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Welcome to the Leading Conversations podcast sponsored by the Excel Leadership Network. On each episode, jd Paring will have conversations with church planting pastors and leaders from around the country. You can learn more about how to connect with Excel at the end of this podcast. Let's join JD now and listen in on this leading conversation.

J.D Pearring: 0:29

Well, welcome to another Leading Conversations podcast. Today we are thrilled to have an old friend of mine, ike Alford, who is here from Macon, georgia. Mike, thanks so much for being here.

Mike Alford: 0:41

Hey, thanks, my pleasure to be here.

J.D Pearring: 0:44

Hey, tell us what's the best thing about Macon Georgia. Did I say Macon Florida, acon Georgia?

Mike Alford: 0:50

No, Macon, Georgia. Well, the best thing for me is I got family in the area, so if it wasn't for family it wouldn't be that great. But the wintertime is nice and actually fall is nice too.

J.D Pearring: 1:08

So weather's pretty good, pretty mild in the fall and winter, well good. Well, mike is a long-time baseball guy and ministry guy. He just wrote a book called stretched. Is that right, that's right, yes, on amazon and if you buy one um, all the royalties come to. Uh, the atlanta braves is that your team.

Mike Alford: 1:23

I'm a braves fan, but, uh, right now I'm more of a Georgia Bulldogs fan, so both yeah.

J.D Pearring: 1:28

Okay, good. Hey, mike, tell us your story, tell us how you came to Christ, and some of the baseball stuff too.

Mike Alford: 1:37

Yeah, so I was born in Warner Robins, georgia. My parents had recently moved to the area. My dad had a job at Robbins Air Force Base, which, funnily enough, that's where I work now. But my dad was from upstate New York, my mom from Cape Cod, massachusetts, and they were not raised in Christian homes. But shortly after moving to Georgia and working on the base, some of my dad's co-workers invited him to church and they began going and realized this is different than anything they'd ever heard before. And they began going and realized this is different than anything they'd ever heard before. But after, after my mom got pregnant with me, they needed to make some changes and they committed their lives to christ.

Mike Alford: 2:12

My dad later became a minister, and so I had a great privilege of being brought up in a christian home and I gave my life to christ at the age of six six, yeah.

Mike Alford: 2:22

So it was a good uh experience, and you know a lot of people their pastor's kids wasn was a good experience, and you know a lot of people their pastor's kids wasn't a good experience.

Mike Alford: 2:28

Mine was a great experience and I love going to church, but more than that, I love playing baseball and so, like I said, my team was the Braves and when I was a kid my favorite player was Hank Aaron and I just thought I was going to make it to the Braves one day and play in the major leagues. I played through high school and college. I wasn't good enough to play professionally, but I did get involved in sports ministry and have always been involved in sports in some way, just not playing professionally, but I did play in South Africa and came out of retirement and played for several years and coached my son growing up and, yeah, sports has been a good part. As you know, when we moved to Colorado Springs with Athletes in Action, that's where you and I met and you and John Engel were the chaplains for the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, and then you and John both left about the same time and handed the reins over to me and I had a chance to do it for one summer before we left Colorado Springs.

J.D Pearring: 3:25

It was great. Yeah, those were fun times. Well, hey talk. What did your parents do? Well, you said you liked being raised as a pastor's kid. What's one or two things maybe they did. That was a highlight for you that you would recommend.

Mike Alford: 3:41

Yeah, I think they were very authentic. You know, in the Christian faith you hear stories of parents taking their kids to church, but then they're different during the week and you know they weren't perfect. But they really tried to model what a Christian life should be like. And I remember my dad had a plaque in his office that said the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother, and that's just stuck with me through these years and in fact yesterday was their 62nd wedding anniversary. So yeah, just being together and modeling that.

J.D Pearring: 4:14

Now, when you're playing baseball and you're a believer, you're in high school and college. Was there a call to ministry or what happened there? How did you get involved in Athletes in Action?

Mike Alford: 4:25

Well, you know, my dad being a pastor, people say are you going to be a pastor? You know, one day I had no desire to be a pastor. And then I went to a Christian college and we had chapel every week and they had these missionary speakers come in and there was a tremendous emphasis, slash, pressure on becoming a missionary and nothing about it was appealing to me. They live in strange places, ate strange food and I just wasn't interested at all. But I mean, the stories are cool, but I thought that's not me. And then one day a guy came and talked about sports ministry and I think it was I forget the organization but he did basketball ministry with his work, his ministry. So I went up to him afterwards and said, hey, you know anybody that does baseball? He said, yeah, athletes in Action. So this was obviously before the internet, so I had no way of really tracking them down.

Mike Alford: 5:13

But about a month or so later in our locker room on our bulletin board there was a flyer for Athletes in Action. They were looking for players for a summer missions trip. So I said, okay, this is something, I'll give it a shot for a summer missions trip. So I said, okay, this is something, I'll give it a shot. So I had a chance to go to Europe as a player and it was just like this is what I want to do the rest of my life. I can play baseball, which I love to do, and tell others about Jesus.

Mike Alford: 5:35

And the thing I liked about Athletes in Action they had a real emphasis on winning. It wasn't just okay, you're a Christian, so you're on the team. It was like no, we want to see your stats, we want to talk to your coach, you know and we want to find out, you know if you're a good player, and then also the character and the Christian side of it. And so we won all but one game that summer and just had a chance to share Christ, and it was just a tremendous experience.

J.D Pearring: 6:03

And that did you go again.

Mike Alford: 6:09

That morph and that did you go again. That morphed into going on, yeah, so I became a, I was a high school coach for a few years and then, um, I met my wife tricia, and I told her. I said I may be a baseball coach now, but one day I want to live overseas, and uh, so I don't know if she didn't believe me or she just loved me enough to take a chance, but she, she really loved the Lord too, and so we began praying about it. So we got married in 1987, and then a year later, we joined staff with Athletes in Action and moved to Colorado Springs.

J.D Pearring: 6:34

Your wife is legendary in our family. You probably don't know this, but we were in a small group together, you and your wife and my wife and I, years ago, and for some reason, your wife told a story about her name's Tricia, about a salesman or something seeing her name, calling her Tricar. Yes, I do so. We have a daughter named Tricia, but I started calling your wife Tricar. She did not like it. No, she did not I can remember that.

J.D Pearring: 7:08

But that story made it into our family and one of our sons calls our daughter Tricar all the time.

Mike Alford: 7:17

I'll let her know that She'll get a kick out of it. She didn't think it was funny at the time, but yeah, she would probably laugh about it now.

J.D Pearring: 7:23

And I'm not even sure if our Tricia knows why is he calling me Tricar. But whenever we have a serious family meeting, our son Jake will go well, tricar. What do you think?

Mike Alford: 7:39

So we think of you all often, so you know another story. So when we first moved to Colorado Springs, somebody, we were trying to find a church, and this is Colorado Springs, wasn't as big as it is now but somebody said there's a new church plant. The guy there pastoring is a young fellow, I think you would like him. And so I said, ok, we'll try it out. So we went and we, I think the first time that we went there at the YMCA Remember that, yeah, yeah, and then they moved into the building and so we started going there. And then you invited me out for lunch.

Mike Alford: 8:11

I was like I remember you said you wouldn't go to a house that had a dog, you had to go out somewhere, and you like pie, I think. So we went out and then you said you have any questions about church and my only question I remember asking was why don't you have church on Sunday night? Because I grew up in the South Southern Baptist, we go Sunday morning, sunday night, wednesday night, and that's kind of a mark of how spiritual you were. And so I remember asking you that question and you said the reason we don't have church on Sunday night is because I don't like to go to church on Sunday night and I just thought, wow, this guy's not very spiritual. I don't know if we can go to this church.

Mike Alford: 8:44

But you know, you had young kids we didn't have kids at the time and you said that was a family day. You go to church. And then you know, you realize that the command is this Sabbath should be a day of rest, not a day to go to church all day, and so that has kind of stuck with us and that's been my pattern ever since. I don't know, maybe once or twice I've been to a Sunday night service since then. But I appreciate you kind of setting us straight on that issue.

Mike Alford: 9:11

I do not remember saying that yeah.

J.D Pearring: 9:15

Well, tell us about your Athletes in Action experience.

Mike Alford: 9:19

Yeah, so we were in Colorado Springs from 1989 to 92. Our son, Taker, was born there and Athletes in Action had 20 different sports. That was kind of our headquarters and we had a great experience from there. We would travel during the summer 1989, we got a chance to go to Europe and we went to what was the Soviet Union at the time. We were the first sports team to be invited to go behind Iron Curtain this was like 1989.

Mike Alford: 9:45

And they were planning on having baseball in the Olympics. I don't know if it was 92 or 96 was going to be the first year but Russia was determined to have a baseball team in the Olympics and so their idea was for us to come and train their national team to get them ready to play in the Olympics. And so I was the coach of the team and I was also the backup catcher. We didn't have enough players, but as we went over there we played in the archery stadium. They didn't have a baseball field and the first game we won like 25 to nothing. They were so bad. They were good athletes. What they did was they took athletes from other sports and tried to make them baseball players. And you can't learn baseball when you're in your 20s. If you don't start as a kid, you're not going to be a good baseball player. So I went to the coach after, because we had a series of games playing against the national team. So I went to the coach and said, hey, why don't we split up and have half Americans and half Russians and we'll play a friendly game? No, no, we will play you again and we will beat you. Okay, good luck. So we continued our series and won every game by 20-plus runs. But it was just a lot of sharing the gospel. But we had Bibles that were printed in Russian and English so we were able to give those out.

Mike Alford: 10:56

We went to Prague, Czechoslovakia, Holland and Sweden. So this was Trish's first time to go and it was just tremendous ministry. We were discipling our players. Two years we went to South America Again, great ministry, great baseball. But I was really feeling like God was calling us to move to another country and South America didn't really seem like the right place and Europe wasn't quite it.

Mike Alford: 11:19

But in 1994, I went to South Africa, in Zimbabwe, and Tricia was home with the kids at that time. I came back and said I feel like God's calling us to move to Africa start athletes in action there. She said I don't want to move to Africa. So I was pretty sure God told me that and we were looking at Zimbabwe. I was, and again, this was before the internet, so you can't really go online and show her what it's like. So I went, went back the next summer and I took a video camera strategically videoed all the nice places and interviewed some people there what it was like, and came back and we prayed about it and she said, yeah, God, show me, we're supposed to move to Africa.

Mike Alford: 11:58

So we began making plans. We sold her house we were living in Orlando at that time. We sold our house we were living in Orlando at that time had to raise a bunch of money. God provided the money and so in 19,. Well, our plan was to go to Zimbabwe and the government turned us down for a work permit. So eventually we applied for South African work permits and they were granted and our leadership asked us to move to Cape Town to start sports ministry there. So in April of 1997, we moved. We had two kids at the time.

J.D Pearring: 12:32

No-transcript wow, and you were there for for quite a few years, right yeah, we were there eight years.

Mike Alford: 12:39

Yeah, our daughter, jessica, was born there and, um, it was just tremendous ministry. I look back and I felt like I was kind of a a big fish in a small pond in some ways. I had lots of speaking opportunities. I went down to the local baseball club and uh said I'm here, living here. Now I want to help. You know, coach? Oh, you're an american, we want you to play.

Mike Alford: 13:02

Nobody's asked me to play in a long time. You know, in the states if you don't go play professionally, then you're playing slow pitch softball or you coach, or you don't play. So I had to go dust off I don't need to have cleats at the time and uh came back home and told tricia, hey, I'm going to play baseball, came out of retirement and played and wasn't really that good. But it was some great times in ministry and fellowship and getting to know some guys and we did all kinds of things together. I got to go to the Olympics in 2000 with the South Africa team as the chaplain. Then I got involved in basketball ministry, had a chance to do a lot with basketball and eventually I think I mentioned in the book that I was a TV announcer for the professional league for one season and just opened up all kinds of doors that I never would have thought possible. So it was eight incredible years there.

J.D Pearring: 13:55

Now, that sounds like a lot of fun. Now, from there did you get a church planting bug, or you came back here and yeah, so what happened was I think it was all in the church planting world.

Mike Alford: 14:06

So we were part of a church called Stoneburg Chapel, a wonderful church. The pastor is a South African. He had graduated from Dallas Seminary Very solid. We have a small group that Trish and I led. We have a lot of great friends. And then that pastor left and we got a new pastor that came in and he took me to breakfast one day and said he's going to make some changes in the church and he wanted me to be a part of it.

Mike Alford: 14:33

And I was kind of offended. I'm like what's wrong with our church? And he said well, how many people have you seen baptized here at this church? I said, well, we have a few kids every year that get baptized. And he said what about adults? I couldn't think of any adults. He says what about the guys you do sports ministry with? Why don't you bring them to church? I said, no, these guys are not church material. They're very rough around the edges and they've got a long ways to go. I'm trying to lead them to Christ and let me disciple them, then I'll bring them in. He said well, we want to create a church where you could bring people straight off the sports field. You don't have to clean them up, you don't have to change anything, just bring them right in and they'd be welcome here and I.

Mike Alford: 15:13

This was right around 2000. This was right around 2000. I could not envision a church like that. I was, you know, much more traditional. I guess. I mean your church was the first church that we were part of that didn't have a Sunday night church. You didn't have to wear a coat and tie. That was about as crazy as I could imagine a church being. I think we had guitars, you know, on Sunday morning, that shirt. So I thought we're as contemporary as we can be.

Mike Alford: 15:39

But he began to describe what reaching a church for the unchurched would look like and he actually sent me and a couple others to a conference in Fort Lauderdale, a transition conference on transitioning traditional churches to being more seeker-friendly and focused on reaching unchurched people is to being more seeker-friendly and focused on reaching unchurched people. So eventually I became his associate pastor and we transitioned the church of about 250 to 300 people to being much more seeker-sensitive. I remember the first Sunday we had a meeting, a staff meeting, before church and he's got his shirt untucked and we're going out to start and I'm like, are you going to tuck your shirt? And he said, no, this is kind of the new style they're doing in the States, and he caught a lot of flack for that. But boy, that's caught all of me too. I don't like tucking my shirts in anymore.

Mike Alford: 16:24

So, yeah, we began to make some changes and a lot of people left, and my job as associate pastor is kind of talk with some of these people that were complaining and leaving and they were not happy about the music, and I remember John Hastings was his name, and he said just don't let the door hit them on the way out.

Mike Alford: 16:44

And I said well, he said there's plenty of churches in this area for people like that, but where are people going to go to church that don't know the Lord? And so we began asking these people they call them the old toffees Would you be willing to give up your preferences on a Sunday morning if your kids and grandkids would start coming to church? And some of them said no and they left. But the ones that said yes stayed and they did see their kids and grandchildren start coming to church and the church grew and John had me preach on Sunday morning once a month or so, and from that it just felt like God was saying I needed to start a church in Cape Cod, which is where my mom was from. So that's kind of where it started.

J.D Pearring: 17:26

Now, why would you go to Cape Cod? It's probably in the top ten worst places in the United States to try to start a church. Why would you go up there?

Mike Alford: 17:34

I mean New England and yeah, you know, it's one of those things Following God and kind of learning how to hear his voice, and that's probably the first question I ask when I get to heaven. It's like, did I miss you on that one? Because we spent eight glorious years in Cape Town, south Africa. I mean there were some hard times, but the hardest thing was being a long way away from family, but other than that it was a great experience for our kids, school, my ministry. I had more opportunities to speak and do than I had time to do and we moved to a place where people were not interested in what we were selling. I heard somebody said it was like we opened a steak restaurant in the land of vegetarians not interested in what we were selling. I heard somebody said it was like we opened a steak restaurant in the land of vegetarians. And so I don't think I missed God, I think it was just. In fact, somebody asked if I was going to write a second book. As Trisha and I were talking, I was like I have.

Mike Alford: 18:32

This part of my chapter in the book is about the wilderness years we went through and I feel like if I was to write a book, it might be called the Wilderness Years, and sometimes we end up in the wilderness on our own accord for mistakes that we make, and sometimes God leads us into the wilderness. He led Jesus into the wilderness and John the Baptist, and wilderness is a time of growth. Wilderness is time of growth, and so I would like to say that it's a difficult area in New England and nobody could plant a church there. But I have two good friends that have planted churches that have a thousand people in Cape Cod, where we were so part of it was. I read every book I could find, and there weren't as many books back then as there are now. I went to every seminar training I could get, and so what I realized for every person like Bill Hybels that plants a church, with just him and his wife, rick Warren, him and his wife moved the saddleback to start this church, and now they got how many tens of thousands of people the vast majority of church plants that are successful are when a church decides to send a portion of their membership out to plant a church. And so, okay, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to find a church in the area that would be interested in starting a church. You know, 15 to 20 miles away. So I only found seven evangelical churches in Cape Cod.

Mike Alford: 20:01

I emailed all the pastors while we were still in South Africa. Only one emailed back and said yeah, we have a similar vision, come work with us. So I was a little bit too gung-ho and I jumped into it and I'd say, within two weeks of being there I knew it wasn't a good fit and, yeah, it was very awkward. It got to the point where I was a youth pastor, which I wanted a great youth pastor. But I kept running the youth group and we gave it a good shot. I was doing fairly well, but he didn't like what we were doing. Trish and I were the worship team and he didn't like that and I preached some and then people would say, oh, we wish you were our pastor. You know that's not a good situation. So we made a decision, you know, to leave and start our own church. But then we were on our own and it just didn't quite go as we hoped it would go as we hoped it would.

J.D Pearring: 21:04

Well, I know that you're the job security for Excel Leadership Network because you're out there on your own and church planting is not something you need to do on your own, so you were there. That wasn't a great fit. What happened after that?

Mike Alford: 21:17

fit. What happened after that Church planning was, you know, if God tells you to do it, you have to do it, but it's not something that I would try to talk somebody into. If somebody came to me and says, hey, god told me to plan a church, I'll help you with it, but if somebody says, do you think I should plan a church, I'd say probably not, especially unless your wife is fully employed. Trisha is amazing. We've been together for 37 years together. It was the hardest part of our marriage, because church planting doesn't pay the bills.

Mike Alford: 21:54

I had a full-time job. I was a mental health counselor, which is very stressful Trying to so. I had a full-time job. I was a mental health counselor, which is very stressful, and so trying to plan a sermon every week, prepare. I spent 20 hours a week on sermon prep and then you got to do all the other stuff that other churches have staff to do. It was just very stressful. Tricia was the music leader and the children's leader. Our kids were the youth group and so it was just very hard on our family.

J.D Pearring: 22:29

Yeah, so you ended up moving back to Georgia.

Mike Alford: 22:33

Mm-hmm. Yeah, we moved back and I really thought I was going to get a job as a pastor on a staff of a larger church, just be an associate pastor, missions pastor. There are 100 Southern Baptist churches in Warner Robins, georgia, where we moved to, and not one church called me back and I sent resumes out and I didn't even get asked to fill in as a guest preacher or anything. So I had a friend that had a frozen yogurt business. We had a frozen yogurt business. That also was a bad thing, so it was a really. It was 13 years altogether our family that we were struggling financially, trying to find purpose in our lives and direction, and finally landed on my feet as a government contractor here at Robbins Air Force Base.

J.D Pearring: 23:23

So is that what you're doing now?

Mike Alford: 23:25

Yes. So you know, it's a big military area and my dad had worked on the base for years and he didn't like it. I thought I don't want to work on the base, but I couldn't find anything, you know, job-wise. And so I finally interviewed for this company and they said yeah, we'd hire you, but I was new in the field, so they hired me just like a college graduate, you know, very low salary. And they said if you stick with it, you're good, we'll promote you.

Mike Alford: 23:54

So within a year they opened up a branch in saudi arabia and they were asking people to move and I was at the bottom of the barrel but nobody else wanted to go to saudi arabia. So I'm over here waving my hand hey, take me, I'll go. They said, no, you don't know enough, we need somebody more experienced. But eventually they were so desperate they said okay, okay, we'll take you, but you have to go by yourself. I said, no, I'm not going to go for a year without my wife. I didn't want her to go. So a few days later they came back and said okay, you can go and we'll pay for your wife. And so we moved to Saudi Arabia beyond Saudi Arabia for a year, and it was an amazing experience. I really wanted to stay longer, but the contract ended and we had to come home. But I work for the Saudi Arabian Air Force. Now I'm here with a contract at Rons Air Force Base.

J.D Pearring: 24:42

Well now. So, Mike, are you, have you closed the door on future ministry full-time, part-time, or where are you ministry full-time part-time, or where are you?

Mike Alford: 24:53

You know that's one of those questions that I guess how you define ministry. You know I'm in ministry as far as working in a church I haven't closed the door, but it would take an amazing you know opportunity and you know to do that. I'm very happy what I'm doing now. You know it's better financially, for one thing. You know, just being honest, I'm not going to get rich, but it pays the bills more than you know. Being a church planner did Lots of discourage people from doing that, because I know there are great situations for some, but also, you know, for me. I've got access to people in Saudi Arabia. You know that I wouldn't have otherwise and so I'm not looking to make a move. If God came and told me to do it, you know I certainly would, but I'm very happy doing what I'm doing right now.

J.D Pearring: 25:55

What are you doing, ministry-wise, now?

Mike Alford: 25:59

We go to a church called Northway Church in Macon. It's a good-sized church, about 1,500 people. On a Sunday morning, trish and I lead a small group. This is our fourth year leading the group. We've got about 20 people in our group. Right now it's like it's getting too big. It's been great. It's a class sometimes. I did a class on evangelism about two years ago at our church. This is a newcomer's class that we help out with. Yeah, that's about it.

J.D Pearring: 26:31

Okay. Well, there's lots of opportunities out there now I'm going to for pastors and that sort of stuff. One thing with COVID is it got a lot of people to think, hey, I don't want to do this anymore and they left. So there's opportunities for guys like like you, even though I mean, it sounds like you're in a really good situation with just your wife, your family, um, and I hope that uh continues for you. But I also know god has a way of coming in and saying, no, let's go to saudi arabia, let's go to south africa, let's move to orlando. Put on your, put on your catcher's gear. You, you playing any baseball these days?

Mike Alford: 27:12

No, nope, not playing. I haven't done anything with baseball. We lived in Cape Cod, I was a chaplain for the Cape Cod Baseball League and I coached my son's baseball team, but since we moved back to Georgia I haven't done anything with baseball. In fact, mercer University is the big college in our area and I had a friend say that the baseball team needed a chaplain, and would I be interested? And I said you really need to talk to my son, taylor, who was in the area. And so Taylor talked to them and so he was the team chaplain for about one week and then COVID hit and shut everything down. Yeah, so that was kind of disappointing.

None: 27:53

And yeah, and they moved to Knoxville.

Mike Alford: 27:55

Taylor and his wife.

J.D Pearring: 27:58

Well, you've been around the block up and down, all over the place. Give us a leadership tip or two.

Mike Alford: 28:05

I was thinking about that question and what I've heard. It says if you think you're leading but nobody's following you, you're just taking a walk. So I feel like I've heard it says if you think you're leading but nobody's following you, you're just taking a walk. So I feel like I've been taking lots of walks over the years and it's pretty discouraging. When you're preaching and you've had a message that God has laid on your heart, you spend hours and then you have eight people show up on Sunday morning and that is kind of yeah, it's very humbling, I guess, and I think one of the things with being on staff. At Campus Crusade, the president and founder was Dr Bill Bright, and Bill Bright always talked about servant leadership and he modeled it. He was very, very humble. We had a chance to meet him on a few occasions. So I think that idea of servant leadership and humility really has struck me as the type of leaders that I like to follow.

J.D Pearring: 28:58

Well, Mike, I appreciate you telling your story, your honesty, your great recruiting for church planting today. On this...

Mike Alford: 29:05

Sorry about that. I don't want to discourage you.

J.D Pearring: 29:09

Well, I really appreciate the honesty, because it's not necessarily a good fit for everybody and man when we're sending people out, like on their own, to places that aren't a good fit. And typically, you know, moving from the north just in the US moving from the north to south is a lot easier than moving from the south to the north. Yeah, typically, you know, moving from the east to the west is a lot smoother than moving from the west to the east. It's just the way the culture is. So I felt like in many ways you were kind of set up hey, let's just not take care of Mike. I wish we had stayed in contact because I would have loved to at least brought some sort of support to you. But I also know God's in charge of all that and he takes us, as you said, through the wilderness and he's got great things in store for you and Tricar or Tricia in the future. So, hey, I really appreciate your honesty. I'm going to keep pushing you to broaden your ministry horizons, mike, because you have so much to offer.

J.D Pearring: 30:24

Just as I'm reading the book again, the book is called Stretched. You can pick it up on Amazon for $9.95 or $15 or whatever it is. I sat down and read that thing in like three straight hours. I couldn't put it down. Just hearing your story, the ups, the incredible opportunities and some of the wilderness, heartbreak stuff. But I don't think God's done with you yet. I think he's got great things ministry-wise for you in the future.

Mike Alford: 30:58

Yeah, I've been reading in the Gospel of John recently and just today, john 15 about. You know, if you abide in me, you'll bear much fruit, and I was just thinking about that, you know. So there have been times on ministry where I can say, yeah, I'm bearing a lot of fruit and so right now I'm not bearing bad fruit, but I'm not bearing much fruit and abundant fruit. It also talks about having joy. You know, it's like, okay, I've got the joy in my life, because there's a season of life I lost the joy of the Lord, so I've got a joy right now. My wife is happy if I go home today and say, hey, jd says we should leave this job, we should start a church. She'd try carving. So no, I don't. But you know, when we were in Saudi Arabia, there's no churches allowed there, but believers would gather together on compounds and just have very informal church. I think what church in heaven is going to be like. I mean, there are people from different countries with different worship styles and then we have four or five of us guys that would just rotate preaching, and that was we love that experience, you know, preaching there. And then we would take up an offering and then just give the money away to some ministry and people that were hurting because there was no salaries taken. It was a good situation to be in, so I still have a heart for ministry.

Mike Alford: 32:24

I don't think I was a great preacher and I think that's something that maybe is a bit underrated.

Mike Alford: 32:30

People that I know that have been successful with church planning tend to be dynamic speakers, so I kind of had that against me, as well as on having, you know, a network like you to back me up. The other thing that I would say to potential church planners is make sure your wife is 100 percent on board, is 100% on board, and because it is very difficult on the family, especially if the wife's not and I would say my wife was on board, but it was just we didn't have any Christian friends really, because we were the pastor and his wife. We had a couple of people that came with us from other churches. They weren't healthy spiritually and, yeah, it was a difficult time, but I don't want to end it on a downer. It was God's purpose, you know, and I'm still going strong. God's brought us through that and, like you said, we're excited to see what he has for us and I don't know if it'll be. You know, in a pastor role, that I have opportunities to interact with non-believers that other people don't you know.

J.D Pearring: 33:39

So yeah, you sure do. Well, hey, thank you for. Thank you for sharing with us today. Again, thanks for writing the book and yeah, let's stay connected. Sounds good, God bless, thanks.

None: 33:58

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None: 34:42

Thanks