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Welcome to The Overflow—the bonus round of faith and real-life conversation with Brandon and Susan Thomas. Every week, they unpack the powerful insights, behind-the-scenes experiences, and personal reflections that didn’t quite fit into Sunday’s sermon.
This is where the conversation gets practical, honest, and a little bit unscripted. Whether it's an encouraging word, a deeper dive into Scripture, or a hilarious moment from their week, Brandon and Susan bring fresh perspective and spiritual fuel to keep you going.
It’s real talk, fresh takes, and full hearts.
These are the conversations too good to cut and too real to miss.
Welcome to The Overflow with Brandon, and no Susan today. I am joined with my big brother. I have two This big is my second big brother, Eric Doctor. Eric John Thomas. I prefer John and Eric.
Speaker 1:Eric J. Thomas, PhD.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh. If you don't mind.
Speaker 1:Okay. And you know the thing, I talked about this, when you preached at Keystone, that when I introduced you, I said that you were one of my professors. Yeah. Do you remember the class? It was
Speaker 2:either church growth evangelism. That's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Church growth evangelism. Yeah. And did you hear me tell the story of Malcolm McDowell? Yes, I've heard that one before.
Speaker 1:So I'm sitting in a doctoral class, which is, at this level, it's only like four, five, six people. And we're all, it's the first day of class, and everybody's introducing one another. And I'm green. This is one of my first doctoral classes. And everybody's going around, this is who I am, this is what I'm doing, this is what I'm studying, this is where I'm, you know, maybe if you're out at a church, this is where you're observing.
Speaker 1:I did mine, and then the professor says, Everybody stop. Everybody stop. Doctor. McDowell was very dramatic in this moment. He said, I want everybody to stop right now.
Speaker 1:I said, and he looked at me, he said, Thomas, and I'm expecting him to say, You're Claude's son. Right. But he says, Are you Eric Thomas's brother? And I said, Yes, sir, I am. He said, Gentlemen, in front of all these classmates, Gentlemen, I want you to know that Eric Thomas wrote the finest PhD dissertation in the history of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Speaker 1:I expect all of you to cross over into that historic library and everybody read it, and I'm sitting here just shrinking. Yeah. He didn't say that when I was writing it. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 1:I bet he
Speaker 2:did it.
Speaker 1:But truly, happy to be here with you, Eric. Yeah. It's an honor. My brother and,
Speaker 2:man, I just love hanging out with you. I know. Love hanging out at Keystone.
Speaker 1:Yes. And God's doing Keystone's hanging out with you. It's a privilege. So when you spoke at Keystone, there's a few things that I've already heard, right, out and about. And we're gonna get to a few things.
Speaker 1:Let me I wanna talk about what we're gonna we're we're gonna talk about that you pastor a two twenty year old church. We're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about how you pastor in Norfolk, Virginia, and that brings its own challenges and opportunities. Right. And and unique you you pastor some very interesting people with interesting challenges.
Speaker 1:Right. I wanna talk about that. And then we're gonna talk a little theology in church and stuff like that. But before we do, there's a few things that people have said already. Right.
Speaker 1:Number one comment is, My goodness, reminds me of your dad, Doctor. Totally. Everybody has said that to me. Did everybody say it to you? Always.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh, they always say that? It's, you know, which I'm like, Well, why am I not like my dad? I mean, what is it? I mean, I mean, and then the second comment is your use of scripture.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That they're amazed at your memorization of scripture, which again, I think they're probably not used to me quoting quite as much as you do. But the truth is, honestly, how do you, I wanted to get in this, when you memorize scripture, right, it's an incredible part of your preaching because I've watched you at Norfolk and just you do it there as well, and whatever you preach. What's your pattern for memorization of scripture that others could learn from?
Speaker 2:One of the things that we do on our staff at our church is I make the staff memorize scripture. Wow. That's one of the requirements. So right now we're memorizing John 14. They just finished eight through 14, John 14 verses eight through 14.
Speaker 2:Taking them on a journey that I go on memorizing scripture, and you give yourself time to memorize scripture. You're not gonna learn it in a day, so you just give yourself time, and you ingest it, you memorize
Speaker 1:it,
Speaker 2:and that's okay, but you need to know what it's saying. You know, it's not like I'd mem, when I was doing math, I'd memorize formulas, but didn't understand any of them. Memorizing scripture is one of those pieces where you, you let it speak to you, so you take it in chunks and you memorize it in chunks. But for me, personally, I write the scripture over and over and over again. I'll memorize a passage of scripture, and I will just write it over and over and over again till I can write it without thinking about it.
Speaker 2:And then I say it over and over and over again. And I use it over and over again. So a lot of scriptures, and of course, this is just something that I had a sixth grade small group leader, my sixth grade small group leader challenged me to memorize the Bible verse for the week, every week. And he said, If you memorize it every week, I'll give you a knife. He worked Coca Cola.
Speaker 1:So this is when we lived in Dallas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lived in Dallas, he worked for Coca Cola. And he, and I memorized
Speaker 1:know his his name was?
Speaker 2:Who was that? I've forgotten his Harrison. Mr.
Speaker 1:Harrison or
Speaker 2:something like that. Forgot. Mr. Harris, maybe.
Speaker 1:I remember dad talking about somebody that worked at Coca Cola. It's gotta be the same guy here.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1:he What was that, dad?
Speaker 2:Harris. Mr. Harris. Yeah.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 2:But anyway, just repetition is the way you memorize, and then using it over and over again. Mhmm. One of the things that happens, you'll memorize a you can memorize a whole book of the bible, a whole chapter, I mean, And you've got it, but if you never use it, if you don't keep using it, then It'll be gone. It'll be gone. You can pick it back up because it's still somewhere in there.
Speaker 2:But you don't have
Speaker 1:it
Speaker 2:at
Speaker 1:at ready. That's so good. Yeah, I agree with that. You know, like, one of my favorite scriptures is Romans twelve one and two. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which I've memorized, and I say it all the time in my preaching, Galatians five, the fruit of the spirit. Yeah. You know, but the key to that is, I mean, I live in those scriptures. I mean, are life scriptures for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Galatians two twenty is one of those that Romans, I used it when I preached at Keystone. Mhmm. Yep. Romans eight one through four.
Speaker 2:Ephesians two is I what mean, that's my bread and butter. You live in that. I live in Ephesians two. And then other passages that I've picked up along the way.
Speaker 1:I love the math metaphor because like, if I know why I need to know a formula, like in cooking or, right, I mean, for some guys that may be measuring with with, woodwork or whatever, if I understand why I need it, then I got it. You know? And I think if you think about it, that's why the formulas were created. They were created, to perform a task. Right.
Speaker 1:They weren't created just for knowledge. They were created to do things.
Speaker 2:To do things.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2:And so you have that, Like Romans twelve:one and two, man, you ingest that because I don't want to be trans want transformed, to not conformed. My mind needs to be renewed. I mean, those pieces, and you do that by laying yourself on the altar. Yeah. Once you get those things down, Psalm 23 is if you had a passage, a chapter of the Bible that most people could recite, that would be it.
Speaker 2:Yet they recite it as if it's just regular this is just something that they've learned, and so they can recite it. If you just dig into Psalm 23 and the promises of God in the midst of that, it just it it changes the way you receive it. Yeah. And then the way you share it. Yeah, let's just take this a
Speaker 1:little step further. The power of memorized scripture. In my life, and again, I honestly, Susan and I joke that I'll memorize scripture, and it's kinda like me quoting a song or singing a song. I'll get a couple of lyrics wrong. Oh, sure.
Speaker 1:You know? I'll butcher it. But the point is not perfection at that point. The point is, man, I'd rather get 90% of it right quoting it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now preaching it, I wanna be spot on a 100, right? But quoting it, because when you need it is when the pressure is applied. When you need it is when, man, I'm in a tough moment, and I need Proverbs three, five, and six. Trust the Lord with all your heart. Don't lean on your own understanding.
Speaker 1:In all your ways acknowledge him. He'll make your paths God, I'm trusting you to make my paths straight. I'm I'm claiming this. And you don't have maybe you don't have time, or you're walking into a meeting, or you're about to have a serious moment, and Jeremiah, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you, not to harm you, give you a hope and a future.
Speaker 1:You know, these are, and you need them, so you need those in your pocket. Yeah. And I know you could quickly Google these days, you know, but you need them in your pocket. But Google's too slow when you
Speaker 2:have sin knocking at the door. You know, wrecking yourself dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Come on. You know, you do Romans six eleven through 14, do Romans thirteen eleven through 14. Man, you need those things in your at ready.
Speaker 2:You need it to you need it you need the gun primed Mhmm. And cocked and ready to shoot. Mhmm. You know? Because when when that sin comes to attacking, you need you need to have the the sword ready to do the It is a weapon.
Speaker 2:It is a weapon. There is power. There is power in the very word of God. I mean, it's what the Bible says. Mean, I'm just saying, Google is great, and if you don't have it, that's fine.
Speaker 2:But you need to have the word of God let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Mhmm. And that's not merely in Ephesians three or whatever it is. See, Yeah. Whatever it is, it's three, I think.
Speaker 2:But wherever it is, that's not merely about singing psalms and making melody in your heart to the Lord. That's Colossians three. But it is about letting the word of Christ take root in my life so that those words bring forth and produce fruit that is pleasing to God and productive for a life that is searching and yearning for God's glory. So good. So anyway, that That's so good.
Speaker 2:Memorizing scripture's a a deal. Mhmm. And I think everybody ought to do it, and everybody can memorize scripture. If you can memorize the statistics for the Cowboys game Come on. You can memorize scripture.
Speaker 1:Come on. Yeah. And, their blitz ratios from the first quarter to the fourth If you
Speaker 2:can do that
Speaker 1:If you can do that Yeah. You're good.
Speaker 2:If you can tell me, Dax, you know, what his QBR is and Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, all that stuff, you can memorize scripture. If you can memorize knots if you're a fisherman. Yeah. If you can memorize, you know, elements of all the factors that you need to weigh in when you're hunting. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, I've often said, you can do it. It's just a matter
Speaker 2:of what you're passionate about. And taking the time. Yeah. Putting in the work. You gotta if you exercise.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. If if you're a gym rat, then you can memorize scripture. Yeah. All it is is putting in the reps. Putting in the reps.
Speaker 1:Putting in the reps. It's not necessarily, you know, if I were telling someone to start, I would say don't go for length, go for substance. Substance.
Speaker 2:I mean, and you don't have to have 10 verses memorized. Don't memorize a book. Right. Memorize five verses that'll make a difference in your Put them in your pocket. Put them in your heart.
Speaker 2:Hold on to them, keep them so that you can bring them up at will. Yep. Just do five.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then if if you were trying to start, I would say, hey, take a verse this week. Get a couple of guys to join you. Get a couple of gals to join you if you're, you know Yeah. You know, maybe in your small group, you know, your your your group, you you say, hey, let's memorize this over the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2:And memorize one that you probably have a good inkling. You did Proverbs three, five, and six, one of the key verses Yeah. To memorize. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, just start with that one. And you know it, you know? If you've been in church, you know the concept of it. Pick one that- Yeah. That you've got kind of familiarity with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then just take three or four weeks. As a family, it's been a powerful thing in our family. I know the reason I know Proverbs three, five, and six is because of, our parents Yeah. Pounded it into us. That was a a family verse.
Speaker 1:A family verse. And, I believe in that. Susan and I have have done that. And I'd encourage all the young families, start now. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Start just Definitely. I mean, put it you know, the the scripture says in the Shema, it says, may the word be, everywhere. Put it on the doorframes of your house. Put it on your forehead. And talks about all these places.
Speaker 1:Some Orthodox Jews literally take that literally today when you go into a Jewish home. There's it's on the door, a box there. I know the name, I can't draw it right now. And then I was on a plane to Israel, and I saw a bunch of Orthodox Jews with little boxes on their head praying. And, But really, what the point is is saturate your home with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And if it's a sticky note on a mirror, if it's a sign, have a sign made on Etsy that you hang on your wall. I mean, just bring it into your home. Yeah, absolutely. So that scripture memorization that, you know, honestly took, I believe God wanted to sit on that a little longer than what I'd even intended.
Speaker 1:I wanna talk about also, you pastor church, First Baptist Church in Norfolk, Virginia. Right. Did I say Norfolk, Virginia well?
Speaker 2:No. No? Uh-uh. That's okay. Nobody
Speaker 1:says Well, me tell you how I wanna say it. Norfolk. Yeah. That's well. That's worse.
Speaker 1:That's worse.
Speaker 2:Okay. Yeah. How do you say it? Nawfolk. Nawfolk.
Speaker 2:Nawfolk. Okay. Yeah. Nawfolk. Nawfolk.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:All right. Yeah. Well, you pastor a 220 This
Speaker 2:is 1805. 1805.
Speaker 1:The church began. And what was it like in those early days? Well, it was a little harder. 1805, church plantar.
Speaker 2:We had a season of it was okay. You know, our church began really as an African American congregation. Poor began primarily as an African American And by 1812, there were enough Anglos in the church that the Anglos decided they should separate and create an Anglo church from the African American church, and they did. But if you go to Norfolk today, you will find two First Baptist churches. Get out of here.
Speaker 2:You have First Baptist Church on Butte Street, which is the primarily African American congregation. I think they say they were established in 1803, probably history. And then you have First Norfolk that I pastor. And
Speaker 1:anyway. Wow. So what an incredible history. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah. From those beginnings, as you, two twenty year old church, okay? You know the history of your church. Right. You are the longest tenured pastor in the And it's two twenty year history.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You've been there twenty two years and recently celebrated that. And so I'm just curious, you know, Keystone, we have a passion. God has given a strong vision. Because we're twenty one years old.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I feel like that's, you know, at the beginning, I was kinda like, man, twenty years, that's amazing. But then God began to plan in my heart what I call a multigenerational vision, and that is that we conduct ourselves today, and I believe this is a biblical principle, we conduct ourselves today considering, how it moves the gospel forward to the next generation. A vision that would outlive me. Right.
Speaker 1:A vision that is bigger than me. A vision that's bigger than my leadership. I play a role in that. I get to set culture today, and I get to make decisions that will help the next generation. Raise up leaders, all that.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of our vision. And then God began to clarify it even this year, began to give us language that, you know, one day Jesus is coming back. And when Jesus comes back, our prayer is, that could be a week from now, that could be a year from now, it could be three hundred years from now. Our prayer is if he, in the old school way of saying, tarries. Right.
Speaker 1:If he tarries, if it is beyond a year, if it is beyond twenty years, our prayer is that if it's three hundred years from now, five hundred years from now, that he would find a keystone church that is biblically faithful, that is spirit empowered, that is Christ centric, that is alive. Right. That is growing, that is reaching. And so that's a I have an opportunity to sit with you, a student of a church that is two twenty years old. Right.
Speaker 1:And just ask the question, let's talk about some things that you would say to me, okay, well, to be a two twenty year old, biblically faithful, spirit empowered, Christ centered church, alive, here's some things that I see. Just a couple of quick things, and then maybe we can get in some more
Speaker 2:of the details of it. First, you're starting off better than most. I think the consistency of a singular pastor over a period of time is what provides the kind of legacy building, future oriented, mission centered, family of faith congregation. I think having a pastor here, namely you, from its inception, and however that translates in the years ahead, I think that's important. First Norfolk didn't have that.
Speaker 2:They had a string of pastors, which led to, you know, a desire to establish the work of God in a frontier area or a territory that was needful of it. A Baptist in particular, they wanted to plant a Baptist church.
Speaker 1:And and Virginia at that time, Hampton Roads area was frontier.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. Eighteen o five, everything was frontier
Speaker 1:pretty much. Yeah. That's so amazing.
Speaker 2:Anyway, so we're, they, that carried the day for a long season. And then you had, challenges that everybody in that area faced. It was a Challenges, but it still, by God's grace, continued. At the turn of the century, at the turn of the twentieth century, they had some challenges, but still they had one pastor, a pastor named Grizzard, who really set the course, I believe, for the church that I pastor today. Wow.
Speaker 2:That was in the turn of the hundreds. What he accomplished was setting the sights of the church on something beyond just maintenance of their stuff. Really accomplishing what God would have them do in the seven cities of Hampton Roads, or at least in Downtown Norfolk at the time. So you had a pastor, and I contend that this is the key ingredient for a long term vision, and you said it, spirit empowered, Christ centric, alive church for that- Biblically faithful. Biblically faithful.
Speaker 2:All those things, that's gonna happen, it's because the leader in the chair. And God appoints that leader in that chair, and he leads. So Grizzard was very important. And then they had some tough times, and the church burned down in the sixties. Wow.
Speaker 2:The downtown church. Now that was a blessing from God because the congregation was very attached to their Gothic historic building in downtown. They were a 100 people in Downtown Norfolk. The building burned down, and through the leadership of the pastor at the time, and some key lay leaders, they determined we're going to move to a place where we can accomplish more of God's mission. Wow.
Speaker 2:They moved right to the edge of the growth of, while still sitting in Norfolk, moved to the edge. So visionary leaders, not just the pastor, but the pastor was key. And some visionary leaders in the church, and they moved. The church grew to almost 1,500 people a weekend before they even moved into their building. They were meeting in a high school.
Speaker 2:Really? In the sixties? In the sixties. Well, that was in the seventies. Okay.
Speaker 2:Early seventies. And, and then God just favored But, still, you still, you know, 200 year old church, and you've I know you'll find it if you haven't already, but church like ours, you you create idols quickly. Traditions become more important than being biblically faithful. Yeah. And those are things that, again, the pastor and the leaders that God establishes in the church, become very important in maintaining.
Speaker 2:No, this is an idol, we're not gonna spend a lot of time on this. We're gonna move forward. It's a good tradition, it's not a bad tradition, but it's not being biblically faithful, it's not being spiritually empowered. Yeah. You know?
Speaker 2:So we're gonna we're gonna move off that. But courageous leadership is always the key.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Always the key. Okay. And, so what I've heard so far is consistent leadership. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like, people that it's not just a revolving door, but consistent leadership. And then people that have a culture, people that surround that leadership with vision. And and the pastor, obviously, the leadership team brings vision. But I if you're like me, I mean, I am constantly being challenged by the people around me.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So vision flows down for sure. I mean, it has to. Yeah. And that's the way God established it.
Speaker 2:But vision can also Yes. Bubble up. Yes. And that's what you want. In a healthy church Yep.
Speaker 2:You want that bubbling up vision as well. Not competing Yeah. But expanding.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm always listening. I mean, I'm we're in conversations and somebody says something and it stirs a thought. God just uses the body together in a beautiful way. It's a body. And then my job, while they're off thinking about their job, it was just a conversation for them.
Speaker 1:I'm taking it over here into their R and D lab, and I'm sitting here thinking about that and applying it. Then I have another conversation with someone else, and they talk, and they talk, and hey, have you ever thought of? And then they go back to their world, and they're not even thinking about it. Not even that I'm thinking about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you bring those things together, and just I love being, I remember early on in dad's ministry, I remember when he was in Beaumont, I've always heard him talk about how he just had such visionary people in that church. Yeah. People that had vision, people that saw more. And they were ready to pay prices
Speaker 2:to Yes. Get to the that's part of it too. Leaders have to help. And that was one of the things dad did, especially in Beaumont. You know, dad was able to, meet and hang out with some tremendous leaders in that Southeast Texas community.
Speaker 2:I mean, tremendous leaders. Yeah, really. In that Southeast Texas community. And, he would meet with them, and they would want to meet with him because they could run a business or be in a legislature or something like that, but dad was the one they turned to to figure out how to do life. That's right.
Speaker 2:You know? Not run a bit, How do I do life? Right. Here's what's happening in my family. How do I do life?
Speaker 1:Anyway, that's kind of far afield, but no, no, I think it's right there. So you have consistent leadership. You have great church leaders. Yeah. People that are willing to see it.
Speaker 1:People that, like Eric Truly, when we cast the vision for our current campus, God gave us a vision to build a beautiful church. Right. And when he gave us a vision to build a beautiful church, I didn't know how that'd be received because I grew up in church my whole life, and I've seen different waves. Right. And more often, there would be probably resistance Right.
Speaker 1:To that kind of vision because, hey, why are we making it beautiful? Let's just save that money Yeah. That it takes to make things beautiful or whatever. And yet we cast the vision because we felt like it was from the Lord. It was so clear.
Speaker 1:I was stunned that there was We were not taking any meetings to talk about why are we spending money on the On the beauty of it. Yeah. Why there was there were no meetings. Not one. Yeah.
Speaker 1:As if anything, our leaders just they said, yes. This is what we see. This is us. Yeah. And I'm convinced that's part of the secret sauce for why we were able to just leap over stages of building growth.
Speaker 1:We didn't do phase one, phase two. Right. Leap over stages was just the vision of the people and the boldness. And so I take that. You know, our prayer is, you know, for us, Keystone, looking forward, if I were to apply some of these things, I would say, you know, I'm already praying.
Speaker 1:And I've been talking about this, about just when my time is done, you know, fifty years from now.
Speaker 2:You know, if I'm still alive, we could talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Exactly. But, you know, when my time is done, I really do believe that God could be raising up the future pastor within our four walls right now.
Speaker 2:Oh, I would think so. I I mean and this is just me talking. And we you and I talked about this earlier. Almost every future leader for our church we've raised in our church. That's been very intentional because it helps us, especially in our context, it's a little bit different than But in our context, it is so important to protect the culture.
Speaker 2:I mean, we have to protect the culture. And so raising them up to protect the culture has been so important. You know, we honor the legacy that God's given us by building the future that God intends for us. We always have to have that We want to honor the legacy. We want to honor the two twenty years, But the way we honor it is by building the future God has intended And for so we just keep pressing towards
Speaker 1:that. So good. Yeah. So the consistency of even thinking, man, are we preaching in a way that's raising up the next generation? Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Are we thinking through cultural issues and how to build a worldview for them that's raising up the next generation that can meet an anti God, anti church culture? You know, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Then when you talk about visionary people around, man, we wanna build a culture of vision. Yeah.
Speaker 1:About a year into the building, I began, I was really, about one year, we were in this new building, and that was a furious, I mean, fast year. And God began to speak to me, Hey, caution, caution, caution. You spent a decade pushing to this vision. You spent a year growing into this vision, you know, just working it out. Don't stop now.
Speaker 1:Right? There there was I've sensed a great danger of getting comfortable, and God began to speak so clearly, start crafting the next vision. How do we keep moving forward? And I'm just so proud of our church that when we cast the vision to move forward, and it's gonna come a great sacrifice. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Here they came again. The visionaries rose up and said, let's go. Let's make this happen. So, that, that visionary front forward, we're going forward, we're moving forward. I love it.
Speaker 1:And this this is what I believe, I also wonder how much of it you've gotta read the you've talked a couple of times in this conversation and when we were together alone just about your context. Yeah. You know, teaching your people to be good missionaries in their context.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it it is every every church has different context. We're we're not Texas, we're not North Texas, we're not we're not North Dallas, we're not, you know, we're not Keller, or South Lake, Prosper, Frisco, that's not who we are. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And at
Speaker 2:we're seven cities of Hampton Roads influenced dramatically by, one of the two largest naval bases in the world called Norfolk Naval Station. We have a context. We have shipbuilders, and they, you know, they're union workers. That's the bedrock of our church. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sailors and shipbuilders. And you have other things that flow into that and add to that. But, at core, that is who we are. Much of seven cities of Hampton Roads, that whole seven cities in our area, we reach all those cities and down to outer banks. Over into Williamsburg, up on the Eastern Shore, we were able to reach, that's our reach, but those seven cities, man, our context has defined so much of how we do ministry.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's what churches Yeah. You meet the context in which you are. When I drive up whatever this road is out in front of Keystone and drive around this area, I look at this turn, I think, man. It's different. It is.
Speaker 2:Is awesome. You know? And anyway,
Speaker 1:context Okay, so I wanna dive into your context. We at Keystone have had, I've had the great privilege and the honor on occasion, on occasion, to pastor people who are in the, I wanna get this right, special forces or special operations forces. That's two different things. Two different things. And again, for me, it's like here, here.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's very unique in our context here for me to experience that often. They're on the other side of They're the on the second act for themselves. But it has been, we've had some incredible opportunities to see lives changed, and they carry a lot. They carry a lot. This is something that is more of a regular rhythm- Yeah.
Speaker 1:In your context.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, context, we have Navy SEALs, or special forces, or, other, folks that have been those and are still engaged in some of that activity in different, capacities. And those are, men, who, you know, they do dangerous things in dangerous places, and they can't talk about it very much. And, on occasion, I'm able to be, their sounding board, or, their help in those moments. I remember one conversation I had, not even a year ago. One of these men called me and said, I've done so many bad things, and I don't know how God can forgive me.
Speaker 2:And we talked through that, but he would just, Hey, here's a man who does hard things, endures hard things. And he was crying on the phone because of the weight of it. So part of our context is helping as best we can salvage lives in the midst of soldiers and sailors who, give so much of their lives. For sure. And they do.
Speaker 2:They do.
Speaker 1:They do. They do. They give so much of their lives. And they walk, you know, in my experience, and again, I would want you to speak more. In my experience, they're so proud of their country.
Speaker 1:They love their country. They've made such sacrifices, and they really have a heart to make it a better place in my experience. But you also lead admirals. You lead, I mean, you've had all over
Speaker 2:the place, right? Yeah, yeah, captains, admirals. And, you know, the former chief of naval operations was a member of our church for several years, many years. He was just an amazing man. You have all levels of sailors.
Speaker 2:They don't talk about it when they're in the church, and that's another thing, because if a guest comes in and he's a petty officer, and he's sitting in the seat next to, a captain, that changes the whole dynamic. Nobody talks about it, they're not wearing uniforms in the, in the sanctuary, that
Speaker 1:kind of How interesting.
Speaker 2:Because, again, they wanna make sure, and that's from the upper echelon, officers and leaders. They wanna make sure that every sailor, no matter what level, can find a home at our church. And they're intentional about that. They love the sailors and their families that come in.
Speaker 1:Gosh.
Speaker 2:But yeah, we have, you know, I think statistically 80% or better of our church is directly influenced by the military at some level. Either current, former, adjacent, military adjacent, that's a lot of things. A lot of DOD, Department of Defense stuff, and that kind of thing that happens. But 80% of our church is somehow connected with the military. And blessing to be able to be with those men and women.
Speaker 1:And it's an honor to walk beside them. It is. The people
Speaker 2:that put themselves on the front line and do hard things.
Speaker 1:And they do dangerous things in dangerous places, to accomplish for us what we could not accomplish for ourselves. You know, I'm always reminded because, especially in today's day and age, there's such and statistically, you can see this. There's such a skepticism for institutions. And I I believe in a healthy skepticism of institutions. But the Lyme there is an almost, it bleeds from a healthy skepticism to a full raged cynicism of institutions.
Speaker 1:And always remembered that these are people. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And there's people in there, and there's wonderful people up and down and all around.
Speaker 1:And especially those that do what you just said, boy, they just always wanna learn the lessons from our past of honoring those people Always. Who do those things.
Speaker 2:And, you know, many times we get encumbered by the politics around us, whether it's the politics we favor or the politics we don't favor. Patriotism should not be a political weapon, and sometimes it is. I grieve for many of our church family and friends of church family who experienced change of careers because of political encumberments. Those encumberments were done for reasons that had zero to do with the health of our Navy or our military, had everything to do with the social causes of the day. To me, that was a crime.
Speaker 2:I'm thankful for those men and women today who have to survive some of that stuff, and still continue to press on. It is a blessing and an honor and a privilege to stand with them, to walk beside them, to pray for them every single every Tuesday, I pray for all the church family that gives me requests. Every Tuesday morning at 09:00, I get a stack of cards from the Sunday before, usually about 400 or 500 cards from people that have verbalized their prayer requests, and I take those prayer requests, I pray for our members. So many of them are coming from places of service for our country, and they have deep struggles that they're dealing with, whether it's relational or emotional or financial, so I pray for them. But every Tuesday, I walk out of my study, whatever time that is that I finally finish.
Speaker 2:I feel heavier because of what what they're going through. Yeah. And I mean, it's more than that.
Speaker 1:But Yeah. It it's tough. You know, I think that's I'll throw this in as another characteristic of going the distance and having a church that endures, and that is pastors. And I would say the pastor, but also the ministers and the pastors that accompany, that they are doing what you just said, walking with the sheep. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Engaged, loving, leading. Yeah. Correcting, encouraging. And that Ephesians four twelve, how God raises up these people, called people, the prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, I believe it says, and to do the to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. And when you tell me about praying over all those requests, I mean, that's what that is.
Speaker 1:That's you getting a snapshot because that's not the extent of your church. You're a snapshot of some of the deepest burdens that people are carrying. Yeah. You take that with you into the pulpit. You take that with you into the lobby.
Speaker 1:You take that with you into a lunch.
Speaker 2:It changes everything about how I lead, you know? And, I mean, most people don't know this. Wouldn't y'all wouldn't know it. My fam you know, my my compassion quotient is not you know, I don't have a high compassion- Not really. I don't I right.
Speaker 2:I don't. And, so one of the things that I began to do was get these requests and begin to pray over them because I needed, and the spirit of God just really convinced me and corrected me that I needed to care more for the people that I pastor. Wow. And that was one of the key components of that is just In their need. Praying for the people, you know?
Speaker 2:You tell me what your need is. You don't have to sign it. Just tell me what it is. I wanna pray for you.
Speaker 1:And so You know, that's an interesting thought. And I'll just hit this briefly. The thought that there's a diversity of gifts among pastors, and you have clear gifts. And what you're saying is compassion, empathy, mercy, those are not on the stronger side of your gift set. They barely register.
Speaker 1:And you know what? Some people today would say, Well, you're not qualified to pastor. I'd say, You're absolutely wrong. There's some compassionate, empathetic, merciful people who are a disaster in leadership. They have no vision.
Speaker 1:They cannot lead others and they struggle. And what I'd say to them is you need to strengthen your leadership, strengthen your vision, and you need to continue to operate in the things that you're good at. But I would say to you, hey, what you just said is so inspiring. Rather than just saying, yeah, I'm not compassionate, you say, holy spirit of God, show me how I can have it because it's not natural to me.
Speaker 2:And he said, I want you praying for the people. Yeah. It began with Edie, my wife. She You know, I have four daughters, my wife and four daughters. And God gave me four daughters, I'm convinced, to help build my compassion, to help grow that part of me.
Speaker 2:But Edie told me, Eric, you need to start feeling more than what you're feeling. You're not, you know And of course, there's a lot of dysfunction in that that I carry with me, but that's one of the key components that Edie helped me see. You need to feel more. Every day, one of the prayers that I pray is, Lord, help for me to feel exactly what I should be feeling. For people, with people, about myself, about others, help for me to feel exactly what I should be feeling.
Speaker 2:I don't want more than that. Right. But what should I be feeling? That bled over, and that was ten years ago or fifteen years ago now. That bled over into being the pastor of First Norfolk.
Speaker 2:I need to I I'm yeah. And I'm called to pray for the people. Yes, right. That's my one of my primary That's right. Jane?
Speaker 2:Primary yeah. One of my primary roles as pastor. That's right.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Well, this is, I mean, could keep going, but I'm looking at the clock and I think it's time to call it before we say something we're ashamed of or- Well, I probably already have, kidding. I'm kidding. No, Eric, it's been amazing just sitting with you, my brother, and I love you. And thank you for joining us here.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us on The Overflow. We will see you next time.