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Hello and welcome to a new week here at the Live Boldly Podcast, brought to you by Celebration Baptist Church.

I'm Jessica, and today Pastor Scott will be joining us for the first time.

Pastor Scott is a mission pastor here at Celebration, and today we will be discussing serving and following God.

Before we get into it, let me ask you, Pastor Scott, did you always see yourself in missions?

Absolutely not.

Really?

What did you see yourself going into?

Well, uh growing up, uh, I grew up in a Christian family, grew up going to church.

Um I don't know that I really knew what missions necessarily was.

Uh, so so no.

Um as a kid, I wanted to be a lot of things.

I mean, everything fireman, truck driver, uh, and or a dentist or something like that.

Uh, at the age of 14, I did feel a call to ministry um in general, but even didn't know what that was except preaching.

So, no, I mean, I saw myself being anything uh other than missions.

Um, I did go on to college and graduate with a business degree and in finance and was working in banking out of college.

There you go.

So I wasn't even calling out, I wasn't even following the call to ministry at that point in time.

So, in today's devotion, you talked about how you were single, 22, and then you felt called to leave the point where you were at life.

So, what made you so confident in that calling?

Because you were in a very different place.

Oh, for sure.

Well, I was fresh out of college, working in the bank.

I mean, you know, nothing but success and career ahead of me was what I envisioned.

Uh and several things happened at one time.

Um I did join a mission trip, a short-term mission trip to Scotland with my with my church.

And uh at the same time, um, during that same time frame, uh some things started happening at work that were disrupting uh work and life.

And so the mission trip was a fantastic experience.

I mean, I was there was no doubt I was called to go on that um as I stayed in the devotion, really began to even discover and exercise spiritual gifts at that time.

And I can remember uh standing on the train platform at uh in Dundee, Scotland, ready to go back to London to fly back to the United States and uh just bawling.

I mean, absolutely uh like a baby bawling because I didn't want to leave.

And uh I recently even in the last year uh was reading back in that journal and uh reading what I what I had written about I can't leave.

If I leave, who's going to work with these families and these kids in this town?

And so uh I'll go ahead and tell this story if that's okay.

Um so on that mission trip was our worship pastor's wife.

And uh she was kind of like a mother figure to me.

And uh so I'm sitting there bawling and she she's just basically holding me, and I'm sobbing on her shoulder, and she she she pulled back and she looked at me and she looked at me straight in the eye and she said, Scott, are you being called to be a missionary?

Whoa, and I think I cried even harder at that moment.

Um, but what what made me feel so confident in in that decision?

I mean, it was it was a perfect storm.

Like everything came together in my life at that moment that was just that just basically said, You're not where you're supposed to be, or you're not where you're going to be.

Yeah, there will be something new.

Wow, that's crazy.

That's exciting though.

So, what did your prayer life kind of look like at this point?

Desperate.

Yeah, like you know something is happening, you know something is changing.

And but but I I couldn't see it.

Right.

And uh, as a planner or as a visionary, it was it was you know kind of confounding to to know something is happening, but not be able to see what that was.

So my prayer life was absolutely desperate.

Um, I spent a lot of time in the word.

Um, not necessarily didn't mean to.

I only realized that part when I heard my dad giving testimony about my about this time of my life from his vantage point.

Oh.

And he was talking about just the uh the the Bible and prayer time that he found me in.

Yeah.

And so uh, but I can remember uh it really all came to a culmination.

One night I was laying on my bed, just I mean, sprawled out, um, on my back and kind of in a surrender position, and that was my prayer was just literally, all right, God, I surrender.

That's impressive.

Whatever, wherever, but I this is I I need to know.

Like, we need to move forward with this.

I can't go on.

So yeah, that sounds like a pretty desperate surrender.

So what helped like encourage you through this desperate prayer time, this all this change and everything happening all at once?

Uh, fellow believers, yeah, church members.

Um, there were there were certain people in my life that knew that I was going through this struggle.

Struggle in a good way, uh, obviously.

Um, and so as I confided in them or as they circled back and checked on me, um speaking into my life, them pointing out from their more spiritual maturity, maybe at that time, then them pointing out things in my life out of that wisdom, yeah, helped guide me.

That's so yes, by all means, the word of God and prayer as the first two, and then God using the voice of fellow believers to uh to either clarify things or to uh to kind of back up those things, affirm those things in my life.

So that's really important.

Yes, it is.

It's important to have those people in your life.

So uh say somebody who's listening right now, they may be feeling like they're being called to follow God down a totally new path in life, they're in that desperate prayer mode, they don't know what to do next.

What would you say to encourage them right now?

Go for it.

Uh just just start moving.

Um, don't be paralyzed.

These times in life can be very paralyzing.

And certainly there during some of these stages, it's perfectly okay to, I'm just gonna sit still and sit quiet and hear from the Lord.

But not to be paralyzed.

And so just move, okay?

And uh I would say, especially for somebody in the church, that you have a pastoral staff that would love to engage in that conversation with you.

If it's more mission-specific or theological education specific, something that's ministry directed, please come talk to me.

Like uh, this is one of my favorite parts about being in ministry is the mentoring and the helping uh of younger, not even necessarily younger, it might be peers, uh peers of mine, that feel like they're being called.

Um I would say uh move, move forward with the help of one of your pastors.

And and you'll know, we'll all know that if that direction's not quite right, like we will change the course, we can correct the course better if we're moving forward.

Oof, yeah, okay, than we can to get you out of a paralytic state.

Okay.

So that would that that would be my advice.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Pastor Scott, thank you for sharing with us.

So, to all of our listeners, don't forget to follow Celebration Baptist Church on Instagram and Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

There you can keep up with our current sermon series, live boldly, and explore other things that are happening in our celebration family.

Pastor Scott, would you close us in prayer today?

Absolutely, thank you.

I will.

Father, thank you for your salvation.

Thank you for saving us, and thank you, God, that you call us.

You don't just save us to uh something purposeless.

You you you call us, you save us and call us into something purposeful.

You allow your people to be on the front line of uh of your commission.

And uh, Father, I pray for uh all of those out there hearing today.

God, I pray that you would call some, uh, that you would take them from where they are in a new direction, God, that you would call people to ministry, call people to missions uh full time, and uh that they would uh that they would obey.

And I pray that for those that maybe didn't know what it was they had been feeling, that today would bring clarification to that.

And Father, that you would give us, as their fellow believers, as pastors, wisdom and discernment uh in leading them forward through this discipleship process.

God, we ask that you would be glorified in each one of our lives in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Pastor Scott.

Be sure to tune in again tomorrow to hear more of Pastor Scott's journey.

We'll see you then.