did.
That's how simple it was. From 2008 to 2025, if we go to today, I want to go to present, and I want to go back a little bit in how we got there, also to give some folks some hope and some encouragement on how they can get there to see in their dream. Dream big things for God, right? So today, tell us the scope of it. You've got all these food trucks. You've got a coffee shop. You've got all these hundreds of volunteers showing up.
You've got how many meals are going out. Give us the bullet by bullet of what God has done, and then we'll kind of unpack that the rest of the show. You may have to do that when we come back, Pastor Scott. Man, too long a question, but a real short break, and we'll be right back. And download this podcast for those of you who are joining other programming after this little segment here.
Truth Network, Podcast Network, hear the whole thing in real time. Grace is really going to upload this whole thing. Feeding the hungry in Jesus' name with Pastor Scott Newton, Hope City Church. More coming up right after this.
Don't touch that dial. How many of us take that next meal for granted? I've already got three texts, you know, and four phone calls in to my spousal unit, my sweet wife, about, hey, what are we doing for dinner? What's the plan?
Doing leftovers? We're going to go out, get this, get that. Not really an issue, not going to get there and say, oh no, I can't afford this, but there are thousands of children, arguably millions. And not just in Sub-Saharan Africa, but right here in the 336 zip code in North Carolina, maybe in Toledo, where my buddy Craig Swanger's listening in Dayton and in Cincinnati, Lebanon, Ohio, maybe there, where kids will go without food. This is real, Scott. Talk about how real it is.
Put the picture for our listeners. Yeah, you know what it is for most of us? It's out of sight, out of mind, and we don't connect. They're real kids, and I've been in these elementary schools where you see a kindergartener who's six years old, and they're so tiny, and they cannot go out there and fend for themselves. And you know good and well, because you've heard the stories over and over that these children go home to no food. You know, one of the stories that just crushed me was we had a principal tell us that she has seen children run from the school bus to the cafeteria, not because they're excited to get to the school, but because they're that hungry, because their last meal was lunch the day before.
So they get off the school bus and they run into the school. And here's the deal. We, as the hands and feet of Jesus, the church, we have the solution. We need to do something to be able to serve these kids. Now, you could have gotten real mad, hired some lawyers, hired some lobbyists, some politicians, and gone after the government and said, what's wrong with you guys? We had hungry kids in the streets. You could have gotten all political and attacked whoever's in charge at the time, you know, president, mayor, governor, but you did something positive.
I don't think I've ever heard you guys attack, complain, anybody. Even the people that aren't doing anything. Tell us about this positive solution where during the school year, Monday through Thursday, as many as 300 or more youngsters are going to get dinner. Yes.
Yep. We serve right at 300 kids every night, Monday through Thursday. And some people say, well, why not Friday? Well, Friday, the schools that we partner with are Title One. And so they have a backpack program. So on Fridays, they get this backpack and it has food that's going to last them Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So we found the gap and the gap was what are they doing for dinner Monday through Thursday?
And that's where Hopefuls Incorporated comes in. Wow. And you found a way to actually get this into their backpack. So it's not just a bunch of a bunch of food sitting out on the curb that's going to get thrown out or decay. So talk about that in the connection between the backpack and the stomach. Yeah. We found out now two and a half years into this, the backpack of that child is the vessel to get the food from generous people into their belly. So that's Hopefuls slogan from book bags to bellies.
That's that's what we found. Yeah. And so it actually gets there to them. And some people may say, well, what about all these food pantries and these other things? There's all kinds of things that we we take our canned goods to.
What about the canned good drives at the ballpark of you all the time? But you have to tell us the real real skinny on that as it relates to these kids and their caretakers. Yeah. You know, it takes a village, man.
We partner and we love we've given to some amazing pantries that are around there. They're doing amazing things. But what we've found over the last couple of years is that there is there's a lot of obstacles. There's a lot of challenges, man. You know, some people don't have cars. They don't have resources to get on the bus to get to these places. There is there's a lot of bad choices that are being made. You know, the moms and dads of the guardians aren't making some of the best choices for those kids.
And so we tried to bypass all of that and just go straight to the child. And so we did we deliver these meals twice a week to their elementary school and amazing staff partners there at the school. About two o'clock every day, Monday through Thursday, they get to the classrooms with their hopeful package that has their meals in it. And it's usually a protein.
It's usually a vegetable and usually a fruit. And it gets into their book bag. And these kids, preferably they go home and microwave it. But even then we've run into some of the kids don't have microwaves.
Sort of a funny story about that. We when we personally taste test all these meals to make sure that they're good, that kids want to eat them. I mean, like we're not sending home asparagus to a bunch of kids or broccoli, but we taste tested these things. And some of the meals were not very good. Cold lasagna, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, terrible cold. But everything else was great.
So even if these kids don't have microwaves to heat these meals up, they're still good food to eat. The question we asked to start the show off was, if your church ceased to exist this week, would your community notice it? Anyone wants to tee off on that? Our toll free number nationwide is 866-34-TRUTH. Join the conversation on Truth Talk live with Pastor Scott Newton. Would your church be missed at all if it ceased to exist today, this week?
866-34-87884. Pastor Scott, you saw this need, you saw this hunger, literal hunger in the community, and your church stepped up. Now how did this, how was this received in your church? Like, you know, did people get upset? Like, hold on a second.
What about us? Why is this all this going out, you know, did people get mad and feel like that they weren't the priority anymore? Talk about how the culture accepted this.
Oh, yeah. Man, and I tell you, it actually came, we did a lot of really cool events, like neat events, attractional events. I mean, literally thousands of people would show up.
We'd do an egg hunt or, you know, we would do a back to school bash or something. People would show up. But once we got away from that, behind closed doors, we started to talk amongst ourselves, and we were asking, like, is this making an impact?
Like, is it really changing their situation? And we were like, no, really, it's just a cool event. And so, really, it came through prayer. Like, God, what do you want us to do in our community that's going to touch people's lives? And that's where serving people these meals and this food came from.
It literally came from the Lord saying, Scott, go in this direction. So the way you'd answer that question, the community would definitely feel it because there's hundreds of kids every day. And so the feedback you're getting from that, talk about that, the response, what's the noise, what's the stir this is creating? Yeah, you know, the cool thing is that we have some of these teachers and principals that attend our church now. And so we're actually getting to see and hear from their mouth these children and the stories. One cool story was there was a teacher that had this child in their room, and the child was stealing snacks from other kids' book bags during recess or going to the library or something. And listen, this teacher says that this child was not a bad kid. She said this child was just hungry. And so Hopefuls Incorporated comes and partners and adopts this school. And guess what stops that child's not stealing snacks from the book bag because now they have dinner to go home to. And you have buy in now from every different level of the school. So like practically it gets how does it get into the backpack? Talk about that.
Like how does it how does this thing kind of flesh out? Yeah, so we will we were in eight schools this past school year, which it just ended. We were in eight different schools in High Point in the Davidson County area. And we have amazing volunteers that deliver these meals to those eight schools twice a week. So if you look at a Hopefuls package, there's two meals in there. They get one on Monday that has their Monday night dinner and their Tuesday night dinner.
And then on again on Wednesday, we deliver two more meals where they have Wednesday night dinner and Thursday night dinner. Unreal. Now, in real time, we just got a text from Andrew, who says, is that Scott Newton, the golfer from HPU? He was a solid player back in my teenage days, played around him at Oak Hollow every now and then with Jimmy Bain. So Andrew Lewis is jumping in here.
His dad, Jack Lewis, the legendary Wake Forest golfer, coach, play with Palmer, all those guys. So, I mean, people are hearing this thing and they're thinking what the world. I mean, at some point, as you look back, some people might think, why don't you just throw your heart and soul into golf and become like a legend of the greens? And now you're a pastor. When you think through that, what do you hear from the Lord? And how is how what are ways what are ways he confirms this this direction that he's brought you in? Yeah, and it's probably a longer story than for this time.
But the short of it is in 2003 in Phoenix, Arizona, I was trying to Monday qualify for the Phoenix Open, standing there with my sister. I looked at her and said, Marcy, I'm burnt out. And what I look back on now is it literally was like God reaching into me and taking this desire out. But God wasn't punishing me.
He wasn't mad at me. He was actually just refocusing my passion because it was him saying, OK, Scott, I have another path for you. One that's going to be greater than golf. Now, I love golf. I still love to play to this day. My son's play, I you know, we love it, but he just refocused my passion and he gave me what I thought he took from me.
The passion to play golf. He gave me the gift and the ability to do what I'm doing now. And so it went like he left me empty.
He actually filled me up even more. Well, Pastor, talk about vision. Talk about you just said this word even before the show. We talked about being a dreamer for God.
First of all, why don't we dream? Great. Thanks for God. The question our pastor brought up yesterday from the pulpit.
How big is your God? What a mighty God we serve. Yet we have these little tiny little pint sized faiths and we're not trusted to do great things.
Can you talk about the importance of that? And if you have to beat us up a little bit, go ahead, because we're guilty right here of getting into the anxiety. We worry about all these things as though we serve a God that doesn't even exist.
Yeah, I'll say this. I don't think God created every one of us to be dreamers. I am so thankful that I'm surrounded by a couple of people who aren't dreamers.
They're actually doers and they can set a plan. And so if you're out there and you're like, man, I haven't had a God dream in ever. Hey, listen, maybe God didn't create.
Maybe he created you to be a team player. That's crucial. Absolutely. But if you're out there and God has given you dreams and you're sitting there just journaling things, writing them down, seeing them, dreaming about them at night, you've got to jump. Like you really have to jump. Like you are not going to know three steps ahead.
You're just not. But you just have to take the step. And God always provides. I say this. You know, I'm a preacher, so it's going to start with a P here. He always provides. He really does. He provides the people. You know, he gave us people that are on our staff now and in our program and on our boards. It was a God thing that these people are around us.
Right. He gives people and this is a big one. He gives provision. And if it is a God thing, if God is behind it, there's going to be provision. Now, that doesn't always mean million dollar checks come in, but there's going to be provision that is powered by him. That is going to help see his plan come to fruition. He doesn't give this dream and then just say, OK, now go make it happen. He says he's looking for it. Hey, I'm going to give you this dream.
Are you willing to partner with me and then go in my direction? Because if you do that, I promise you, you're going to experience God things. But how many of us live in Exodus 16, where God just vanquished the most powerful, formidable army in the world, the Egyptians, delivered Israel from the Red Sea, literally part of the sea, destroyed that army, gave these supernatural plagues, got them out of 400 years of slavery, and they start just complaining. Yeah. I mean, Pastor Scott, take us to take us to the promised land, brother. Yeah, I'm getting ready to this Sunday. I'm getting ready to finish your thought. We'll go to the break.
You have to have people around you to help pull you through. I want to talk about that, having a supporting cast and how big is your vision challenging you, challenging me. How big is your God? What are great things God wants to do for you in your life? Who are you sharing the good news with?
How big is that vision? More coming back on Truth Talk Live. Stay right here with Pastor Scott Newton, Hope City Church, Wahlburg, North Carolina. Hang on.
All right. We're going, jumping right in here today with a pastor who is also, was a pro golfer, college golfer, still kind of does that. I mean, he still qualifies for some tournaments. He gets out there. You can swing that thing.
You can hit, chase that little white ball. We try. You don't want me out there, man.
I'll make you look really good. We actually played together in Energize Ministries. Bowersox paired you with me. He wanted you to know how to pray for me, I think.
Yeah, I think that's what it was. And after 18 holes, you're like, you know, this stew guy. I sent you to one of our main intercessors because it was above my head. I appreciate that. I still need that prayer coming, man. But, you know, what a great vehicle for the gospel. So now you're leading people to Christ. You got, your kids are coming along.
They're playing. And it's a neat opportunity. Pastor Scott Newton, Hope City Church here in Wahlburg, North Carolina, and we've talked about this amazing ministry of Hopefuls, which is a program. I love your mission statement. Just give that mission statement again.
I want you to say it, just about how, why you exist. Yeah, we're trying to eliminate childhood hunger one public elementary school at a time. I mean, that's how simple it is. And if the church doesn't do this, who's going to do it? Yeah, I mean, I think you see the day and age that we're living in.
Everything is pretty volatile. And we cannot allow these kids to go home hungry just because the red state or the blue state is not in agreeance. The church was designed to be active, alive, hands and feet of Jesus, do something. Yeah, so a great question.
Again, you know, we have so many different silos, and we tend to bifurcate this. We say, well, I'm going to just preach the gospel and let my neighbor starve. But you get the parable of the Good Samaritan. You have the churches to be salt and light in the culture. So you're not compromising your gospel mission. You're not compromising who Jesus is.
You're not compromising marriage and all the key axioms of the Christian faith in doing this. This is just living out the gospel, right? Talk about how this fleshes out practically. Yeah, it's just, you know what, at the end of the day, whether it's tomorrow or when I'm 100 years old, I long to hear a story of someone who says, I had no idea who was doing this, but when I was in elementary school, every night, I had food put in my book bag.
That's my goal. I want to hear just one kid tell this story, and it impacted their life. And that's how simple this thing is. It's not, I'm wanting to see, I mean, I'd love to be in every public elementary school in America, yes, but the reality, I think the way the kingdom operates, one person, one kid matters to the Lord. And if I hear one story of gratitude that changed their life, I've accomplished what the Lord sent me out to do. Yeah, and you haven't really franchised this or put it into a book or a manual, but someone can get an airplane, and they can fly to PTI Airport here in Greensboro, you can go pick them up, bring them over, they can just watch what y'all do. Because y'all didn't have the answers.
You didn't have this figured out. But at some point, talk about the importance of taking that first step for the Lord and dreaming big dreams. You have to go for it.
Like, literally, if it's from the Lord, you have to take the step. And we talked about earlier segment, he's going to provide the people, and he is going to give the provision. And I shared this dream with a friend of mine who is on our staff, who is the Executive Director of Hopefuls Incorporated now. I said, this is what we need to do.
This is going to make an impact on hungry children's lives. I shared the vision with her, and literally, she got to work, and she started to make these things. And she started, we messed up, we messed up, we messed up, but we kept going. And God put us in the right place, at the right time, and now we have this amazing thing called a Hopeful that is getting in the kids' book bags.
And it's just trial and error. Yeah, so I went to your coffee shop. We had coffee about a week and a half ago or so.
And coffee was really good. Give in coffee shop. Pay whatever you can afford to pay. Pay extra, and all the money goes where?
All the proceeds go into Hopefuls Incorporated. And by the way, we'll come back one day, and maybe with you, we'll pick on another pastor. And not give advance notice, just kind of pounce on them, these coffee shops and churches. Because I do have a pastor friend who just, when he started serving coffee in the church lobby, he had members get mad at him.
And they're like, what are you doing? This isn't a coffee shop, this is a church. He was just making it available to guests, to other members.
So that's a whole other topic. We won't open that can of coffee today. But you have had people come to church that wouldn't otherwise come to church, but they come get a latte. Listen, our goal is not to get them to church.
Our goal is to love them like Jesus would. And so we have people who go to other churches who stop by our coffee shop on Sunday morning and go to their church, which is phenomenal. Again, we're not trying to be the biggest church, we're trying to have the biggest impact.
I love it. There's something about that. You're a big C church guy. You want all the churches to do well.
All of them to win. The idea is make disciples, mobilize people to go into the world to make a difference, to be salt and light. So I went to have coffee with you, we had coffee, then you took me back behind the curtain to show me this commercial-grade kitchen. I mean, I couldn't believe all these freezers, all these staging areas, these tables. You guys, it's commercial, it's quality stainless steel. Talk about that, what goes into this thing. I mean, the food just doesn't show up.
No, no. We have a great company that delivers it. We have a big truck that comes every week. And then we have amazing volunteers that come in there and assemble these meals. But when we built this kitchen, I'll say this, I didn't know really why we were building this kitchen and why we put this commercial-grade equipment in there. And I'll say this, when we were building the building, we cut out some of the sound and light in the auditorium.
We took the monies away from that and put it into that kitchen because we knew, I just knew that this kitchen was going to be used by God to make an impact. And there are a lot of meals, even when I went in there to see it. So during the summer, it's a little bit of time off, but it's Monday through Thursday, you explained that earlier, and every single meal that goes out, you have a whole process whereby that meal gets into a backpack. And if it gets into a backpack, it's going to get in the kid's tummy. Absolutely. And their parents may not have the wherewithal to go to the feeding pantries or to get food from elsewhere. So these kids aren't getting dinner a lot of times. So that broke your heart, so you started this Hopefuls Incorporated right out of your church, Hope City Church, but they're two separate entities.
Yes, separate. But people end up finding out, and then you have people that might happen to show up at church and get the Word, get saved, get discipled. How about that, Pastor?
What if that happens? You know what's something beautiful? It's one of our schools that we work with really closely. They try to come at the beginning of every school year now, and they bring as many teachers as possible, and we get to celebrate them, and we get to encourage them, and we get to pray over them as a church.
It's phenomenal. What's the vision moving forward? Are there still schools in your area that are unfed? Talk about the vision going forward, and talk about the legacy of this, where you see this ending up, even globally. What's your passion and your vision for that? Going into the big vision of this, I don't have all the answers as we talk off mic, but I do know that God has called us to this, and He gave us the vision to impact and to end childhood hunger in every public elementary school in America.
That sounds insane, and it even feels crazy saying that, but what I've seen Him do over the last two and a half years, I know that it is possible. Unfortunately, in most public elementary schools in America, I would say 99% of them, they have at least one kid who is going home hungry. If that's the case, I think God has given us the solution. We are just trying to pray through, seek His guidance and wisdom. I'm putting the right people around me. Our board is phenomenal, and the Lord is going to provide.
When He opens the door, I can promise you we'll walk through it. How do the words of Jesus hit you, Pastor, when you hear those words, When I was hungry, why didn't you feed me? I don't think that needs to be the case with followers of Jesus. When we see a problem, we pray about it, and whatever the Lord leads us to next, that's what our next step is. That's how you think about that James passage. Don't just be hearers of the word, but doers. If you see your brother in need, and you just say, God bless you, go on. The faith works itself out. In 1 John, don't love in word only and in tongue only, but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3.18, theme verse of a big Christian camp that we interviewed not too long ago, campaigns. That is what you're doing.
You're fleshing out the good news. What's your challenge to everyone out there, Pastor, about stepping out, about serving a big God? The Lord may come back tonight. We don't know. We don't know how much longer we're going to live.
I may die before he comes back. What's your challenge about the seriousness of the need for our world to come to Jesus, to know him, and for the people of God to step up, step out in faith, and even in their homes be sanctifying agents of the Lord in this world? I think we have to look for what the Lord is doing instead of looking for all the excuses. We've got to stop making excuses, and we've got to just go and act, do something, move forward, pray fast, whatever it takes. But when the Lord gives you something, go. That's just what we have to do. I asked you at the beginning, and I hope everyone will download this podcast, by the way, Truth Network, Truth Podcast Network, truthnetwork.com.
Download this. Share it with your friends. Share it with your churches. How is your church feeding the community? A practical way to get the gospel out, because if you feed the stomach, the soul is going to want some of that stuff. They're going to want to know, where did that come from?
Who are these people that are loving me enough to feed me, to feed my kids? How do you want to be remembered? Pastor Scott Newton, what's your legacy? What's on your tombstone? Talk to me. How about one word? Obedient. Oh, wow. That's strong. Would that fit on a tombstone?
We could make the letter smaller. Why is that? Why do you say that? Because everything else, just God takes care of.
He really does. I've always said the outcome is on God. The obedience is on us. And so the obedience is greater than the outcome. Don't worry about the outcome. So many of us are making excuses that we don't have the resources or the people or even have the vision or the talent. You don't have to have all that.
You literally have to have obedience. People want to find out about the Hopefuls Inc., about Hope City Church. What's a website that you'd like them to find out about you? Hopefuls.com. It's simple. Two L's. Hopefuls.com.
I love it. They can go there. They can learn more. They can go to Given Coffee, get a hot latte and have a nice meeting.
We've had Roy and all the boys over there, right? Bowersox, Pastor Scott Newton, Hope City Church, Hopefuls feeding the hungry. God bless you. Thanks for being on today, man. You're awesome.
