“Idaho Falls Rescue Mission” - Special Guest: Tyler Perkins

Good morning. How are we? It's good to be here. My name is Tyler Perkins and I serve as the

Executive Director at the Idaho Falls Rescue Mission. And Pastor Scottie, oh thank you,

thank you. Pastor Scottie asked me to share about the mission specifically and some of my story and

how that relates to you. When I talked to Scottie and he told me what happened, I said, "Scottie,

you know we could have just went to coffee." And he said, "Yeah, that would have been a lot cheaper."

So before I jump in, will you pray with me? Father, I just ask that you show up and you speak

through me and even if it's to one person today, Lord, we just ask that you use this message to

speak to your people. And we ask these things in Jesus' mighty name, amen. Okay, so like I said,

I really wanted to just, I asked Scottie, just where you at? Let me just continue sermon and

wherever you're at. And he said, "No, I don't want you to preach a sermon. I want you to share about

the mission. I want you to share with our congregation who you are so that our congregation

can get to know you and get to know the mission." And I went, "Okay, all right." So who knows about

the Idaho Falls Rescue Mission? Wow, awesome, awesome. So if any of you have heard everything

I'm gonna say, don't ruin it for everyone else. Just smile, you'll get through it. My testimony,

part of my story has a lot to do with, I'm just setting a timer as I'm talking or I will keep you

here too long, for sure. But it has everything to do with why I'm here, why I'm here in front of you

even. It is a direct result of my relationship with Jesus and being obedient to that. And so,

I'm not gonna talk about what a horrible person I was before Jesus, which I was. I'm not gonna

talk about all the sin that I was so good at, which I was. I'm not gonna talk about all the

bad things and the bad man that I was, which is all true. And all of you who know anything about

me can attest. And if you have an issue with it, my wife's right here, she'll tell you. I want to

kind of start in, besides just a little bit of where I come from, when I became a believer in

Jesus. So I was born and raised in Southern Nevada in the Mojave Desert. And it's funny because when

we moved up here, we moved up by warm river outside of Ashton and we had all our friends

and our little church family was like, "How are your kids adjusting to being so far out in the

middle of nowhere?" And my kids were coming home and going, "Dad, this place is huge. There are

people everywhere." So just that, you know, I come from a very ranchy, farmy, really, really small,

really poor background and just had a zeal for sin. I really did. You know, we all struggle with

it, but I really am an overachiever in some ways. So outside of that, I want to start with becoming

a believer. In my mind, a believer is when you believe that God is real and even if you don't

have some of that clarity in who God is and who His Son is, if you believe God is real, you're a

believer. And the first several years of me becoming a believer, not until I was well into

my adult life, and it made every mistake you can make, and I started doing things like going to

church, and that made me feel really good. And I started thinking about others a little bit more

than I used to, and I started helping people a little bit more. But I was still, you know,

living my life, not really giving my whole life to Christ. And so that shallow dive, can I say that?

Can I say that out loud? Shallow dive part of my life was good, it was a good step, but it was not

what God had for me at all. Not even close. I was still trying to plan my future. And as I wrestled

through that a little bit, some things started to happen. The more that I stayed in the Word of God

and prayed and fasted to God, "Give me a mission, give me a mission, give me a mission," I still was

doing it from my own kind of perspective and my own wants and needs. And in that shallow dive

Christianity, guess what I did? I made a whole bunch of mistakes. Unbiblical mistakes. So I know

that's a lot of your story, but I want to make some points here and use this part of my testimony to

challenge and encourage. If we just get up and share our testimony, that's good. But what does

testimony mean? Anybody looked it up? The definition says something along the lines, depending on what

dictionary you use, proof and evidence of said topic in your life. It's the same word that we

use in a court of law when you go to swear testimony in a court of law. It's proof and

evidence in that case of whatever the topic is, the charges are, right? So when we share our

testimony, we ought to be able to have specific proof and evidence of said topic, which happens

to be Jesus. So the older I get, the less I talk about my stuff and the more I talk about Jesus in

my life and evidence that He's in my life. When I was a shallow dive Christian, He wasn't in my

life a whole bunch. And I was choosing the times when He was. So the challenge for you is to

evaluate that, right? I'm not saying it's bad, and I'm not here to convict and make you feel bad,

and in case I do, I brought some jokes to kind of offset that. And so my family's probably going to

be embarrassed because there's a few dad jokes in here too. But our testimony has to show proof

and evidence of Jesus. That's the purpose of sharing a testimony. So my Christian life,

when I became a believer, that was kind of sketchy. You could see Jesus in my life when

I brought it up. But I kept praying and I kept fasting and I kept in the Word and I kept studying,

and God just kept pulling on me and pulling on me and pulling on me. And I finally got to this

time in my life where I realized this isn't my life. This is God's life. And at that point,

I started getting really radical and my wife thought I was losing it. I was losing it. I tell

people all the time, "You kind of have to be a little bit crazy to follow Jesus." Especially

from the perspective of the world, right? And so I started doing things like this. "Lord,

I'm going to wake up tomorrow and I'm going to do whatever You have for me. Tell me what You

want me to do today. Tell me where You want me to go today. What do You have for me?" Instead of,

"Lord, I'm doing this and this and this. Please bless it if it be Your will." And things got

pretty weird pretty quick for me. I immediately was burdened, overwhelmingly burdened for people

who were struggling for the broken, the destitute, the addicted, and people in jail and prison. So

much so that during this time in our marriage and our life, we're raising little kids. I started,

we lived in a super rural area where there is no resources, there's no cities, there's not even a

store. There's a couple of gas stations. And so I started designing, like researching and thinking

and reading and praying the Word and putting these programs together. And I actually made a

list of these programs that could help people. And I started doing them, talking to the sheriff and

putting classes together and getting them okayed with probation, parole, and driving to the little,

you know, driving 100 miles up the road to where the county jail was. And just doing all these

things. I had no idea why or what I was doing. I was just on fire. And then some other weird

things started happening, like, you know, my family stopped talking to me about certain things.

My friends all said, "We're not your friends anymore. You're being crazy. We know who you

are. What are you doing?" Sound familiar? I know a lot of you have been through this. And I just

kept plugging away and working and making every mistake. Like I said, if you want to talk about

mistakes made through a Christian life and sanctification, come talk to me. I'll make you

feel pretty good. Share some of my war stories. You'll feel great about yourself. But the important

part is Jesus was in it all, right? And I continue to give Jesus more and more of myself and my life.

And as I did that, He started directing and showing and guiding and teaching and moving

me in ways that I never would have guessed, including this whole kind of thing. It got so

much to the point that I started a nonprofit, and I wrote down this list of programs that I

was going to build and was building and having Bible classes and life coaching classes, the whole

nine across the board. Things got pretty rough, and I made a lot of mistakes in that as well. And

I finally got to the point where I said, "Lord, this ain't working. This one horse town ain't

working anymore. Not a lot of people to help. The people that I do help don't want it." And then just

the few people that were there for my support just didn't support me anymore. And so I said,

"Right or wrong, Lord, I'm moving. Tell me where to move. I need you to tell me where to go." I'd

never been to Idaho. Didn't much care for it, no offense. And He brought me to Ashton first. We were

up there for a little bit for a couple of years, and my wife said, "You can do another winter up

here if you want to, but you'll do it alone." At the same time, I had gone to a retreat, Old Faithful

Christian Ranch, at the same time and met some homeless guys that the mission had brought up

there for the first time. And at the time, I'm studying and mentoring under pastors to become

a pastor because I thought, "It's God's life now. The next logical thing is pastoral, right?" That's

how guys think most of the time. And I love the guys so much, I just started going down and

volunteering at the mission. And I was praying and fasting, "Give me a mission, Lord. I'm ready. I

think I'm ready. Give me a mission." So careful what you pray for. If you're giving it all to God,

sometimes if it's His will, He'll give it to you, and then watch out. So that's how I came to the

mission. I started volunteering there, never really wanted to work there, and the need was

just obvious and everything. I still have this paper today. I got to learn the mission, and at

one point they sat me down and said, "We really want you to work for us. Here's a breakdown of

our programs and what we do and what we offer and why." And I read it, and I just melted. I was blown

away. And I actually went home and pulled that old paper out from years ago in Nevada and put them

together. And I had no idea. I've never been homeless. I've lived out of my truck a few times,

but that's just because we were that honky where I grew up. And I put these pieces of paper together,

and God had had me building programs that the mission offers. And visiting people in jail the

same way that the mission offers, and even creating probation and parole biblical classes,

and getting them okay through the state the way that rescue missions do it. And I was like,

"Okay, well, I think that's a yes." And so I have never looked back, and it's been a really long

journey. I still make a lot of mistakes. I just dove in. The last thing I want to say about this

testimony part is it's about Jesus, right? Our testimony is about Jesus, and the proof and

evidence in my life when people ask me, because people do down at the mission. They ask all the

time. And I say, "I'm here. I'm with you. I'm praying for you. I would not be here. I would

not care. I would not care about this church or anything else without Jesus." And He needs to work.

He wants to work that mightily and powerfully through all of us. He has a mission for you. It

might not be a gospel rescue mission, but it's a mission just as importantly. And if we will just

continue to give more and more of ourselves to Jesus, He'll continue to give more and more of

His life for you and make it really obvious, right? I think God's blessed me because of my

stubbornness, because of my confidence to go make mistakes and just stay busy. "Lord, this is what

I'm doing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not gonna sit down." And so I always encourage people

to get up and do something. And if you mess it up, it's alright. And if it's not designed for you,

you'll find out real quick. So that's a little bit about myself. That's all I'm gonna say about me.

If you guys want to know more about me, I'll take you to coffee later. I want to talk a little bit

about the mission because Scotty said, "I want you to talk about the mission and what you do and who

you are, and I really want to educate our congregation." Because did you guys know that the

mission is an outreach of this church? Ah, finally gotcha. Yeah, your church supports the Idaho Falls

Rescue Mission. As a matter of fact, the mission is an outreach. So when somebody needs help from

homelessness or food insecurity or addiction, then we step in and partner with your church. And so

that's a ministry together, right? Yeah, and Scotty and I get along really well. We've known each

other for a long time. The last couple of years we've got to know each other a lot better, and

we're such hodunks that we hit it off and get along really good. And we're such knuckleheads

that we really connect. As a matter of fact, he agreed to be one of my accountability partners

a while ago, and so he's constantly giving me Scotty wisdom about fatherhood and ministry,

and it's really good. So what about the mission, and what does that mean for you guys? Well, I want

to go over some things that the mission does. Before that, I'm going to throw a couple of these

jokes out just to test kind of if you're awake, break up the monotony a little bit. I don't often

tell dad jokes, but when I do, he usually laughs. Okay. I adopted a dog from a blacksmith, and as

soon as I brought him home, he made a bolt for the door. Okay, just making sure your blood's pumping.

I'll throw a couple more. That's my last dad joke, but I got some other some other jokes.

I have this thing, if you'll allow me to read it, and it's actually just a history of gospel

rescue missions, which you guys are part of a gospel rescue mission, whether you want to be

or not, by attending this church. We're part of you, and that relationship is really cohesive,

and so Scotty asked me to educate you and share with you some about what a gospel rescue mission

is. So I thought, okay, let's give you the whole story summary. So allow me to read this. "Down

through the centuries in every society, a portion of the population has found itself poor and

needier than the rest." That's not going to work. "Thankfully, compassionate people have been there

to invite those needing help into their homes, into their places of worship, and into the

organizations that they've created to provide aid and support. Countless numbers of these helpers

have been motivated by the gospel that says we are to love our neighbors as ourselves,

and that a relationship with Jesus can be life-transforming and provide the power to

start anew. In the early 19th century in Scotland, one such helper was David Naismith. He's the first

guy to start a mission. He started the first city mission to meet the physical and spiritual needs

of those in society who were without means and struggling the most. And his model of ministry

spread throughout the United Kingdom and eventually found its way across the Atlantic Ocean. In the

United States, the work of gospel rescue missions is historically connected to the temperance

movement of the 1800s." Fascinating history, Christian history, by the way, and so look up

the temperance movement. It's fantastic. "In 1847, oh sorry, in 1836, various temperance societies

merged to form the American Temperance Union, and the temperance movement was a tremendous success,

and it was deeply connected to the gospel and to the local churches." Who, by the way, were just as

clicky as we are today. That has not changed as much as people think. "In 1847, the word 'union'

began referring to the uniting of various local churches of diverse denominational backgrounds

into an interdenominational congregation to take care of the work of the church." The downtrodden,

the broken, the poor. If you dig into that a little bit more, the history of it, as the West

expanded in America and the cities blew up, more and more problem. The Wild West was so rampant

with violence and addiction that it was crazy, but then the cities in the East and Midwest blew

up and the churches couldn't handle it by themselves, so they came together and said,

"Let's put time, treasure, and talent together and create a gospel rescue mission." So the original

design is for the churches to own and operate these missions. So all we're trying to do is put

that back right. We're a parachurch organization where the local churches come together to do the

work of the church and make sure that the gospel can be shared and preached. So a good source of

the history of the American effort to have various churches unite in the 1800s can be found in the

term the Restoration Movement, which also happened in the 1800s and is a fascinating history. The

Restoration Movement has been characterized by principles that are embodied in the slogans that

are a part of our history as local missions. Where the Scriptures speak, we speak. Where the

Scriptures are silent, we are silent. These are just a couple of our taglines throughout the

years. In essentials, unity. In opinions, liberty. And in all things, love. No creed but Christ,

no book but the Bible, no law but love. And those change and kind of evolve through the years,

but, getting a phone call, sorry about that. But the thing to remember is that the gospel is the

root of what we're doing and the reason why we're doing it. We do a lot of social services and take

care of a lot of people that don't want anything to do with God, right? But we don't say, "Well,

if you're not gonna believe in Jesus or you're not gonna read your Bible, you can't stay with

us." Of course not. It's a net to do the work of the church and to net as many broken destitute

people as we can and give them the opportunity to hear about Jesus. The rest of it is up to them.

So by the late 1800s, city missions were springing up in urban areas throughout North America to

serve those who were living every day in deep despair. And in 1906, the leaders of these

multiplying city missions formed a network called the National Federation of Gospel Rescue Missions.

They did this to learn from each other and to gain better support for the work that they were doing.

They became the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions and then in 2018, changed again to

City Gate Network. And so we're a network and we don't receive financial support from them,

but we go to districts and nationals and I travel other gospel rescue missions and cities across the

West and we compare notes. What's working? What's not? What's the problems? And it brings a lot of

power and knowledge, helps us be more effective, impactful, and data-driven, which is important.

So city missions in the New World quickly established a clear and compelling purpose,

to pull people from safety, to pull people to safety from adverse conditions, poor choices,

and bad habits that were leading to physical and spiritual death. Missions did this by meeting

people's basic life needs. Food, clothing, shelter offered in settings where the Christian gospel

was regularly preached and invitations were given to become a new creation in Christ, essentially

to start over with a new life. I'm always reminding people that that's my story. I don't have

homelessness in my past, but it doesn't matter. The cross brings us all to a place of equality,

and that's your story too, right? So what we do is we provide everything that a person might need

physically so that they can focus on something besides being stressed out about how they're

going to eat or pay their bills or where they're going to sleep. And in that, we give the opportunity

to hear the gospel. The lyrics of a popular church hymn of that day, "Rescue the Perishing," became

the soundtrack for their ongoing labor of love. In fact, by the time city missions of Europe got

established in North America, they became known as rescue missions. By the end of the 20th century,

rescue missions were updating their approach to hospitality, strengthening their addiction recovery

programs, and offering a wider variety of education and life skills courses. Some were even providing

medical and—where's my other page? Hold on a second. Dental treatment. As the 21st century got

underway, more missions were adding job training skills, job placement services, housing acquisition

support, and much more, including follow-up with local churches. So we are not a church. We don't

want to be. What we want to do is help you do the work of the church, and then when people give their

life to Christ, we want to plug them back into the churches that support us. That way they have

a body of Christ, a new family, to help take care of them. There are basically four ways that we try

to move people from human suffering to human flourishing. The first is humanitarian aid,

going to places where there is famine and delivering food, or to a place where there is an

outbreak and offer medical care. It's digging wells where there is a drought, providing life-giving

clean water. The second is disaster relief, rescuing people from their rooftops or storm

cellars and taking them to gymnasiums or community centers, providing temporary aid and counsel,

and eventually helping them repair or rebuild their houses and places of business. The third

is community development, going to depressed neighborhoods, working with church leaders,

civic group leaders, politicians, and concerned citizens to construct better housing, improve

education, ensure safe recreation, and bring jobs and increased economic development. The fourth way

that we try to move people from human suffering to human flourishing is life transformation,

and though we are involved and engaged in humanitarian aid, disaster relief, and community

development, this is what missions do. Helping individuals and families progress from destitution

and bondage to the point where they are self-sufficient and giving back to their

communities. We believe that the most powerful and complete long-lasting life transformation

comes through and by a relationship with Jesus Christ. That's my story. I know it's your story,

and so the mission is a place where that is the purpose, but we do so much more just for the

few that should choose that path. So, did you learn anything about rescue missions? All right,

we do all of those things. For our small community, what we're able to do and the

resources we're able to provide is hands-down phenomenal. We say at the mission, you know,

every day we're here to work ourselves out of a job. We're really serious about keeping homelessness

down in our community so that it's not very visible, and we need the help of all of the

church families and the community to do that. And we have so many stories. I kind of wanted to just

come in and just spend an hour just giving you success stories. You know, in my own weird way,

I'm a success story of the mission. Because of the mission, God has done so much restoration in my

life. He's done so much in my children's life. He's done so much for our family, and there are,

I know there are people in this audience right now in this congregation that have

experienced radical life transformation at the mission. Like I said, it's something that's

regular down there. People ask me all the time, "Well, you know, how come we don't see miracles

like we used to?" And I said, "What's going on in your life?" We see it every day. What miracle is

more powerful than the transformation of a heart by our Lord and Savior? Okay, getting too serious

for you. I got to throw in some humor here. These are actual, I found these, these are actual

misprints in church bulletins that actually went out in the bulletin. "During the absence of our

pastor, we enjoyed the rare privilege of hearing a good sermon from EJ Stubbs. Scouts are saving

aluminum cans, bottles, and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple

children." I think that was supposed to say four crippled children. "The low self-esteem support

group will meet Thursday at 7 to 830. Please use the back door of the church. Thursday night,

potluck dinner. Pray and medication to follow. This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Johnson

to come forward and lay an egg on the altar." For those of you who have children and don't know it,

we have a nursery downstairs. So give the leadership here a break, they're doing great.

Those are great. People are funny, so I have some other things here. These are snippets from

letters that were actually written from children to pastors about things that were heavy on their

heart and their mind. The first one says, "Dear pastor, please say a prayer for our little league

team. We need God's help. We're a new pitcher." Alexander, age 10. "Dear pastor, my father says

I should learn the Ten Commandments, but I don't think I want to because we have enough rules

already in my house." Age 10. "Dear pastor, I think a lot more people would come to your church if you

moved it to Disneyland." Lorraine, age 9. "Dear pastor, I liked your sermon where you said that

good health is more important than money, but I still want to raise in my allowance." Age 12.

"Dear pastor, please pray for all the airline pilots because I'm flying to California tomorrow."

"Dear pastor, I would like to go to heaven someday because I know my brother won't be there."

Steven, age 8. "Dear pastor, I know God loves everybody, but he's never met my sister."

Yours sincerely, Arnold, age 8. "Dear pastor, please say in your sermon that Peter

Peterson has been a good boy all week. Love, Peter Peterson." "Dear pastor, my father should

be a minister. Every day he gives us a sermon about something." And finally, "Dear pastor,

I'm sorry I can't leave more money in my plate, but my father didn't give me a raise in my allowance.

Could you have a sermon about a raise in my allowance, please?" Some of the stuff that

comes with ministry. But we've got to laugh about it, especially in the business of rescue mission.

You know, Jesus is the ultimate rescuer. And we talk about that, you know, almost every series

that we go through, that's the principal foundation, right? Jesus is our rescuer. And once we're

rescued, we give our life to him so that he can rescue more through us. That's it. We have our

tagline, which is "Rescue, Recovery, Restoration," and that's kind of in order how we see things

happen and how we've experienced things in our own life. And I just wanted to talk a little bit

about them and the little bit of time we have left. A few minutes here. Rescue, Recovery,

and Restoration seems like sometimes it's a distant thing that we don't have to deal with.

But I was speaking to a friend this morning before service started, and we were talking about,

you know, there are a lot more of your friends and family who have come through the mission than

you're probably aware of. It's not something that's out of our realm. It's something that we

put out on purpose, right? And I'm not going to challenge you on why we do that. You can go home

and analyze that and pray about it with your families. But I know before God called me to

this ministry, I did. I had no idea about homelessness. And you know what? My perspective

on homelessness was not super, right? And so God's really pulled me through this understanding that

the foot of the cross brings an equality to all of us. And even if you don't need rescuing, you know,

a lot of people say, "Well, I have a house. I have food. I have a good job. I don't need to be

rescued." And I remind them that in the Word, all through the Word, and the New Testament drills

into this in several books, there are two kind of perspectives in the world, physical and spiritual.

So when you say, "I don't need rescuing," which one are you talking about? God says, "We all need

rescuing spiritually." And I need Jesus and to be rescued by Jesus just as much today as I did the

first day that He rescued me. And you know what happens when I walk away from that? Nowadays,

in my relationship, I go one day. I mean one day without my prayer and my time with the Lord

and being in the Word and waking up and praying, "Take my life. Show me the path today, Lord. It's

yours." And that old man comes back so quick. And until we're out of these physical bodies,

that's just the process we're stuck in. There's no way around it, I promise you.

So rescuing is in the physical sense that we help a lot of people with that, but the purpose is

spiritual rescue, spiritual recovery, and spiritual restoration. And what I'd like you to do is to

take those things home and pray about them and discuss them with your families and see if you've

ever thought of it from that perspective. Put it on a board, on a whiteboard, and talk it out with

your kids. Where are we at physically? What are we doing physically? And where are we at spiritually?

What are we doing spiritually? And those three things, I promise you, will be very convicting,

and they will start to allow the Lord to move you into ministry. If you're not in ministry now,

well, let me just to close, I'll ask you this. Who's a teacher? Everybody raise your hand,

that's a teacher. Oh man, I was hoping more of you'd raise your hand. I got news for you.

You're teaching somebody every second of your life. There's always somebody that is watching

you and listening to you, whether it's a stranger or an unbeliever or a child, a husband, a wife.

We are all called when we accept Christ as our personal Lord and Savior to be teachers, right?

Now whether we raise, like the scripture says, to be teachers at the pulpit, that's kind of a

different conversation. But we're all teachers, we're all leading, and God calls every one of us

and has, as Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, and 10, you know, Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 are really popular

verses, but they leave 10 out too much. 10 explains work so perfectly that it doesn't have to be an

issue. We should be talking about works because they're not ours, they're God's. Everything I'm

doing at the mission right now, my entire life right now, is not my life, it's not the life I

would have chosen, and it's not the life that my flesh likes all the time. It's the life that God

had for me so that He can use me to save more. And you have the same thing going on in your life,

right now. You don't have to work at a ministry to be in ministry. Scotty will tell you he's a

perfect example, him and his brother, that sometimes the most powerful ministry happens

at the job site, the construction site, outside of ministry. But it's all about saving souls,

it's a rescue mission. Jesus teaches us how to do that. We have one here locally, come down and see

what we're doing. Love to give you a tour and talk about it more. And just remember, we're part of

this church. You have this, so if you're ever thinking if God puts it on your heart to help

homeless, poor, addicted, broken, any kind of those services you can imagine, come and talk

to us. That's the avenue that this church wants to handle those things. Okay? All right, allow me to

pray. Father, we thank you so much for this time. Thank you for being able to come and share and

hang out with this church body. And we ask, we thank you first of all, Lord, for their participation

and their hearts and their giving and their support. We cannot do what we're doing at the

mission without it. But I also ask, Lord, that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you challenge

and convict where that needs to be done, the hearts and minds of the men and women in this

congregation to bring them to a place where we're able to give our lives over to you in a more

powerful and impactful way, Lord. And we just lift you up as the mighty awesome rescuer. And we ask

these things in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.

[Applause]