Author: Russell Lightner

5 minutes with Deron Biles

Deron Biles has served as pastor of Sunnyvale First Baptist Church for two years following a two-and-a-half-year stint as its interim executive pastor. He previously spent 15 years teaching preaching and pastoral ministry on the faculty of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Biles pastored other churches for 15 years, served on staff at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, and now serves on its executive board. He and his wife, Jaye, have four sons and six grandchildren.

What is something you’ve been able to celebrate at Sunnyvale FBC recently?

There are countless reasons I feel blessed of the Lord to serve as pastor. … The staff members with whom I serve are gifts to our church and a blessing and encouragement to me. [One thing] the Lord has done recently in our church for which I give Him praise is the growth of our Hispanic ministry, Sunnyvale Español. We’ve seen God bless and grow this work under the leadership of Pastor David Galvan. By God’s grace and through fellowship, joint ministry and missions projects, and occasional bilingual services, we’re seeing God doing awesome things.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your ministry lately? 

Transitioning back into the pastoral role, leading a church through COVID, building a core team, and waiting on God’s timing. There are many things I am believing God for right now. In my own mind, I’d love to see those already in place, but the Lord is teaching me to wait on His timing. The church needs to see clear leadership from me that is guided by God’s hand and in submission to His will.

What’s a lesson you’ve learned to this point of your ministry you know you’ll never forget? 

Ministry is about people. We are called by God to serve His people and to serve with His people. They take priority over schedules, programs, or plans. Even programs done with excellence, if they don’t meet the needs of the people we serve, are misspent. We are called to see people, be with people, equip people, love people, appreciate people, care for people, and learn from people. … People are not an interruption. They must be the focus.

What’s one thing you’d like to see God do specifically at FBC Sunnyvale this year? 

At the top of my list is an effort we have just launched in evangelism and discipleship. I am praying God stirs a passion for evangelism, equips us with tools, and provides many opportunities to share our faith with others. We recently introduced a gospel tract that one of our staff, Frank Harber, and I co-wrote. We’ve asked our people to pray for opportunities to share this intentionally with others or simply to [leave] it in strategic places. A discipleship plan will follow.

How can the other SBTC churches be praying for you? 

When I first began serving as pastor here, some people asked me how they could pray for me. I shared with the church a list of 10 ways I was asking them to pray for me: [That I would have] a pastor’s heart, an elder’s wisdom, a preacher’s eloquence, a priest’s intercession, a scribe’s carefulness with His Word, an overseer’s administrative skill, a prophet’s courage, a shepherd’s humility, a teacher’s insight, and an evangelist’s heart for the lost.

When the student becomes the teacher

Winter is usually all about rugby in our house. This year was a little different, as my boys decided to embark on a new journey and join their school’s wrestling team. 

Being their first time to wrestle, I was a little unsure about how it would go as they began the season. However, after a few weeks, they began showing some real promise of excelling. 

Fast forward to the week before the district meet. At their school, team members can challenge one another weekly to see who will wrestle at that week’s varsity match. Each school can only take one varsity wrestler per weight class, and my oldest son has multiple boys in his class. For most of the season he won the competitions and wrestled on varsity. Then the day of the final challenge came and he won that one, as well. 

It was a proud dad moment for me to hear that my son, who is only a sophomore, won his weight class and would be wrestling on varsity at the district meet. I waited for him to get home that day so I could celebrate with him. As he walked in the door, I told him how excited I was for him. He thanked me but said, “Dad, I have something to tell you.” 

He proceeded to tell me the teammate he defeated to secure the varsity spot is a senior and that he had decided to give up his spot to him. “I want him to have a chance in his last season,” my son said. “I want him to finish strong. I have two years left that I can do it.”

I should daily be seeking to exhaust my life to bring God glory by serving others.

I could not have been more proud of my son. He proved to me that as athletic as he is, those abilities are nothing compared to the strength of his character. My respect for him grew that day as he showed me the heart God is developing within him. My son was leading with others in mind and exemplifying the character of Christ.

Our culture does not think this way, but this is exactly what Jesus teaches us. He gave His life for us. He showed us what the ultimate sacrifice for others looks like. I should daily be seeking to exhaust my life to bring God glory by serving others. This is not always easy. Sometimes we can easily justify just doing things to serve ourselves. We lose sight of the principle of putting others first and indulge in personal gratification. In doing this, we lose the blessing of blessing others. Often, we may find that those blessings allow us to share the gospel with those we are putting ahead of ourselves.

This interaction with my son was transformative for me—my 16-year-old reminded me how significant it can be when we put others before ourselves and, in doing so, reflect the life of Jesus. I am grateful for this reminder the Lord sent through my son. 

What about you? Are you seeking to serve others daily? Are you looking for opportunities to be a reflection of Jesus every day? Let us embrace this awesome privilege of serving like Jesus. I love you and am privileged to serve you!

A different kind of medicine

God uses pharmacist-turned-church-planter to expand gospel influence in one of Texas’ fastest-growing communities

Eric Patrick’s journey from dispensing medicines to saving souls as a church planter transported his family 40 miles north of downtown Dallas to the burgeoning town of Little Elm. 

After seven years as a pharmacy tech and eight as a pharmacist working for two large hospital systems, the Florida native felt God pulling him in a new direction in 2019. He stopped practicing pharmacy and began teaching financial literacy and running a web-based marketing business to support his family. 

Patrick, his wife, Antoinette, and their two young daughters joined Flower Mound’s Rockpointe Church in 2019, where Antoinette still serves as human resources director. It was a good fit. “We got plugged in at Rockpointe,” Patrick recalled. 

During a season of intense prayer and Scripture reading, Patrick penned the following: “I pray that God gives me wisdom and surrounds me with those that are part of His ordered steps in my life in my pursuit of ministry. I don’t know what my ministry will look like, but Lord, if it is your will, make it known to me.”

"I pray that God gives me wisdom and surrounds me with those that are part of His ordered steps in my life in my pursuit of ministry."

In the summer of 2020, with COVID-19 just beginning, Patrick was asked to lead an online Bible study on the book of Daniel. As he led the group, leaders and others at his church affirmed his calling to one day become a pastor. 

Ron Holton, Rockpointe’s lead pastor, was among them. He recommended Patrick seek further education for the purposes of becoming a church planter. Though he had already earned a doctorate to prepare him for his previous career, Patrick enrolled in a master’s program at Dallas Theological Seminary in 2020.

“Eric never blinked at any of it,” said Holton, noting Rockpointe has a vision to plant 10 churches by 2030. “He is well-read. He attended conferences, asked questions. They downsized and lived conservatively and intentionally. … [He is] among the hardest-working and most intellectually bright planters I have ever worked with.”

A call to plant … but where?

As his extended education continued, Patrick was advised to consider where to plant a church. Should they move to his native Tampa? Memphis also came to mind. “We didn’t know where we were going for a while,” Patrick admitted.

But with Patrick’s mother recently relocated to Dallas and other family living nearby, the pull of North Texas stayed strong.

The Patricks took a compass, centered it on the Metroplex, and drew a large circle encompassing outlying communities. They began visiting locations, driving through neighborhoods, and renting vacation homes for extended periods so they could experience living in the areas. Mesquite and Balch Springs seemed a possibility. They talked to realtors, attended public events … yet the answer seemed to be, “No, not yet.”

That changed when Patrick drove north between highways 121 and 380 to Little Elm. As he looked around, he knew he had found the place. He saw neighborhoods and businesses, but not many churches.

Harvest members prepare “Glory Packs” for area elementary-aged kids in need as a service to the Little Elm community.

Little Elm, incorporated in 2001, had about 47,000 residents by the 2020 census. That number is now approaching 60,000, making it one of the fastest-growing communities in Texas.

Patrick attended meetings of the Little Elm Chamber of Commerce, meeting another pastor employed by Denton ISD who invited him to join a Bible study for teachers and administrators at Braswell High School. Despite the long drive from Flower Mound, Patrick jumped at the chance. He shared his vision of starting a church in the area.

As an assistant principal showed him the high school campus, Patrick was overwhelmed. The cafeteria seemed familiar. He realized he had dreamed about being in that very spot, speaking to people.

“From there, God kept pulling us,” Patrick said. “We built relationships with district administrators and principals.” 

The school district agreed to allow the new church to lease the high school cafeteria for Sunday services. After three preview services—Easter, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day—attracted 150-200 people, Harvest Ministries officially launched on Aug. 13, 2023, drawing more than 300. 

The church has attracted a steady multiethnic attendance of 150 each Sunday since opening. Some teachers and administrators from the high school come, as do many students.

“The fact that the youth will come to their school on a Sunday is a good sign,” Patrick said.

Even before the official launch, Harvest held an evening vacation Bible school last June in the school gym. Twelve children trusted Christ. On Father’s Day, one dad was baptized and immediately afterward baptized his daughter.

After its August 2023 launch, the multiethnic Harvest has attracted about 150 weekly. SUBMITTED PHOTO

“I’m not that great, but God is. He keeps showing up and showing out. We need to lean on Him.”

Advancing the mission

Excitement is high. Plans to increase youth activities are underway. The church is reading through the Bible together this year “to promote biblical literacy,” Patrick said. They hope to be in a permanent facility within five years.

Harvest’s values include “kingdom multiplication,” the pastor added—focusing on making disciples and planting at least one church by its fifth year.

Patrick credits both their sending church, Rockpointe, and Send Network SBTC—the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s church-planting partnership with the North American Mission Board—for getting Harvest this far.

Rockpointe provides financial support and counsel. Send Network SBTC provides quarterly financial support and resources. Patrick said he is grateful for the chance to network with other planters and participate in the SBTC’s Black Church Network. Joe Ogletree, pastor of Image Church in Cypress, serves as a mentor and coach to him.

“It’s so important to be able to connect with other planters who are six months to two years ahead of me and to have that network of planters and pastors to provide support in more ways than one.

“I’m not that great,” Patrick added, “but God is. He keeps showing up and showing out. We need to lean on Him.”

ADVANCING THE MISSION

Learn more about how SBTC churches are advancing the mission.

Please, Lord—do it again!

Iam a contributing author for an upcoming book dedicated to my Ph.D. supervisor, Malcom McDow. I was asked to write a chapter based on my dissertation on the ministry of Charles G. Finney (1792-1875) during the Second Great Awakening. God used McDow in wonderful ways in my life while I was a student at Southwestern Seminary.  

I understand that many are not fans of Finney. I certainly do not agree with many points of his theology and offered a critique in my dissertation. However, I greatly appreciate Finney’s love for the lost and his ministry to preach the gospel.

In 1830, Finney preached perhaps his most effective and memorable revival, which was held in Rochester, N.Y.  He returned in 1842 and God blessed yet again. Many were converted to Christ, including many leading citizens of the city. One of them was a man by the name of Judge Addison Gardiner. While Finney was preaching, Gardiner left his seat and Finney thought he was going home. To his surprise, the judge walked up the stairs to the pulpit and asked Finney to pray for him. Finney told the church the judge’s decision, and then spontaneously, without Finney asking them, many lawyers in the crowd arose and came forward. Finney asked if there were others who were ready to repent and surrender their lives to Jesus. To use Finney’s words, there was a “mighty movement.”

“Let’s share Jesus today with someone who does not know Him.”

Finney’s most memorable revival in England (1850) was held in London at the Whitefield Tabernacle, built in 1753 for the powerful evangelist of the First Great Awakening, George Whitefield. Finney preached for nine months at this church: twice on Sundays and once Tuesday through Friday evenings. On Mondays, they held a prayer service. The result of the revival was described as “little short of remarkable.” Finney asked Pastor John Campbell if he could conduct an inquiry meeting for those interested in salvation. Campbell was hesitant, fearing no one would attend the meetings.  

Finally, Campbell agreed to allow the meeting but informed Finney he could only use the infant room, which held around 40 people. Finney protested and said the meeting space was too small and requested to use the British school adjacent to the church. Campbell laughed at Finney and told him the school held up to 1,600 people. 

After Finney preached a short sermon in the evening, he informed the people they could either stay in the church and have communion or proceed to the inquiry meeting next door. Campbell was astonished when 1,500-1,600 people filled up the school. On one occasion during this revival, 2,000 people stood during the invitation.

When I read of God’s miraculous works in the past, I cry out to Him, “Please, Lord—do it again!”  May God stir our hearts to share both personally and publicly the saving message of Jesus Christ. If we are faithful to proclaim the gospel, I know God will do what only He can do—save the lost. Let’s share Jesus today with someone who does not know Him. 

Iron Sharpening Iron

Calvary Pampa’s disciple-making process offers a pathway for members to walk closer with Jesus—and each other

There’s getting into the word of God, and then there’s letting the Word of God get into you.

That phrase is often spoken by Robby Gallaty, a Southern Baptist pastor in Tennessee who has developed a disciple-making method used worldwide. Calvary Baptist Church in Pampa has adapted Gallaty’s method and is seeing lives changed as its members take a deeper dive into the Bible through its own D3 disciple-making process.

“What I really find is most people in the church have a great desire to learn or study Scripture but don’t know where to start,” said Paul Beam, who has served as Calvary Pampa’s lead pastor since 2017. “D3 gives people that opportunity to meet with others and to find that starting point for a closer walk with Jesus.”

Calvary’s D3 process begins with a leader who chooses up to three others of the same gender to join him or her for a weekly discussion of the Bible. Participants sign a covenant to be an active participant for the dura- tion of the study.

Each week, participants study one chapter of the Bible per day for five days, read one chapter of a discipleship book, and memorize one passage of Scripture. They use a journal to make notes about what they’ve studied and how they have applied it to their lives.

The weekly sessions provide a time for encouragement through Scripture memory, transparent discussions, and accountability.

Calvary Pampa’s D3 disciple-making process groups believers by gender. These groups read, study, and memorize Scripture and journal about how God’s truths apply to their lives. SUBMITTED PHOTOS

“What I really find is most people in the church have a great desire to learn or study Scripture but don’t know where to start.”

“We need each other,” said Kevin Costley, a Calvary Pampa member for 13 years. “We weren’t created to make this journey alone D3 prepares us through God’s

Word to be true Christians, the way Jesus was with His disciples and the same way He discipled. I think it’s one of the best things the church has ever done.”

Since 2021, 60 people from the church have participated in D3. When the study is complete, participants are encouraged to start a group of their own.

Jennifer Puryear, a member of Calvary Pampa for about 17 years, is among those who have graduated from D3 participant to group leader. She said she has been encouraged by the fact the program relies on participants becoming more skilled at handling the Word of God for themselves.

“It’s always good to read the Bible, of course, but D3 helps you read through the whole story,” Puryear said. “You look at the verses more, and depending on what we’re going through or our season in life, different verses appeal to us.”

After participating in a D3 group, David Land, a member of Calvary Pampa for eight years, now leads two other men in a group. Land said D3 has helped him continue to grow in many ways, including through his prayer life, his ability to share the gospel, in leading his family, and at church.

“For anybody who has reservations about doing a dis- cipleship program, it’s basically just studying the Word and doing life with your brothers,” Land said.

Costley agreed.

“When you get together with other Christians, you can see how they handle Scripture and how they’ve handled whatever they’ve gone through,” Costley said. “As we read Scripture, we talk about how we use that Scripture in our daily lives. We may apply it differently. As I hear about guys with the same struggles I have, I learn from them what they learned from Scripture.”

Beam is encouraged with the results he’s seen since Calvary Pampa started D3 and dreams about what it could mean for the community.

“We did the math,” Beam said. “Over 10 years we could reach the entire city of Pampa. I’m optimistic and yet realistic. Even though we might not reach everyone, if we are faithful, we’ll develop a large number of disciples for the kingdom.”

Staying true to the mission

Through personal outreach and online connections, FBC New Braunfels keeps its focus on Jesus in historic setting

There may have been very little Southern Baptist influence when New Braunfels was settled predominantly by Germans in 1845. But for the past century, First Baptist Church has been a beacon, preaching the gospel and ministering in Jesus’ name. 

Situated in the booming corridor between Austin and San Antonio, the congregation has seen church plants descend on the area with modern worship and new methods of reaching younger generations, but FBC New Braunfels hasn’t forgotten its identity.

“One of the things that I’ve tried to lead us in is remembering who we are as a church,” Pastor Brad McLean said. “That doesn’t need to change even though more church plants are coming in.”

FBC New Braunfels continues to preach the Word faithfully and God continues to bring new people of all ages to join the work regularly. One way the church has been able to reach families lately is by hosting Family Adventure Club on Wednesday nights to disciple parents along with children. 

“We really wanted to connect with parents, as well, not just have a drop-off situation,” said McLean, the church’s pastor since 2007. “We wanted to engage entire families.”

The idea is for parents and children to have biblical discussions on the way home from church and to foster conversation around the dinner table, he said. They’ve employed the same concept with Vacation Bible School, offering discipleship for parents to make better use of the time.

With 400-450 people attending services each Sunday, it was a display of unity in 2019 when the church voted to move locations in response to the city’s growth. “We are in a neighborhood centrally located in the downtown area,” McLean said. “With that comes parking issues and other constrictions being landlocked.”

FBC New Braunfels has a Restoring Hope Boutique where it provides clothing to people in need. SUBMITTED PHOTO

Somehow, though, it didn’t work out. “The Lord just made clear that another decision needed to be made,” the pastor said. 

A few months later, COVID shut down everything and church members saw that God had protected them. “We would have been saddled with paying off land,” McLean noted.

Instead, FBC New Braunfels took a significant step into the digital world, hiring a communications director and learning to make the most of the online space where people often go first to find a church.

“Through that, especially through COVID as we began to put sermons online, we had many people visit us and say it was their first time, but they’d been listening for months,” McLean said. “We had a family that moved from Minnesota who joined a small group here while they still lived in Minnesota. They were able to do that on Zoom.”

The enhanced digital focus “has helped us tremendously because it has allowed us to better communicate who we are as a church—what our convictions are, what our values are.

“As folks have engaged with us online, I believe that commitment is already further down the road by the time they step into the church facility because there’s a sense of already knowing us and knowing who we are. They’re just coming to engage in person,” he said.

As far as local ministry, FBC New Braunfels has a Restoring Hope Boutique where it provides clothing to people in need.

“We’ve helped many, many folks who’ve come out of the penal system and they need something to wear to an interview,” McLean said. “We’re trying to help people as they’re trying to get their lives back on track by simply giving them clothes to wear so they feel more confident. Within that is an expression of the gospel and the invitation to worship with us.”

The church has several retired teachers, and they periodically take lunch to teachers at a nearby elementary school. 

“We’ve been sending groups out into neighborhoods and apartment complexes prayer walking, leaving a door hanger, and then going back and trying to engage in conversations with folks,” McLean said. 

For about a decade before the pandemic, FBC New Braunfels sent teams to Southeast Asia to share the gospel with people who had not heard of Jesus. Recently, they sent a group to Cuba and another to Denmark and Germany.

“Those are exciting things where people get to go and see other parts of the world and care for people,” McLean said. 

In 2017, FBC New Braunfels was tragically thrown into the national spotlight when a bus crash killed 13 of their senior adults. Though the church is not defined by that event, McLean said, they remember it as a time when God was glorified. 

“We could say with great confidence, ‘Lord, thank you for preparing for eternity every one of those who lost their lives because they knew your Son as Savior,’” he said. “We had to give great praise to God because they were saints, and they were prepared for that moment.

“In the aftermath of that, in celebrating those lives, we got to worship our God together as a church, and I believe the Lord healed so much and strengthened our faith so much through that time.”

Adorning Christ: Easy to say, so much harder to practice

I

help lead a small group at our church that is slowly walking through Paul’s letter to Titus. We recently talked about the verses in Titus 2 where Paul encourages the believing slaves in the Cretan churches to be faithful in everything “so that they may adorn the teaching of God our Savior in all things.”

Not too many years before Paul’s letter, Jesus taught that the first would be last and the last would be first. He taught that the greatest would be least and the least would be greatest. So who else might we expect Him to choose to make a bold, public gospel statement than a group of people who, in many cases, were viewed as some of the lowest in society?

Before ending our Bible study that night, I repeatedly challenged our group in every circumstance to “adorn Christ.” I think I repeated it like five times for effect. 

Taking my own advice, I wore Jesus loud and proud from that point forward. That lasted about 18 hours. 

The next afternoon, after picking my wife up from school, I had to pause at a green light because another vehicle got caught trying to turn left at an intersection and ended up blocking traffic. The car behind me *apparently* didn’t see what was happening in front of me and started honking—at me!

To punish this honking bumper-rider, I decided to creep through the intersection at like two miles per hour because, you know, that’ll teach her. As she jerked her car around me to speed by in the left lane, we exchanged irritated glances. 

My wife, watching all this play out from the passenger seat, flatly smiled at me and said the last two words I wanted to hear in that moment:

“Adorn Christ.” 

Follower of Jesus, you are most likely walking through some situation you consider less than ideal. It’s not easy and you’re ready for it to be over. As you pray and wait for the Lord to act in that situation, adorn Christ. 

As I reflected on the incident later that evening, I felt like the Lord had taught me a couple of things:

1. We who follow Christ never stop adorning Him. We either accurately portray His true character through the fruit of the Spirit, or we offer some hybrid version of Him that, when mixed with ourselves, paints a distorted and potentially damaging picture of Jesus to a world that desperately needs to see Him as He truly is.

2. The hardest moments to adorn Christ are also the ones that speak the loudest to the people around us. Do I talk a good faith game in safe, controllable settings and then mentally fall apart when the slightest thing doesn’t go my way? Do I preach patience, love, and kindness and then jam up an intersection to punish a driver who might just be having a bad day? 

I believe this was one of Paul’s main motivations in addressing the slaves in Crete. They who legitimately had the greatest reason to feel used, abused, overlooked, and indignant had the greatest opportunity to tell the world that Jesus—not their circumstances—commands their minds, which, in turn, guides their behavior.

Follower of Jesus, you are most likely walking through some situation you consider less than ideal. It’s not easy and you’re ready for it to be over. As you pray and wait for the Lord to act in that situation, adorn Christ. 

And for goodness sakes, please don’t honk at the car in front of you the next time he’s jamming up an intersection. It’s probably not his fault …

Small group Bible study where gospel is preached weekly is now having an international impact

Astride his horse in the back of an 18-foot-deep arena box, Ronnie Hill calmly watches the steer in the chute between him and his roping partner’s box. When the steer settles, his head straight, Hill nods. The chute bangs open. The steer takes off. So do the cowboys—Hill in the heading position and his partner heeling or rear position.

“We ride full throttle after the steer,” Hill said. “I rope him around the horns, roll him off, and turn him to the left, pulling him behind me, making him hop. My partner ropes his two back feet. When we turn our horses and face each other, ropes tight and steer between, the flag man drops his flag.”

When the competition timer stops, mere seconds have elapsed. 

For Hill, 55, who has been team roping since his 20s, those few thrilling seconds—and countless hours of practice—can be lucrative. He and roping partner Daniel Shehady won the event in the April 2023 USTRC National Finals Rodeo’s legends division. Hill has won with various partners, even against younger competitors in events not divided by age.

Ronnie Hill, wearing a black cowboy hat, is a champion team roping competitor.

“As exciting as that is, winning buckles, saddles, thousands of dollars, it’s nothing compared to seeing someone give their life to Christ.”

Ronnie Hill, pictured with his wife, Jennifer, and their son, Jake.

“As exciting as that is, winning buckles, saddles, thousands of dollars, it’s nothing compared to seeing someone give their life to Christ,” Hill said.

Hill is no stranger to sharing Jesus. President of the evangelistic Ronnie Hill Ministries for 35 years, he was asked to become staff evangelist at Greenwood Baptist Church in Weatherford five years ago. Hill’s ministry has taken him across the nation and beyond: to Africa, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Canada.

“We see people saved every week. We did a crusade in Fayette, Ala.—396 saved,” Hill said. 

He is on the road 30-40 weeks each year in addition to his dual role at Greenwood, where he preaches about four times annually. 

Greenwood is booming under the leadership of Senior Pastor Brian Bond, Hill said. 

“Our church is in the country … we’re running about 1,200 now, I guess. We have three services, about to go to four. We’re building a sanctuary because we’re just busting at the seams,” Hill said.

The church baptized 250 in 2023. That year saw Hill’s outreach unexpectedly attract local rodeo competitors with a Bible study that has since had international impact. 

Starting small

It all started when Lane Cooper, a Greenwood member with whom Hill had roped, asked the evangelist to start a small group. Hill initially hesitated, considering his hectic speaking schedule. Finally, he agreed on one condition: meeting days had to be flexible each week. 

“Yeah, we’ll do that,” Lane said. They gathered in the office of renowned cutting horse rider Michael Cooper, Lane’s father, an NCHA Futurity Finals reserve world champion. Most attending had ties to rodeo or horses.

It was the first small group Hill had ever led. He insists he is no expert. 

Typically, the group shares a meal from 6:30 to 7, then spends an hour reading the Bible aloud, with volunteers reading verse by verse. Hill will ask discussion questions and end by presenting the plan of salvation. The group started with 1 John, followed by James, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians.

The gospel is presented each time Ronnie Hill and his wife, Jennifer, host their small group, which meets in their home. SUBMITTED PHOTO

“We just read the Bible and I give them a chance to accept Christ,” he said. 

The group began with six, including Hill. Two were saved that first night, including Canadian Tatum Wilson, whose sister Paige was Lane Cooper’s fiancée. Lane and Paige had been encouraging Tatum to “check out this church thing,” Tatum said.

“The first time I met Ronnie that night, immediately he was preaching the Word,” Tatum recalled. “Right in that moment, it was like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is something I need to look into.’ That night I gave my life to Christ.”

“Tatum got on fire,” Hill said. “She started bringing people. The next week we had 12.” Attendance climbed and the group now averages 30, mostly ages 20-25. 

Hill noted that Tatum wasn’t the only one inviting people, but with her outgoing personality, she approached folks in stores or gas stations or at the ranch where she worked training horses and asked them to come.

They outgrew Cooper’s office and moved to the home Hill shares with his wife, Jennifer, and son, Jake, closer to Weatherford.

It has been one year since they started meeting and over 90 people have trusted Christ, with 72 being baptized at Greenwood, Hill said.

“The first time I met Ronnie that night, immediately he was preaching the Word. Right in that moment, it was like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is something I need to look into.’ That night I gave my life to Christ.”

International influence

The small group’s influence has stretched beyond national borders.

Hill performed Lane and Paige’s wedding at the Cooper ranch, meeting the bride’s Canadian relatives. Paige and Tatum’s older brother visited the small group, trusted Christ, and decided to stay in Texas. On a later visit, Tatum’s father and younger brother also trusted Christ after coming to small group.

Tatum continued to invite friends, including Jade, a breakaway roping competitor, who was saved. Soon Jade’s brother, her boyfriend, and parents followed suit.

The ripple effect of rodeo salvations continued.

Whole rodeo families, including those of top-ranked competitors qualifying for the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, have trusted Christ and been baptized, Hill said.

“When I’m baptizing them … somebody will come up from their group and they end up getting saved and we get them baptized,” Hill said. “It’s nonstop.”

When Tatum returned to Canada for three months last September to renew her visa, Hill challenged her to start a small group there, offering to teach remotely. In October, five in Tatum’s family home near Calgary, Alberta, met with Hill via video chat. As with the original group, two were saved that evening.

The group has grown, moving locations to the home of Jenessa and Matt McNichol, whose son, Clay, was also a Weatherford rodeo student. 

Hill and Jon Hartman, Greenwood’s next gen pastor, traveled to Alberta for a week of teaching. Salvations and 15 baptisms followed. Eventually, Tatum’s mother trusted Christ.

Hill continues to teach both the Weatherford and Calgary small groups and plans a return trip to Canada this spring to follow up with the new believers.

“I’m excited to see how God is going to continue to work here,” Tatum said. “I didn’t grow up in a church home. … Now everyone in my family has been saved and baptized.”

Canadians—mostly from Tatum’s small group—were baptized by Hill during a recent trip north of the border. Hill plans a second trip to Canada this spring. SUBMITTED PHOTO

‘God is moving in our country’

“I don’t think the salvations we are seeing are anything unusual,” Hill said. “One, God is moving in our country. And it’s not just in one place: you see pockets everywhere. … I think God’s doing it [this way] because He doesn’t want any one person to get the glory for it.” 

Next, Hill said he has noticed a hunger for Scripture. “If you present the gospel, people will get saved. That’s what we are doing. We do it in our church every single service. We do it in our small group,” he said.

Relationships are important—but simple, clear explanations of the gospel are key.

“The reason why we have people saved in our small group is because … they’re bringing lost people every single week, and they know lost people. And so I’m presenting the gospel every time. I’m not waiting, I’m not letting them think about it. We’re doing it right then and there on the spot,” Hill told a friend. Baptism follows soon after.

“You hear revivals are dying,” Hill said. “We don’t see that. We see lost people saved.”

Hill’s own faith journey is remarkable. The product of a rape, he thanks his mother for choosing to give birth to him rather than seeking an abortion. Saved at age 8, he started preaching at 14 and served as a youth minister at 18. Mentored by widely known evangelist and professor Roy Fish, Hill earned a doctorate of ministry in evangelism from Southwestern Seminary. In 1997, he embarked on a new adventure when he founded his evangelistic ministry. 

As Hill’s small groups will attest, it’s been quite a ride.

NAMB revitalization expert Clifton offers glimpse of speaking topics at Empower

‘Not one sermon you preach is wasted’

Mark Clifton will be among the speakers at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s Empower Conference in February. He serves as executive director of church replanting and rural strategy for the North American Mission Board and as teaching pastor at Linwood Baptist Church in Linwood, Kan. He recently talked with the Texan about some of the topics he plans on speaking about at Empower.

On the role evangelism plays in church revitalization: 

Mark Clifton: [Churches needing revitalization] must spend their time and energy on reaching the lost. If you don’t do that, you’re not going to exist in the next couple of decades. If you reach two or three families who don’t know Jesus, and they’re baptized and then their kids are baptized, guess what? Most of their friends don’t know Jesus, either. … That’s how we see churches come back to life—not through programs, not through events and attracting church people to come to their place, but through evangelism. If you will focus this year on finding one person you can lead to Christ and disciple, it will change the trajectory of your church.

On the need—and challenge—for dying churches to reach younger generations:

MC: [Reaching younger generations is] really the bread and butter for a dying church. If you don’t reach the next generation, you’re not going to have a future. … I just think we’ve gotten way off target sometimes thinking we have to attract young people with young people things. You attract young people by loving them and being authentic with them. If your church will just be who you are authentically and love people with sacrificial love, man, young people will embrace that. You don’t need cool music to reach the next generation. You need authentic music to reach the next generation. If the next generation comes in and hears your older people singing at the top of their lungs … they will love that.

[Churches] always want to reach young people. They just don’t want young people changing anything. But young people are going to come in and they’re going to change some things. They’re going to want to bring coffee in the sanctuary because they bring coffee everywhere they go. They may not dress the same. Some of them may wear their hats in the worship center. Those are the kinds of things older adults are going to have to get over. They can’t give the stink eye to young people for doing that and then expect young people to stay around. They won’t stay.

“But trust me, not one Scripture you read, not one prayer you lead, not one sermon you preach, not one Bible study you lead, not one funeral you conduct—none of that’s wasted, because His Word never goes out and comes back void.”

On his message to discouraged pastors leading struggling churches:

MC: Only eternity is going to reveal the results of your labor. God, in His sovereignty, chose to put you not in an easy place, but in a hard place. He chose to put you in that place because He trusts you and values you with this very difficult task. You’re probably not going to get your reward this side of heaven. Nobody’s going to write a book about you. You’re probably not going to get tweeted about. You may not get asked to preach on the platform someplace. But trust me, not one Scripture you read, not one prayer you lead, not one sermon you preach, not one Bible study you lead, not one funeral you conduct—none of that’s wasted, because His Word never goes out and comes back void. You’ve got to go to bed every night knowing that only eternity is going to reveal the true results of your labor. God will take everything I’ve done in my ministry for Him, and if I’ve done it obediently, He’s going to knit together a story that, when we get to heaven, the angels are going to be amazed with.

Looking for ways to share Christ in your community? ‘Run to the hurting,’ Gallaty says

Bringing heaven to earth

Robby Gallaty, senior pastor of Long Hollow Church in Hendersonville, Tenn., stood before 1,900 people attending the first of a handful of Christmas services in early December 2023 when the lights started to flicker and the large projection screens behind him malfunctioned. Cell phone alerts began to sound, eerily echoing across the worship center where the crowd would soon be sheltering in place. Outside, severe storms were brewing, spawning deadly tornados that swept across the region. 

The church was not directly hit, but the storms impacted many members and devastated several communities. Though tragic, the disaster provided Long Hollow an opportunity to put into practice one of its core values: “Run to the hurting.” Gallaty, who also serves as president of Replicate Ministries, will share some of those experiences, the lessons he and his church learned, and pieces of his personal testimony when he speaks at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s Empower Conference in February.

How would you describe the relationship between evangelism and discipleship?

Robby Gallaty:  For years, people have thought of them as two different practices or competing disciplines. The word I use is disciple-making. Jesus told us to be about the business of making disciples. Under disciple-making, you have two legs: one leg is evangelism, which is basically leading someone into a relationship with Jesus Christ across the threshold of faith. But after evangelism, the ministry doesn’t stop. The other leg is discipleship, which is helping people grow into the image of Christ and replicating themselves to start the process over.

Think of it as two oars in the same boat. If you only have the oar of evangelism, you’ll just row in a circle. You’ll have a bunch of people sharing the gospel, but you’ll have no one else partnering in the ministry. If you only have the oar of discipleship … you’ll have a bunch of people memorizing and studying Scripture, but you’ll never reach any lost people with the gospel. So you have to have both. The thing I often say is, “The gospel came to you because it was heading to someone else.” That means every person as a Christian has been given a baton at the moment of salvation. And if we’re honest and we look at our hands, we’re either fumbling the handoff or we’re running with passion and we’re passing it on to the next generation to leave a legacy.

How did you see the Lord use last year’s tornados in your area to not only reach your community, but help you make disciples in your church?

RG: One of the core values of our church is we run to the hurting. Obviously, when you have a pastor who’s been sober from drugs and alcohol now 20-plus years, you kind of become an epicenter for people who have hurts and hang-ups. I think we were able to come alongside 32 families who had some kind of need [after the tornado], whether it was a tree in the backyard or they needed supplies or lost it all.

The way we minister at Long Hollow is not a bait and switch where we minister so you can come to our church. We really just want to be an example of the hands and feet of Christ in our community and love people, no strings attached. We feel like it’s way bigger than our church. It’s a kingdom ministry. I’ve been trying to teach our people for years now that we have an opportunity, as believers, to partner with Christ in the kingdom of heaven today and that we’re able to bring the kingdom to earth through obedience as we live for the Lord and love like Jesus loves. The problem with many Christians is we have this preoccupation of trying to get out of the world and into heaven. Jesus has been trying to get heaven into the world through us for 2,000 years, so we just show people that we have an opportunity to partner with Him every day.

What have you learned through your ministry experience at Long Hollow that may benefit pastors, church leaders, and others who will attend Empower?

RG: What I’m going to share at the conference is my own story, my own brokenness that led to breakthrough. I’m going to share that if you want to see people saved and baptized [in your church], see people evangelized … you need God to set you on fire again to be passionate about the things of God. [Long Hollow] started to burn for the Lord and really seek God, believing there was more of God to be had, and it just created this amazing move of God that we are still in now. 

We have a natural propensity to go right to the method or the mission or the manner of evangelism. [But] we’ve got to go back and ask ourselves, “Has the fire of revival or the flame of evangelism gone out in my own life?” You have to get to the end of yourself, because that’s where the beginning of God is. Regardless of your skill set or gifts or preaching ability … what every person used mightily by God has in common is they came to the end of themselves and realized they couldn’t do it without Him. What we all have in common is we all have the ability to present ourselves and surrender to the Lord through brokenness. When we’re broken over a sin, it leads to desperation and dependency, and desperation leads to breakthrough. Numbers obviously aren’t everything, but it’s unbelievable [what God has done at Long Hollow]. I can tell you so many stories of lives changed and attendance growth, but it goes back to God having to change the man before any method was implemented. I realized that was the problem. And when God changed me, everything changed.