Appreciating Your Pastor!

Nothing says Christmas like a water buffalo. For a poor family in Asia, getting a water buffalo is like getting a farm tractor to pull a plow, or getting a milk truck full of delicious milk, or getting a stand at the market to sell cheese. A water buffalo opens the door for work, food, and income. More importantly, it opens the door to talk about Jesus.

And nothing says Christmas better than that. This is the Truth Network. I'm sitting next to a man who does a lot for pastors. A man who ministers to pastors a lot, and a lot of pastors I talk to give thanks for Andy Bowersox. Andy, Energize Ministries. For those that haven't met this guy, there's no more adrenaline junkie on the planet. Phil Calhoun just came up.

There's Uncle D. White Gullion and Dave Compton. Some of you guys are going to have a question about pastors and ministry, and we're thankful for Energize Ministries. Andy Bowersox, what's the passion of your ministry, brother? Well, Stuart, you're well aware our ministry is all about providing encouragement, refreshment, and recreational retreats, and other unique outings, adrenaline outings, to use your word, for pastors and their families. So that's the heartbeat of our ministry.

Not just providing that directly, but really encouraging churchgoers nationwide to be actively reinvesting in the lives of their own pastors and leaders. And if I call Andy Bowersox, I'm at Cupcake Cutie's. Dave Compton, tell everyone where we are, buddy.

We are at the very famous Cupcake Cutie's Bakery in Wahlberg, North Carolina, downtown Wahlberg, and the Foster Hopps Coffee. That alone is worth driving down here for, but we love Brad and Christy and this family, and God is so blessing their ministry here. I say ministry.

It is a business, but they have an active ministry here. They're touching a lot of people, and I call Andy Bowersox, and this guy might be at the racetrack. I might hear cars zooming by. He might be in a helicopter.

He might be on the golf course. He helps pastors get away, get encouraged. Andy, why are you trying to encourage pastors?

Hey, how about this? Let's put you on the spot. Thanksgiving, why are you thankful for pastors? Stuart, a lot of people refer to pastors as the Levites of today, and so I think about that a lot.

You know, we need people to lead us. We need people that we recognize that God has called and anointed, and I'll use that word calling again. Like, it's a very unique response to people that can't really do anything else because they know that the Lord has called them to share and preach the gospel and to pastor and minister and be shepherds to the rest of us. And recently, God answered a big blessing in your life that's a huge point of Thanksgiving with a certain piece of property where a lot of pastors, including myself, my dad, has been up there around the fire pit.

Tell everyone about what God's done. It's a very exciting time for the ministry of Energize. It's been answered about a three or four-year prayer. The property that we host most of our retreats to is in Martinsville, Virginia. It's about 700 acres dedicated to kingdom leadership retreats, and we've been leasing it for years. We've been praying that God would allow us to acquire it, to create further development, more amenities, more services, more resources to share, and so we actually closed on that within the last week. We own it now. Well, I should say we steward it fully at this point, and so we're looking forward to the future.

So yeah, Thanksgiving, the perfect time to celebrate that. Now, last time I interviewed you, you may not remember this, we were on the back of four-wheelers. On your property, there was this giant swing. I don't know how you got me on that swing.

I put it on my Facebook page. I thought I was dead. Dave, they swung me back, and then when it came down, there's nothing underneath me but air. Andy Bowersox took me some pastors, and we prayed that moment on that mountain, God, give this land to Energize so pastors can be encouraged. Why do pastors need encouragement? These are wounded warriors, and they're standing up, preaching the gospel, feeding the sheep, dealing with tough issues, counseling us to stay married and to reach the world for Christ, right? Probably we can make entire episodes of reasons that pastors need encouragement, but the number one reason, steward, is when you're effectively leading people closer to Christ, there is an all-out spiritual attack that shows up in crazy different manifestations. No one outside of those that are in that capacity will ever understand that, but it shows up in marriage stress, financial stress, and family stress, relationship stress, health issues.

I could go down the list. And so, because we recognize that, because God has called us into the space of preventive care and prayer support, you mentioned prayer earlier, that's obviously the backbone and the lifeline of our ministry. God has put us in this place to continue to encourage others to do likewise and to join into those army of believers that are committed to reinvesting in the health and well-being and spiritual care for their pastors. We'll come back with some kind of maybe fine points of how people specifically can love on their pastors and encourage their pastors, and I love a post you put on Facebook recently, love your pastor's wife. She needs some encouragement.

A lot of times, she's the one that gets beat up and hammered by everybody. Hey, what's he doing? How about, say, hey, here's a gift card to Applebee's. Here's a gift card to coffee, to Cupcake Cuties or somewhere. With us at this table is Phil Calhoun, an awesome man of God, businessman, loves the Lord, and has a Christian Spanish food company.

What's it called? Hispanic food distribution company. And you've supported this ministry. Uncle D. White Gullion is here.

Now, you may not know D. White, but you may know his brother D. Wayne. But D. White, you are in the Christian bookstore, and God's blessed you, the homeschool headquarters for so many all over the East Coast. But some of the valued customers here are pastors.

They come in for books, Bibles, resources. Can you talk about how important pastors are to you and how you're trying to be a blessing to them amid a crazy culture and amid all the chaos out there? That is exactly one of the main focuses of our ministry is to try to provide pastors and Christian leaders, Sunday school teachers, schools, and of course, homeschool parents who are pastoring their children. But especially for pastors of churches with the resources and the materials that they would need to be able to more effectively minister. And it's been our blessing over the years.

It'll be 30 years come April to be able to provide. It's hard to imagine all of the materials that have been able to go out and prepare pastors for their lessons and their messages and their sermons and to be able to then go into the ears and hearts of people all over the triad. We're just so thankful and blessed that we've been able to be a part of that. We're in North Carolina where Dwight lives, but he has customers all over the country and he's been to pastors all over the country. He's taken that energized pray for your pastor bus all over to Utah to California. He took my father-in-law out to an amazing lunch and went to his church, pulled up in front of his church.

My father-in-law still talks about that. What a blessing. Dave, real quick, give a shout out. Why so important energized ministries, how you're thankful for them, because you're dealing with pastors on the radio all the time. As a Southern gospel morning host of one of the top Southern gospel stations really in the world, WPET, the legendary Morning Voice, Dave Compton. Speak a word with you about how important energized ministries is to pastors and how important pastors are.

Well, it is. And just this morning, I had a meeting with a pastor in my hometown and we were able to encourage one another. And it's amazing to me how pastors sometimes will confide in me and will share their burden and share their heart because they have nobody to really talk to. You know, so I count that a great privilege. So I was able to encourage a pastor this morning and we both left that meeting in tears.

It was great. But I'll say this for Andy. I met Andy before I went to work at Truth and they actually brought the bus over to WPET and bless me and went out to the bus.

I've never forgotten it. So anybody that's had Andy to bless them through that ministry, it's something they'll take with them always. And in Christian radio, we want to be a blessing to our pastors.

And I pick up the phone and I call one person, Andy Bowersox. Andy, practically speaking, you love pastors, you love their wives, you love their families, you deal with a lot of pastors that are burning out. The number is ridiculous.

Every time you quote it to me, it scares me. The number of pastors that burn out that leave the ministry every day. Look, some pastors might should leave the ministry if they're not faithful, if they're maybe in the wrong place. God needs them to be planting churches overseas or something. But the pressure on these guys that they're under energized ministries. Give us your final shout out to everyone listening practically. How can we support love on minister to encourage our pastors out there?

Practically outside of the prayer support. Here's the best thing you can do right now. Take a moment. Grab your phone. If you're if you know your pastor's cell number, send him a word of encouragement by text. If you don't know the cell phone number, write an email or at best case scenario.

Take five minutes. Write a handwritten note. You can contact our office. We actually have energized encouragement cards that we would be happy to send you. They have some prompts on them already of ways that you would encourage, but just a word of encouragement has exponential results to it.

And you just might be the one right now that God's prompting to be that voice of encouragement. I love if you want to bless your pastor through energized ministries. Andy, what's the Web site for folks get involved with your ministry?

Learn more about the lodge. Maybe they need to send their pastor up there to get away. Yeah, I should mention that you are having a dedication service December 11th. We welcome anyone and everyone to come join us for that. All the details are on our Web site, energized ministries dot com or on Facebook energized ministry. As you can find us basically anywhere. OK, and their motto, one of their mottos is just read the bus. It says, pray for your pastor. This is the Truth Network.