Why Church Planting?

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Missionize with the Missions guys, a podcast of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention offering biblical and practical insight and strategies designed to equip and encourage missions leaders to carry on mission work. The goal is to fulfill the great commission from a church's local community to the ends of the earth. That is why we missionize. Now, here are your hosts, the Missions guys, Sam Roberts and and Clint Richey. [00:00:31] Speaker B: Welcome to Mission Eyes. I am Clint Richey here with my co host, Dr. Sam Roberts. And today on the drop date is February 12th. So Dr. Sam, when we listen to this on the day it drops, this is our reminder. We have two more days to take care of our valentines. [00:00:46] Speaker C: Yeah. And listeners, if you've been with us anytime, you know that Clint and I need reminders quite often. That's why we schedule these along these holidays to remind ourselves when we're listening to this. We have at least two listeners to the podcast every time it drops because Clint and I go back and we listen because we want to know what is it we need to be reminded of? Valentine Day. Two days. That's plenty of time. [00:01:17] Speaker B: Of course, our wife's got everything they need for Valentine's Day when they got us. [00:01:23] Speaker C: Come on. [00:01:24] Speaker B: Last year on this date, we did an episode titled knowing and loving your community. If you're a new listener to us or maybe you've listened for the last year, I'd encourage you to go back and find that episode, episode number four. Because as pastors, knowing and loving our communities was our heartbeat as a pastor, and it still excites us to help church leaders on that journey in our current roles. One need that exists in most of our communities around Arkansas, when we're honest, is the need for more churches. We're going to talk about that today. The last part of last year saw the merger of the missions team and the church planning team now just simply called the Missions team. And we saw this as a natural merger because of the similarities between the two areas. Church planning is part of missions and missions is a component of healthy church planning. They are two parallel lanes on the same interstate. [00:02:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Good. [00:02:16] Speaker B: So today again, we're going to discuss church planting specifically in Arkansas. And we continue to strive to want to be a biblical podcast. So in the New Testament, the Great Commission is fulfilled as churches are planted. The church in Antioch caught this vision in Acts 13. That's when they set apart Paul and Barnabas and commissioned them to plant churches. That had a far reaching effect on both the world and the church. And we see this pattern repeated throughout Paul's Epistles. He is continually reminding churches of other works around the ancient world, highlighting the needs and the opportunities for partnership. And so today we are excited to introduce the new leader of Sin Network Arkansas. So Dr. Sam, take over and share this news with us. [00:02:59] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm excited guys to introduce to you who is coming on board as our Sin Network Arkansas director. Those of you who are familiar with the Arkansas Baptist State Convention and pre merger of these two teams know that Vince Blueball served as the church planting team leader and Sin Network Arkansas director for the last several years. Vince felt called to go back into local church and so they have, they have moved. And in that interim period of time we've had the discussion on who do we need in this position. And the discussion centered around one person. And that one person is sitting right here between us this morning. And that is none other than our good friend, Mr. Tim Wicker. Tim, welcome to Mission Eyes and welcome to this new role as the Sin Network Arkansas director. Why don't you take a few minutes if you will introduce yourself to our listeners. Most of our listeners as, as you probably know are from Arkansas, from our Arkansas Baptist churches. However, we've got some listeners from other places, other states, even international guys. They're listening from other locations. So take a few moments and share a little bit of your journey with your family, but also that journey in ministry to get you to this point. [00:04:39] Speaker D: Thank you Dr. Sam and Clint for the opportunity to be on Mission Eyes with you guys this session. Yes, my name is Tim Wicker. I have served with the Arkansas Baptist State Convention for the last 15 years in the area on the Missions team originally then when the Missions team was divided into the church planting team and the Missions team, I was asked to lead the church planting side of life. And so up until about three years ago, I served as a team leader for the church planting team. Last three years I've served with the convention in Northwest Arkansas as a Northwest Arkansas lead strategist where I did some church planting stuff, some church health stuff and other duties as assigned by our leadership. Before that though, it was back in the 80s that I sensed a call to the ministry and as I sensed a call to the ministry was reading a book in Bible College by C. Peter Wagner, Church Planting for a Greater Harvest book that was required reading in this class. And I read the words and I continue to go back to them. I read the words that he wrote there where he said that church planting is the single most effective means of evangelism under heaven. I quote that And I think, as we think in terms of per dollar, per man hour, per energy, per charge, per, per capita, one of the most effective means of evangelism, reaching a lost world, sharing the good news of the gospel with a lost and dying community or people group, Church planting is one of the most effective ways to do that. And so it was as a young student at that time that I sensed a call to planting was a part of a couple of church plants through the years. Ended up spending 15 years. Sorry, 10. 10 years with the International Mission Board in Russia, where we helped Russian Baptists identify guys who would be called to church planting, help equip them, help send them out to start new works all across the country of Russia. So I come here as the new guy on the Send network, as the Send Network director. But I've been around. I think I know a lot of churches here in Arkansas. I've connected with a lot of different folks. And I'm excited to be back in this role as SIN Network Director, working with you, Dr. Sam, and the missions team and the church planting catalyst that we have at the convention here to help churches, to help our churches do what God's called them to do in reproducing themselves and reaching their communities through the starting of new works. [00:07:26] Speaker C: Awesome. Well, we are so glad you're in this new role. And although it's a new role, Arkansas Baptists know Tim. [00:07:35] Speaker D: We trust him for the good or bad. Right? [00:07:37] Speaker C: For the good or bad, we do trust him. And we are grateful that God has led you to this particular point in this particular role with our state convention with the missions team. Just let us know a little bit about the family before Clint jumps into some rapid questions so our audience will know you a little better. [00:08:02] Speaker D: I am blessed to have been married to my wife Lisa for 40 years. We celebrated our 40th anniversary this last year, will be 41 in March. We have four children. They are all married. They all love Jesus and are serving them in local churches throughout the state and have, as of December 29, have 10 grandchildren. Had a newborn quiver. And I have pictures if anybody ever wants to. I carry them on my phone if anybody wants to see some of the most beautiful children in the world. [00:08:40] Speaker B: So, yeah, yeah, I saw the smile when you talked me didn't smile with Lisa, with the kids, when you mentioned 10 grandkids. [00:08:49] Speaker C: He's pulling out the phone. He's gonna show us the pictures. Hey, this is just a recording. This is not. We don't have video going. Okay, sorry. [00:08:59] Speaker D: We need to start a Blog. Isn't that what they call it? The video blog. [00:09:03] Speaker C: Video blog. [00:09:04] Speaker B: Even though Tim has been around in Arkansas, Baptists know him. They may not know him as well as they will after these rapid fire questions. So we ask all of our guests these questions just to get to know you a little better. So here we go. Favorite meal. [00:09:18] Speaker D: Favorite meal or I right now is Mexican food. Any kind of Mexican food. Love, love Mexican. I've been to Mexican restaurants all across the state of Oregon. So I think every small town you go to, the pastor say we got a really good Mexican place. Yes, but I love Mexican food. So. Yeah, anything Mexican. Favorite restaurant along those lines here. Lately it's been Chewy's. Yeah, I've become a. Become a fan of Chewy's. Took some church planters out to Chewy's just last week. [00:09:47] Speaker B: All right, where's your go to relaxation spot? [00:09:51] Speaker D: Besides the easy chair? Yes, outside of the house. Besides Easy chair. Buffalo City, Arkansas. There were the White river and the Buffalo river meet place that I grew up going to on a regular basis. Great fishing. [00:10:07] Speaker C: Awesome. [00:10:07] Speaker D: Great place to rest. [00:10:09] Speaker C: Now you fish? Kayak, Correct. [00:10:11] Speaker D: Fish out of a kayak, fish out of a boat, fish off the side of the bank, whatever, whatever. Fly fish, fish with the sending rod and reel and whatever it takes. [00:10:20] Speaker B: You're the force Gump of fishing, right? Yeah, whatever kind. [00:10:24] Speaker D: I like to fish. Yeah, you sure do. [00:10:27] Speaker B: Besides the Bible, what's your favorite book? [00:10:29] Speaker D: Oh, man. Favorite book. It's between two. It's Knowing God by Jack Packer, which I have read every other year or so for the last. [00:10:40] Speaker C: Yeah, it's on my list every year. [00:10:44] Speaker D: He is there he is Not Silent by Francis Schaeffer. One of those books that again, I have read over the years time and again, just kind of reminding me of the fact that yes, we have. We have proof in the scriptures of God's love for us. [00:10:59] Speaker C: That's some good stuff right there. [00:11:00] Speaker D: Yeah, those two would have been my. My favorite books. [00:11:04] Speaker B: Favorite podcast besides Mission Eyes. [00:11:07] Speaker D: Mission Eyes. Mission Eyes. It's got to be Mark Clifton. Besides you guys. Mark Clifton and his Replay revitalized podcast. [00:11:17] Speaker B: All right. Yeah. [00:11:18] Speaker C: Hey, if we're going to come into second with anybody, might as well be Clifton. [00:11:23] Speaker D: It's not a bad one. Not a bad one. [00:11:25] Speaker B: Favorite genre of music. [00:11:26] Speaker D: I, you know, my. Every now and then I ride with my pastor to Little Rock back and forth, and he puts on country music. That is not my favorite genre of music. I'll just. He knows it, but he still loves to encourage me in that. In that genre. But I'm, you know, Dr. Sam. I think you and I both kind of the 70s, 80s, classic rock kind of, kind of, kind of stuff. Besides the Jesus music that we listen to on Sundays, that's probably my favorite genre. Genre. [00:12:02] Speaker B: All right. [00:12:03] Speaker D: First concert you attended, the Imperials, man, back in the day. The Imperial thing at some Christian youth day at. At Branson, Missouri, back in the 70s. [00:12:18] Speaker C: I remember Ouachita Baptist University. We had the Imperials, did a concert there, and it snowed while we were in the auditorium. The coolest thing in the world was after that, we had a snowball fight with the Imperials right on the parking lot. It was awesome. [00:12:37] Speaker D: Look out. I did not throw a snowball. It was the summer at that. But I think that. Is that considered a concert? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll call that a concert. [00:12:48] Speaker B: Favorite place to visit. [00:12:51] Speaker D: You know, we went to Paris a few years ago and. And that was. I did not care about going to Paris. Did not care about all that. But we were heading to see my daughter overseas in North Africa. Stopped by Paris on the way back, and I just. Man, that was one of my favorite, favorite trips. The other one was the Great Wall of China there in Beijing. Getting to visit that. Those were some highlights of our. We did a lot of traveling, obviously, when we were at the International Mission Board and got to see some cool stuff, but those were two. Two of the highlights. [00:13:25] Speaker B: And favorite sport. [00:13:26] Speaker D: Football right now. [00:13:28] Speaker B: All right. [00:13:28] Speaker D: Football right now. My wife drives my wife nuts every. Every weekend. That's what the TV is set on. Fortunately, we have another TV so she can watch something else. But watching a lot of football. Played football in high school, had a grandson, played a year. Just kind of a football guy. [00:13:49] Speaker C: Awesome. Hey, Tim. Anytime we take on a new role, there's always this mixture of excitement and some fear and trembling, you know. So walk with us through the excitement that this new role brings to you personally. And as you do that, kind of share a little bit of what. What's in store. What's the vision for planting in Arkansas? [00:14:17] Speaker D: When I served as a team leader for church planting several years ago, we did not have the Send Network partnership at the time. What excites me most now is the fact that we do have the Send Network partnership. The partnership between Send Network and Arkansas that brought together the Send Network Arkansas team is to me, what excites me most about the opportunity. There are resources, there's systems in place. There's helps for churches, helps for potential church planters, helps. There's pathways and processes in place that we had to develop our own back in the day. And we had to continually morph and change and try to get better and learn from others. We have a system now that is proven, it's in place, it's used across the country and it's good, it's solid, it's deep and it focuses on the right things. It focuses on evangelism. It focuses on reaching lost people. It doesn't focus on starting new services and hoping we can get enough people to make it. It's rooted in evangelism leading lost people to Christ, making disciples out of them and then growing that into a church as opposed to let's figure out how we can get the biggest bang and get the most people here on our launch day and that kind of thing. So it's got the right focus, it's got the right resources. Back in the day, we were able to help church plants. Two years as far as partnership funding, helping the sponsor church fund the new church. If you could see my hands right now, I'm talking with my hands, but you can't see them. But we're able to help with the SEND network resources. Were able to help for four years of funding. So makes a big difference. Twice as long. It helps the churches that are starting the churches. It takes a lot of the strain off of them in the financing and the support of that. And then there's another year of care beyond that where churches are. The SEND network is partnering together and encouraging the planters in lots of different ways throughout those that five year period. So what excites me most is that we have mechanisms in place, we have resources that we didn't have back in the day to help churches identify potential church planters, equip them and then send them out in a healthy manner. So yeah, really excited about the opportunity to serve in this position because of those reasons. [00:17:06] Speaker B: On the flip side of that, what are some concerns you have in this transition that our listeners can pray for you about? [00:17:14] Speaker D: You know, there's always the question of I don't want to sound negative, but it's a concern. Do we really need more churches? There are places in Arkansas where we probably don't need new churches. I get that. I recognize the demographic decline in some of the areas and in Arkansas, I recognize the that there are places where we have a lot of really good churches doing a lot of really good things. And so I recognize that as a legitimate concern. But at the same time, the population of Arkansas is continuing to increase. There are people moving into the state from other places here in the country, but also internationally, moving to Arkansas. And if we're going to reach them with the gospel, I think we need to go after them, evangelize them, disciple them, equip them into new work. So I think there's a lot of opportunities. So I think helping churches recognize the opportunities that are around them and the need to do something new and fresh with them sometimes can be a little bit of a challenge. [00:18:25] Speaker C: So, yeah, you mentioned that objection. I mean, that some churches have about, about church planting things like, hey, we've already got lots of churches in our state, lots of room, lots for a lot of people. We hear churches say new churches are just going to steal from older established churches who are already struggling. And then we hear folks say we just need better churches, not more churches. We need to concentrate on those that are struggling and let's take care of those before we start planting additional churches. So let's continue that conversation a little bit. That's a concern you shared. Let's continue that and dialogue back and forth a little bit about these objections that what's the response there? What else do you add to that conversation? Tim? [00:19:23] Speaker D: Well, I happen to know I have the inside scoop that the the Arkansas Baptist State Convention leadership is working hard to develop and continue to develop a revitalization and strategy to help our churches that are struggling in those areas. Healthy churches are the churches that are reproducing, that are planting churches. Those that are struggling are struggling for a lot of different reasons. We don't know all the reasons why they're struggling. But we are addressing that at the state convention and we'll continue to develop a strategy. But if you look at across the state, you know, over the last 15 years or so, I think we've lost over 100 churches here in Arkansas. Over 100 churches have closed down. We were counting numbers at 1550 some odd churches. Now we're at 1450 some odd churches. Covid had a lot to do with that. Some communities transitioning has had a lot to do with that. But I think as we look at struggling churches and churches in areas we can look at kind of a hybrid might not be the right word, but we can. Some of the strategies used in church planting can help churches revitalize, can help churches restart. We've got some resources and some tools to help do some replanting of churches here in Arkansas. I just like before, I'm pointing behind me right now, before I came in the door, I was talking to, I was talking to a church that that had been given a Methodist church that closed down a few years ago. And they're looking at planting a new church in that. In that facility. They've got a heart for the area. They've got some folks that live in the area and they've got a building. And we're praying right now about a leader to raise up to be the planter there. And so while there are struggling churches we can help, we are as absc. Helping churches revitalize. Doesn't change the fact that churches die and close where we can start new works. Doesn't change the fact that we've got a lot of new people moving into the area that are looking for something different that will be reached through new churches that might not be reached otherwise. [00:21:52] Speaker C: Yeah, you mentioned Clifton earlier. Of course. Clifton will let us know. Across the Southern Baptist Convention each year between 800 and 1,000 churches close. And just saw the. The stats from Nam this past year, 652 new churches. What does that tell you? I mean, we have more churches closing than we have new churches. [00:22:16] Speaker D: Population continues to increase. [00:22:18] Speaker C: Population continues. The need is there for new churches and the need is there for revitalizing churches to become more healthy. So they are reproducing and they are reaching as well. So it's a false dichotomy when we look at this thing and say, hey, we need better churches, not more churches. We need both. We need better churches. Yes. And that's the revitalization piece. We need more churches, and that's the replanting piece and the planting new churches piece. We've got to have both of those if we're going to be serious about reaching people in our state. [00:22:59] Speaker D: Dr. Sam uses his hands when he talks as well, so I wish you could see how he's explaining all this. That's a good word, Doc. [00:23:08] Speaker B: Well, then I think too, we've always heard that new churches grow faster than established churches. And I believe it's Carrie Newhoff that made the observation that church plants see six to eight times more conversion growth than established churches. And even the growth, oftentimes the growth of an established church is transfer growth. But church plants you talked about already, Tim, the focus is on evangelism. And 60 to 80% of growth in church plants is coming from conversion. So it's almost two different models of growth that we can discuss. So let's think. If a church is new to church planting, they have a desire to be in church planting. How does an Arkansas Baptist State Convention church get involved? [00:23:56] Speaker D: That's a good Great question. You know, churches are anywhere in this spectrum of involvement in missions and in church planting as well. Every church in the Arkansas Baptist State Convention is a part of church planting through the cooperative program. Let me say that loud and clear. Our cooperative program giving helps support new churches here in Arkansas, across the nation through the North American Mission Board and across the world through the International National Mission Board. Every church, every cooperating Southern Baptist church is a part of church planting. But there are churches that are saying, hey, we want a face to that. We want to be a partner with somebody locally or nationally or internationally. And I think that's the first step is to say, hey, what can we do? How can we get involved? Initially, kind of the different levels, if you would say, if I could. Could use that term, would be you could become a partnering church or a supporting church where you'd come alongside and through your prayers, through maybe some mission trips and through some financial gifts, you partner together with an existing church plant. We can help you do that. We can help you identify somebody in the state working with a church now down in South Arkansas that has said we want to be more involved and giving them a list of about five different guys that they could connect with, that they could get prayer requests from, that they could pray for on a regular basis, that they could go visit with a mission team, and that they could give support through maybe supporting an event or whatever. So there's this supporting level of. And it is a great first step in getting involved in church planting. The next level, if I could say that when a church is involved in. In church planting, there's an excitement in the church, there's a what more can we do? Kind of question that often comes about. And there's an opportunity maybe to become a sending church or sponsoring church, however you want to, however you want to say it. But the sending church is the church that says, hey, we're going to take responsibility for a new church plant. We've got someone in our congregation, we've got an area that we're wanting to. To reach with the gospel, and we're going to identify that planter. We're going to raise them up and prepare them, and we're going to send them out of our church. This church that I just spoke with, they don't have the guy yet, but they've got five couples that they're talking to about going and being part of a core group for this new work. They're taking responsibility to be the sending church for this new work. And so there's a supporting Church level, the sending church level. There's a level beyond that where folks are, where churches are. We've got several here in Arkansas that are multiplying church plans. They're raising up on a regular basis people to send out. They're not just sending out one every 10 or 20 years or as they have somebody, but they're intentionally trying to identify and equip and prepare young men and young couples and bi vocational guys, older men and couples preparing them to send them out to start new works, whether it be here in Arkansas or nationally. And so they're doing that on a regular basis. Every year or two, they're sending out. They might have in place a church planting residency. They might have in place some processes that some have defined as a pipeline where they, where they find out where guys are, what needs are there in his life to prepare him and equip him to be a pastor or youth pastor or a church planter. And they're pouring into them over a series of years through a systematic approach to prepare them for church planting. And so the multiplying church is doing it regularly on an ongoing basis. [00:27:51] Speaker C: So with that multiplying church or any church that is looking at church planting, where did the church planters come from? Tim, where do we find these guys? I mean, have we got this big list of. Here are all these guys that we. [00:28:14] Speaker B: Don'T have a minor league farm system that we call up. [00:28:19] Speaker D: I go back to my own call to ministry. I am sitting in the back row every Sunday, the back row of First Baptist Church of Yellville, when God spoke to me. Not an audible voice, but I know it like I know the know you guys are sitting in front of me that God called me to the ministry. I am sitting at First Baptist Church, Yellville, and I'm thinking, I'm looking around me and thinking, these guys have no clue how the world has just changed for me as God has called me to the ministry. And. And so I didn't respond that Sunday morning. I was able to hold onto the pew just a little bit tighter than the Holy Spirit would have wanted me to. But over the next few weeks, Lord led me to make that call. I say that, to say that the next pastors, the next youth pastors, the next music leaders, the next missionaries, the next church planters are in our churches right now. It will be First Baptist Yellville or First Baptist, wherever they're in our churches. God continues to call out. He tells us to pray. He tells us to pray for the workers of the harvest. And he continues to call guys out. I think it's our job as leaders, as pastors, as associational missionaries, is to help identify and help equip them. Help equip them for whatever it is that God's leading them to. And some of us can help in the area of getting them ready for church planting. But great question. When we were at the imb, we would say the resources of the church plants and the resources are in the harvest. We're going to find the next generation of leaders in the harvest, in the church plants, in the churches. That's where God raises us up, is young men are discipled, and as they grow in their faith, God touches and calls them out. So good question. Thanks for asking. [00:30:19] Speaker B: I love that you said leaders are in the harvest. Often we think of the harvest as that's the conversion, the new believers. But it is discipleship that comes along and leads to leadership. I love that. [00:30:31] Speaker C: That's good stuff. [00:30:32] Speaker B: So if somebody's listening and they're interested in being a church plan planner, where do they start? Do they need to have an area in mind or specific people? Where do they start? And is there somebody to come alongside them in this process? [00:30:48] Speaker D: They start on their knees and make sure that this is what God is calling them to. It is not for the faint of heart. And if I can talk you into church planting, somebody can talk you out of it. It's got to be a God, God thing. And so, yeah, they start. I say, go to your pastor and share the calling that God's laid on your heart. Contact us at the missions team of the state convention, Arkansas. Contact me. We will help you walk through a process to help. One of the first things we do with guys is a calling exercise that helps kind of just think through, is God calling me to this, or is it just warm fuzzies that I'm feeling? Or I think it's really cool to plant churches. I'd like to go do that. I think that's what cool kids do. It's more than that. It's a calling. So we help them affirm that calling before we take them very far down the road. But there are tools. There are great tools out there. North American Mission Board has tools. The IMB has tools. We have tools that's in Network Arkansas that we can help bring somebody from, Hey, I sense this calling. What do I do next? So contact us. Go to your pastor first and share that calling with him. Together, let's meet up and talk through what that might look like. Oftentimes there is a place God's laid a place on somebody's heart. That's what God uses to stir it up. I see these people, these people group talked to a guy the other night in his apartment complex. A church planter invited everybody in his church, in his apartment complex over to the house just for a fellowship. He had seven different nations represented in his apartment that night. 11 new people, 10 or 12 people that they'd already connected with and like seven different nationalities there. God's at work and just opening up the door and taking some steps. He'll bring clarity and he'll help us reach the people he's called us to. [00:33:06] Speaker C: We don't have time to get into this, but what you just said with the apartment is a great example that church planting may or may not involve building a building. Most often it doesn't. And it can happen wherever. In an apartment complex, in an apartment. We'll get into that later on. I do have one last question I want to ask before Clint kind of leads us in wrapping this up. Most of our planters are co vocational now. Vocation is, hey, we're here to serve God. Co vocations. We've got several places where that happens. That's at a church, that's at a church plant. That may be another job. You know, those sort of things where we provide for our families. Matter of fact, Tom Raynor has said in an article about trends for the coming year is that he expects some 15,000 churches. Now. This is not just SBC. This is across the United States. Some 15,000 churches will not be able to pay a full time pastor. They're paying a full time now. So he says co vocational is going to be kind of the dominant model of pastoring with that. One thing that I've been impressed with this partnership we have through NAM through SIN Network is the care. You alluded to it earlier, that's provided to our church planters. What type of care is provided through this Send Network Arkansas partnership with nam? [00:34:47] Speaker D: Well, a lot of the guys that come through are co vocational. A lot of them are trying to be full time. Some of them are bi vocational. Bi vocational is when you're working a job just long enough until you can become full time. Co vocational is like intentionally, it's intentional. I'm going to be working this job because I have access to lots of different people. I'm working this job because it's going to provide my insurance or whatever. But there's an intentionality to it to allow the church not to have to pay them full time. So some of the benefits that come alongside with especially younger guys, newer guys, right up front. They get them set up at Guidestone and begin to contribute. Give $1,000 toward their retirement to help them open up that account and get that going. Also offer the first year of health insurance for them and their family. We provide, come alongside them with accounting resources, Water's edge here in Arkansas. Come alongside and provide that for the first year or two. I can't remember exactly where we landed on that. I'll learn that as I step into this role a little bit more. But there's constant resources that are sent and brought to encourage. You know, once a year we'll have a marriage family retreat that we will offer to our planters here in the state where they can come and actually have a retreat with their wife. There's training involved in all that. Every. You know that the spouses on their birthday get a gift card once a quarter. They'll receive some books and some. Can I say swag? Do we know what I mean by swag? From North American Mission Board Just to let them know, hey, we're thinking about you, we're praying for you, we care for you, we're going to walk alongside of you. So lots of different benefits along those lines. One of the things that I love about, about the SEND Network Arkansas Partnership and all is that it takes guys. There's an orientation in Alpharetta for every new church planter. They will go there, they'll spend a couple of days and they will hear over and over again about the family of Southern Baptist and understand better coming back. Young guys coming, even growing up in our churches don't understand who we are as Southern Baptist. And this, this hammers in. This is who we are, Southern Baptist. This is how we operate. Here's some of the basic structure of all that. And this is why we give every church plant that's funded or partnered together with through SEND Network, every church plant gives back to the Cooperative program at least 6%. Here's why. Here's who we are, what we do with all that. So I love that orientation to. It's not just to Nam, it's to all of us as the sbc. So lots of benefits, lots of ways. I've had guys come back from that saying, I had no clue who we were, had no clue what all we did and were able to do. So just some really good stuff as. [00:38:02] Speaker B: We begin to wrap up. Tim, I know there's a lot of excitement from you and from us and I know others as word spreads about you taking this role, really, the circle coming back to where you started is you led the first efforts of intentional church planting focus in Arkansas. And so there will be a whole lot of stuff coming out. Hopefully we'll have you back on another episode to talk more nuts and bolts and things. But what is the one big thing you want to leave our listeners with today? Just to carry them through to that next conversation. [00:38:34] Speaker D: I think it's the fact that God is still alive and he is still well and he still wants to reach Arkansas, that he is, is. Is at work in Arkansas, that he's at work in, in. In reaching all the people in Arkansas. I'm an Arkansan. I've been. I graduated from high school here back years ago, you know, back. Back in the day. We are. We are Arkansans by heart. God loves Arkansas. He's at work in Arkansas. You. He wants to continue to be at Arkansas. And one of the ways he does that is through church planting. And he is raising up guys. If there's one thing I would encourage pastors is to, you know, to look at your congregation, say, okay, what's God doing? Who's God raising up? That I could pour into over the next few years to prepare them to help us plant new churches here in Arkansas. So, yeah, just continuing to trust that God's alive and well and working, that he's raising up young guys to send out to be a part of church planting here in Arkansas and beyond. [00:39:41] Speaker C: Awesome. Tim, we want to thank you for joining us today and we look forward to future conversations we're going to have on Mission Eyes with you. [00:39:49] Speaker D: Let's do it. [00:39:49] Speaker C: And with our listeners. Hey, as always, thank you for giving us a listen. And if you like what you hear, and even if you don't like what you hear, give us a review, give us a rating. I don't know how that works, but evidently that's tied in with helping to get more people listening, those sort of things. So help us out there, guys. Share that with folks. We appreciate it. We're going to be back in a couple of weeks and we're going to focus in on our spring outreach emphasis. So I encourage you to come back. If you need information on that, go to the website, absc.org, google in the search spring outreach emphasis. It'll take you to a lot of resources there and we'll talk about that in a couple of weeks. [00:40:40] Speaker A: Thanks for joining the missions guys today. If you liked what you heard, rate and review us on your favorite podcasting platform and to keep up with what is happening in Arkansas missions, visit absc.org missions.