The Next is Now Podcast with Roger and Carla

Hey, what's up everybody?

I want to take a moment, just welcome you.

Thank you for uh being here and being a part of this conversation.

And what we decided to do, you know, we're in this series right now, next is now, where we're talking about uh projects and things that we're doing as a church, kind of the the what that we're doing the next couple years.

Uh but what we want to do is take time to talk about the why.

And uh I've been talking out of the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, chapter 12, about the cloud of witnesses, uh the people like Abraham and Sarah and Enoch and Abel and Rahab and all these people uh that we read about in the Bible, but then also the people who have gone before us, uh, our ancestors, our parents, our grandparents.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

And um what I'm wanting to do is really think about where we've been and where we're going.

And I think that gives us our uh bearings around where we are.

So we're releasing videos, and uh some of these videos people see like a three-minute story, a five-minute story.

But I I don't know how many times I've watched like a five-minute story.

I'm like, I wonder what else happened.

You know, there's more to the story.

So um, you know, I shared uh in church about uh Carla's story, and we have a video of Roger, but I asked uh Roger and Carla to come and to take some time to talk about uh more behind the story.

So thank you guys so much for uh being here and being a part of this.

And I'll tell you what, let's start out.

Uh Carla, why don't you go first?

Why don't you introduce yourself and who you are and then how you kind of became a part of this, a little bit of your backstory on how old you were when you started this, how you found it, and then uh and then we'll we'll get into like the the the more recent past soon, but start kind of from the beginning.

Okay, my name's Carla Tatum, and I came here in 1964 to Columbus.

I was married one week, and we went to visit Piermore Assembly of God.

And uh we start we became we became part of that church in from the very beginning, and and they became our family.

Because we had no family here, they became our family.

They lived.

Where were you from?

I'm from Emerilla, Texas.

My husband was from Oklahoma City, and he was in the Air Force, he was stationed at it was Lochburn at that time, and he was still in the Air Force still the first year we were married.

He was still in the Air Force, then he got out, and we decided to stay in Columbus, and we became apart when I was 19.

Um, the lady that had been taking care of the books, she decided she didn't want to do it anymore.

So they asked me to do it.

Well, I had been the treasurer of our youth group in in when I was in high school, so that was just okay.

I decided I'd do it.

Of course, it wasn't a lot of money and a lot of, I mean, because the church was very small at that time.

And when we came, they were I had this, it was the second pastor that was there when we came, and his name was Felix Coyle, and uh he became like a dad to me.

He was an amazing man.

Anyway, um he he he led the church for about oh, I don't know, three or four years after we were there, and then uh he left and uh Eugene Spike became the pastor, and that's that's kind of where we went, and he he was pastor for over 40 years of that congregation.

So you've been a part of um this church, so to speak, uh since 1965.

64.

64.

And so then uh uh from moving from Fairmore, which was in was in Whitehall, right?

And then uh coming over to Kehana.

Um, you were part of that move, and then everything in between.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, so you have a unique vantage point.

I'll I'll get back to you in a second.

Okay, uh we'll come over to Roger.

Roger, why don't you give us a little of your backstory?

Not as good as Carlos, of course.

Uh lived in Dayton all my life, and uh was uh found a new opportunity here in Columbus, and I uh found out at that time Gene Spike was the presbyter of this area.

And they were meeting still in Whitehall, they had built an addition to the original Fairmore Church, and so uh we attended, I visited and attended there, and we have finally moved in 1980, in the spring of 1980.

Uh and then when when they finally finished the construction of this location, we were part of the group that started attending here while there were still some people attending in Whitehall.

So you're from Dayton, Ohio.

Have you ever heard of Engagement Ohio?

No.

It's between Dayton and Marion.

Okay, good to know.

Is that where you got engaged?

I don't think you got you didn't get my joke.

No, I didn't.

Engagement Ohio is between Dayton and Marion.

Oh, Marion.

Okay.

That's very subtle.

That's a that's a dad, that's a dad joke.

Dad joke.

It didn't land, it didn't land like I was hoping it would be.

There is a Marion Ohio.

I know.

Well that's the point.

No, it's between Dayton and Marion.

It's a I didn't hear the Yeah, I've never been accused of being a comedian.

Anyways, well, guys, thank you.

Thank you so much.

And um, you know, a lot uh if you kind of think of the history of the of the church, right?

So you guys uh church started or you you were a part of it in '64, moved here in '80, '79, '80, right?

Eighty.

And then um a lot happened between then and twenty fifteen, okay, when when we showed up.

And um can you give me kind of a you know, a little bit about the church?

So like the the church obviously taking steps of faith, purchased the property, started building buildings, started the school, okay, lots of steps of faith along the way.

What were some of the landmark um steps of faith that you can think of in that period between 80 and 2015?

Well, I would think part of it was the purchase of the land, because there was nothing on Hamilton Road at the time we bought it.

I mean, it was just vacant farmland and that kind of thing.

There wasn't anything out here.

And it was a retreat area for one of the people or one of the families that attended Evangel Temple, and and their name was Cole, and uh they owned this land and the cottage area, or I think they call that building B.

Yeah.

Anyway, that that was the only uh thing that was on the property, and um they wanted to see the land used for the Lord, and so they're the ones that sold the land to um we were Evangel Temple at that time, and uh um they were the ones that wanted us to to really move forward and do that, you know.

So watching watching the purse of the land and the it was just farmland to the development of the community and the the life of the church, what is that, what was that, what has that been like that journey?

I think it's been amazing because watching how the city has come this direction.

I mean, like I said, there was nothing there.

Uh and there wasn't even when we built and everything, there was really not.

And the city, they weren't real happy with us building out here.

Uh they that wasn't in their projection of things.

But you know, as things moved along, they got more on board with us being here and stuff.

But uh yeah, there was nothing in the all the way down Hamilton Road.

There was just vacant land and stuff.

Well, what's it been like for you, Roger, to see to to just have a bird's eye view to all the change and all the development?

When we first moved here, we moved up in Westerville near the Hoover Reservoir.

And um we, as we came to know this area, as Carlos said, the only restaurant in the area was the Bob Evans.

Stone Ridge wasn't here.

Uh uh Big Bear was across the street where the Ohio store was.

That was a grocery store.

Big Bear grocery store.

Yeah.

And uh I guess today, Big Bear, you wouldn't know what it is if I said it today.

But it was a it was a chain, local chain.

And uh I didn't know what to expect when I came.

I just knew that the Lord wanted me here.

Uh too many people pray.

When they come to see a church, they come with a shopping list of I want this, I want this, I want this.

And we were taught uh at our church in Kettering, Ohio by Pastor Ross.

We were very fortunate to have uh matured under his wing, uh, that you come and pray and say, Lord, what do you want me to do?

Is this where you want me to be?

And we got that connection and have felt that way ever since.

Uh that this is where we need to be, this is where we need to plan ourselves until the Lord gives us a release.

And in spite of all the many changes we've seen.

But uh we attended here for quite some time and uh pastor and I uh got to know each other.

Uh I led in a committee to uh determine what we wanted in what is uh now Building D.

You know, when when we go to the architect, what do we want to tell him?

What are our requirements?

And we met for several weeks to put together our requirements and then met with the architect and he started the design process from there, and that was quite a uh a fun process to go through.

There was a period of time that that we had church at both locations.

There was people that met in Whitehall, and the pastor would drive.

I mean, it wasn't a video thing like we do now.

He would physically drive, and then we'd have service at the at the 817 North Hamilton.

Um, that was just part of, and we I we did that for several years.

There was several years that that happened, and then it finally um they sold the property in Whitehall, and uh once that was done, um then the whole congregation moved here, and it was probably around a thousand people at that point.

Well, we lost quite a few people during that time.

Some chose to stay in the Whitehall area and not to come out here, they weren't really on board with the new location, and um it it uh dipped total our total attendance for a while and then slowly started to build.

But uh one of the things that when I met with the city on a coup a couple times, we used to have a row of trees just outside what was then our parking lot.

And uh people at the city said, you know, you guys are the best kept secret in Gehenna.

Yeah.

Because I thought, well, that's not where we want to be.

Yeah, you know, but uh and they said they came by and saw we had a nice campus back here and everything.

And gee, I you know, we don't know anything about that church.

So when those trees came down and when one church exposed, you know, everything to pull the curtain back.

Pull the curtain back.

Uh well, even the sign, we only had a really, really small sign out front, and that's all the city would let us have.

But then there was a mayor put in, and she wanted to make things more visible and stuff, and she was more open to churches.

Yeah, and that's when one church was able to get the big sign on the back, and I think that's when people really started to see that we were even back here.

Because I could talk to people that were, you know, just in in the neighborhood, and they didn't even know where I was talking about when I would say the church, and they'd say, What are you talking about?

You know, they didn't know we were here because it we weren't visible, we were hidden behind trees, and there was some trailers and stuff that they had as as classrooms, yeah, classrooms and stuff.

So yeah, we were just kind of like a hidden secret back here.

You know, it's I was talking to somebody today about uh they were talking about their career and their plans and the things they have can see in their mind's eye of when they started out in their career of what they're trying to accomplish.

And they were talking about their frustration right now because it's just not going like what they thought.

And so they're like, Do I hang on to this dream or not?

And they feel even kind of fear around like, man, are these dreams ever gonna come to fruition?

And um it just reminded me of that as you guys were talking about the people that bought this property.

Um, like you said, it was farmland.

They couldn't envision uh what Hamilton Road was gonna become, that it was gonna become this really busy road with a lot of businesses, that that communities were gonna be built around it.

Or how valuable the land would be.

Yeah, the value of the land and just just what was gonna happen in the world, right?

So, like in their mind's eye, they they they had this desire to um have a property that honored God, but in terms of what that was gonna look like, they couldn't see it.

And it makes me think of Ephesians 3.20, which is you know the famous scripture, you know, to him who's able to do exceeding abundantly above what we would ask or think, or you know, immeasurably more than we would ask or think.

And often, you know, that means something that we can't see and we wouldn't even know to ask for, right?

So I was talking to my friend about you know, your career, you you want to do something great and significant with your life, and you have a vision in your mind of what you think that's gonna be, but exceeding abundantly above what you would ask or think might be completely different than what you've mapped out in your mind.

And even I wonder the people that bought this property, and and you know, they had this deep core desire to want this to be a place where God was honored and Jesus' name was lifted up, but could they see, you know, they probably couldn't see what it is now, even what the city looked like, what technology looks like, what how the world would shift and change.

And so it just to me is a reminder that we have to stay focused on the most important things, which is walking in honoring God and obeying God and being led by the Spirit, you know, walking with Him, but not becoming overly infatuated or bonded to our plans or even our dreams and visions.

And that's one of the things with the two of you, especially, that I have gleaned in watching your lives and your willingness to come into a church and to be a part of something that is so radically different than what you walked into in 1964 and what you walked into in 1979.

It's radically different, but in many ways exactly the same.

Different in terms of the expression and what you see on the outside, but very similar in terms of a fierce commitment to honoring God, walking with Him, pointing people to Jesus, manifesting the body of Christ in our city and our context.

And as a human being, that can be so hard to do because it feels so different than what you were expecting.

Especially if you're not in the right frame of mind.

Again, if you're coming because of what you expect to receive and what the way you expect it to be versus what you what you feel the Lord is telling you to do and to be, then you can accept things better.

Uh there was a tremendous amount of change.

I want to go back a little bit and say that I want to give credit to Pastor Eugene Spike.

Uh he had a small, he had a medium-sized congregation in Whitehall, but he saw the vision for this property, and he saw the vision for the school, that's right, which I thought at the time was very aggressive, because I thought, well, you've you only got a couple hundred people here and a couple hundred people down there at the time, and but he saw the vision, and he was a he was certainly a man of God, and he moved forward in that vision, and it was difficult for a while, and uh he was willing to pay the price and do whatever it takes.

In fact, I remember things were so tight for a while that he refused a salary, and he did that for gee a year and a half maybe, uh, and said we you know we can't afford to pay me right now.

And uh he was that devoted to God and and to this to this church back then.

So I I can't speak without giving kudos to him for the what what he planted and what he did before us in his faith.

I I was sharing Sunday a little bit on uh you know some of the stories I've heard of things that God showed him and that he would speak that are now coming to pass.

Why don't you guys talk about that a little bit?

Well, his he had a vision he he loved people, and he his whole mission was to win souls.

That that I can say that without any any doubt, that was his mission always.

It was always about moving forward and growing, you know, and and his teachings was like that, you know, and he taught the people to move forward, you know.

We we moved forward because he he led us that way.

He was an old-fashioned minister, but you gotta respect the fact that if I went in for a test at Mount Carmel at 5:30 in the morning, he was there at 5.30 in suit and tie to pray for us, even though it was just a test.

Uh he was that, as Carlos said, dedicated to his people.

And I I've been impressed by several things uh before we leave this topic, but I remember there was a couple that got married in their uh early 30s, a beautiful couple, uh Herman and Linda Watkins, and they lost their first baby and they were devastated.

And after the service or some part of it, he gets off the stage, walks back, grabs their hands, and starts praying for them.

And he looks up at him and he says, I see three.

I see three babies.

About a year and a half later, she had triplets.

Wow, yeah, it's an amazing story.

But uh he was he was connected.

He you know, he he he had a lid on his abilities, but he did the most that he could do with the abilities that he had.

And uh if it wasn't for that, uh like you said, we we wouldn't have the foundation we have now.

That's I mean, that is Hebrews 11.

That is uh running your race, that is being faithful to your assignment uh with we all have lids on our abilities, right?

On various ones, you know, we have a little more here and a little less over there.

But to take what God's given you, you know, your gifts, and to turn them into skills and to use those for God's glory to to um to honor God and please God and and serve people, um what a what a great demonstration of that.

And uh that's uh that's what I think we're all striving to do, right?

To find what is ours to do and to do that well.

Um Carla, why don't you I I told a little bit uh one of the services about a story you told me about uh a time you were praying, and then uh how sometime later when you showed up to the church and and why don't you tell?

I wanna I'd love to hear it through your your Well we were going through a pastor change and uh we had an interim pastor and we were searching for a pastor, and there was a group of people that were in this search team, and I was one, and Roger was one of them.

But uh when we would meet together, we would walk the grounds and pray and ask God to open the doors and do the things that He needed done.

And during that period of time, it didn't go the way any of us wanted it to go.

It kind of went south, and we just kind of had lost almost, we were down to almost nothing.

And uh I had retired.

I there was a period of time I was a church bookkeeper when I was 19, and I did it for about 17 years, and then I I worked and that kind of stuff.

Um, and I had gone back to taking care of the books because we couldn't afford to pay the bookkeeper, and I had experience with the bookkeeping, so I took over and said, I'll do it, you know.

And um so, but then it got down to deciding which bills were gonna be paid and which were gonna have to wait.

I mean, it wasn't deferred maintenance.

It was a literally, we didn't know from one day to the next whether or not the bank was going to come.

So once one church came in and took over, and the first service I came when it was one church, when I walked in the door, you know, I'm thinking, oh my goodness, what in the world?

Because it, you know, it was very, very, very, very different.

And it was dark, and I'm not used to the dark, you know, that kind of thing.

And uh I sat there, and as I was sitting there, it was just like the Lord spoke to me.

Like, I mean, it wasn't in l out loud, but he spoke to my heart.

I answered your prayer.

It just doesn't look like what you thought it was gonna look like.

And because, you know, we were down to it was all old people.

We had no children in the church, none.

It was all old people, that was all that was left.

And to see all the babies and the children, and did I just it thrilled me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You know, you you you think about it, it's like, you know, you said hey it got down to all older people, right?

Well, it's like the strength of a church is like the strength of a family.

Obviously, it's all about Jesus and He's at the center, but we are the body of Christ, right?

So it's in him we live, move, and have our being, but it's in us he lives, moves, and has his being.

And so in a church, the strength of that church is not that it's one generation.

Like when we started the church, I felt unstable because it was all young.

And so somebody's grandparents would come for baptism or something, and I would go run up and be like, please stay.

You know, even like I remember when we came here and came together, I was like begging you guys, please stay around because it's like any family, when you have the generations represented, you have the max benefit of both uh equity and energy.

You know, you have the equity of wisdom of of people who have life experience, but you have the energy of the young, okay?

If you miss any one of those, it's like a family, like when all of a sudden you show up to to a family function and maybe someone's passed away or someone's not there, there's something that's missing.

And so um, well, it was something was missing at that time, and the Lord brought it, you know, through our church, but the Lord brought you guys to us too, brought us to you and you to us.

That's right.

And what I tried to do at that time was to explain that as best I could.

Like, obviously, we come in, we're gonna change some things, it's gonna look different, it's gonna feel different, it's gonna have a different expression.

Every generation struggles with that.

I I turned 43, okay, I'm still young, but but my my daughter's turned 15, and the way she does stuff is totally different.

We were we were in here the other day, she's sitting on this couch behind me with her friend, and they're on their phones and they're sitting next to each other, you know, and I'm like, what are you guys doing?

Texting each other.

They're texting each other.

Carla, you you you're a step ahead of me.

I was like, I thought they were texting other people because I'm like, when you guys are not together, you're texting each other, but now you're together and you're texting other people, and they say we're texting each other.

And to me, I wanted to go put your phones away, you know, because it's it doesn't it doesn't resonate with me, but I understand that ultimately that's part of their culture, and that's what they're coming up, and I can warn them uh, you know, of my with my wisdom, but at the same time, things are shifting and changing.

And when you have everyone together, you know, yeah, there's tension, yeah, everybody's a little uncomfortable, but there's a strength to it.

As a teen, when I was in the church that I came from in Texas, was a large church at that time.

It was like 500 people.

And back in the 50s and 60s, that was a big church.

And the older people there, because I was young, they brought guitars into the into the services.

And those old people did not in a drum.

Oh my goodness, you would have thought the world would come to an end because they had brought drums and a guitar into the in the church service.

So it's the same kind of thing.

I, as a child or as a young person, I thought, what's the big deal?

You know, right.

But that's it's cyclical, right?

So even at some point, a hymn uh that now has nostalgia uh and and hits us in the fields, at one point that was brand new and it was controversial, you know.

So so everything has that.

And I think having people as as we get older and in some ways have earned the right, okay, to have our way or whatever it might be, to have the the grace and the presence of mind to say, look, um, we will make room for um something fresh and new, something different that might feel fresh and new and relevant to you, but to me it just feels uh uncomfortable.

And I do think that there is also a responsibility on uh the younger generation to show honor and respect and uh to not just uh be disrespectful to what's been built and who built it.

And so you guys are easy people to honor.

I appreciate uh your grace and your flexibility uh when you guys are the ones that you and many others, uh some who have gone on to be with the Lord and and some who are still around, but um that helped be, you know, that were faithful and helped build this place and made it so that what you gave us were were years.

Um it would have taken us longer to get there.

You took the timeline and you gave us you you you guys probably gave us seven or eight years that it would have taken us to build what you gave us overnight.

And that, of course, then again, that um just the facility opened the door to be able to reach more people.

So uh I just I'm so grateful.

Um I I'm curious, you know, we're doing all these projects, um, new auditorium, retrofitting these spaces, redoing the parking, all this.

How do you guys feel about all this change that's going on right now?

Is it like is it mixed feelings?

Is it like what how do you what's going on in your head?

Certainly, I had a much more narrow view uh back then of Christianity and who a Christian is, and and change had to be uh learned and expanded in my mind.

I wasn't against change, it's just that I was taught this is the way the church is.

Yeah.

And over a period of time, as we prayed, God started preparing me for uh to broaden my mind, broaden my scope.

By the way, real quick, that is that is a profound tension to wrestle with.

Because, in a sense, being steadfast and stubborn in a sense of being I like steadfast better.

Yeah, but I do too.

But in a sense, going, no, I will be steadfast for this thing and I'll be unchanging.

What things do I dig my heels in and say, I will not change, I'll not come off this wall, and then what things should still remain flexible?

And that is a that's a profound tension to wrestle with.

You bet.

And I have to admit, there were several times during these years of difficulty that we had, I prayed for God to release me from the church, and he wouldn't.

And in fact, my wife left the church for a while because some things were happening she didn't agree with, and I had to stay until finally she came back and joined me again here.

Some people almost criticized me for staying.

Why don't you go be with your family?

And I said, Hey, when God says I can do it, I'll do it.

But to broaden my scope, uh, I was during the five-year period after Pastor Spike left and one church took over, I was greeting.

And I think I was the only one at the doors.

And this dude pulls up on a motorcycle, leather, scruff, visible tattoos.

I think, oh my, you know what's happening now.

And he comes up and I extend my hand.

I said, Well, what brought you today?

He said, I'm your speaker.

I thought, oh my, well, let me get you to the pastor, Pastor Mike back then.

And I just, you know, just blew my mind.

And as he shared with us during the service, I found out he's a modern-day Paul.

He works with people inner city, building churches, recruiting the druggies, the pushers, and the prostitutes to God.

And he was doing that city after city.

In fact, some cities were calling him to say, please come to my city and do it, do it here.

So that just really expanded.

And then as we met with one church, we saw these young people, and I say this with respect, I'd never seen so many bald-headed, bearded, you know, tattooed men in my life, who loved the Lord with all their heart and hugged my neck.

People that I would have probably avoided on the street were my brothers in Christ and sisters in Christ.

Wow.

And it began, poo, you know.

Uh, and so it really opened my eyes not only in church, but now when I'm outside of church, I'm more open to just about anybody I can talk to.

You know, it's just like, well, Raj, you were judging, you shouldn't have been judging.

So the transition going to one church really helped me, although I was somewhat mature in the Lord, to really take a step forward and to be open and flexible to what the Lord wanted to do.

Yeah.

And so, you know, you just pray and do what the Lord wants you to do, and if it's going to paint it black, we'll paint it black.

Yeah.

You know, I asked a couple of questions and you made sense when you gave me the answers, but uh it was it was quite an evolution of uh my thinking during that time.

Man, well you described, I mean, that's that's the discipleship journey, right?

You start with learning and you know the answer, but to go from being able to know the answer or to pass the multiple choice test or the fill-in-the-blank discipleship test to actually having that become who you are, and to go, well, how does that actually play out in real life?

How does that play out uh in how I relate to my fellow man, my neighbor, the person who I see who uh I don't feel like I have any common ground with, or I put in a category or whatever it might be.

Um, and that's that that's a journey we either reject or embrace.

And I find that when I when I get through that, and whether it's in the four year of the church or whether it's out in the street and I address someone and say, Hey, how you doing?

Uh someone who was avoiding eye contact with me, boom, they open up.

Yeah, and they talk.

Yeah, and it gives you opportunities to you know to share and and and listen to their lives.

And I you get more opportunities to witness now than you ever would by being narrowly focused.

Yeah.

Carla, how do you how do you feel about all this?

Well, and of course, one of my greatest fears because of having been the bookkeeper is the financing of it.

You know, that I I don't want to see it go down because people are afraid to give, but I do know that God is faithful in providing.

When people give, he's faithful to give it back to us.

You can't outgive God.

Yes, yes.

So it blows my mind when we see all the work we did on the four-year.

And then we're gonna turn it over to the kids.

Yeah, they're gonna have the best four years.

Yeah, they're gonna have a great one.

Wow, you know, all that work and all that money went into that, and all of a sudden, okay, we gotta move on.

It's time to move on.

Well, and now we've given a great gift to our families.

Yes, you know, they're gonna have a really great spot to connect.

Yes, yes.

Um, so let me ask this, and then we'll we'll wrap up here pretty soon.

You guys have been super generous with your time.

I appreciate it.

Um, you know, we're asking, as you brought up, we're uh it's 12 and a half million million dollars to do these projects, and it's not gonna get cheaper if we wait, right?

So we have to move.

Um, and as a church, right, the how do how do you pay for it?

Is we we all give whatever God's leading us to do and and God can provide.

And we're praying for miracles and um all of that good stuff.

But I think every person, right, is like trying to figure out okay, what is my part?

If we all agree, put our hands in the middle, I'll do my part.

I think it can be challenging to try to determine what that even means.

Like, what is my part of it?

Um, and so in a moment, I'd love for you to, Roger, speak to that and and Carla as well, but how you kind of have come up with that, because I know part of your story is there was a time you sensed God asking you to do your part, and it was not something you would have come up with.

Right.

Um and and I think you know, when it when it comes to you know, people who are sincerely going, like, I I'm trying to figure this out.

Um, I don't want to get it wrong.

Um, I I don't want to in some way overshoot because I'm uh throwing something out, whether it's ego or or being naive, but at the same time, I don't want to limit um what I'm doing based on what I can see, right?

Part of taking a step of faith is um stepping out and and and maybe doing something beyond what you would have come up with.

What what advice do you have, or what has been your experience in trying to determine from God what is your part of it?

I think as Carla said earlier, we were in a lot of prayer.

Uh even when our interim pastor, Pastor Mike, was here, we still needed a lot of prayer.

And uh we would come to the auditorium uh every uh Tuesday or Wednesday morning and pray for an hour.

Uh we were some of us, a few of us were still walking the parking lot and saying, Lord, help us.

And I I found myself on my knees more than usual.

And it's then that I began to hear from the Lord.

Uh I had to sensitize myself.

I had to be to be open and willing to listen.

I had no idea that the answer would involve me directly.

I thought maybe the Lord is going to answer by bringing in something else, you know.

But when he talked, when he spoke to me, and he didn't speak to me in an audible voice.

He I've heard a couple of times in my head a thought that was strong and I knew it wasn't mine.

I'll segue if you don't want to use this, it's fine.

Uh one of the times I was uh working and we just moved to Columbus, and I was gonna have to drive back to Dayton to visit a customer.

And um Pat and I had a little bit of a scuffle that morning, and I left the house a little frustrated.

I'm driving to Dayton, I'm saying, Lord, Lord, you gotta fix her.

And all of a sudden, in my head, I heard, I'll take care of her, let's fix you first.

Hello.

Yeah, hello.

So that was the first time I heard that kind of a voice.

And as we were praying for what to do with the church, uh, he said, give, and he gave me a specific amount that was way beyond my comprehension.

And um I kept praying until I got confirmed again that that that was really God, not my imagination.

And I sat down with my wife Pat and told her what I felt and what I was going through, and she bought in right away.

And even though it meant something beyond our imagination, it meant digging into funds that we had reserved for retirement and other things, uh, she was willing to do it.

And so we had that can not only did God tell us, but then God helped her to accept it as well.

And once we did that, um, beyond our, you know, it was something you don't do boldly.

In fact, uh until this uh fundraising event, we've not told anyone about, except for Carla and Dan Kent, who happened to be in the pastor, who happened to be bookkeeper, and I was a treasurer for about 16 years and then handed it over to Dan Kent.

It was there was all in that one little room, and I said, Look, this has got to stay here.

I don't I want it confidential.

And uh our our children don't even know what we did and how much we did.

We just wanted to keep it between us and the Lord.

And uh, but when I was sitting in one of the meetings we had for Next Is Now, the Holy Spirit just kind of came on me and says, It's time to share.

And I thought, okay.

Um, my wife's not too happy that I shared it because she wanted to keep it just with us.

And uh, but uh I just followed what I thought the Holy Spirit was, and but we both marveled in what God did with that donation.

Yeah, it was hard to understand why you were doing it at the time.

I'm thinking, why?

It's a sinking ship.

Where that money is not gonna do anything toward what we owed, it wasn't gonna be, but it kept us afloat enough time before the Lord brought one church into it.

Dan Kent reminded me, uh, because I let him know that, hey, I'm gonna share this, and I don't know, here's the reason why I'm doing it.

And he said, Roger, from that point forward, we paid every bill.

We weren't late on any of our bills, we could pay the bills until we until we merged.

And then when I saw the unimaginable happen, and that is the merger with one church and the explosion of people on the first Easter Sunday, uh, I then realized, okay, Lord, I understand now.

I understand, and thank you for allowing us to be a part of your plan.

Uh, it just thrills our heart to know that we had the privilege of being used by God in a way that we never would imagine could be used.

So pray, pray hard, keep an open mind, uh, be willing to allow God to direct you, uh, and he'll surprise you.

What you described is Hebrews 11:1.

Hebrews 11:1

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

So the substance of things hoped for is kind of like what Pastor Spike hoped for something, he could see it, and he hoped for it.

It's like, are we gonna get there?

And and and the evidence of things not seen was when you gave what you sensed God was telling you to give, you couldn't see the bridge that that was gonna build.

You couldn't see, okay, what you saw was a sinking ship, but yet faith said, I don't see a way that this is gonna actually be a good return on investment, right?

This feels like throwing money away.

I can't see a way, but faith trusted the Lord, and then the Lord provided a way.

Yeah, and I think it's important what Roger said that you be in accord if if you're married, you need to be in accord with that person over the years.

My husband, who's deceased, but we would pray, and usually the Lord would tell Glenn exactly how much we were supposed to do.

And I was I was tight with the money, and I would, you know, but it would always come, we would be in accord when we gave it.

Yeah.

And sometimes it was a big stretch for us to do it.

And I think the people need to understand that it is a privilege to be used of God in any way that God can use you, and this is one of those ways to plug in and listen and be obedient and feel the joy of giving.

Yeah.

Well, guys, I want to say on behalf of a lot of grateful people, thank you for the many things you did uh that nobody saw.

Uh, thank you.

You know, we we talked about the one prayer walk, uh, but I know you did many prayer walks.

And uh I know you we talk about the one time you were faithful in giving, but you guys were faithful in giving many times over the years, and it was your time, energy, and money.

It was not wasted.

It was for the glory of God.

And the seeds that you planted are continuing to bring a harvest.

And I really hope and pray that as you see this dirt moving and you see these new buildings being built and you see uh things being renovated, um, that you feel the joy of faithfulness.

And I think it is uh totally appropriate, totally appropriate to uh feel the joy of working with your Heavenly Father on his mission, a job well done.

You took steps of faith, you're faithful.

Uh and as you see people walking through those buildings, they may not know who you are, uh know what you did, but God saw every bit of it.

Uh uh.

And uh what you've done is you've set a great example to me, uh to this generation.

Generation coming up, and so we've got the baton.

Obviously, you guys are still running with us, but we want to run hard and we want to hand that thing off in the right way.

And uh, you've done a great job of leaving the right type of legacy of faith.

So I just want to say thank you.

And it's been a privilege to watch what God's doing through your leadership in the church, and uh continuing to remain humble before him and preaching his word.

It's been a blessing to us.

One of the most exciting things for me is the baptisms.

When I see so many young people being baptized, it thrills me.

Yeah.

It never gets old.

No, never mind.

It never gets old.

No.

Well, well, there's more to come.

Amen.

Amen.

Guys, thank you so much and uh appreciate your time.

All right.

Thank you.

God bless you.