UNREACHED
In Revelation 7, John shares his vision of heaven with members from every tribe, tongue, people and language standing in the throne room before the Lamb.
Yet today there are still over 7,000 unreached people groups around the world.
For the last six years, my family and friends have been on a journey to find, vet and fund the task remaining.
Come journey with us to the ends of the earth as we share the supernatural stories of God at work through the men and women he has called to reach the UNREACHED.
UNREACHED
Highlights and Stories from Season 2 of the Unreached Podcast
Uncover the extraordinary stories and powerful impact of God's work among unreached people groups as Clint Hudson and Dustin Elliott take you through the significant moments from Season 2 of the Unreached Podcast. You'll hear about life-saving initiatives by the Bless Foundation and the inspiring contributions of influential guests like John Pays, Heath Hale, and Andrew Scott. This episode celebrates the collective efforts and partnerships that have brought hope and transformation to countless communities worldwide.
Explore how aligning your life with God's will can make a profound difference, as we reflect on Andrew Scott's vision for the second reformation, highlighting the role of business in spreading the gospel. We call on believers to reconsider their life's significance and purpose. Practical advice is shared for integrating faith into daily life, preparing oneself spiritually for the challenges ahead, and being part of God's greater narrative.
Discover the importance of seeing yourself through the lens of faith rather than accomplishments. We discuss the dangers of performance-based identity and how God values our intrinsic worth beyond our successes and failures. The conversation also addresses the cultural concept of retirement, advocating for a continued sense of purpose and work as designed by God. Join us as we express our gratitude for the opportunities to reach the unreached and encourage engagement with the podcast community for further inspiration and involvement.
Follow @unreachedpodcast on Instagram for more!
In Revelation 7, john shares his vision of heaven, with members from every tribe, tongue, people and language standing in the throne room before the Lamb. Yet today there are still over 7,000 unreached people groups around the world. For the last six years, my family and friends have been on a journey to find, vet and fund the task remaining. Come journey with us to the ends of the earth as we share the supernatural stories of God at work for the men and women he has called to reach the unreached.
Speaker 2:Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of the Unreached Podcast. I am Clint Hudson, your host for today and our guest. Technically, our guest is also your host, your illustrious host, my buddy, dustin Elliott Infamous, infamous. Yeah, so we actually want to go a little bit of a different direction today with the pod, because we have covered so much ground over the last two seasons, and specifically over season two. And, dustin, I just wanted to give you an opportunity to share your heart and some of the things that you've seen God do through the podcast and in your life, as you've just become awakened to more of these stories of what God's doing with unreached people, groups around the world.
Speaker 1:Man, I appreciate it. I spent a little time this morning praying and preparing and just. I think I've got a few things I want to share, but really I just want to let the Holy Spirit do his thing.
Speaker 2:We started off season two with probably one of your closest friends and ministry partners, heath Hale. We talked about the Blessed Foundation. We then moved on to what I think is maybe one of the most impactful stories from the field that I've ever heard, with the Mali Ali people group, with the Rimsteads Incredible story. And then we had Andrew Scott on, who talks about some of some things that I think maybe had been wrestling around inside of you for a while, and he gave some language to it in a way that I haven't heard before. We move all the way through the rest of the season. We end of the season where we have pastor and mentor and friend Brad Thomas on Dude. That's a lot of ground to cover, so let's just kind of start at the beginning.
Speaker 1:We started with John Pays.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1:Another one of my absolutely closest friends in the world, and JP. His work, his life in ministry has changed in terms of his business card and the name on the door, but his life, mission, which is to plant healthy churches in the hardest places, has not changed. And so now he's with Samaritan's Purse. I just caught up with him last week. His position just changed. He's now over all the partnerships I believe in maybe is it Northern Africa and Eastern Africa, something around that and yeah, just what God's doing through their ministry is incredible. But yes, then into Heath. So Heath and I have this very, very interesting relationship. We are more like brothers. I don't have a brother by birth, but he and I are more like brothers than I expect anybody else because we are totally willing to put the gloves on or take them off and go to war. We love each other, we respect each other, but God's used us. Iron sharpens iron, I think, is a good way to talk about our relationship for the last eight, nine years, from Tabby's dream waking up in the middle of the night and hey, the Blessed Foundation. And this is what we need to do. And we live in this crazy generous city in Austin. I'm actually writing an article right now about just living generously in Austin. It's going to come out in a couple months and it's for them to harness their network to bring people together, to use the Christmas season to throw the biggest Christmas party of the year light the world. I mean, you've been. It's incredible, god, let me have some roles along that way.
Speaker 1:I helped them get the board started, helped them hire the first executive director, helped in many ways build the Bless Fund and set up this mechanism where, you know, now hundreds of families, primarily in Austin, but in other places as well, are giving annually through this fund. This fund is now adopting essentially entire people groups, entire people groups. We started with 22. We're now over 30, just added, I think, 11 more, and the people groups are across Northern Africa, the Middle East Asia, papua New Guinea. And what's happening? Each of these groups has a different kind of formative major religion that they're operating within. Now there's already people on the ground there, with a sending agency backed by churches doing work, and you know, the research that we learned over the years was there's just additional funding needs, just additional funding needs.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the coolest things I think we funded in the last year was an airstrip in a very remote part of a mountain region where you know the people. Primarily they were getting when they would get sick or when a mother was going into delivery or having a premature baby or something along those lines. I mean there was no hope, there was no Clint. I mean that's in the jungle, and getting this airstrip allows them to quickly hop on a sat phone, get a helicopter in and fly somebody out to a hospital. And already we have seen a mother and a baby both lives saved from this airstrip.
Speaker 1:And so you know that's not something that you probably think you're going to be a part of funding when you're giving to your local church, but when you're partnering with Bless, blessworld, go check it out, look at the fund. If you've got something that God's pulling on your heart like hey, I've got some extra resources and I want to be part of stories like that. That's what's going on with Bless and, you know, got some new personnel. You know Ben Pays has been helping out a lot. That's John Pays' twin brother. Margaret Gibson is new for development. They're both former Gospel Coalition. Just incredible networks, incredible heart for the Lord, very, very, very excited about the future for Bless.
Speaker 2:And one of those places where Bless has made a massive impact is in Papua New Guinea, through the rimsteads with the Malayalee people group, and I think I just want to encourage everyone. Like it's nice to get a recap, it's nice to like think back to all the things at the beginning of this season. You need to pause it.
Speaker 1:You need to take the next couple hours, two hours, and go and listen, it may be, in my opinion, one of the most impactful things I've ever heard from the field.
Speaker 1:No question, you know there's so much to unpack in their story, right?
Speaker 1:So all of what God's doing in your heart and with your family to prepare you to go to the mission field language training, culture training, you training, just the decision to leave your job, whatever it may be, and go into that preparation mode, raising support, right, go into your network and people in your church and say, hey, look, this is how much we need. And then you get there, and then you start your work and years and years and years go into developing relationships and friendships and earning their trust and earning the right to speak into the deepest parts of their lives and patiently waiting I earning the right to speak into the deepest parts of their lives and patiently waiting. I mean, I think one of the hardest things to hear them talk about was the hunger that their people had, that Mali Ali had to hear the good news, but they didn't have their language ready yet Because remember he said, there were words in their language that were missing. They didn't have a word for like grace or a word for forgiveness.
Speaker 2:Do you remember what they called Jesus? What did they say? The road-cutting man. The road-cutting man. I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the way they had to contextualize the things and they kept asking tell us the good news, tell us the story. Who is he? Do you know him? Right, him, right. And they had to wait to get to a place where it could be communicated without error. You know, clearly.
Speaker 1:And then you go through all that and then health, and then you lose your health, and then your family. Things start to happen and you get pulled out of the field. I mean, think about how many years of your life you've put into something and then you're called home. And so now probably a big part of God's providential design is look, I don't need any of you, right? I'm allowing you. You're my imagers, you're my representatives, but sometimes I need to show you that I've got other people I can do my work through, and God's faithfulness was incredible.
Speaker 1:And really, what we were just talking about before we hit record is, if you listen to their episode and you hear Emily's heart for Otome yes, her friend Otome is that we just got emails. Otome just got baptized Incredible so seeds that they got to plant right. Autumn May just got baptized Incredible so seeds that they got to plant right. I mean, she talked about being in the garden with her and pulling her sweet potatoes when she thought they were weeds and like all the. You know the stories of like kind of how they developed their friendship and their relationship. But she didn't get to be there for that moment. But how sweet it is, how sweet it is that God brought other people there. We do have co-laborers. We can trust them when we're called out, and the Rimstads man, I love them. They're in a season of prayer and preparation for their next chapter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, one of the things that really stuck out to me is the way that they're individually shaped. Specifically, being one of them is dyslexic. One of them is terrified of the dark and of bugs, and so what does God do? God puts them in the middle of a dark jungle where they have to translate a language that they don't speak. And that was one of those moments for me where I'm like I had to eliminate any excuse that I ever have to do anything for the gospel because, empowered by the Holy Spirit, anything is possible with the Lord. And that was just this beautiful picture of them being willing to go in their weakness and allow God to just make an incredible story out in the middle of the jungle.
Speaker 1:Doesn't that just show? It shows two things to me. It shows daily dependence, like a true on your knees, daily dependence which leads to a true spiritual maturity. And I think the key word is just trust, Like if you get to the place where you're living your life fully trusting and fully believing that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes for them. If you really believe that, then even when you're called to the field and called out of the field, you do it considering it pure joy, because you're trusting him, because you know he's good and he's got a plan. You may not understand it yet. Oftentimes I don't think we do. It's why I try to encourage people don't ask God. Why are you doing this? Ask God, what are you teaching me? You know, and pay attention, because you may not want to have to relearn some of these lessons, Some of these lessons aren't fun to learn anyway.
Speaker 2:With Austin Ridge Worship, we just wrote and we're releasing a song called you Won't Waste Suffering. It's about how God doesn't waste anything, and I think God really wanted me to walk through a season where I had to learn that in order to be able to sing it well. And so there's sometimes we have to go through lessons that we don't necessarily want to learn, but God uses those things for the glory, for his glory and for the proclamation of the gospel in the kingdom. Again, I'm so impacted by someone who wouldn't just say, hey, what am I good at doing and I'm going to go do that. It's actually. Hey, what am I good at doing and I'm going to go do that? It's actually. Hey, what am I not going to do? Where are my deficiencies?
Speaker 1:All right guys.
Speaker 2:Huge difference. Go use those. But on the other side, thinking about things that I am good at doing, fast forward to the next episode. We talked to Switchboard, who, literally, is creating a global network of people who are gifted to do specific things that are impacting and benefiting folks that are in the field.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, scott did a wonderful job. You know his heart, you can tell, you can just sense his authenticity and how much he really cares, and he did a great job on the episode, just sharing his story and how he's using his background, as you know, in software and engineering, to build this platform. And so you know, that day you signed up and I signed up and we actually got hit on. We got a request and it was a lady who's a physician working in the Middle East looking for a way to create a sustainable business model to stay there and be able to stay there and be on mission right. So she needed to develop like a medical practice or some way to justify her existence, if you will, there to the community and the powers that be. And so we actually experienced Switchboard in real time and it really working. And so that community I think it was globalswitchboardio to go fill out a profile.
Speaker 1:That community I think it was globalswitchboardio to go fill out a profile. You just fill one out. I mean, why not Just tell this little system? It's kind of like a matchmaking service if you will Just tell it what you're good at, if you can build websites, or if you can write marketing copy, or if you can translate to another language or whatever the case may be, just tell it. If you're good at accounting, just tell like I'm good at these things and you're going to get at bats, and it's very noncommittal, it doesn't cost anything. It's just like, hey, here's somebody that might need you, can you do 30 minutes next week and just visit, and that's it. And then you know what God's doing with that platform in those introductions so cool.
Speaker 2:And I think it's a great opportunity for folks that are listening, that do have those skills and abilities, to actually get a deeper understanding of what it means to be a global Christian, that God has uniquely gifted individual people who he's calling to get in the game. And speaking of getting the game, it's something we've been talking about a lot. You know, that's kind of a phrase that we use a good bit no-transcript phrase it's just, it's easy and it's. We're sports guys, it just makes sense to us, but man.
Speaker 1:I don't think I've ever been challenged more to rethink what get in the game than the conversations that we had with Andrew Scott. Yeah, yeah, andrew's life is incredible, right, I mean coming out of Ireland serving on the ships with OM, rising in that organization to CEO. And then what he's calling for the second reformation. I mean let's not make light of that as something that's not a big deal, that is a huge deal. Let's not make light of that as something that's not a big deal, that is a huge deal. And I think he's connecting that concept to this idea of missions or the gospel traveling further and faster on the wings of business than it is in the traditional missionary sense. And he gave stats, I think I remember 13,000 total workers among unreached people groups. You know, like 90 plus percent of missionaries today are working in reached people groups. He said it like the sum total of our current impact and it's, I mean, from a business standpoint, it's abysmal. It's complete total misallocation of resources. Right, I mean it's Americans spend more money on Halloween customs for their pets than we send to unreached people groups, and it's just devastating. And I think it's. We are getting conformed to the customs of this world and we're not spending enough time with God to let him conform us to his ways.
Speaker 1:And when you do that, you just kind of live life in the hamster wheel, in the rat race, and you kind of, you know, a decade goes by and another decade goes by and you wake up and it's like, what have I done of any significance? What have I done? And okay, how much time do I have left and am I going to change? Yes, I'm going to change, right, and here's what I'm going to do. Going forward, I'm going to align my life to God's will, going forward right and conceptually. You can do that with your business. You can do that investing all of your capital. It's not just work and take care of kids and set up money for retirement and cut a check on Sunday mornings and let the church go, do big picture ministry stuff. No, it's. You're called 24-7, 365 to be preaching the gospel, to be evangelizing, to be discipling, to be part of this story, to be a global Christian, right, and oh man, if we're encouraging people through this podcast of anything, it's to rethink your calling and your wiring and how you're aligning your life to God's will and how you're playing your role in his story.
Speaker 2:I've seen such an awakening in you throughout the course of this season. We talk about all the time. How could you not want to give your life to this, and actively? I feel like you and I are both trying to pursue avenues to give our life to this. What is something practical, that something that our folks listening to this podcast today? What's something practical that they can do to take a step to move in that direction?
Speaker 1:I mean I think it's. You know, I know you're going to talk about Brad at some point, but I mean it's what Brad said. Right, it's getting up. I mean prayerfully. You get up every morning and before you address all the dots on your phone from the night before, open your Bible and read it. And right before you read rather than reading your Bible, looking for where you are in the story read your Bible, trying to understand contextually what God is teaching you, what is happening. This was written 2000 plus years ago, depending on where you are in the Bible, 3,500 years ago maybe, and a lot of things were different then. Context was different then. So I've read through the Bible about 10 years in a row now. I've taught through the Bible about 10 years in a row now. I've taught through the Bible about seven years in a row. We go Genesis to Maps every year with a new group. Right, and it never gets stale, it never gets old. You always learn new things.
Speaker 1:But the first step is get up and get in your Bible and get yourself prepared for your day. And if you don't know what to read, start with the Gospel of John. If you've read a little bit of Bible and you're kind of like how do I prepare for the day? Read Ephesians 6, right, Get your armor on. I mean, really get an understanding that this is not just the world's not just happening and you're just part of it. There are forces controlling this world. It is biblical, it is set up that way, and you are a warrior, you are a soldier and you were either on the side of heaven's armies or you are not right. And so if you're not preparing yourself for battle each day by surrendering your agenda and asking God what do you want to do today, Then you're not probably accomplishing anything again that's good or significant. It may be temporarily winning a game for you, it may be providing for family and things like that, and that's okay. I'm not saying that that's bad, but that's in context to a greater narrative and a greater story that happens over the course of the 70, 80, 90, however many years you're here, and I just don't want to get to the end of that story.
Speaker 1:Clint, and look back. I missed plenty of at-bats already. I don't want to look back on missed at-bats. I want to look back on swings, even if they're strikeouts, even if they're foul balls. I want to look back on I took a cut.
Speaker 1:So, yes, get up, pray up, align your life to God's will, read your Bible and then listen. Right, You're going to get a sense of direction and purpose from God. And then get into community. If you've never been in a discipleship group, get into a discipleship group. It's not a life group. It's not a Bible study. This is an accountability. It's different. How did Jesus change the world? He got a small group of 12 guys and he did life with them for three years. Get into a D group and dadgummit I'm calling you out. If you've been in one, then start one.
Speaker 1:It is your job 2 Timothy 2.2, to pass that on. It is your job to take what you've learned and share with others. It's not for your consumption, not for your consumption. You have a role to play and you are equipped just as equipped as the rimsteads were to go live in the dark, scary jungle and translate a language they'd never, you know, heard. As a dyslexic guy, I mean you're, you're ready. You can do this at home, in your own neighborhood. You can do this at your own company, in the, in the boardroom. Just do it, Take it, take a step forward and say, look, I don't know everything, but I got some train tracks.
Speaker 1:Here's an idea. We're going to do this. We're going to read some books, we're going to memorize some scripture together and we're just going to be prayerful and we're going to open it up and we're going to talk. Everything starts to change after that. But if you're not reading your Bible, if you haven't read through your Bible, if you haven't studied your Bible, it and if you are in that vein and you're doing that, then of course you'd continue to do it. And then you start to get into commentaries on it, then you start to get into books about it, then you start to get into other things that maybe challenge your assumptions.
Speaker 1:I'm reading the unseen realm right now, rereading it, because the first time I read it it blew my mind so much that I don't even know how much of it I could really ingest it. Basically, it goes through the bible and it finds all the things that everyone skips because it's just like eh, what is that? Like, oh, the Nephilim, right? Like giants, Like what do you mean? The sons of God? Who were they? What does that mean? It just goes to every one of those things and it's like this is what they mean. And here's all the parts in the Bible that talk about it and here's how you pull it all together and you, If you're pretty mature or really mature and you're ready for a different deep dive, go to the Unseen Realm, Check that out and then call me and let's talk about it, because I need help processing it. Somebody else has got to do this with me.
Speaker 2:So you were just talking about get up in the morning, read the word, and then you were talking about making sure you get a good at bat. So here's what I read this morning. I'm in Second Kings, I'm looking at King Joash. His chief advisor is Jehoiada, and they're struggling to raise the temple tax in the season that they're in because they've lost trust with the people of Israel. So what do they do? They get a giant box, they drill a hole on top of it, they stick it out in the middle of the courtyard so that everybody can see it. So there's financial accountability and there's transparency. I'm thinking about that and how that leads into our next guest, also what you just said about making a good at bat and taking advantage of the bats we had. We had someone who was the radio broadcast host of Baylor Baseball, who also happens to talk about spiritual accountability in faith-driven investors, on an episode of the show, richard Cunningham. So walk us through what you thought about the episode with Richard Cunningham.
Speaker 1:Richard Cunningham faith-driven investor, faith-driven entrepreneur. You can look those up. That is a kind of like switchboard. That is another network that you can join you can be a part of. There's study groups, bible studies. There's local groups. There's tons of content that they're creating about how do you be a Christ follower at work? How do you be redemptive with your work? No-transcript and him have a lot in common in sports ministry and we talked about your working with the Panthers as a team chaplain and your discipling guys from the Texas Longhorns here now that you're in Austin and man, you said something I may have repeated as often as anything else I've learned on this podcast in that episode and you talked about how to share praise with a gifted athlete and how you say you really focus on telling them I enjoyed watching you play not, you played great today Because you're kind of what God has given you is. He delights in us and enjoys watching us do these things, not necessarily scoreboarding us on how we performed each and every day. You want to unpack that one more time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think our default position is we want affirmation for the thing that we're good at. But what we find over time is that repeated affirmation in a thing that we're gifted to do leads to a performance-based identity. There you go. And so if someone says to Dustin, hey, you're just really great with money, you're really great with investing, at some point Dustin starts to think dude, this is who I am, this is the only thing that I bring to the kingdom, the only thing that I bring to the world.
Speaker 2:But God says that when he looks at us, he doesn't see our rap sheet and he doesn't see our trophy case. He sees the work of Jesus. And so when God looks at us, he says I enjoy you, I take delight in you, I delight in you, not just hey, I'm proud of you for doing the thing that you did well. Now, granted, there is something to say for doing things in excellence, but you're doing that as an offering of praise to the Lord. I'm playing football, I'm playing guitar, I'm doing well in business. I'm doing this as an offering of praise to God. And so I've just found that so many athletes just get trapped in this performance-based identity because everybody that sees them wants to make a comment about their performance. We have a guy who won a Super Bowl, that goes to church here and I've gotten an opportunity to disciple and he just is an incredible athlete and he's growing in his relationship with Jesus leaps and bounds. It's been incredible and I think, by default, we just want to go and praise people for the things that they do.
Speaker 2:So he was at church a couple of weeks ago and somebody walked up to him, shook his hand and specifically started talking about plays that he was on. I watched you do this, I saw you do this, you did this thing, and then then you got to this sack and you did this person and and like I'm watching him like, kind of like not like roll his eyes at all, he was very generous and kind, but in his mind he's thinking like, yeah, I know, dude, I was there. Yeah, like I was there, yeah, and so after that conversation was over, I just pulled him over to the side and I was like, hey, man, I just want you to know, like I love you and I'm proud of you and I just enjoy watching you play. I even enjoyed watching you navigate that conversation just now. Yeah, there you go, and it just completely changes the mindset, of helping us understand how God views us in light of the gifts that he gives us.
Speaker 1:I'm going to challenge you on this topic because I think you maybe have a book to write. Okay, don't laugh at me, you're a songwriter, you're a musician. Writing a book is not that much different, and I'll help you do it. But I think there's one more step that we hadn't found yet, that God hasn't revealed yet, right? So we know, we got the performance-based identity. No-transcript. Everybody else, somebody might chime in and tell us hey, maybe it's this, maybe it's that, I think there's something else there. And yeah, no, I don't know why, but I think you can. I think you got a vote to write. Wait, what is it? I don't know yet. Oh, dude, I don't know yet. All right, stay tuned. No, it's a stay tuned, stay tuned. We're going to, we're going to figure it out. We are we are in God's perfect timing.
Speaker 2:I will say that I'm I'm learning in this journey after years and years of walking alongside of athletes. The way that you disciple them towards a relationship with Jesus while they are in their performance-based season really has a profound impact on them. When they step out of their performance-based environment Because NFL stands for not for long we make that joke all the time, and I mean these guys they ultimately have to walk out and play their last game, most of them by injury. Very few of them get to just decide hey, this was my last one, I'm going to ride off into the sunset.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's typically a very emotional and traumatic moment Very much so and then all of a sudden, the thing that you have been doing since you were 8, 9, 10 years old. You don't ever get to do it again, and it is a traumatic experience for some of these guys, but I've found that this deep relationship with Jesus gives them something to look forward to what their purpose is, but also what their action is going to look like after they get out of the league.
Speaker 1:So I think you want to talk about a cultural phenomenon, a cultural word, phrase, concept, idea that has become grossly just, terribly mismanaged and too focused on. What's that Retirement? How many times is retirement mentioned in the Bible?
Speaker 2:I'm going to go out on a limb here and say zero times it's actually one One. Oh one, I was so close.
Speaker 1:So you couldn't have been any closer without being correct One time, one time in the whole Bible. Okay, so you think about how often we talk about things that the Bible doesn't talk about a lot. That's a huge one, yeah, and the only people in the Bible who retirement is built for, it's back in the Torah, way back in the beginning. It's for Levitical priests. It says Levitical priests can retire at 55. So that's the only time. And so, like my whole industry, right, this whole industry of wealth management and all that is built around this concept of retirement, I got to work this long, save this much. It makes me think of Francis Chan, right, and that whole video he did with the length of rope. We try to work for this much of our life so that we can collect seashells and play golf for this much of our life.
Speaker 1:That is just not biblical, it's just not. It's just not. So. You talk about preparing athletes for that transition. My life's work is largely preparing people not to make that transition. Yes, you may transition at some point from a full-time exposition at X company, but you're not transitioning out of work. God made us to work. Look at Genesis. He worked right. We were built for it. So maybe you're transitioning into consulting or sitting on boards or volunteering or nonprofits or some other that maybe you're financially equipped for now and mentally equipped for now and you have the gray hair and the wisdom to advise on now. But, man, you see people just fully drop out and oftentimes like at the peak of their influence, absolutely At the peak of their influence, because they, because they feel like they've ran the race, they're tired, they've earned it, I've earned this.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. You've earned the right to share it. You've earned the right to mentor and disciple and bring people up right, and that's where good happens. And so I just think, for the Christ follower, the concept of finishing well. There's not a lot of examples of finishing well in the Bible. There's a lot of examples, a whole lot of examples of not finishing well. I mean Solomon. If the wisest man to ever live was dumb enough to have 700 wives and 700 mother-in-laws, I mean, come on.
Speaker 2:I think we both have books to write.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know that one just sticks out. So I had to go there. You can't call me out to write one without you doing it with me I think you got something there. Todd Aaron wanted to write a book with me once and we got stuck because we couldn't decide on the color scheme for the cover. He wanted red and black and I was like I'm sorry it's not happening. Drawing a line. I'm drawing a line right here Too. Texas Tech, for you it's way too.
Speaker 1:Red Raider, I can't do it. I'm not saying it has to be burnt orange, but I'm just saying the color of a sunset, sunrise, a lot more appealing. That's hilarious, I digress.
Speaker 2:Well, all right, let's jump to our very last episode. So the last two episodes we did was Pastor Brad Thomas. Brad, obviously, is the pastor at Austin Ridge Bible Church. He's been your mentor, he has led you through dGroups. He has encouraged you along your path that you've been walking. What are some big takeaways that you had from the episode with Brad?
Speaker 1:you had from the episode with Brad. That episode is largely a culmination of, you know, doing life under his tutelage and and um example and and mentorship and discipleship, and I mean the wiring of who, um, I am today. God has largely, largely done through Brad. I know he has done a lot through you since you've been here too, so you can relate. A lot of people in this community can relate.
Speaker 1:I can't overstate how much that man means to me. And he doesn't write books, he doesn't put his name on the door, he doesn't come on podcasts. In fact I don't think he's ever listened to a podcast. So when I was like, hey, would you come on the podcast? He goes, of course I would. I go. Do you even know what it means? He's like, nope, I go. Do you know how to listen to the podcast? No, don't have any idea.
Speaker 1:I mean, he just lives his life so different. You talk about Clemson football and he wants to go play golf and I mean he's got the just a guy like he's relatable and all that. But man, he just he loves Jesus and he reads his Bible and he studies and he prepares and he is so faithful to the text and so faithful to this church, like when I text Brad and I'm like, hey, so-and-so is sick and they're in the hospital. Brad's like pick me up at nine o'clock on Saturday, we're going to see him. When we lost a baby halfway through a pregnancy, brad shows up at the house. I'm here, let's pray. I'm just here. I'm just here to be with you. I just love you.
Speaker 2:He had a line that stuck with me. He said Jesus didn't come to start a megachurch, he came to start a small group. Yeah, there you go, and Brad's lived his life in that way. That priority.
Speaker 1:Brad said it to the pastors and other folks that listen Be faithful to the text. Just open the Bible, Start in a book and go through the whole thing and don't skip any of it. Just we've been walking.
Speaker 2:We've been walking through the book of acts here at Austin Ridge and I for eight months. Yeah, yeah, and we're, I think a couple of things have that much to go. A couple of things that it's revealed to me is is I'm just astonished at the, the applicable things that I've taken from the book of acts, and then also, maybe I'm a little convicted at my ability to critically read Scripture, because there are things that I am learning and discovering in this book that I never recognized before, like dots that I'm connecting, so I'm grateful for that. The priority of spending time in the word, understanding scripture, having a deep desire to listen to God's word, to read God's word, is a crucial intersection of growing in our faith, and so I think I just love our listeners to hear just from you as you've grown in your faith in these last two seasons. What is God showing you? What are you most excited about? What are you most challenged by right now through doing this podcast?
Speaker 1:You know, when we had Andrew Scott on, he and I got to jam in and it's happened a lot on this podcast. If you're not doing anything in your life where the Holy Spirit takes over and you're kind of like I don't really know what just happened, yeah, do something in your life where that's starting to happen. Yeah, get yourself into situations that are uncomfortable for you and where you can't do it. I'm not a podcaster, I have no experience with this. Y'all know the story. I mean, my wife said it one day. I ran into Clint the next day and Clint's like, yeah, I know how to do it and it started right. So you know, I'm just as equipped to podcast as David Rimstad is to translate a language you know. Yeah, here, both of you are. But when Andrew and I were rapping and I said something to him that I have heard myself on the recording say that I never premeditated, never thought about. It's just, it's one of those, just full blown.
Speaker 1:No other explanation other than the Holy Spirit through this out there, right, and as I was thinking about and praying about today, how do I apply my life to your will, not just your word, to my life, god? Pray that prayer, right. God, how do I apply my life to your will, not just your word to my life? Because I think we all start reading the Bible, trying to apply it to our life, the 10 commandments, the law, figuring all that out, and then we're trying to where am I in this story? Where am I in this story? How does this apply to me? And the opposite is somewhere along that line, prayerfully, somebody disciples you, or through your own prayer life, you wake up and you realize, like that is not it.
Speaker 1:How do I apply my life to your will, is it? What do you want to do today? How do you want to handle this situation? Do you want me to go to work here? Do you want me to go to do ministry there? Do you want us to have another kid? Do you want me to hit a driver or a three wood on this tee shot Like I don't know man, however it is, but like it's. How do I apply my life to your will? And I think that has been a big pivot for me. You asked me what's changed, not that that wasn't already something that maybe I was working on, but it just it didn't. God hadn't given me that clarity in it till this, so I feel like it's easier for me to get up in the morning and go. Okay, god, how do I apply my life today to your will?
Speaker 1:What are we going to do today? What are we going to do today that makes a significant impact? And then, if you're living your day, looking, listening you're going to see those at-bats. If you're not prayed up and you're not in your Bible and you don't have some scripture memorized and you're not ready, you're just going to miss them. The ball's still going to come across the plate. You just don't have a bat and you're just not ready. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you're just not ready.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, and there will be days Clint and listeners and the guys at my D group if any of you are listening where we are not going to get that right. There are going to be seasons where we're not going to be totally prayed up and prepared and we're not going to get that right and we're going to miss things. Somewhat of maturity is getting on your knees and getting dependent and preparing yourself to miss less things.
Speaker 2:For our listeners. I just want to tell you thank you, thanks for joining us on this journey, Thank you for continuing to encourage, thank you for praying for us, thank you for sharing these episodes and, I think, as God continues to move, and you continue to go on this journey around the world with us and hear what God's up to and how God's moving in these different unreached people groups, my prayer for you is that you would, as a global Christian, find a place where you feel called and equipped to go and do, to get into the game. I know we keep using that phrase over and over, but it just seems like the applicable thing that we're really trying to encourage everybody to do, and this podcast is one of the ways that Dustin and I are getting into the game.
Speaker 1:It's been a really cool uh not quite a year. We're excited to wrap season two. Um, I think we I think we kind of went all over the place. We had missionary on the ground, things, we had businesses, missions, things. We had, uh, software connecting the two, software connecting the two. I mean it was a very ecosystem-friendly season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, looking ahead to season three, we've got several exciting things coming. We're going to have a guy that leads an incredible international ministry 90 schools, 90 colleges, 90 seminaries among unreached people groups around the world, training and equipping indigenous pastors to lead their people well, to be faithful to the text and how to build your church, how to lead your church, how to equip your church, based on lessons learned from just doing it a little longer. That fires me up. We've got some more business stuff how to build your church, how to lead your church, how to equip your church based on lessons learned from just doing it a little longer. That fires me up. We've got some more business stuff. We've got some guys that are investing in venture capital and early stage businesses among unreached people groups. Wow.
Speaker 2:In my mind. Now, when I look at the global map, I see it different. I see almost like these little heat maps, like these little hot spots where I know that the gospel is being communicated there, I know that the church is growing there. I know that Jesus is at work in those places through specific people that we've talked to here on the pod.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you talked about a few folks reaching out. Some folks have reached out. I want to say thanks to. It's very encouraging to hear from someone. There was a family in Canada that reached out that they were on the precipice of going to the mission field. They just hadn't had that kind of final push, over, the finish line moment. And then they sent us a note and they're like we heard the podcast, we heard the stories and we were like no, that's it. We want to be part of those kinds of stories.
Speaker 1:The Whitefords, the pastor out in California and his wife, they came to Austin to meet with us and they were like what's happening here and what Bless is doing? And we started reading about it and we started listening. They are reconfiguring, rewiring a lot of their church to a global focus. I think largely the American church, I pray, continues to do so. I think we look at local and global and we're just so outweighed the local. We are the local church and that certainly is a calling, but we aren't called to stay within our four walls, right, and there has to be some shift of resources to finish this thing. There has to be more resources going where they're not and that has to be more resources going where they're not, and that has to be human capital as well as financial capital.
Speaker 1:And something we say often, clint, you say often, why would you not want to give your life to this? So hey, here's my call to action. My call to action is something in the second half of this year, do something different. Do something different. It can be something simple, like praying without ceasing through your day. It can be something like making sure you start your day in the Bible. It can be whatever that thing is that God's put on your heart that you've been terrified to start doing. If it's a nonprofit, if it's serving, if it's changing jobs, if it's going to an unreached people group, whatever it is, do something different. And if God prompts you to, why don't you let us know what that is?
Speaker 2:God, we're so grateful that we get to be a part of your story, that we get to read your word and learn more about who you are, but then you also are so kind in the way that you give us full access to you, a holy God.
Speaker 2:You made a way for us, through Jesus, to have a relationship with you, and so, god, I just ask on behalf of our listeners, on behalf of Dustin and I, that you would reveal to us what your will is for us.
Speaker 2:You would help us to apply our lives to your will. That you would give us boldness and confidence in the way that we serve you. That you would open our eyes to see the things that are unseen. That you would give us ears to hear. That you would give us a boldness to be able to proclaim the gospel around the world. And God, as you continue to utilize able to proclaim the gospel around the world, and God, as you continue to utilize this podcast and the people that are listening to it, god, I pray that you would allow us to be a part of seeing your kingdom come and your will being done. God, thank you for the means and the network and the opportunity that we have to be able to reach the unreached around the world. God, we love you, put our trust and our hope completely in you, in Jesus' name, amen and amen.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to Unreached. Our sincere desire is that what you've heard today will cause you to see the mission of God differently and your role in it more clearly. If this adds value for you and we hope it does would you please rate and review the podcast wherever you listen. Also, share with your family, your friends, your church, your life group, small group, d group, wherever you do life, and if you want to connect with us, find us on Instagram, at unreachedpodcast, or email us at unreachedpodcast at gmailcom. Thank you.
