Thank you. It's good to see everybody here this morning and thank you for making the effort to come. And we're looking forward to a real burden that has been in my heart. I will not say it is exclusively my burden because I was approached by Ben Carpenter and Mike Gross a couple years ago and it's spilled over. I remember sitting down with Rory Bond and talking with him about all of this. blame you brother. And we have been passionate in this idea of helping churches and revitalizing churches. And in the midst of all of this even before things were formulated I heard about and I had talked with Pastor Mike Query who was Pastor at Grace Baptist in Bristol. And he was dealing with cancer. His health was declining. And as I was looking at my list of pastors that I knew, I knew Pastor Mike Howard was over in Goshen. And he had a church plant, but they had no building. And I thought, well, here's a pastor who has a building and hardly any people. Maybe we could have a wedding. could bring these two together. And of course we say it now, it sounds simple. It's been a complicated process but to God be the glory there has been a bringing together of those two churches. And now there is a growing vibrant church in Bristol that was a church that was on the ropes. Now the goal was is that we were going to help them. And so far we have been of moral support to But we have not been able to be of great financial support but it has been a blessing to see what God is doing. And I think that as a fellowship if we see the potential that is around us of seeing churches. One of the things that I've noticed is traveling just around our deck of the woods most communities have Baptist churches. And I'm talking about similar churches to our kinds of churches. but they have a very small congregation and there's very limited opportunities for those churches to go anywhere without help. And that's really where the burden came from. If we could work together and to be a support to these churches and support to pastors who are going there, I think we could see great things happen. So I want you to take your Bible, if you would, and turn to Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10, just follow along with me, even if we seem to be treading over some familiar things that are common knowledge to us, there is a direction that we're headed. Romans chapter 10 verses 14 and 15 says this, how then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. Let's pray and we'll look at this passage this morning. Father, I pray that you would guide my thoughts, help me to say what I should. Lord, I pray that your heart for this world and your desire to see your name glorified in this generation through your church and the growing number of churches and the influence of your servants and your people. I pray that it will come through this morning and I pray that you would guide every aspect of both this service as well as the service to come in Jesus name, amen. Jesus Christ, as we know, laid aside his majesty, came down to this earth to be born in a stable, to live 33 sinless years, authenticating who he was by his miracles, by preaching with authority, by all of the contrast that you see between the Pharisees and the religion of the Jews versus true religion. He went to the cross, died in our place for our sins, paid our sin debt, rose again three days later, demonstrating that he is who he claimed to be, and then giving us this commission. Mark 16, verse 15, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Now that mission has been given to the church. It's been given to the church as a whole and it's been given to every believer individually. And the message that we are to give is found, it's in the passage before us in Romans chapter 10. If you'll back up to what it says in verse 9, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How often have you used that verse or these verses in giving the gospel to somebody that you met along life's path, telling them how they could receive Jesus Christ as their Savior? It is a great message that we have to give. The message that Jesus commissioned for the church to give out is a glorious message. I don't know about your vacation Bible school, but isn't that what it's all about? Whatever the theme is, the heart of VBS is to get the gospel out. Every revival meeting, every evangelistic campaign, every Saturday soul winning or Thursday visitation program or whatever it is that you do, it's all designed about getting the gospel. So many of our services on Sunday are designed to make sure that people hear the gospel. It's a glorious message. It's a great message. I'm glad I have the privilege to give it. But the message doesn't end there. Because as good as the message is, and as glorious as what happened on Calvary is, if it is never known what happened on Calvary, and if the message is never delivered, then it is as good as if it never happened. Juneteenth is not a, it's not a holiday that we have celebrated nationally for very long. It was just a few years ago, it was made a national holiday. It became a national holiday marking the anniversary of the announcement of the General Order Number Three by Union Army General Gordon Granger on June the 19th, 1865, proclaiming freedom for slaves in Texas. Think about it. Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January the 1st, 1863. That was two and a half years earlier. But the poor people in Texas continued to live in bondage until finally a messenger came to deliver the message of freedom. For two and a half years, they were free, or they could have been free, but they didn't know. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not heard? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Each of these questions designates a critical link in God's search and rescue effort for a lost world in darkness and imprisoned in sin. How are they going to call unless they know to believe? And how do they know what to believe if they haven't heard? And how can they hear unless someone tells them what to believe? So calling upon God implies faith. And faith implies knowledge. And knowledge, instruction. And instruction, an instructor. And an instructor, a plan. Without a divinely authorized and empowered plan or ministry, the truth about the way of salvation through Christ would be unknown to mankind. A person must hear the gospel if they're going to have an opportunity to respond to it. And if men are ignorant of Christ, they can't believe in Him. And if they don't believe in Him, they can't call on Him, making Him the object of their trust. And if they don't call on Him, they can't be saved. So Christ's death on the cross for their sins would be of no benefit to them as Christ desires it to be. So it's God's desire and design then to send preachers to proclaim the love, the mercy, and the grace of God. So that the truth might be heard and that it might be believed and that people will call upon Jesus to be their savior. Do you follow the logic of the apostle Paul? We are saved to serve and the foremost service is to share the gospel. So that's obviously a challenge for every one of us as God's messengers to the captives in sin to give them the message of God's deliverance. But let me take a couple of minutes this morning to address a specific issue that we're facing. And that is the shortage of American clergy. In an article written in 2022, February the 22nd, It was entitled, The Great American Clergy Shortage Is Coming. The author of the article writes this, contributing to the shortage is senior pastors retiring. Studies show that seminaries are shrinking as fewer young people go to seminary to become pastors or clergy members. That number has been shrinking for over a decade, but it's catching up quicker as the pandemic has pushed more pastors to retire earlier. Alternatively, it's also pushed some pastors to come out of retirement to lead their congregations. In a 2021 article by Executive Secretary Eddie Moody, he noted that there were 124 free will Baptist churches that present, that presently need pastors. Now that number is astounding. I want you to pause. I realized free will Baptists are not our, our brand, our, our slice of the pie, but I think it's representative of what's going on. 124 pastors or churches that were without pastors, that number, while it is astounding, takes the normal struggles and uncertainty a single church experiences during the pastoral vacancy and multiplies it by 124. Think about, Brother Ken, how many How many sleepless nights, how much anxiety, how much consternation did you go through with that church in Pennsylvania over the last 19 months, helping them to get a new pastor? And then think about that rippling across the states. Now, in reality, 124 only amounts to about 5% of free will Baptist churches. I had a conversation with Mike Gross, who is with Open Doors to America. He was located in New Paris, Indiana, but is now has moved out to Montana where he is stationed because there are so many more churches out West that are in desperate need of pastors and filling pulpits. But I was talking with him and I told him about the statistics with the free will Baptist. And I said, so tell me what you think. I said, as far as independent fundamental Baptist churches, I said, what would you say? Where, where's the percentage? He thought for a little while and he says, well, he says, if you start adding up all of the little churches, you know, the ones that don't have glamorous compensation packages, the ones who have a whole lot of opportunity but a whole little bit of money, he said it's probably close to 20 to 25% of our churches don't have pastors. So that's 12,000 independent fundamental Baptist churches across the country, and you're talking about up to a quarter of all of our churches are without pastors. Is there any reason that we're seeing a problem in our evangelism? How many people and how many communities are not being reached with the gospel because the church is not able to go forward because they have no shepherd? And there's a great need, a growing need of churches for pastors, and yet this generation, and I'm not here to criticize the millennials and the Generation Z, but there was a poll or statistic that came out in which they questioned Generation Z, and by and large, Generation Z is not interested in service-oriented occupations. In other words, they're not in it for what they can do for society. To borrow a phrase from John F. Kennedy, ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country. Let's turn it around. Ask not what your Lord can do for you, but ask what you can do for your Lord and His church. There's a great need for men to go into the ministry because we're finding an incredible shortage. There's a great need for men to surrender to the ministry as God calls them to it. Now, I realize I'm preaching to the wrong crowd because we're already in the ministry. But I will say this, there needs to be more preaching for the need of men to go into the ministry in our churches. And who's gonna preach it if it isn't us? We've got to be declaring about the nobleness and the worthiness of serving the Lord Jesus Christ. I realize God's the one who calls people into the ministry and we all know if God didn't call you, you won't survive. Okay. In other words, there's just natural attrition that takes place. God's able to weed the tears from the weeds. But the fact of the matter is, is that it should be presented as a noble. In matter of fact, I would argue it should be a first claim principle that we would challenge our young people to present themselves to the Lord for his service, unless he wants them to do something else. So the hierarchy of ministry is pastoring, missionary, evangelist, full-time service, that's at the top. Doctor, lawyer, other conmen opportunities, that's down at the bottom. I remember the day that God called me to preach. I was 16 years old. I was at summer camp. Summer camp's a great time for God to work in the hearts of a young person. But I remember being there and God working in my heart and calling me to the ministry and I was scared to death. Because to think of I, who was I to stand in front of others and to proclaim the message of God's word and yet I stop and I think what a privilege it's been over these years to serve him. And how glad I am that God has entrusted me with the call to the ministry. The sad reality is is that we have many young people who are just simply not heeding the call. There are those who've not heeded the call to the ministry. There are fewer people who are willing to go into any vocation with a major service component today, according to an article that came out in 2021. There is less of an interest in serving God, even in our churches. It now becomes a matter of a consumer mentality that while we've avoided it in our fundamental Baptist churches, it is an attitude that is seeped into our fundamental Baptist churches. There are many who are unwilling to hear the call to the ministry should it come. They've already made up their mind, this is what I'm going to do and I don't care what God says. There are others who don't want their young ones to go into the ministry and that's sad. I remember talking to a young man, I was considering going to Emmanuel, this was over 30 years ago now. And I was talking to a young man whose his dad was a pastor. And I said, hey, do you have any desire to be in the ministry with your dad? And he said, absolutely not. He said, I saw what the ministry has done to my dad and my family, and I will never. Well, don't ever say never, because guess what? He's a pastor today. But some people don't want to go into the ministry, and sometimes parents don't want their kids to go into the ministry. And so we see churches by the score who can't find pastors. Many of these churches are small and don't have a glamorous compensation package, but they have a congregation that needs a pastor. These are fundamental Baptist churches who don't want the contemporary Heinz 57 variety. They want somebody who believes the Bible. They want somebody who stands for truth. They want somebody who's willing to follow God and not the trends. I talked with a lawyer just a couple of months ago. lost their pastor, they're looking for a God called pastor, and they're having a difficult time finding one. Most of us are familiar with Hillcrest over in Logan's Port. It's been, what, two years that they've been looking for a pastor? to my knowledge they're still looking. Can't find somebody. And here's the thing, how hard would it be? That's a church of size. That's a church of a solid congregation. And why is it that a church like that can't find a pastor? What I've heard through the grapevine, and of course anything you hear through the grapevine or on the internet is absolute truth. But what I've heard through the grapevine is that they can't find what I would call a normal pastor. That is a pastor who is non-Calvinistic, doctrinally sound, has old-fashioned convictions. They can't find somebody who just wants to preach the word and preach it with conviction. I'm not here to try to recruit resumes. But what I am trying to do is make us aware that there's a cry from dying churches around the country and vacancies created by dying and retiring pastors. Some denominations are so desperate for pastors that they're now going back to circuit writing pastors who have two to three congregations that oversee and alternate preaching at them. Other more liberal denominations are allowing women to be ordained to the ministry. Who hasn't been paying attention to what's going on even in the Southern Baptist Convention, let alone the United Methodist Convention. Now we can curse at the darkness if we want, and I'm certainly not advocating for women preachers. But I am saying that in the absence of men responding to the call of the ministry, women are filling the vacancy. My criticism is not against the women who are stepping into ministry. My criticism is for the lack of a spine men who don't have the backbone, who don't have the walk with God, who don't have the sense of God's calling upon their life to step up into the ministry and serve as leaders in their churches. Without more men responding to the call of the ministry, thousands of churches are going to close. According to Tom Rainer of Lifeway, around 100 to 200 churches will close every week this year. That just seems unbelievable to me. Now, I realize not all of those churches are our kind of churches, but the fact that religion in America is dying should concern us. A large number of abandoned churches have become wineries or breweries or bars. Others have been converted into hotels and bed and breakfasts and Airbnbs. A few have been transformed into entertainment venues like indoor playgrounds for children and leisure tag arenas or skate parks. What a tragedy it is. I don't care really what kind of church it is. When I drive through a community and I see a church that has been converted into something else, it just makes me sad. So what do we do? We see the need to heed the call, but how do we harvest that call? Well, let me take you to something that Jesus said in Matthew chapter 9. Verse 37, then saith he unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest and he will send forth labors into his harvest. We as a fellowship, we as pastors, our churches, we need to get serious about this matter of the priority in prayer. The problem is not a new one. There's always been more unsaved than there are saved in the world. There's always been a need for more laborers to go into the fields. And here Jesus himself says that the harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are few. So what do we do? Circle the wagons till Jesus comes? Pray for the rapture today? Well, I'm for praying for the rapture. Boy, wouldn't that be nice. But the truth of the matter is, is that what needs to happen is we need to pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest. The phrase is a command, it's an imperative statement, it's a mandate, a Solomon-binding obligation from Almighty God to every child of God, and that is we are to pray that God will send laborers into the harvest. So white are the fields, so ripe is the harvest, so few are the workers that the Lord's commanded us to pray for laborers. Prayer's the resource to meet the desperate need. Not only this command, but it is an urgent command, and it's to be obeyed at once. Why pray? Because seeing the harvest brought into the barn is God's work. You do understand that God's the one who calls the preachers and God's the one who convicts of sin and God's the one who saves a soul. He must till the soil of the heart. He must water the seed of the Word that's planted. He must cast the sunshine of grace upon the lost heart, or there'll never be a harvest. So you see, the new birth is a miracle. It's the awesome work of God in a human heart, but only He can do it, and we must pray for the harvest. We're not supposed to be passive and just wait for Him to do it. We're to be actively involved in reaching others. Notice that Jesus told them to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send forth laborers into the harvest. As we develop a burden for the lost and begin to pray for them as we should, the Lord will develop a compassion for them within our own heart. And if we pray as we should, the Lord will work within us so that a desire will be born within us to go into the field and labor in the harvest for the souls of men. When there needs to be something There's gotta be, we say we put feet to our prayers. There's gotta be a willingness on our part to be involved in all of this. Can't preach on soul winning and not go yourself. You can't talk about the importance of witnessing and reaching the world if we're not willing to hand out a track ourselves. We have to be the leaders. We have to set the pace in our own churches. And we need to let the people in our churches know that the reaching of souls is a great burden to us. It should come forth in our preaching. It should come forth in our program of our church ministries. It should come forth as far as what the priority of our church is. It's a sad, but sometimes I think what happens in our churches is we do everything except what we're here to do. If you stop and you think about the burden or the mandate that's been given to the church, imagine a chess club that gets started in a school somewhere and they start handing out flyers to the kids in the school, hey, come to our chess club. It's a lot of fun. Come to our chess club, man, you're gonna, we got snacks, we've got drinks, coffee, donuts. I mean, we've got all kinds of things. Hey, listen, we have all kinds of extras that will, you'll not be bored in our chess club, come. And we'll show you movies, we'll have some special music, other things like that. It's gonna be awesome, you're gonna have fun. So somebody comes in, And they start looking around and they're just like, wow, this is this is a pretty cool chess club. And and they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's it's awesome. Did you get some punch? Did you get did you get some chips over there? Yeah. Did you pick up the doughnuts? Uh-huh. And do you like the music that's going on? Oh, yeah. And that great man. It's just it's just a great time we're having here at the chess club. And then somebody says so. Where's the chess boards? Oh, oh, you're one of those, huh? You're all about the chess. Do you see the similarities between that illustration and where many times we find ourselves that we are entertaining the goats instead of feeding the sheep? That we are trying to attract the goats instead of see sheep be born and the flock of God increase? We need to understand the priority of prayer. We need to see the power of prayer. The result of our praying is that God would send forth laborers. Here's the honest truth. The great need on the shortage of pastors, I would say, lays at the feet of God's people. We have not prayed. Will God answer the prayers he's promised to answer? Yes or no? Yes. So he says, pray ye therefore. Pray to who? Pray to the Lord of the harvest. What? That he will send forth laborers. Does that mean that he might, if we challenge our church people, and if we challenge our teenagers, and if we challenge the people who are in our fellowship to pray for laborers, do you think that God will answer that prayer? And do you think that of those that he calls, that it might be some of the people who are doing the praying? Yes. God commands us that we urgently pray and as a result God will both with that same urgency send forth labors. It's our responsibility to pray, and it's God's responsibility to send forth labors. You see an illustration of this in Acts chapter 13. Here you've got the brethren who are praying there in the church, in the church in Acts, and you find that God says, separate unto me Paul and Barnabas for the work that I've called for them to do. What is God doing? Here are people who are burdened about the call of God, and God sends the people who are doing the praying into the field of harvest. How are we going to move the hearts of our young people to respond to the call of the ministry and fill the empty pulpits all over our land? How do we convince people to leave the comforts of home and go to the darkness of heathendom with the message of salvation? What can move the hearts of men for the needs of the world? Prayer. Only the power of God can send forth the needed workers into the harvest field. Our prayers move the hand of God and God moves the hearts of men. Andrew Murray said, prayer indeed is indeed a power on which the in-gathering of the harvest and the coming of the kingdom do in very truth depend. A couple of months ago, we were having a Northern Fellowship over in New Paris. Evangelist John Van Gelderen was there and we were just talking back and forth about the matter of revitalization. with him about this and he said to me, he said, the thrusting forth of men into the ministry is really a result of revival. Whenever there has been a revival in the history of the world and in our own country, the results of revival is men being thrust out into the ministry. There's a growth of souls being saved and there are God's people with a passion of reaching people with the gospel. So there's got to be a heating to the call. There's got to be the helping of the call. And this is where it gets real practical. And I'm almost finished. So just bear with me. There's a need to support those who are called. And that's really where our fellowship can get involved in this. It can get involved with our, with, helping pastors, the pastor desperately needs to be surrounded by mature and loyal saints who are willing to help him accomplish the vision that God's given him for the ministry. As individuals, people in churches can pray for their pastor, they can learn to honor their pastor, and that's key. It's essential that, and I realize there's a shying away in our circles, and I think for just cause, against the idea of man worship and having a bunch of yes-men around the pastor. But let me tell you something. If you think you can be a lone wolf in the ministry, you're not gonna survive. You are, I feel this every Sunday, as do you. Do you ever sense this? You're standing behind the pulpit and there's a whole plethora of things that are going on. You've got the music people, you've got the ushers, you've got the nursery people, you've got children's church workers, you've got all these people doing all kinds of things all over the place. Sometimes you have the church police and they're out there, you know, tackling people in the foyer. But anyway, you've got all these things going on and you're thinking, You're helpless because you're chained to the pulpit. All you can do is preach, and you're hoping that all of your helpers are doing a great job. Every pastor needs an army of help. And I think we need to help train our people to be involved in that army. I think we need to encourage that. But as churches, we need churches to be involved in helping other struggling churches and pastors. Brother, Howard has been at this church in Goshen, excuse me, the church in Bristol, and one of the things that he has needed is some help as they were getting started just with getting the church spruced up. I mean, and other things like that. Pastor Carpenter took a group of his folks, came over to his church, and then helped clean things out of the way. And they have needed help with getting tracks handed out and others. We were, a couple of months ago, Nate Holmes, who just took over Grace Baptist over in Angola. He was at the meeting and he said, you know, he said, I could really use some help if you could bring a group of people over who could help blitz the area. He says, I've got a very small congregation. He's only got about a dozen people or so. And boy, imagine what a teen youth group could do in learning about the service of ministry and being involved in giving out the gospel and being a blessing to another church. And they might even have fun in the process. But imagine if they could go over and to help that church to blitz an area so that they could get the gospel out so that they could do in one day what that church may not be able to do in several months. Pastor Ben. Wallenbeck back there. They're going to Columbia City and they're going to plant a church. They were already meeting in the library with some of the people that are there, just about five families or so, and they're just getting this started. They haven't even launched the doors. They don't even have Sunday services yet, but they're just getting started. Now here's a guy who is looking to start a church There's financial needs that are there. There's all kinds of logistical needs that are there. There's all kinds of help in blitzing the community and letting folks know that there's a church that's getting started in that area. They need help sending a work crew to assist with projects, scheduling a literature blitz in the community, helping with a special event, raising funds to send a pastor and his wife away for a weekend. All of those are ideas that we could be a help in as pastors. We need to encourage one another. It can get hard when you're there by yourself and you don't even have a group of men surrounding you because you're trying to form the nucleus even as you're getting things started. We need to be ethical with one another. We need to treat one another right. I know that's a whole other subject, but I will say this as pastors, let us be a blessing and encouragement to one another. We are not in competition with each other. We are in cooperation with each other. We are advancing His kingdom and we're not establishing our own empires. We need to be interceding on behalf of one another. I can't tell you how my heart is encouraged when I will have people text me on a Sunday morning, or I will see some folks and they will send some note or just say something to me. Hey, I pray for you every Sunday. I'm like, well, praise the Lord. Maybe that's why folks are getting saved. Maybe that's why things are happening, not because of my preaching, but because of the prayers of God's saints. We can be involved, we can invest. Many churches treat their pastors so poorly that regardless of what is taught about the nobility of the ministry, our actions undermine the messaging. People don't answer the call in that kind of an environment. And listen, I understand I'm in the same position that you are. How do you go to your church people and say, treat me better? Well, we invite each other to come into each other's pulpits and preach it for us. No, I'm just kidding. Well, what happens is, is that there's a great need for churches to be taught to take care of their pastor. Now, I realize that there's abuses, and I'm not talking that you, you know, show them what our friend down in Houston gets paid for all of his plastic surgeries and everything else. But Joe Osteen, leave him out of this scenario. But it is not wrong for us to hold up the nobility of the pastorate. Let the church keep the pastor poor and God can keep them humble. How many chairmen of the deacons have had that as their motto? Churches need to understand that the greatest asset of any church is their pastor or pastors. And God doesn't cause growth through bigger buildings or more programs, but through highly motivated individuals who are loved and appreciated by their people. A pastor who's concerned about providing the basic needs of his own family, may not have the emotional energy to concentrate on the needs of his church. How many times have you seen guys who are trying to, you take Brother Carpenter, and sorry, you just happened to come today, Brother Wallenbeck, I'm sorry, I called you Brother Carpenter. He married a carpenter, that's his problem. No, she is the good side of the equation, isn't she? It's the Wallenbeck side that's the problem. Anyway, all that to say that you take Brother Wallenbeck, So work a full-time job and then start a church on the side. How easy is that, Brother Douglas? You just did that a couple of years ago, and so what do you do? You struggle, you struggle, you struggle. What if we could help them so they could be cared for? Now listen, sometimes a church just isn't able to take care of their pastor, but what if we as a fellowship, what if our churches saw the burden and the need for churches to be revitalized and we said, we can participate in helping and these pastors. We can't support every pastor obviously, but what we could do is we could adopt a couple for a few years to help them get going and imagine what could happen and how it could multiply over a period of several years if not decades. Our goal with the church revitalization program is to get churches who would partner together to help pastors in churches where revitalization is needed. Perhaps a work with a new or recently installed pastor, or a work that demonstrates potential for growth, and for us as a fellowship to say, hey, here's a work that's getting started, let's support this. Here's a pastor who, if he had the tools, He could go somewhere, and it may be short-lived, but think about this, then those churches as they get started, whoever the recipients of that blessing could turn around and be a blessing to others as well. And it could grow. Imagine if the churches in Indiana were at full strength. Imagine if every community didn't just have a fundamental Baptist church, but had a vibrant fundamental Baptist church. The testimony would be strong. The light would shine bright. The reach would be greater. And people would hear the call. But wait, here's something even more radical. Because we do have some communists who have come over from Illinois. And down from Michigan. And they have come to the holy land of Indiana. But imagine if it would spread beyond. our borders to Illinois and to Michigan and to other places. You know, we get angry and we curse at California and New York and these other places because of their liberalism and because of their values that are so diabolical as far as they're opposite of what the Bible teaches. We're not gonna cuss them into salvation. You shouldn't cuss anyway, just to let you know. But the truth of the matter is, is that they need somebody who's willing to go. And they need to be sent. And who's going to send them if it's not us? You say, well, isn't that the individual church's responsibility? It is certainly the individual church's responsibility. But just because you don't have a preacher boy in your church doesn't mean it's not your responsibility as a church. The IFBF just creates the venue, if you will, or the vehicle through which we can channel some of these funds to help get these men and these churches going. And I will tell you, and you'll see it in the video in just a few minutes, but the reality is, is that in many cases, we already have the building. You even have, you might say, a few relics of a former glorious church that are still there trying to keep the church doors open. They just need some help. And the help is going to come from those who have a burden for what God has a burden for. How many churches are just like those slaves in Texas? They just need somebody to deliver the message. They just need somebody to help them. And what could we do as a fellowship? If we would bind together and if our churches would commit, it might be $50 a month. It might be $100 a month. It could be $500 a month. But what if we did that? And what could God do? And we could all rejoice as we hear the good things that are happening. Last month, brother, Howard spoke at our Northern Fellowship meeting and he was talking about what God has done and the people who have been saved and the folks who have been baptized and the people that have joined the church just in the last several months. And what it has done, it has sent shockwaves of spiritual energy into that congregation. You're seeing 80, 90 year old Pentecostal, no I'm just kidding. But you're seeing 80, 90-year-old people who are rejoicing at what God can do, even in their glory days. They thought their church was going to close, and now they're seeing life breathe back into it, and there is hope again, and the light shines again, and there's great potential again. That needs to be in every community in Indiana. May God help us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would take the attempt to share this burden and that you would cement it in our hearts and our minds and that you would do a work. Lord, that there would be men who would surrender to the ministry. That we would pray so that God would thrust forth more labors into the fields and that we would help. Help with the call so that the work can go forward. And I pray that in every church, in every heart of every pastor, that we would take this and make it personal in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you, Pastor Allen. That was tremendous. And already we have been challenged. And may the Lord continue to do his work in our hearts, particularly with this burden for this church plant and revitalization, but also in our own personal lives and our burden for the lost and our evangelism. We're going to take a break now for about the next 10 to 15 minutes till about 10 after 11. Probably when you hear the piano playing, that'll be the signal to come back in and then we'll have a video.