A Long Way From the Driving Range - Clint Hudson & Dustin Elliott

We talk candidly about how telling missionary stories for five seasons reshapes what we believe God is asking from us and why Clint and Amber choose to mobilize their lives toward unreached people groups. We wrestle with what it means to treat the Great Commission as a real assignment we can help finish and how awareness, access, and prayer change everything. 

• Clint’s journey from worship pastor to missions mobilization 
• The “driving range” origin of the podcast and why stories matter 
• A catalytic family moment at Light the World and why excellence mobilizes 
• “Awareness here, access there” as a simple missions framework 
• For the Nations conference vision and why young adults are key 
• Indigenous-led church planting and disciple making movements as the goal 
• Why we think the Great Commission can be fulfilled in our lifetime 
• Prayer as partnership with God rather than a checkbox 
• Scarcity mentality vs abundance and stewarding what God entrusts to us 
• Gratitude for listeners around the world and what we hope comes next 

Find out more about the FOR THE NATIONS CONFERENCE here...

www.ftncon.com

A note from our team here at UNREACHED... 

If this podcast 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 @unreachedpodcast or email us at unreachedpodcast@gmail.com.

Transcript

Revelation 7 And The Unreached Task

SPEAKER_00 0:05

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. 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 is called to reach the unreached reach. Hello, friends. Welcome back to the Unreached Podcast. Dustin Elliott here with Clint Hudson. It's going to be just the two of us today. This is the last episode of season five. We are now three years into this thing. Praise the Lord. That is incredible. Clint just had a great quote as we were getting ready to start. A long way from the driving range. Yep. Right? And we just wanted to kind of give a little bit today about our stories, how we got to where we are. Really cool thing that's happened just here recently. Essentially, Clint and his wife Amber have mobilized themselves, if you will. You've heard Clint say countless times on the

Season Finale And Why We Started

SPEAKER_00 1:20

pod, how could you not give your life to this? And they've just made an incredible decision to give their lives to this, and just how encouraging that is. I want it to be encouraging to all of you. So we'll get there, but first, let's get a little background on the Clint Hudson. Tell us a little bit about your story. How did we get to this point? How did you meet Amber? Tell us about a little about the kids, right? Take us through the Hudson story.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Yeah, man. Dude, this is actually really cool to be sitting on these mics with you and having these conversations about what God has done a long way from the driving range. You and I started this because we were lamenting out on the driving range one day that there are a lot of missionaries that have incredible stories that send newsletters back home and nobody reads them, nobody opens them. And we're like, how could we do a better job of telling the story? And here we are, five seasons in, we've told just countless stories of God at work. Now that I'm making this transition into this new season, one of my buddies said, You've literally been mobilized by your own podcast. Like I've I've sat here with these headphones on and I've listened to these stories. And you're right, I've said, How could you not give your life to this? And eventually I'm just like, I have to make a step. So, okay, so backstory for me. I have been a worship pastor for over 20 years. Amber and I both lead worship together. It's something that we're super grateful we've had an opportunity to do for the kingdom, for the Capital C church. And we've done that largely by connecting to a local church. We did it in South Carolina and in North Carolina and in Florida and here in Texas. Just so many awesome memories of opportunities to be able to lead people in worship of a holy God. I always used to say that I, as a worship pastor, I am responsible for the praises that I put on the people's lips. Like what they sing and say about God, I was responsible for. And so I took that really

Clint Hudson Story And Family

SPEAKER_01 3:10

seriously. And I I say that now just to give a little bit of context of this was a massive move for us to step out of that responsibility and out of that role into something new. And like you said, we'll cover some of that here in a little bit. Amber and I have been married for 25. No, 22? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Together, probably 25. Yeah. Married 22.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Yeah, married 22, together 25. I loved the Lord. I had given my life to Christ early on in my teen years. Amber also, same with her. We met through a mutual friend who was trying to date her at the time. He calls me up. I'm at the University of South Carolina. He's like, hey man, there's this girl. She's awesome. She loves Jesus. I need you to come be my wingman.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Oh, that was the wrong call.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Worst wingman ever. Yeah. Literally saw her, and I lean over. I'm like, Brahma marry her. He's like, that's not funny. You're here. You're here for me, dog. And uh, yeah. So that did not go well for him. It went great for me. And so, yeah, man, it was just one of those things where like uh You called it first sight? No, I called it walking up in the parking lot the first time I laid eyes on her. And I know liter I'm not I'm literally not joking. First time I saw her, I'm like, I'm gonna marry her. I did.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

It's dude. I told Britney I was gonna marry her the first night I met her too. Bro, let's go. Look at us. I know. When you know you know. When you know you know. I mean game recognized game.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Come on. That's what's up. But yeah, man. So we got we have four kids. Jack, our oldest, is a worship leader, phenomenal musician, loves Jesus. We have twin boys, Isaac and Owen. They're just next level awesome. The two most opposite twins on the planet. You know, one's super buff and plays football, the other one's a super genius and uh, you know, helps with a lot of the podcast stuff and everything behind the scenes, too. Um then we have a daughter named Merritt. And so this is uh for us, this is also a season of life where our kids are getting older, they're about to launch into the world. This is new for us.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

The boys, anyway. Yeah, the boys for sure. Mer Merritt's gonna keep you humble for a little while longer. She is.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yeah, this is our first time raising a girl, so I'm I'm already like this is I'm I'm learning for sure. Aren't we all? It's been a really cool journey and this is a really cool season. And so this podcast for me in a lot of ways has been an escape for me to pop my head up out of the local church and look around and see what's happening.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Not only did we have you know this awesome conversation with you in connection with you, and you're like, man, I got all these crazy stories. We had the opportunity to be connected to Bless, who we've talked about a lot on the podcast here, you know, blessed with all their found their foundation, the funding of what they're doing with this incredible work around the world. We got an opportunity to go to the light the world as a whole family one time. Um, quick aside, this is a fun story. Yeah. We pull up to the Bless Foundation at ACL in in Austin, Texas. The swanky, awesome event, amazing music that night, amazing storytelling. They're gonna raise, I don't know, two, three million dollars that night. Our family has a table, we get an opportunity to come and sit and experience this. The boys at the time, this is maybe four years ago. So the boys at the time, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

This is life on a pastor's salary right here.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

It is. So so we roll up to uh ACL, we valet park our Honda Odyssey.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yeah. Um which has a name, right? It had a name. Odessa. Odessa, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Odessa, we valet park Odessa with all the like the parents know, all the crumbs and everything else that's all up in it. The boys, we have three boys, we bought a suit, um, we bought a three-piece suit and they split it. Each of them got a piece. One of them had the nice slacks, one of them had the vest, one of them had

Light The World And Mobilization

SPEAKER_01 6:45

the jacket, and we just kind of let them match around. They look great. They looked great. It was awesome. But it was it's one of those things where we kind of walked in feeling like we have no business being here. But God had such a specific purpose for us to be there that night. And it's kind of crazy looking back at it now. That was one of those catalytic moments for not only for me, but for my entire family. Because I can't sit here and do this podcast all the time over the last three years if my family isn't passionate about what I'm doing. And so I come home with tears in my eyes telling these stories, and my kids and my wife, they they know they've been there.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

So I'm so thankful that we got the opportunity to go and experience that with their split-up three three-piece suit and our you know, you know, a lot just uh just an aside on that note, you know, a lot of people um ask when you're when you're in the nonprofit world, how much should you spend on fundraising, right? How much did you spend on events, how much did you spend on that portion? And it's just the wrong way to think about it. Yeah. Because what's happening in that moment in that room is mobilizing too, right? All of this work is not from here to there. It goes back and forth. You if you're out and you're working as a missionary, if you're working in a nonprofit, if you're raising money, your job is not just to take money from this group and go and disciple the other group. Your job is to disciple in both directions, right? So had we not committed to doing an an excellent, wonderful, amazing event year after year after year, and praise God, this year will be year 10 of Light the World, which is mind-blowing. We wouldn't have this story to tell because Amber and the kids may not have seen the videos and the need and become aware, Todd likes to say, like the heart can't feel what the eye hadn't seen, become aware of what it's really like in a lot of the world that doesn't have access to Jesus, access to the Bible in their heart language, access to a local church or a believer anywhere nearby. And if we don't take the Great Commission seriously and play our part in either sending or mobilizing or praying or going, then it's not gonna get done. We're plan A, right? And that was a incredible moment in the life of the Hudson family who, you know, you'd had you had done been a really cool worship pastor. You've written incredible songs, you've had millions of downloads around the world on the songs, worship songs that y'all have written and recorded. Uh, you were chaplain for the Carolina Panthers at one point. You've had some really cool athlete ministry, all this stuff, and it all culminates in this kind of like, wait a second, there's there's more for me. God has more for me than just what's here locally that I'm that's right in front of me.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's a good way to say it. It's kind of cool to hear your story from somebody else's perspective too, which is which is humbling. And so grateful for your friendship in the way that you've been along the ride with me, man. That's been really cool. No doubt. No doubt.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

I mean, it was Brothers from Another Mother, really quick.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

It really was. It was it was one of those things where I think both of us had that realization that you just said that we we are meant for more than uh just what we can see here. We have to be able to connect people to what's happening around the world globally. And dude, it's just changed my life. It's changed my life and and the pursuit of being a global Christian, understanding what a global Christian is. Man, throughout the podcast, there's just so many different moments that I can look back to the first time I heard the the Rimsteads talk about the Malayali and what's happening. Goodness, the very first missionary that we had on the podcast, Jack Crabtree, as he talked about, you know, you getting thorns in your feet. Man, and like that set the stage for the next three years, didn't it? It was just one of the coolest quotes ever. And and specifically, what remind me, the quote was if you wouldn't have come here and walked in the jungle getting thorns in your feet, then we would be slowly walking towards hell, hoping that our good works would save us. I remember sitting here at this desk and just crying. And and still to this day, I'm like, okay, that is to me, that's the cornerstone of mission mobilization. It's not the West to the rest. It's not we gotta find some some people here from the United States and just send them and then eventually they'll come back. It's going and actually equipping and discipling a local indigenous-led church. And that's exactly what we've seen happen in Papua New Guinea with the crab trees and and with the Malayali people also in PNG. There's just incredible stories. And so not too long ago, we heard from from Ken Katayama. Ken was talking about how he got mobilized at a missions conference as a young adult. He was a teenager, and it said he said this quote, it was the first time that I had heard that there were people who hadn't heard. And I think that was kind of in in line with what you and I were wanting to do when we were out on the driving range. Like we have to communicate to people. There are a lot of these people that are following Jesus, that love the Lord, that just don't know. They have no idea what pioneering missionary what's required in that it's necessary. They have no idea about disciple making movements that are happening around the world. They have no idea about all these new methods. So that's kind of why we started this podcast is to be able to communicate that. And here we are now having both of us been blown away by what we've heard.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

It's two it's two letter A's, right? Locally and then in the West, it's a lack of awareness, and everywhere else it's a lack of access. That's good. Right? So we've got to raise awareness here so we can provide access there.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Yeah. I like that. And part of the access part of it, I think as much as you and I have been the host, we've also been the people that have learned probably the most through this, man. Like I've been blown away by some of these new methods. You know, you and I were just talking about apologists.ai and some of the incredible stuff that they're doing. We've had our friend Scott from Switchboard on here so many different times, and we've heard from him about all the different new methods that they're doing to connect people to missionaries and to connect missionaries to not only funding, but also just help within projects and things that they need. I've just been blown away. You can hear it in my voice, my I hope, right now. I am so hyped about this. This is the coolest time in the history of the world to be a part of this. We've never had this access to technology, to travel, to connectivity, to synergy, to collaboration, to the gospel being translated. It is all culminating

Awareness Here Access There

SPEAKER_01 13:20

in this like just a little worship leader in Austin, Texas, having to say, Okay, I gotta I gotta do something, I gotta get in the game. I hear you say it all the time, man. Get in the game, and I'm like, I'm in the game, I run a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

And guys like, no, no, no, no, no, man.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

No. You about to really get in the game. Yeah, you're doing that a few hours a month. Yeah. Yeah. What's it look like? What's it like to give your whole self to this? Yeah. All right, so we've already uh teased it enough. What's it look like for the Hudson family to give their whole selves to this?

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Throughout the course of this, I've had the opportunity to go and MC and host at a couple different missions conferences. Through that, our friend Todd Aaron, um, who has been so generous to give his time and his content to this podcast so many times. Todd and I have grown really close. He's communicated some really cool things to me. And um one of the things is, again, uh a little bit of a lament that you and I had early on. His lament is how are we mobilizing the next generation? One of the best ways that I have seen, and this is kind of where I'm heading next, there's a conference called NWA for the Nations, Northwest Arkansas, it's in Fayetteville. Shout out to people in Fayetteville. There's so many different mission orgs and sending orgs and friends that we have in Fayetteville. NWA for the Nations, uh, started by a guy named Nathan Allen, they've done it for several different years now. They have such a phenomenal track record of mobilizing the next generation towards the unreach. And specifically, one of the reasons why it works is because it's a regional conference. It's focused on the University of Arkansas and other different universities that are around there. Students, it's really easy access for them to come. That's not a big travel commitment. You're not getting on a plane, you're you're driving.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

And and like no like no shade thrown on some of the national conferences that happened, but these local conferences or this local conference with NWA for the nations makes it really accessible for the people that are going to get mobilized. A big part of this is Todd teaching a little breakout session that I popped into in Kalamazoo, Michigan, of all places, where he's teaching the history of missions. And I'm learning about Samuel Mills and the haystack guys and and C.T. Studd and Hudson Taylor and how every single time there was a sustainable big move of the spirit that happened of mobilizing people towards unreached people groups. It happened with young adults. It happened within the young adult community, within the college student community. And so Todd and I were having this conversation about, man, it would be so effective if we could figure out a way to just get NWA for the nations to different colleges in different places around the country. Not specific college campuses, but a place where multiple different college campuses could come and gain access to it. He's like, we need somebody to come and scale it. And so um I heard that and I tried my best to ignore that. You know, Todd's ruined enough people's lives already.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

I can't wait to get the text from him when he hears that line. He's gonna he's gonna puff his chest out and be so happy to hear it.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

So he goes, Clint, bro, it's gotta be you. And so um, man, I I just felt, you know, Amber and I really felt like this was the call that God had had God had on our life for this next season. You know, we've sat here at the podcast and we've made the connections and we know the different sending orgs and we know the different new methods, and I'm so excited about it. And so I just feel like a conference going and scaling and going on tour is one of the best ways that we can mobilize the next generation. So, what I'm giving my life to in this next season, we are running a conference called For the Nations. We're taking it to ten different cities around

For The Nations Conference Vision

SPEAKER_01 16:45

the U.S. It's gonna be in all kinds of different places. We're gonna bring one down here to Texas. We're gonna have it in in Austin in 27, potentially in Dallas in 28. But the goal is to mobilize the next generation. It's an awakening. We are we want them to be awakened to the news that there are people that haven't heard. We want them to recognize that they have skills and talents that they've gotten within the business program at their school and how they can use that to be mobilized. We want them to go and give their life to this. We want to have the next Jack and Leo crab trees uh raised up from within these conferences. I'm so thankful for so much partnership. There's so many cool things we're gonna do. The Unreach Podcast is actually gonna sponsor the uh breakout sessions. If you've ever been to a conference before, you know that like one of the biggest struggles is breakout session FOMO. I got two different slots and there's eight different speakers and there's eight different things. How am I gonna hear all of it? Or like, man, I wish, you know, I just popped into this breakout session and I just wish my buddy would have heard this. I gotta send this to him. So the Unreach Podcast is gonna sponsor all of these uh the breakout sessions, and we're gonna record them and have them uploaded immediately after the conference is over that night so that we can have people hear the things that they missed and send the things.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

And so many of our friends we've met are going to be involved. Oh my god. Right? Because this is this is gonna be kind of a celebration of the collaboration through the pod. So Switchboard has this really cool neck new technology.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

You can have a thousand people in a room, throw a QR code up on the screen, everyone can fill out a quick profile, and before the next bathroom break, they can be dropped into a chat with a missionary somewhere in the world. So cool. Where they can either pray with them or they can help advise them or they can work with them. It it's amazing. Bless is obviously going to be involved as we continue to scale the fund and sponsoring people groups. We would love to see more churches get involved and help adopting uh people groups. And so for listeners, you know, a cool way that you could help is send us a note, you know, if you're part of a great church in a college town or near some great college campuses, and say, We'd like to help host this conference and and we'd like to get in the game personally. And how cool would it be to have the conference, have kids get mobilized at the conference, grab a couple of UPGs and sponsor them as a church, end up with one of the kids that gets mobilized at your conference, at your at your campus? A story. Go and go and serve in that people group and take the body of your church through the next 10 or 15 years of reaching that people group. Unreal. Can I cast a little vision? Come on. I mean, who doesn't want to be a part of that? Come on. How much time do we have left? Right? And there's only so many people groups left, y'all. Like I keep saying, like, this isn't you're gonna run out. You're you know, you're gonna have to join a team that's already picked one up if you don't start grabbing some because the the movement right now is so pervasive and it's gaining so much speed that we're going to get help everywhere it needs to go, and it's gonna happen quickly. Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

So let's let's let's shift and talk a little bit about the Great Commission because that's one of the things that I think has shifted for me in my understanding. Again, worship pastor for all these years, opportunities to lead people in worship and on church staff. I think I really looked at the Great Commission. I'll just be real really honest, really transparent here. I think I looked at the Great Commission as a great way to live and a great thing to aspire to do. Until I started doing this podcast and until recently, I don't think I recognized that the Great Commission was a work for us to fulfill. And I am convinced, because of the things that I've heard, and I think our audience would probably agree with some of this too, that the Great Commission can absolutely be fulfilled

Great Commission Can Be Finished

SPEAKER_01 20:10

in our lifetime. I think that's something that I can't ignore. And you're talking about it now. Like if you don't get in the game, you're not gonna get to be a part of this, a part of this incredible work that God has laid out before us to do. So, I mean, from your perspective, when it comes to the fulfillment of the Great Commission, what are what are you seeing, what are you feeling?

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I think this might not be the angle you thought I would answer that with, but you know, there's There's gonna come a time when w all all of our number is called, right? And our experience here on this earth as it is now is over. And then we're gonna move on to the next phase. And in that experience, there's two different kind of places that you that you end up. And I'm not just talking about the basic heaven and hell. I'm talking about the white throne judgment and I'm talking about the bamise. Yeah. Right. And you know, for believers, for Christ followers who are who are who are called to it and and given their life to it, you go through this bhaseed situation and and you have these crowns, you know, and you think about like these these crowns that are that are awarded in in a sense to you, but it's not yours. They're crowns you're gonna be given that you're gonna lay at the feet of Jesus and you're gonna say, I got to be a part of this work because of you, I got to be a part of this work for you. And then he's gonna look at the Father and say, See, that's one of mine, and this is this is how it went. Right? Here's the story. You don't want to show up to that event unprepared. You don't want to show up to that, you know. Tim Tebow has this a lot of great quotes, but one of his is like, I want to be exhausted when I get to heaven. I want to be totally gassed. I want to be totally gassed, right? I want to get there knowing that to the to the degree that I was able, I put all of the gifts and resources that God trusted me with to work for the the thing that I think he made most clear in the Bible that. We're supposed to do. Yes. It's just not unclear. And you were very honest and and vulnerable by saying, like, well, I was a worship pastor and I was I was doing church. I was playing a role. I was doing it. And that was a cool thing. And there's a missions program at our church and there's missions Sunday every once in a while, and that's what they were doing, right? But it doesn't it doesn't say that there's a cop-out in in the there's no there's no this excludes you clause. Like we all have a piece in it. Even if our roles are in the marketplace, or our roles are pastoring a church, or our roles are, you know, uh being a a stay-at-home parent. Like we would that that's beautiful and wonderful, and I'm so glad that people are called to those roles. But you still have a part to play in this bigger picture game that's going on. And like with the technology, again, that we have today, with all the new things that have been cultivated and created, I'm sorry, but you're out of excuses. Like it's time. Like f figure out a way to do your part. And you know, there's this great quote that uh our pastor Brad Thomas says, and it's like the more you give, the more you see you have to give. Well, let me tell you what, the more you get in this game with missions, like the more you see you have to do. Absolutely. Right? And before long, you'll find a place that that uses you best, right? That that you can be most useful, and then it will change. It's seasonal, right? And it's it's kind of like the timeline of of a of a you know, an athlete, if you will, right? You go from learning how to play the game to maybe being a star player of the game, and then you kind of age out of being a star player, then you start coaching, right? And you coach for a while, well, then you start managing a team, right? Then you may end up in the front office, and who knows, you may end up owning a team. There's a whole lot of people. Or you just end up on the ESPN and just yapping about it. Or you could be talking about other people doing it. Absolutely. Or you could go do something completely different. Anyway, the point is there's a pr there's a progression, and you're gonna play different roles. The reality is we're all capable of playing more than one. Yeah. Everyone can pray. Everyone can pray. We all we all take prayer, and I don't want to, there's a few of us maybe that don't, but most all of us take prayer just not nearly seriously enough. And and it's a box check in the morning and our quiet time, and you know, praying for my mom because she's not well with my dad and this and that. And but like the power of prayer to really engage with the father, to have an intimate relationship with him and to say, you know what? I'm not, I'm not, I'm done with this cheap form of prayer and treating you like a vending machine, God. Now I'm gonna say, like, what do you want to do? What's your will? How do I align my life to your will? How can I put myself in a position to be most useful for what matters most to you? And when you start praying like that and you start engaging in this work, there's nothing else like it. I mean, anyone that's listening to this podcast that's ever had an opportunity to be part of leading someone to Christ, it's the most intoxicating feeling in the world. There is nothing else that compares. Nothing. And once you felt it, you want to feel it again. It's why, you know, Jeremiah, it burns in our bones. It's why it burns in our bones. We can't hold it in. When it's real and it's authentic and it's in there, and we're we're adding it, adding to it because we're in the word, because we're spending time with other believers and we're being taught the word, it's going to just emanate out of us. And the result of that really has nothing to do with us. It's not it's not on us how how someone responds to that. It's not on us the effectiveness of sending a missionary team to another part of the world and them embarking on a 10 or 15 year journey of getting to know a culture and learning language and developing an alphabet and teaching them to read and write their alphabet and then translating scripture and getting believers and baptizing believers and making disciples, and now the disciples are making disciples, and now you're selecting elders, and now you're pastoring, they're pastoring their own church, and you you you move on to the next season. Yeah. I mean, praise God, He takes care of all that, right? And he gets all the glory for it. Yeah, and all we do is put one foot in front of the other and say, you know what, I'm willing, send me. Yeah. Or I'm willing to give to send you.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Yeah. It's undeniable that God has invited us into this work, and we get an opportunity to see him do this. This is why the intro to every single podcast, we talk about these supernatural stories of God at work. This is what we get an opportunity to be invited into, to see his kingdom building work firsthand. And so I I'm so thankful that we've had the opportunity to sit here and do this podcast for these last five seasons, and uh I can't wait to see what happens next. You know, we've had uh CEOs and presidents of mission sending orgs, we've had uh fantastic communicators, we've had new methods, and I think we're just scratching the surface, man. I I really do. Uh as we've been discovering it, I think there are also people doing incredible work that are discovering us that are saying, hey, we want to come and tell this story. And so I think kind of the promise to the listener that we can continue to make is that we're gonna be uh really honest in the way that we communicate about what God's doing around the world. We wanna make sure that we are articulate about how things are being done, but then also we're gonna bring you some crazy stories of God at work and some crazy new ways that it's being accomplished. And I think from a listener perspective, you guys can expect to get updates about how we are actually reaching the unreached. Not we here in this room in this podcast, but we as the global church are reaching the unreached and we're seeing new people groups not only be identified, but actually be moved from unreached to reached. Just like the with some of the stories that we've heard in from Papua New Guinea, like the Wantaquia, and how they have a thriving church there, like just incredible. So I can't wait to get an update from from those guys about what's happening in this.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Praise God, the missionaries, I mean, they're done. Their work, uh their day-to-day role has changed now, right? There is a thriving locally led church in Wantaquia. And you know, the the families that got to be a part of that are now um promoting, if you will. It's just recently been announced that uh uh Jack and one of the other guys are gonna now be directors for all of the missionary work in Papua New Guinea. Which is so cool. So cool. So they're still gonna be close by, they're still gonna check in, they're still obviously connected, and they're maybe similar to Paul, right? You know, they might they may need to write a letter back and correct something here and there and help out. Aaron Ross Powell Greetings. Greetings to my church in Wantaquia. Yeah. How cool does that sound? That that'll that'll write a book. It's beautiful to see that progress. And I think what I want to also say, since we're kind of having this little note to the listeners, is I just want to convey this humility, if I can, from Clint and I. Like we obviously don't know everything. We didn't know everything. We've learned so much in three years. In three years, we've we've learned so much that the Hudson family have completely changed their way of living. That's so amazing. And I'll just say this this too. Our local church has embraced that and been so wonderful because y'all are fantastic and you're really well loved here. Um, but the support from leadership here to see that, you know, this is a clarion call, and when you hear it and you need to respond to it, who are we gonna stand in the way of that, right? No, we're gonna get on on the team and be supportive of that. I mean, I talked to Pastor Brad this morning and he was fired up that we were coming to record the pot. I said, you know what? 135 countries. We have listeners in 135 countries. We've never promoted this thing, we've never marketed this thing, right? That's in that's incredible. We're on six continents.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Isn't that wild? That's crazy. I just uh I I mean we never set out for any of this. This was just hey, we've got these great stories and nobody's hearing them. And yes, we're in Austin, Texas. You know how much of our audience is in Austin, Texas? Ten percent. Ten percent. I mean, that's great. It's uh it's uh the most because a lot of people know us here. Um but ninety percent of who listens to us are somewhere else. I love that. And probably more than ninety percent we don't we don't we've never met.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

And we may never meet on this side of heaven.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

But what an opportun opportunity. Um so yeah, I'd say we're gonna continue to operate from a spirit of humility. We don't know everything. We've probably said a few things that you don't agree with, we probably will again. Just know we're doing our best. And when we learn something new, we're gonna tell you. Yeah. Hey, we learned something new.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Talk to me about you in this last five seasons. You know, what's something that's really impacted you and caused you to look at some things differently?

SPEAKER_00 30:37

The story for me goes back to you know, about 10 years when I really got mobilized. And it was you know, first it started by being in in Pastor Rad's discipleship group and just going through the whole Bible, being taught the whole Bible. That led to doing perspectives, and perspectives is where it really, you know, went off for me. Like, whoa, there's this huge work. I'm actually on this team. I don't even know where my jersey is. I need to go figure out where my jersey is, you know, where are my cleats? I gotta get prepared. And so then it became for me, I got the uh I got the Bible knowledge commentary books from Dallas Theological Seminary, and I went through them year after year after year and essentially wrote, kind of created my own Bible knowledge commentary. I call it a contextual walk through the Bible. I've got it in the Google Doc, and everyone I've ever discipled has access to it. There's probably a couple hundred people that have access to it at this point because it's it's been shared some more. But that exercise for me was just building my intimacy with the Lord and my understanding of who he who he really is and what this plan really is, and how then can I look at my you know, both my gifts and my struggles and how can I apply them better to this to this trade, right? So as the years went on, involvement with Bless, right, and and the work that I was getting to be a part of there, and you know, I was writing newsletters and you know, Tabitha and I were doing the website together and and and we were literally building the plane while we were flying it, and we didn't know how to build a plane or fly a plane. Um but we were just learning as we were going. And yeah, so then it came to the point of you know, the conversation in the kitchen with my wife, nobody's reading the stories. Do a podcast. I don't know how to do a podcast. Next day we're hitting balls in the driving range, and I tell you this kind of jokingly, and you're like, uh dude, I teach podcast classes, like I have a podcast, I know how to do podcasts. And you didn't think about it, you just said, Let's do it. Let's do it. Kind of like when we both saw our wives, like it was one of those things, it's like, oh, there you go. That's it. I'm done. That's the one. And that was your same take here. So now I guess three years in, I think I've learned maybe, maybe, it's maybe good but sad news is that there's there's this it's a small circle. Like the people that are really involved and really deep in this game, they all kind of know each other or we're kind of all aware of each other. And I'd love to see that circle grow.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

You know? Yes.

Humility Gratitude And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Um, you know, how do we continue to get the word out? How do we continue to invite more people in? There's people that have been in church for years and years and years and years and heard hundreds of sermons, and and this light bulb hasn't gone off for them yet.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Why? What are we missing to get this light bulb to go off? And you know, a lot of it I think is systemic. It's every church is a nonprofit, every nonprofit has a budget, and everyone's got to hit their own budget to keep their own staff and keep the lights on. So there's there's this natural modus operandi of scarcity within the nonprofit world that we've got to take care of what we have to take care of before we can take care of someone else. And if you think about it, all of us are operating with God, under the spirit of God, and yet we're not operating under the spirit of abundance that God wants for all of us. Yeah. I'm gonna let you sit with that for a second. Because that goes for your family, that goes for you as a person, that goes for your church, that goes for the other nonprofits you're supporting. We gotta get out of this scarcity mentality, man. Like we have to. God owns it all and he created it all and then trusted us with it and said, Go and enjoy it. He wants us to enjoy it. And what does he do? Does he look down and and and judge us for how well we're playing the game? No, he he delights in us. Right? It's one of the coolest moments I've ever had talking to you of how you and discipling athletes, you don't tell them you played great today, because everyone else is telling them you played great today. You say, I really enjoyed watching you today. Yeah. And I've repeated that hundreds of times. That's how he feels about us, right? I just want more people to understand how much he would delight in watching you play this game. So I guess part of it for me is yeah, I've learned a lot. Now to be in a few years into the podcast, and you know, we've got to see people mobilized through the podcast. I mean, we have to see a head pastor at a church in California, you know, decide that him and his wife are gonna step out from behind the pulpit and and go to the nations, and and then they're gonna come back once a quarter or whatever and tell the church how it's going. We got to see a family in Canada, wife and kids were ready to go, husband wasn't ready. He heard one of the podcasts, heard the guy talking, I think it was actually the Maliali podcast, right? And heard Rem said talking, and and then they they reached out and said, Hey, we just wanted to share a story like this got dad over the over the hump. We're gone, we're out, we're going. We got to hear so many stories like that, and you know, I pray we hear dozens, hundreds, thousands more with the time that we have to continue to do this. It's been I don't know, man, it's one of the coolest things, if not the coolest thing that I've ever been a part of outside of Mary and Britney and having our children's game. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Out of all the things that I've gotten to do in ministry, this is the thing that I feel like I am uh the most thankful for and excited about.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

Well, it's obviously had quite an impact.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

It has indeed.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Because you just stepped out of a very comfortable, wonderful, well thought of position. Yeah. Worship pastor of one of the largest churches in the South.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Yeah, and I could have sat and done it for a lot longer. Um, you know, uh going back to the athlete thing, you know, for me. Yeah, I'm I'm older, I've been in the game for a long time at the top of my game, but I can still sling it, and that's kind of how I felt like as I'm leaving. Yeah. So it's almost like uh, man, I can still sling it. Uh maybe I should still do it, but just no, like with the breath that I have in my lungs, with the strength that I have in my back, with the ability that I have, with the with the the sharpness that I have in my mind, I'm going to give every ounce of that to the proclamation of the gospel to the nations for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Amen. And just FYI, for those of you out there looking for an MC or a host for some sort of conference or event, call your worship pastor. Think about think about the skill set that's developed in that role. You're right. Right? You're up there singing with a big bright red clock flashing in the background, telling you that you're about to be over time. And then at the last however many moments of that time, you've got to you've got to come up with the prayer. Somewhere in the middle of all that, you probably have announcements. You've got to get those out. So you've got to take care of business, you've got to take care of worship, you got to do it on time, and then you've got to talk to God and do it well every week. I mean, it's it's pretty good training for MC. It's good training. I'm telling you. Yeah, I think I think Nathan and Todd knew what they were doing when they uh when they saw you in action. I'm telling you, man, hey, listen, give your worship leader a shot. Give him a shot. Starving musicians. We all got to help him out.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

Yeah. Hey, listen, man, uh just across the table to you. Like, thank you. Thank you for believing in me and encouraging me. And uh it's been so cool to get to do this with you. Like I I genuinely feel like I have a brother in arms. And we are we are passionate about the same things, but we are gifted in different ways. And I feel like this is the most iron sharpens iron relationship I've ever had. And so I'm super thankful for that.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

I appreciate you saying that. I feel the same way. I was gonna say something to the similar effect earlier. If you looked, if you looked at us, you would see two guys close to the same age, right? And uh we both we both love Jesus. We love our wives and families. We like to hit a little little white ball around a golf course every once in a while. But you look at the actual like abilities and gifts we have, they couldn't be more different.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Like if I had to play a guitar and sing in front of a group of people, we wouldn't have a group of people. Uh I mean, just like if I had to financially advise anybody about anything, they would be broke. Yeah. I mean, they're they're just different gifts. But isn't that the beauty? Isn't that the beauty of how God set this whole thing up?

SPEAKER_01 38:42

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

So, you know, maybe thank you to the people that listen to this. Thank you to our friends that have supported it. Thank you. Um, you know, this is just a gift from us. We're never gonna monetize it, we're never gonna advertise it. It's just it's God's, it's all his and it's something he's doing through us, and it's been uh a great privilege. I'm super fired up for the next season. I think the next I don't know, three, four, five years are gonna be wild. Yep. They're gonna be wild. The information flow is gonna be incredible. But God is moving, man. He's moving here, he's moving there, and we get to be a little part of it, and that's so cool. So cool. So cool.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Very thankful, man. Uh you know, at the end of every single episode, we always ask our our guests to pray. Which a lot of times it means that you don't get to. So how about you pray to close us out?

SPEAKER_00 39:44

All right. I would love that. You know, I recently I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you this paragraph. I recently read um John Mark Homer's book, God Has a Name. And I'll throw that out there as a as a recommendation for everyone. Um He's pretty clear when he's talking to Moses, right? And that um my name is Yahweh.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

And I think we should we should call him by name. I think to have an intimate relationship with him. Calling him by his title God is a little different than calling him by his name. So let's pray to Yahweh. Cool. Yahweh, what a work you've called us to. What an opportunity you've put before us. You've given us this incredible playbook on life. You've given us access to you, you've put yourself in the form of the Holy Spirit inside of us. We have an opportunity at every moment of every day to make a decision for ourselves or a decision for you. You have an opportunity at every moment every day to make a let a decision that the Holy Spirit leads or that we choose as better. But you've given us an opportunity because we had access to know you. We had the ability by where we were born and who we were around, by the language we speak and the translation that's already happened, to have an intimate relationship with you. And as we sit here today in 2026, there are still billions of people that do not have that opportunity. They can interact with you in ways that only you can provide through your creation, sometimes through visions and dreams, but they can interact with you in the same way that we can, and our responsibility as we understand it is to give them, grant them that access. It's to give all of us to this cause, to this great commission, so that we can get Jesus named where he's not yet named, so we can plant healthy indigenous-led churches in the hardest to reach places on earth. And we're giving our lives to it, and we know we cannot do it without you. We don't even want to try. We don't want to do it without you. We want to ask that you continue to give Clint and I, Amber, and Brittany, our families, all of our guests, all of our listeners, everyone involved in this work, continue to give them wisdom and discernment and guidance and energy and order our steps. Help us get to heaven exhausted. We will not do it well in our own. So our commitment is to the best of our ability, we'll get up each day, we'll die to self, we'll spend time with you, and we'll ask you, what do you want to do with your day? And how can we play a part in that? Thank you for Clint. Thank you for my brother. Thank you for this opportunity to do this work together. I will be forever grateful and always in his corner and always there for the Hudson family. Thank you for the local churches. The local churches are the lifeblood of the communities around the world. Everyone knows we're the first to show up when we're needed. Let us continue to be. And thank you for Jesus. Thank you for ransoming your son for shedding his blood, completely undeserved, for everything that we deserve, and claiming us as your own. It will be the greatest privilege of our lives one day to spend eternity in heaven and on the new earth with you. And Yahweh, it is in your Son, Jesus' most heavenly name that we pray. Amen. Amen.

Rate Review Share And Connect

SPEAKER_00 43:22

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 Unreach Podcast or email us at unreachpodcast at gmail.com.