Interview with Pastor Joel and Philippians Series Pt. 6 - Pastor Greg Addison - October 13, 2024

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you, choir and orchestra.

Well, um, it's been a wonderful day to be in God's house, and uh it's always great to come and worship him as we have and sing about the cross and about salvation.

Uh and as we are continuing our study in uh the book of Philippians, it really hit us at a wonderful time.

It's cool when God kind of makes things work out, you know.

I am grateful to Matt and Jared for preaching the last two weeks, and I know it was a blessing for you to hear them.

I know it was a blessing because you've spent all your time telling me how much you love their preaching.

And some of you even said, When are you going to leave and let Dave preach and letting those other guys preach more?

So, but I am grateful for those guys.

It's a blessing to have such a great staff and men of God who preach the word, and I am grateful for them.

And as they finished, we found ourselves at the end of Philippians chapter 2, where it talks about two men that are partners in missions and ministry to Paul, a man named Timothy and a man named Epaphroditus.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

And that lands at a time when we've just come back from our mission trip to London, and as God plans those things out, the pastor that we have been working there with, Pastor Joel, had planned already a trip to America and to Arkansas, and so he is actually here, and he is here with us today.

So, first Baptist, would you give me a big, warm, loving body of Christ welcome to Pastor Joel Schofield.

Joel, come up.

My friend, good to see you.

He is a friend uh and has become a great friend and a brother.

He's a friend to many of our folks who have been uh with them.

Uh, believe me, uh, having been in this church and knowing how much you love food, the people that have been to England love Pastor Joel because he feeds us like you cannot believe in England.

So it's great.

Thank you for taking care of us when we go.

We appreciate, I think, some of your folks from Stone and Amesford and maybe even Darford are watching, catching up with us.

So thank you for sharing Pastor Joel with us as Arkansas Baptist, but especially Fort Smith.

So thank you for being with us today, Joel.

Thank you.

Now tell us you're gonna uh you're gonna be here a little while.

Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah, and uh and then your wife will be joining you soon.

Yes, she uh she comes in a week after me, so I've got to be on best behavior until she gets here and tells me what I've done wrong.

There you go.

Which is great.

See, we have so much in common, that's how it works, right?

And uh so why don't you tell us a little bit uh about you and about ministry and introduce us to your wife and that kind of a deal.

Let the church get a chance to get to know you today.

Well, good morning.

It's so great to get to visit with you all.

Uh, thank you for lending your pastor to us, not once but twice this year.

You've been incredibly generous letting him take some trips because I know you like him, and uh, we like him too, so um, we're grateful for that.

He just gave me a great intro, that's because he's really nervous about what I might say.

And uh, well, let's be honest, there's an elephant in the room, isn't there?

I mean, when the the pastor that you've just gone to visit follows the mission team home, everybody starts thinking, oh my word, what did they do?

We had a great time.

I'm glad that they liked the food.

There is this crazy rumor going around Arkansas Baptists.

I think it probably extends to Oklahoma as well, but you can all tell me uh that British food is bad food.

That it is mushy, bland, squishy, beige puke that you don't want to put in your mouth.

Not once, not twice, not at all.

And uh, you need to go ahead and uh those of you who've been on a trip, would you just put a hand up?

Okay, so these are the people that are gonna vouch for me that we'll take care of you, that you'll have a good time, that you can eat the food, you can drink the water.

I know there are some places you go on mission trips you can't drink the water.

It is safe because we discovered slim chickens in London.

So it's all safe.

Well, so we do have slims, but we also just got Popeyes, and I was just gonna ask, is there a way we can return that for a refund?

But that, you know, my wife just before we came away, she said to me, Hey, you're about to go away, I'm gonna miss you.

And I thought, oh, that's so sweet.

Uh and her name's Natalie, and I think they've got a great photo of her.

And uh Natalie said to me, Hey, would it be okay?

Could we go out for dinner?

There's a new restaurant that's just opened in Dartford.

I'm so excited to try it out.

Would that be okay?

And wanting to be a good guy and a good husband, knowing I was gonna be away for a week, I said, Of course, darling, let's go.

And uh there she is.

Uh and so I said, Yeah, sure, where is it?

We'll go, we'll go right now.

And she goes, Great.

And we she goes, it's just down here, and it's this new restaurant, and uh, I can't remember quite what it's called, but um, it's it's bright orange, so we'll see it.

And uh she tells me where to go, and we we drive down to this little kind of shopping precinct area, and the moment I saw it, I had a decision to take.

Do I love my wife enough to let her try the food and then tell her about Popeyes not being Chick-fil-A?

Or uh do we do we sit down, do we have dinner, and uh let her to you know work it out for herself?

Uh so I let her work it out for herself, and uh I'm not sure that was the right call.

I'm still learning.

We got married in 2000 uh well, we were at a COVID wedding, uh, and this will be our fourth wedding anniversary in just a couple of weeks.

In fact, while we're here, and uh COVID, we kind of did COVID a little bit different from you all.

We went in really big and hard on fear and panic.

Uh so if you've ever seen one of those, you know, don't panic like t-shirts that you know I feel like England's made world famous because that's where it started.

Uh yeah, we we I guess we lost Ashley.

Totally, totally panicked.

Well, since uh just to give everybody a chance to get to know you a little bit, just tell a little bit just about your uh call to ministry life, just get a real quick version so we can get to know you a little bit.

Yeah, so uh I went to Spurgeons College London, as in the Spurgeon.

Uh in fact, I found out my first week at Spurgeons College London.

Uh this is incredibly humbling, that he was the same age that I went to Spurgeons.

He founded the college.

If that doesn't humble you, your first week nothing else will.

No doubt.

Uh and so Spurgeons was a lot of fun when I was there.

And uh while I was there, I I was also at a church.

I guess some people say maybe that would be a comparable kind of church to Bellevue for a British context, because it's big and well known.

Uh, and that was an awesome place to train for ministry.

But this goofy little church, and uh I've just said that on the live stream, and remember that they might be watching, this goofy little church called Stone Baptist asked me if I would, because I would go and visit to preach because they didn't have a pastor, they asked me if I would apply to become their pastor, and then the very next thing they did after getting me to apply was they turned me down and didn't tell me why.

I later found out it was because they had assumed that I was 10 years older than I was, uh, they had assumed that I must be older and wiser.

I have no idea where they got that idea from.

It certainly wasn't from me.

But uh they then asked me if I would consider reapplying because they wanted to change their mind.

Uh and I found that out one Sunday when I got up to preach and on the pulpit, I found my CV.

And uh I know your pastor suffers from this same condition.

Uh, it's called foot-in-mouth syndrome.

It's uh my wife tells me quite regularly, you're not quite as funny as you think you are, and it would be good if you just reflected on that some.

And so I found this piece of paper with all of my stuff on the pulpit, and I had at least ten really great zingers ready to just kind of fire off.

Uh, and I managed to somehow get through the sermon, stand up, speak up, and then you know the third one, yeah, uh, sit down.

Uh, and um without saying anything outrageous.

And then they asked me if I would consider being their pastor, and I told them that um I wasn't sure.

In fact, two years prior, I'd got a parking ticket in the same part of London that they're in, uh, and I'd told God he could send me anywhere on the planet, I would answer his call and go absolutely anywhere, apart from Dartford, because it was God forsaken and didn't deserve the gospel.

Uh now you only get one of those, but that is the best way to get yourself called to somewhere.

So, for all the young guys in the room, if you want to end up in Hawaii, Tahiti, you know, somewhere really, really lovely, you need to go ahead and dare God this morning to call you into missions, but then tell him I don't want to go to a tropical paradise, okay?

So um we started working with the church there.

The church was just 12 people on an average Sunday morning.

Uh, and I told God a couple of things when I was at seminary.

I said, I'll go anywhere you send me, so long as there are not less than 20 people, and my boss has a sense of humour, and uh I said, I'll go anywhere you send me, but again, you know, not to Dartford, and so that's where he sent me.

And uh I think we've got a photo of Stone Baptist, and um I've teased the members.

In fact, I think they've just about given up on trying to correct me for teasing them that this is the ugliest Baptist church in Christendom.

Uh I mean, you can paint a thing, you can clean the floors, change the lights, there is only so much that you can do.

It it still looks like that, and uh it's just outside London.

In fact, we are the most eastern Baptist church before you fall into Kent, uh, which is a bit like Arkansas, they call it the Garden of England, a bit like the natural state.

We're uh learning about London and geography and all that.

I think we have a map, so we want to show you as we use these terms.

You'll see London, where it is there, kind of the center of London.

As you head out, that would be east, correct, to Dartford.

You'll see stone as he describes out there, and then you'll see when we talk about the church in Ainsford a little bit, you'll see it kind of south and east as you get out of town a little bit.

And you can even see, I think, where all of a sudden you finish all the brown and light green and hit the dark green.

And so you've moved out of the city proper into a beautiful area there in Ainsford.

So um, so tell us, so you that's how you got to Stone.

So you're pastoring Stone and what happened there?

Yeah, so Stone, I need you to know that this isn't a Joel thing, this is a Jesus thing.

Uh, because I've got to look after some churches and seeing them grow, and that's such a blessing.

Uh, and you know, the secret of seeing your church grow really is very, very simple.

You love God, you love your neighbor as yourself, and then you tell some people about Jesus.

Uh, and I don't know why this third one kind of trips people up a little bit.

I know you've been trying to explain through the triangle how maybe that third thing might be an element in there.

It it really we struggle with it terribly.

In fact, I've told you a couple of times I'm gonna probably steal the triangle thing.

Uh, I don't know if the deacon board want to chase me for some copyright infringement or not, but uh if we can have it, we'll play with it.

Because just telling somebody about Jesus, inviting them to come to church with you, inviting them to sit with you, inviting them to lunch, telling them that you love them, telling them that Jesus loves them, that just starts the most amazing transformation in their lives.

And you don't have to get it all done, and you certainly don't have to get it all done in one visit.

But honestly, I really believe that every single person in this room, especially, you know, those of you up in the balcony, and that would be where I would be sitting if I had a choice this morning.

Those look like fun scenes.

There we go.

The cool thing is, every single one of us knows somebody that needs a little bit more Jesus in their life.

And it really isn't complicated.

It really isn't complicated.

To help just bring a little bit more Jesus into somebody's life.

And the crazy thing is, when you bring a little bit more Jesus into somebody's life, into somebody else's life, into one of your friends or your family's lives, you get a blessing.

Forget about the fact that they get a blessing and their whole life might be flip-turned upside down, but you get blessed, and you get to cheer them on.

And I honestly think that that is the most exciting thing about being a Christian after the whole Jesus dying and being raised from the dead thing, which is pretty wild.

Uh and I don't know why people don't want to have more fun in church.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They seem content not to have as much fun as they can have.

There you go.

So as y'all are having fun in Stone, and Stone is starting to grow.

Yeah.

How does Ainsford come into the picture?

Tell us about that.

Yeah, so Ainsford tried to poach me.

Uh they thought maybe I'd like to go and be their pastor.

They'd heard that I'd turned this church called Stone around, and I said, I don't think I'm done with Stone.

And, you know, thank you for the invitation.

That's very kind of you.

And I mean, isn't that just an awesomely pretty building?

Uh my wife Natalie and I, that's actually where we got married before I became the pastor there.

Uh so we loved that place a lot.

In fact, we used to go for dinner across the road in this really cute little hotel.

I mean, it's just so, so charming.

Uh, I know Cyan, some of the others have stayed there so they can tell you how lovely it is.

It's called the The Castle Hotel.

And that was our date night spot.

And uh well, becoming the pastor in Ainsford really spoiled my favourite date night spot with Natalie.

Uh, so pray for us.

It's cost us a lot to be in ministry.

But um one night we were driving back from date night before we were married, and she goes, You know, I think that's a Baptist church.

Uh and I did that dumb man thing of going, No, it isn't, no Baptist church is that pretty.

And uh the next time we went to dinner there, she goes, Hey, you gotta drive slower and have a look.

And I said, No, it's late and it's raining.

I want to get home.

I need to drop you home.

Uh, your dad's waiting up for you.

And uh she goes, Okay.

The third time we drive by, she goes, if you don't stop and look this time, I said, I'll look.

So we look and it's a Baptist church.

She says, She says, Hey, you've got a week off coming up, and I don't know about you, but I would love to go to my church on my Sundays off, but I am my biggest problem.

Uh, I will not take a Sunday off if I'm in church because I just want to talk to my people because I love them.

Yeah.

Uh so she said, You've got a week off.

We need to go somewhere that isn't our church, otherwise you're going to end up working, and you need a Sunday off because your jokes are getting worse and your sermons are getting longer.

Uh wasn't really expecting a laugh there.

Thanks.

They were laughing at me, not you.

Oh, yeah, okay, got it.

So um we went to this sweet little church and we got to know them, and we kept going back, kept visiting because we just loved visiting at the time we went.

And over time we got to know them, and then one day I had this crazy idea because we don't have the cooperative program back home.

And so I started thinking about CP.

And CP is more than just a way for you to give money, it's a way for you to send mission teams, it's a way for you to be partnered in prayer.

And I started talking to this church and saying, hey, what if we came up with a thing and they don't know what CP is?

So I was describing CP at its absolute finest.

Because if you're gonna shoot your shot, you've got to shoot for the moon, right?

And uh I was saying, hey, what about if we did this?

What if we we helped grow your church up?

But their pastor said he wanted to retire and that that was his plan, and he was hanging on in there to try and help them find a new pastor, and he said, It's really kind of you to offer us this, but um I'm fixing to retire, and I was hoping that you would be my uh my successor.

Uh and so we we talked and we prayed, and I didn't have any peace to leave where I was out with Stone, but I also couldn't get Ainsford off of my heart.

Uh and over the course of some conversations, this turned into this crazy idea called a rescue merger.

Uh, before anyone pulls out a Greek to English dictionary and goes, nope, he's added that.

We had two Baptist churches vote unanimously that they want to come together under one leadership team, which is either a work of God or the best heresy that we've cooked up in a long time.

And uh I'll be sure and let you know because Baptist church business meetings don't always like to agree on things, and to get two churches, not one, but two, to agree unanimously.

Uh, that was pretty special to me.

And so they've asked me if I'll be their pastor, and so we've been working hard to build them up.

Uh, and they asked Stone if they would come alongside and support them because I explained actually this is this is too big of a job.

I I couldn't do this on my own.

The only way we'll do this is with some friends and some helpers, and I guess that's part of where you all enter the story with us because we needed more friends than just the friends at Stone Baptist to be able to help turn Ainsid Baptist around.

Uh I don't know if you could tell from that picture, and it isn't all about the money, but that is a two and a half million pound facility.

If you look really close, I still can't see it either, but maybe you'll be able to tell me where it is.

Uh, I think it's probably the dirt underneath it, the land value.

I mean, it's very pretty, but that doesn't look like a two and a half million pound facility anywhere else, does it?

No.

Tell us a little bit about Ainsford.

This this is an important, so keep in mind that two million dollar plus, two million pounds, British pounds facility.

Keep that in mind for a second.

Tell us about the area of Ainsford and how many people are around that area.

So I think in the immediate vicinity, you could have say six thousand or more people uh go to church.

I think in terms of commuting distance, because we all kind of draw those concentric circles, right, as we're we're planning and thinking where people can come from.

There are more than 30,000 people that could go to that church on a Sunday if they chose to.

Now, are there any other Baptist churches in that area?

I think the uh the wild statistic, and uh this is from the the IMB, so the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, they say that less than 2% of people in England go to church.

And so in Ainsford, there is no other Baptist church.

The nearest, closest Baptist church shut down.

They got so small they closed.

And one of the church members in Ainsford uh told me when I first became the pastor, a really sweet man called Adrian.

He's such a good guy and he's such a gentle man.

You know how sometimes you meet a person and you just instantly know that they're a good guy, there's a sweetness to his spirit.

He turned to me and he said, I've lived through my church closing once.

And he said, I know you can't promise it, but please don't let that happen to me again.

Wow.

When we were, keep in mind, two to two and a half million dollars British pound.

Keep that in mind for a second.

On Saturday, we got a chance to walk around and learn more about London and all of that.

And as we were walking home, we passed a bar that looked or pub that looked a lot like a church.

Well, it's definitely a dive bar.

It wasn't a pub.

Pubs you can go in and get a nice dinner.

Dive bar with raging music playing is definitely what that was.

He's being way too polite.

When has he ever been this polite?

There you go.

Um, and the sign on it was something like amazing.

Grace Bar.

Right?

So here's a church that used to be a church and now it's a bar right there in the middle of London.

You have a church in Ainsford, 30,000 people in that area.

The land itself is worth two to two and a half million British pounds to give you an estimate in dollars.

The exchange rate right now is a little over a dollar thirty American dollars to one British pound.

Let's call it three U.S.

So you're you're talking about three million dollars for that piece of land right there.

If that church closes, there is no other work in that area.

Is there any way to ever get that land back for another church?

I think if if the church were to close, and we've got a lot of churches where this has happened, they would probably turn it into a very, very special, very lovely apartment complex.

And it would be high dollar.

I mean, that would be a good ticket to sell it off.

And there are churches in in the area.

I mean, if someone really wanted to go to church, they could go to Stone.

That's about six miles away.

But in terms of geography and in terms of community, they are a world apart.

Stone has never had anybody come up from Ainsford except for when we've invited them to visit.

Because you have these.

I know when you look at the map and we saw that big map of Dartford with Stone and Ainsford, it all looks pretty close, right?

I mean, at least imagining that as a Brit trying to explain to Americans that you see where it says Ainsford from Ainsford to London, that's about 33 miles.

I know you're all thinking, hey, 30 minutes to go to church, that's not too bad.

There must be something in downtown London.

Uh but you can take two hours to do that journey.

We did.

Two and a half.

We did.

Too soon?

Sorry.

Forgot about the PTSD.

So the point is, you lose that church, you lose that lighthouse in that world.

And there are so many people that don't know Jesus.

Oh, yeah.

Tell us a little bit about what God's doing at Ainsford these days.

So the church has been growing.

Uh it was pretty exciting to see the average age of the congregation drop when Natalie and I joined.

Uh when we had some young families join, uh, I think our youngest person is about 11 years old, and they massively brought down our average.

And uh the terrifying thing about church is you're always one generation away from churches closing, right?

That's right.

If you don't teach your kids about Jesus, if you don't disciple them, I mean the Bible says it really simply, if you train a child in the way of the Lord, they'll seldom depart.

But that assumes that you're gonna train them.

And I think that's the challenge.

How are you gonna show Jesus to them?

And if you don't train your children in the ways of the Lord, then you can get to a point where you have no kids in church.

And if you don't invite new people in, they don't come.

And I think the US is following the UK, and we're just a couple of steps steps out ahead.

Uh, and I'm not not bragging on this because it's not a good thing.

We're a couple of steps ahead in terms of the decline in Christendom.

And because we're a couple of steps out ahead, let this serve as a warning.

If you don't disciple your children in the ways of the Lord, if you don't invite some people into church, then you can get to nine people in church on Sunday, and that's where Ainsford were when we started working with them.

And if you look at this room, I mean Ainsford's a bit smaller than here, but it's a whole lot older.

It knows about the faithfulness of God, it knows about the the need to preach the word, it knows about what it is to sacrifice for the church.

There are good people there.

But can you imagine if you looked around and hey, let's round up fuel.

If you looked around and you had 20 people in church, what would that do?

How would you feel?

And that's the challenge, because at that point you're starting at a really low ebb.

And to try and get back on mission from that position, that humbling position, is really tough.

And so I'm just so proud of that church for deciding that they would let a pastor come in who told them that this would be the hardest thing that they could do, and that the smart thing, the smart thing would be to celebrate all the years of God's faithfulness and just shut the doors.

That would be the smart thing to do.

This is definitely the harder thing to do.

But my boss never told me it was gonna be easy.

That's right.

And then not only did you tell them that, but you told them you're gonna bring in all these crazy Americans from a place called Arkansas.

We didn't tell them that straight off the bat.

They're still figuring that one out, I'll be honest.

So um, so let's let's talk about the third church and then we'll just do a little vision casting for you.

Um then Dartford comes along, uh, Dartford Baptist Church.

Yeah.

Uh Dartford Baptist Church, that's the original building.

It was founded in 1867.

We saw pictures of the inside of the church from 1867, and it looks very much like it does today.

So it's the original facility and all that.

Wonderful people there.

How did that become in the pool of churches that we're working with?

Well, so I'm their moderator.

I think sometimes you have like an interim.

Uh, maybe you've seen a church go through that kind of smart start process.

I'm trying to help them do something like that.

They need a pastor.

If you know somebody and you want to just forward me their contact information, if there's one of your guys on staff that you like the least.

You're meddling.

Your worship guy's pretty great.

And I like Matt a lot.

And Janet tells me she likes England.

There you go.

So um, they need to find a pastor, and uh, I'm trying to support them through this transition, and uh, we had the opportunity just to bless and encourage them, and that's what we did with the team.

We we did some some renovation work, we did a lot of painting.

Uh and I don't know if you've if you've had a long, like a long, long interregnum ever in your life where you've been at church.

But they're one year in, and this was just such a boost to them.

Uh, they enjoyed everybody visiting so much.

Uh one of the one of the old ladies that came to me and she said, I really like that Pastor Greg.

I said, I think he has a church.

And she said, that's a shame.

So be nice to him because he's got options.

Um let's let's talk about the impact of what it means.

So we we go over there, booth to Darford, we're going help invite people to church in Ainsford, we're hand billing, we're doing all that.

What does it mean to the churches for us or First Baptist Cabot or Mount Carmel, any of the partner churches here in Arkansas?

When we send teams over, what does that mean?

I don't know if you've ever kind of stopped and thought about what missions is exactly.

I mean, isn't it just the craziest dumb idea you've ever heard?

That you're gonna you're gonna get on a plane and go and visit to go and do somebody else's yard work for them.

Uh, and that really is what church is.

Church is just glorified yard work.

Uh, we're just tending what the Lord's given us.

He's given us a thing and said, hey, don't mess this up.

Uh and to have somebody come and do your chores at your house to bless and encourage you.

I mean, we talk about it being an upside-down kingdom, and then you see some of these things like missions.

And how in the world would you ever picture that to a person if they didn't love Jesus?

Can you imagine?

Here's what I'd like you to do.

Would you come by my house, Greg?

And I'd like you to just run around with the vacuum.

I'd like you to paint a little bit, I'd like you to fix a party for Sunday.

We're gonna have a bunch of people over, and if you could just take care of all of that for us, no, we're not gonna pay you.

No, no, no.

No, we're not gonna pay you.

And uh, would you just come by and um you know, go ahead and take the trash out when you're done?

I love the Lord, I think He has an amazing sense of humour.

There's this great verse that talks about how the Lord loves this thing called wise folly, and the things of God that are wise to him look like foolishness to us.

The greatest example of that is Jesus dying on a cross.

But for a church to just get reminded of this crazy kingdom that they're a part of, to be reminded that they've got friends half a world away.

I know we like to call it hopping across the pond, but I just did that and it takes a minute.

And uh to be reminded that there is a whole church who's praying for them, who's thinking of them, who wants to see them succeed just as much as they want to see their church thrive.

Who in the world would ever believe that that was a thing?

I mean, thank you so much for being an encouragement to them.

To me, as the the pastor of Stone and Ainsford, the moderator at Dartford.

I don't think outside of the church, anybody would ever think that that's a sensible or sane idea.

Uh and I just think the way it impacts people, I mean, really ministers to their heart.

It's something that unless you're a part of it, unless you do it, you don't understand how special that is.

I also think it's probably the most fun that you can have in church once you're too old to go to youth.

No, it's great.

That I think that's a great point, and it's a great testimony.

I know several times I met people in the streets in Ainsford, and they would go, You're not from here, are you?

And I said, No.

And they'd say, Where are you from?

And I, you know, obviously United States, I would say Arkansas, and they immediately would say Bill Clinton.

And I would say, No, true grit.

John Wayne, and they got that.

And then they would say, What are you doing here?

And I would say, we're working with the church in Ainsford, Baptist, and when you and they go, No, no, no, what are you doing here?

And I said, Well, I told you we're working with the church, and they go, No, no, no.

We know in the States you guys only get two weeks' vacation.

Why are you here?

Why would you spend it doing that?

And I think the testimony of that is strong in the community as well as a blessing to the church.

So uh we want to take a moment and just if you'll join me, uh, and I want to pray for Pastor Joel and for his time here.

He's meeting with other Arkansas churches like ours that are already partnering, and some others that are talking about whether to, you know, how that would work for them to get involved, which we're praying for.

Um and we also want to pray for the wonderful folks at Stone and Ainsford and at Dartford.

We got a chance last week to do worship at Ainsford and at Dartford, and they were both incredible groups of people, wonderful, love the Lord, great spirit.

And so we want to pray for them.

Can we do that?

Join me, church family.

Lord, we thank you for the doors that you have opened for us to meet with um Pastor Joel, to be connected in this network of churches here in our home in Arkansas, and all of us joining uh the churches there in uh the London, Dartford, Ainsford area.

Thank you for that connection.

Thank you for the encouragement is to know that the same Jesus that we love and worship and that saved us is the same Jesus that they love and worship and that they are sharing.

And to have that bond and that connection across not just the ocean, but across national boundaries and cultural boundaries and all of that.

What a blessing it is to see you connect us.

We want to pray for Pastor Joel as he's meeting here, that you'll keep him safe as Natalie and a couple of the folks from Ainsford fly over, keep them safe and reunite them and give them a wonderful time here.

Lord, we pray that not just the vacation time they have, but the connections between our churches here and the churches there will grow and deepen.

Lord, I pray for uh Stone and Dartford and Ainsford Baptist churches.

They've already had church this morning and what we would call morning, but we pray your blessings on them, and we pray this week will be a strong week for them, and they will get the opportunity, just as Pastor Joel has cast the vision for, to invite people to come to church so they can have more Jesus in their life.

So they can connect with who he is and what he's done for them.

Folks who need to be saved can come and find a Savior in Jesus.

That folks who may have been saved but have out of church or struggling, they can come to Stone or Ainsford or Dartford and be reconnected.

Lord, we pray the prayer that Adrian had on his heart that uh Joel shared, that this is not the closing of a church, but this is the revitalization into the next stage of life of a gospel lighthouse church where boys and girls are saved and men and women come to faith in Christ, and homes are strengthened.

And Lord, we pray that our church and First Cabin and Mount Carmel and other churches around that we will be a support to them.

But it's really about seeing you do a continued work in stone and a new work in Ainsford and a continued work in Dartford.

Lord, we do not want to lose those lighthouses where they are, but strengthen them, use them to bring boys and girls and men and women to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

We pray your blessings on them, on Pastor Joel and his leadership teams and all three churches as they lead.

We pray these things in the strong name of Jesus and all God's people said.

Amen.

Give Pastor Joel a hand and say thank you for being here.

Thank you.

As we close in a couple of minutes and go to an invitation time, I just want to give you a thought.

It's just amazing how God put today together.

Look with me in your Bibles in Philippians chapter 2 and in verse 19.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

I just want to show you how this partnership process that we're engaged in is literally how the church was built from the beginning.

Paul is a missionary, and he has been supported as a missionary by churches all over the known world at that time.

A church sent him to the city in Philippi.

In fact, the Bible tells us that he had tried to go to other places, and God had shut the doors there, and then gave him a vision of someone in the city of Philippi calling for help.

Calling in that area around there that we would refer to as Macedonia.

And so Paul goes supported by the giving of churches like Antioch and Jerusalem and others.

And they begin to evangelize and plant a church here in Philippi.

And then Paul goes on to other missionary journeys, and because this church was planted by missionaries, from the very first day their DNA is supporting and being involved in missions.

And so what you have now is Paul writing back to this church, and here in chapter two, he describes the relationship and partnership.

Verse 19, he says, Now I hope in the Lord to send Timothy to you soon, so that I also may be encouraged when I hear news about you.

You see, Paul is still invested in this church, even though he's somewhere else.

Those are people that he knows loves the Lord.

They are his brothers and sisters in Christ.

He has invested time in the planting of that church.

And that connection does not go away.

He describes Timothy and he says, For I have no one else like-minded who will genuinely care about your interests.

All seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

But you, church family, know Timothy's proven character because he has served with me in the gospel ministry like a son with a father.

Therefore I hope to send him as soon as I see how things go with me.

I am convinced in the Lord that I myself will come to you sometime quickly.

So he is saying, I want to send Timothy as a part of my mission team to you to encourage you.

Then he refers to another brother.

But I considered it necessary to send you Ephroditis, my brother, co-worker, and fellow soldier, as well as your messenger, and minister to my need, since he has been longing for all of you and was distressed because you heard that he was sick.

So, in other words, what happened is Epaphroditus was a part of the church in Philippi.

He brought the financial support and word and encouragement and blessing and prayers from the church in Philippi to Paul.

At some point in that journey, Epaphroditus became sick and was deathly sick, almost to the point of death.

And so the church had heard about that.

Now they're wondering, how's Epaphroditus?

And so Paul has received him.

They've nursed Epaphroditus back to health.

And now he is sending Ephroditis back to Philippi with this letter.

He says, indeed, he was so sick that he nearly died.

However, God had mercy on him, and not only him, but also on me, so that I would not have one grief on top of another.

For this very reason, I am very eager to send him back to you, so that you may rejoice when you see him again, and I may be less anxious, because I am worried about you and your concern for him.

Therefore, welcome him in the Lord with all joy, and hold men like Epaphroditus in honor, because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up what was lacking in your ministry to me.

Let me just give you a couple of quick thoughts.

I know the time, and so I just want to plant this in your mind for you to have some time to think about and process it.

Why do we as churches engage in partnerships like this?

Why is Joel over here?

Why are we sending teams over there?

Why are we sending another team to El Salvador coming up at the first of next year?

Why do we do that?

Well, our theme for the book of Philippians has been this live life worthy of the gospel.

Well, the gospel tells us this truth that the need is global, and that the need is beyond just ourselves.

This church was planted by missionaries.

And because of that, they recognize we didn't know about Jesus here, and there are other places that don't know about Jesus.

And now we've learned about Jesus, and the gospel has planted our church and saved us, and we want to be a part of sending the gospel around the world just as the world brought the gospel to us.

It's been said that the number one goal of every organization is to feed itself.

We certainly see that with the government, right?

We see that with organizations, we see that with schools, we see that with companies, and we see that with churches.

It's just the nature of it.

You have an organization and you've built this thing, and now you have to take care of it.

As Paul, as Joel talked about, we have to do the yard work and we have to keep the housework and we have to do the things that make a church run.

And so that engine is running, and if we are not careful, we can become inwardly focused as a church because we are so busy feeding the machine and keeping running because of the tyranny of the urgent.

And yet, all throughout scripture, the gospel is that we are outward focused and we are pushing outward.

And this is a beautiful example of that.

Paul left Philippi.

He didn't stay there because God was working and revival had broken out.

He went there so that would happen, and then he went somewhere else for it to happen over there.

And because they were saved by that, their outward focus could.

Continued to push, and so in chapter one, he thanks them for giving.

Here he talks about the process and the partnership.

And what we understand from all of these examples is that every Christian in the early church was a brand new Christian.

And every church was a brand new church.

And every church had in its DNA a gratefulness of who came and planted that church and shared the gospel and a passion to send out and plant other churches.

The Bible says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

When Jesus went to heaven, he told his followers, listen, here's what's going to happen.

In Acts chapter 1, verse 8, you're going to wait on the Holy Spirit.

Acts 1:8

The Holy Spirit is going to come and he's going to empower you, and you will be witnesses in where you're standing now, Jerusalem, in the area around you, Judea, to people not like you in Samaria and to the uttermost part of the earth.

From day one, the advance of the gospel has been a global proposition.

And so this partnership, this process that God modeled in Scripture, that we are now, like so many other churches, trying to follow, it is a part of helping us understand that the world needs Jesus.

And to live worthy of the gospel is to be called into a global mission.

Not just ourselves.

Second thing I want you to see is that living worthy of the gospel creates these natural partnerships.

You see, the church in Philippi, the church in Colossae, Paul bringing that church from that heart from the church in Jerusalem, the men who are going out, all of that, they were saved by the same gospel.

They were sent out under the same Great Commission.

And when you have the same commission from Jesus and the same heart and salvation from the same gospel, and it doesn't matter where you are, when you connect with another church or another brother or sister in Christ across that, you find a commonality that connects us together.

Every time I go to another country, I am reminded of the power of what the gospel does relationally.

It connects us.

It is incredible to walk into another church that you've never been in, in a place you've never been in.

People don't know why you're there and don't understand why you came, and you start talking about the Jesus that saves us, and the gospel bonds us immediately in a powerful way.

And you see the love that Paul has for that church and the love that that church has for Paul.

It's incredible to see that partnership, the commitment of them sending, and the commitment of him having a Paphroditis there, but a burden for the church to know that he's okay and to send him back, and the desire for Paul to send his number one supporter and helper Timothy over to that church to be connected, the bonds that they have.

You see, in a very personal way here, that speaks of the relationship that the commonality of the mission and the commonality of our heritage of salvation through Jesus bonds us in relationship together.

And it's an incredible thing to be bonded in relationship around the world with brothers and sisters in Christ.

And finally, when we are going on mission and when we are working together in partnership, it changes your life to serve alongside gospel-minded soldiers of the gospel.

We need to be around people like Pastor Hug in El Salvador.

Because his passion for his country and his people rubs off on us and challenges us.

We need to be in London in a place where it is hard to share the gospel, and yet people are sharing the gospel, and they're inviting people to their church, and churches are being revitalized, and the power that that means when we are rubbing shoulders with them and seeing what God is doing there and how it stirs us.

And we say, I can come back and do that in Fort Smith.

It's incredible the impact for us to work side by side with people who are fellow soldiers.

Why do you think Paul takes the time to say, listen, this is who Timothy is?

Man, so many people are selfish in life and they seek their own things, he says here in verse 20, but he says, You know Timothy's proven character, and he has served the gospel ministry with me like a son and a father.

He says about Epaphroditus, we need to hold such men in honor because they came close to death for the work of Christ.

He has lifted, he has risked his life to share the gospel.

Let me tell you what, when we go on mission, when we serve in partnership, when we step outside of our world and we connect with brothers and sisters in Christ and other places that are serving and they are pleading with God for salvation and they're building churches and they're planting churches and they're revitalizing churches.

When you go sit down with someone who says, please don't let me live through another church closing, it changes your heart to be next to a heart like that.

To be in a place where we're praying for God to break open ground and reach people in Christ.

It changes us when we're serving alongside soldiers, men and women who love Jesus.

And so we are grateful for the opportunity God's given us to serve and to go and to share.

All of that is driven by the gospel.

Think about these two guys.

There was a guy coming out of his house, and he has two garbage bags, and I've got those flyers for the event we're doing in Ainsford.

And I said, Can I help you?

And he says, No, I think I have it.

I said, I'd just like to invite you to church.

And he said, You're not from here.

No, I'm not.

I'm from Arkansas.

Bill Clinton.

No.

Stop! Why would you come here?

Why would you come here?

Why are you here?

There's really only one answer that drives us.

Because Jesus died to save me.

And he died to save you too.

And I want you to know the salvation that comes from Jesus.

I'm glad you're in church today because I want you to know Jesus saved me.

And he saved so many people in this room, and he saved Pastor Joel.

And he loves you and he died to save you too.

And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I want to invite you to come to Jesus.

We're not going to linger, we're just going to close with this invitation, but we're not going to leave here talking about the gospel without giving people an opportunity to trust Christ as their Savior if they need to.

Bible's very clear for God so loved the world, he gave his only son.

Jesus died because he loves you.

He took your place and took your wrath, the wrath and punishment of God on the cross.

He died there so that his death could be a punishment for our sin.

He rose again, conquering death and sin, and he offers us the chance to place our faith and our trust in what he did for us.

And if you'll give your life to Jesus this morning, what'll happen is you'll give him your sin and he paid the price for you on the cross.

And in return, he gives you an spiritual exchange, his righteousness and covering and forgiveness, and your life is changed.

And you go from a place of judgment to a place of love and forgiveness.

You go from a future facing an eternity in hell to a future in heaven with him.

You go from a place where you can't do anything to affect your spiritual condition, to now you have a Savior who works in your life and walks with you daily and hears your prayers and forgives you and loves you and will never forsake you.

If you've never given your life to Jesus, I'm going to pray God's people are going to stand and sing a testimony.

I'm going to invite you to come.

Lord, we love you and we thank you for salvation that only comes through Jesus.

We pray this morning, if there's someone who needs to be saved, they'll come.

We pray this in Jesus' saving name and all God's people said.

We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to chapter and first, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.