Adventure History from Tony Liston's Perspective - September 11, 2022

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Here you can listen to sets and series of teachings recorded live in house at Adventure Davenport.

Travis Roehm: 00:36

Oh, no. This is gonna feel really familiar to some of you guys.

Tony Liston: 00:43

We're gonna do a duet.

Travis Roehm: 00:45

No. We're not doing a duet. That's not what's gonna feel familiar. So, obviously, this is a little bit different. I feel like I'm, like, part of a game show or a anyway.

Travis Roehm: 00:57

This is gonna feel really familiar because it's an anniversary that you know nothing about. So next year next year is, 25 years for adventure or for yeah. For adventure. Right?

Tony Liston: 01:07

Mhmm. Yep.

Travis Roehm: 01:11

So what is this anniversary?

Tony Liston: 01:13

This weekend, it was 24 years ago today that we had our 1st public worship service. Isn't that crazy? And it was 20 5 years ago this week that my family moved to Davenport, not knowing what we were getting into.

Travis Roehm: 01:31

So, you know, we'd spent some time just kinda looking back on that, thinking about that, and, thought it'd be fun. This is gonna be totally different than one of our our normal, Sunday morning services. But, I get to interview Tony. So I got to interview Tony and Steph on Thursday, but Steph bailed on us.

Tony Liston: 01:47

That was the better interview.

Travis Roehm: 01:48

Yeah. He was. And, so talk. Well, gee. I'm not I have nothing to say about them.

Travis Roehm: 01:55

So, so today, we just kind of want to talk a little bit about about that. And and really, I guess, it goes to why we're here and what God has called us to accomplish, because I think the dream that God gave you guys 25 years ago is still alive today. And so, you know, these are good moments because they they help us to kinda refocus. And, and I hope you Thursday was really neat for me because it's also an encouragement. Sometimes we need those examples of stepping out a little bit, and this is not to put ton of your stuff on, like, this high pedestal.

Travis Roehm: 02:32

But just to remember, sometimes the great adventures are hopping into a U Haul and, and driving somewhere you've never been before. And I I wanna think of it like the Clampetts where you had stuff on the roof.

Tony Liston: 02:46

But, you know much different than that. Actually, I got I got a little backstory for your statement there. When we moved to Iowa, we moved to Ankeny, Iowa. And, we moved right after Christmas of 94, and we started in Ankeny on January 1, 95. And on the drive up here, we stopped to get gas at Middle Road in 74.

Tony Liston: 03:14

And, I got out and I got gas there and I remember looking around and I had this weird thought as I'm standing there pumping gas. And, of course, you remember that intersection was really different back then, way different back then. And I remember standing there pumping gas and looking around at the town, and I don't know what it was about it. And I got back in the car and I told Steph she'll vouch for this. I told Steph, this might be a good town to work in someday.

Tony Liston: 03:45

I wasn't sure where we were. I knew we'd just crossed the state line. I figured it was probably Davenport, but that whole Davenport Bettendorf thing still confuses me. I can't tell where the where the city lines are.

Travis Roehm: 03:58

I call it 74. Anything on that side of 70 4, any that's the 70

Tony Liston: 04:02

4 corridor. And, then when we drove north, I looked over at 7. I said, good lord. They have a castle. Remember Jimer's?

Tony Liston: 04:14

I just thought that was funny. Never mind. Go ahead. Was that it? Carry on.

Travis Roehm: 04:19

Yes. So going back a little going back to that. So I know, you know, you've told the story a lot. And if you haven't been to Discovering Adventure, you can hear this part of the story. So the the story of, you know, you guys were in Ankeny, and, CEM invited you got you to come out.

Travis Roehm: 04:36

Really wanted you to plant. You said no. And you came out to do a bit of a survey for them and and fell in love with the area and again you can fill in those. I know you've told that story 100 and 100 of times over the last 25 years. But kinda looking at that maybe from a different perspective.

Travis Roehm: 04:52

So how do you looking back now, going back 25 years, how did god prepare, you and Steph for for this? And then I guess and then on the other side of that, the second part of that question is, how do you think that God was preparing the Quad Cities in Davenport for adventure?

Tony Liston: 05:11

Yeah. Sure. We Steph and I had, we'd worked traditional churches all of our lives, and everything was about preserving the status quo as it was. And you weren't allowed to try anything new. In fact, if you tried anything new I remember I remember, a board meeting at a former church, and I had bought a carpet, just a big piece of rug for the entryway because people were tracking dirt in.

Tony Liston: 05:42

And the next, elders meeting we had, I got my rear end reamed out for buying a $30 carpet for the front of the room, for the entryway, which made it look much nicer. And I thought then, I'm going to die here, And it's not gonna be a natural death. And I just thought, we've got if we can't even change anything a little bit, how in the world do we connect with new people? And, I'd always liked the security of being in an established church because it's quite secure. They don't change, which is both good and bad.

Tony Liston: 06:18

But as that went on, it was just eating my soul out. We had a lot of friends that weren't believers and also wouldn't attend our church. Even though they'd come to our they'd come to our apartment for bible study, but they wouldn't come to our church. We thought, this is just not working. And I finally just got to a point where I couldn't do it anymore.

Tony Liston: 06:38

And, I actually went and did an application at Menards, because that's how serious I was about getting out. But, we the one good thing that came out of that particular congregation was Ron and Shelly Wicks. They were here. They came to adventure and helped us out, after we moved. After Ron started speaking to me again.

Tony Liston: 06:59

I was

Travis Roehm: 06:59

gonna say after he forgave you.

Tony Liston: 07:00

Right? He forgave me for leaving. But, the thing we loved about the Quad Cities, we kind of loved its unchurchedness, I guess, would be the way to put it. There was a a big demographic study done that said 71% of the people of Scott County were considered unchurched. And by unchurched, it means they didn't claim, like, I'm Lutheran, but I don't go.

Tony Liston: 07:24

They didn't claim a church at all. And to us, we saw that that's an area that needs to hear the gospel and we need to find a way that is not we need to find a way that actually works to do that. And so I think when we came over, we were at the right point in our lives, and willing to take a risk. And Scott County was honestly, at at the right point in its life too in development, and it's just been a blessing since it worked. I think, kind of, the right place at the right time.

Tony Liston: 07:54

So

Travis Roehm: 07:55

You know, we we kinda this wasn't a question, by the way, that I did Thursday night, so this is totally off time. My head. Yeah. Yep. So this is an adventure.

Travis Roehm: 08:03

You know, we romanticize the the disciples. We romanticize everything as we look back on it. We put halos over their heads and stained glass. And, you know, I think a lot of us read the gospels, and we look and go, well, they had it all together, and the beginning of the church just went, and it grew because we read where it went 1,000. And I have a feeling there probably it's easy to look at where adventure is now and go, well, of course it was gonna be a success.

Travis Roehm: 08:29

And, of course, you know, it this and, of course, that. So just out of curiosity, so how scared were you coming here and what were your biggest fears?

Tony Liston: 08:39

Well, I'd say that over the first 5 years of living in Davenport, I probably, about 2:30 in the morning, vomited twice my body weight in the middle of the night from nerves. It was just it was scary, and we didn't know what we were getting into. And I would have people would ask, and they'd say, well, what's your goal? Is it you know, what what's your immediate goal as a church planner? And I would tell them, well, to be alive when it's over, to be able to have church next Sunday.

Tony Liston: 09:11

That's my next goal. And, it was it was it was kinda terrifying. I knew the first day that for sure that there would be 4 people there because Steph and I were making Josh and Caleb come with us. And, so when we when we, had people show up, that, you know, that felt pretty good. But I'll tell you what, we were making it up as we went along.

Tony Liston: 09:35

And we made a lot of changes from what we thought was gonna happen. We made a lot of changes. A lot of them were good. Our prayer was you know, at first, we were praying, God, bring us people. They brought us people and he brought us some weirdos.

Tony Liston: 09:48

Not gonna lie. One of the dark little secrets of church planting is is that anybody who's looking for a power vacuum to get sucked into and take over will come to a new church. And so that first wave of people, new church is often sick and perverted. And, we had some of that, at the beginning, and then we realized, oh, wait. We need to be more specific.

Tony Liston: 10:14

Lord, bring us the right people. And, then you guys started showing up. And, so that's you know, that was kind of a change of plans, but it was it was good. I wouldn't trade it for anything. Don't really ever wanna do it again, but wouldn't trade it for anything.

Tony Liston: 10:30

But it did not go according to plan, but it went according to God's plan. And that's the plan we were hoping to hoping to work with.

Travis Roehm: 10:39

So I I know and I've had the opportunity to work with Centimeters and and church planners. You've worked with many, many, many church planners. And one of the things that we know for sure is, the people who are people who are planting the church, you know, a lot of the DNA ends up of the church is is from them. But the same time, that early group that kinda comes in for, really, the first probably 3 years or so really sets the DNA for a church. So who are the people when you look at what adventure is now?

Travis Roehm: 11:07

Whose DNA do you see? And what what did they what what other people kinda contributed in? And what what did they look like?

Tony Liston: 11:13

Sure. So one of the one of the fun things we did when we were still meeting at Caissei. We met at Caissei. Yes. Back before they did the remodel.

Tony Liston: 11:24

And, who

Travis Roehm: 11:26

who's still here? Anybody here from Caissei?

Tony Liston: 11:28

Anybody here? Not not going to Kaysai now.

Travis Roehm: 11:30

Yeah. Not going to Kaysai now, but, actually, we're at Kaysai when yes. We still got some people.

Tony Liston: 11:35

Yeah. So I passed out cards one Sunday, and we're probably running I can't remember. I think we might have been running about a 180 or something like that. I passed out index cards in the service, and I asked people, write your name at the bottom and write the name of the person who invited you to adventure at the top. And so they did.

Tony Liston: 11:55

And so I took all those cards out. I got permission from Case I had to go out in the middle of the night. So I went out on their dance floor that they had, and I started putting cards in clusters based on the name that was at the top of the card and built basically a family tree of who came from who. And I found that even at that time when we were, running about a 180, that everybody in the church could be traced back to 3 or 4 families who were there at the beginning. And, honestly, I think if we did the same thing today, it would probably go back to about a half dozen families that were there at the beginning.

Tony Liston: 12:34

But that's just that DNA of the church growing and friends inviting friends inviting friends. And so it was really interesting to see and, like, so our welcome center, when we started it, it was just a place to pick up stuff. I mean, there wasn't even anybody there. And, then we had a couple named Tim and Dina Golson. Some of you may remember Tim and Dina.

Tony Liston: 12:57

He worked for Wells Fargo. And after about 2 years, they sent him to Iowa City, and he's the one who started all the Wells Fargo banks in Iowa City and Coralville and all that. He's an adventurer. But, Tim and Dina took over the welcome center and made it a fantastic thing. We had a gal by the name of Margaret Lewis who started our cafe for us and really developed the cafe into what it became.

Tony Liston: 13:23

And there's just a lot of stuff that has been really good. Most of the good things that have happened at adventure have come from people who came along with ideas and and or my wife, to be real honest. So that DNA is all through there, and we love it's been allowed to modify and adapt and so forth as we've gone, but it's just been so much fun seeing things that happen. Our technology stuff started with, a gal named, Mitzi Yocum. And with Mitzi, we used an infrared keyboard so she could sit in the crowd and run the computer, which was behind the screen out in front of us.

Tony Liston: 14:02

And one of the things we hadn't considered when we were at wood was that fluorescent lights, like in a gymnasium, are sending off an infrared signal. And so the slides would randomly change. And sometimes, the slides would go all the way through, like, in 4 seconds. Every slide we have go all the way through, and Mitzi would be sitting on the front row. And so I would make fun of her.

Tony Liston: 14:25

And then she would go up try to figure out what it was. Then she came up with the simplest of solutions, which was to put a piece of duct tape over the top of the eye so that it couldn't see the ceiling. But it only took us about 6 weeks to come up with that and thousands of slides we ran through in one service one day. So, but you look back at all that, and it's just been so much fun because every person who's come here and has volunteered here has added something to what we've done and and help make it what it is.

Travis Roehm: 14:57

So scripture says that, every church, the word like the body of Christ. So some of you are the fingers and toes and legs and arms and eyeballs and all that stuff. But we also kinda believe that about the church in an area as well. So what part of the body is adventure in Davenport? I'm scared to ask this question.

Tony Liston: 15:14

We tried to avoid one part. I've probably failed a few times with that.

Travis Roehm: 15:21

Hopefully, we don't need to explain what that is.

Tony Liston: 15:23

Yeah. I think probably in the community, we're from what I I understand from my pastor friends and other people, we're kind of seen as the hands and the feet and sometimes the back, because Adventure has done a lot of heavy lifting in the community, on all kinds of things. If there's something needs to be done in the community that, is church, capital c, universal church related, adventure people are always in the middle of it. Always in the middle of it. And, when we go do disaster relief stuff, we have a bunch of other churches that jump on with us and go because they can't do it themselves, but they'll run with us.

Tony Liston: 16:04

So that's been fun. That's been good.

Travis Roehm: 16:06

So this is kind of throw away, but give me one of the funniest moments over the last 25 years.

Tony Liston: 16:13

Well, probably what most people would consider.

Travis Roehm: 16:17

Sorry.

Tony Liston: 16:17

What most people would consider funny usually involves bodily injury to me injury to me. I don't know. I mean, we've had so many weird moments, some good moments. Do what? When you called us dingleberries.

Tony Liston: 16:33

Oh, yeah. I called everybody in the church dingleberries one day, and I did not know that was a real word, nor did I know what it meant. I just thought it sounded funny. And I went back to sit down, and Nida Brooks handed me her phone with prove that I was right when I said it. But, yeah.

Tony Liston: 17:04

So there's been I don't know. It's there's been a lot of funny times. I I love our people. We get we've had people get up and give our testimonies. And as they're giving their testimonies, they drop the f bomb.

Tony Liston: 17:19

But as inappropriate as that is, it's still reality. Right? It's people growing, and I've loved that. But we've had a lot of we've just had a ton of fun stuff. We've done so much stuff wrong and figured it out after the fact, but, I don't know.

Tony Liston: 17:33

I I really can't isolate anyone. Thanks. Sorry.

Travis Roehm: 17:37

It's alright. How about I open up to you? Anybody got a question for Tony about, kinda looking back over the last 25 years and thinking about adventure. We had some good ones, Thursday night. Anybody?

Travis Roehm: 17:48

I know I'm springing it on you.

Tony Liston: 17:50

How did we end up here?

Travis Roehm: 17:52

How did we end up here?

Tony Liston: 17:53

Oh, man. That's

Travis Roehm: 17:56

so We got I gotta go 13 minutes.

Tony Liston: 17:58

Got 13 minutes. Okay. I gotta go way back to answer that question. When we first came to town, we had to find a place for the church to meet. And so the first place that I went to look for a place to meet was the Moose Club.

Tony Liston: 18:14

And so I came into the Moose Club, and they walked me back down the hallway. It's It's the security room now. And that was I went into the office door there, into the nursery, which we've rearranged the doors and stuff there, so it's kinda hard to picture. But there was, like, 3 offices across the front there, and they took me into the far office. And, the guy who was in there was smoking a cigar, sitting behind a newspaper, and the, gal that greeted me kind of I don't know what her job was, secretary or something, walked me back there and said to him, hey.

Tony Liston: 18:47

I got a guy here that wants to rent, wants to rent, our dance hall for having church in on Sundays. And he didn't even lower his paper. The smoke just continued to poof up over the top like there was a steam engine behind the paper. And he said, we don't rent to churches for anything, and that was the extent of it. And, so we ended up eventually down well, we end up starting down here at West or not West.

Tony Liston: 19:15

Wood. Oh my goodness. Okay. Wood. Not gonna lie.

Tony Liston: 19:18

That was a good feeling. Down here at wood. And, so during that time, as we're looking for a place, we finally came to a point to where we realized we needed to do something different. We knew we were wearing out everywhere we would go. They would end up remodeling at some point, not because of us, done a spiritual gifts class that falls was in the fall of 2,005.

Tony Liston: 19:52

Their primary spiritual gift was the gift of craftsmanship. And which means being able to create, develop, build, and so forth things that contribute to worship and serving God. And the most we'd ever had would be, like, 2 people maybe in a whole class. Well, in this one, it was 2 thirds of the class had that spiritual gift. And So I sat down with the leadership team, Mark and and Ron and, Greg.

Tony Liston: 20:16

And we're looking at this thing going, what does this mean? This is just so far out there. This is bizarre. And so we talked about it. We prayed about it and we decided maybe what that's telling us is it's time for us to get a building because we have the people to deal with it.

Tony Liston: 20:34

And, so we decided let's explore. And so we opted to sell bonds, And so we brought in a company to sell bonds. Most churches can't go get a loan at first. They have to have bonds. And, which like people buying stock in the church.

Tony Liston: 20:48

And so we, brought a guy in. He talked to everybody. We set up a day for people to go and buy bonds. And we sold out of all of our bonds to buy this place, which we found, which was a whole that'll take 30 minutes to tell that story. But we were able to, leverage our land, which we bought when we were a couple years old as collateral.

Tony Liston: 21:13

And then with the bonds, we sold out of a $1,000,000 something in bonds in about 45 minutes. We didn't know. And I walked back in. I was like, one of the last people have an appointment because I was like being the hostess upfront. And, I walked into the room and I said, alright.

Tony Liston: 21:30

And he goes, pastor, I gotta tell you something. I said, Jan, he goes, we don't have any bonds to sell you for your church. They're all gone. His name was Dwayne. And I looked at him and said, Dwayne, I cannot walk out of here without church bonds.

Tony Liston: 21:44

And so I bought bonds for a church of Christ in Texas, and I walked out with my paper going, I got my bonds. But we ended up we ended up here because this place had been a school, and it had failed. And it actually went into foreclosure. And we figured out the bank that bought it back, and we talked to them, and they sold it to us. And we were able to buy it for about a third of what the asking price was a couple days before.

Tony Liston: 22:12

And, so we moved in here, and I used to have an office down the hallway. Guess which office was mine? The guys are going, we're gonna give you this big offices, and I want the big office. I want the office in the back. It's gonna smell like cigar smoke.

Tony Liston: 22:25

And so that was my office for a while. But God just opened a lot of doors to get us in here. And, it's been a good home for us. But it's it's a weird it's a weird room, but it's been a good home for us.

Travis Roehm: 22:39

So what was the dream? I mean, you guys god's Sure. You're in Ankeny. You're sorting through, and you talked a little bit about this. But what was the dream?

Travis Roehm: 22:50

What was the prayer hopping in the car and, and driving to Davenport 25 years ago this weekend.

Tony Liston: 22:56

Yeah. We just wanted to we wanted to make sure that we could create a space where new people could find find Christ and find family. That was our goal. That was everything else was secondary to that. That was literally the the goal.

Tony Liston: 23:11

We wanted to have a place that people wanted to go to go to church, especially my kids. And, that meant all the traditional stuff was off the table, not the biblical beliefs, but the way we've done it. Because much of what the church does today I know a lot of churches wanna rip on the Catholic church, and we have some significant disagreements with the Catholic church. But the reality is is they still imitate the Catholic church as much as they wanna complain about it. And we thought we need to find something that is more like scripture and more like the early church.

Tony Liston: 23:44

And one of the things we noted upfront was that the early church, anytime Jesus did deep teaching, he did it sitting down over food. And so that felt like the best format for us to try to follow, and, and it's it's worked.

Travis Roehm: 24:01

So in 25 years, what's the prayer today? I mean, you've gotten through that. Your kids are here. Your grandkids are here. You get to baptize your grandchild just, what, 2 weeks ago.

Tony Liston: 24:12

Yeah.

Travis Roehm: 24:13

So what's what's the prayer now?

Tony Liston: 24:16

The prayer is just that adventure keeps doing what it needs to do to reach new generations and that, really, as far as man made traditions go, that the one man made tradition we need to keep is change. We need to hang on to that and continue to change and continue to adapt. And I've said it's kinda tongue in cheek and it's also kinda true. I have my style of music you like or I like. You have your style of music you like.

Tony Liston: 24:44

My goal is that when I finally die, that I die, and I leave behind a church with whose music I am completely uncomfortable. I hope to absolutely hate the music here by the time I die. And the reason for that is that it's outgrown me because it's not about me. It's not about me. And it never has been about me.

Tony Liston: 25:04

And I want it to continue to grow and thrive and and change. And, I just wanna see the church be healthy and continue on the mission for as long as God will have it.

Travis Roehm: 25:15

Considering your favorite music is bagpipes with, with electric guitar over top of it, I I I think you're safe.

Tony Liston: 25:23

I want you to know that we had the best Christmas Eve service a couple years ago. I brought a bagpiper in to play Christmas carols on Christmas Eve, and we sang with a bagpiper. I'm seriously thinking about bringing him back, but, like, for a Sunday in March, like, right around Saint Patrick's Day.

Travis Roehm: 25:44

So and I've heard you mentioned before change is kinda number 1 tradition, and and you see that. So we're 25 years in. We have no idea what the next 25 minutes holds. I think 10 year plans are off the table for I didn't think IBM's making 10 year plans anymore. That that's out of that.

Travis Roehm: 26:02

But as you look towards the future, what are some of the what are 2 or 3 things that you see that's that you think are integral for us as we continue to move forward and continue that that dream on that god planted into into adventure here? What are some things that that we need to be doing to to kinda carry that dream on?

Tony Liston: 26:22

Well, I think we need to be sure that we're not turning into some of the people that we've resented in the past. Mhmm. Because a lot of you've come from churches, or you've visited churches, and you go, like, I can't stand that. They're so lost in the past. Right now is the next generation's past.

Tony Liston: 26:37

Right? And we need to not be locked into our comfort. We need to be sure that we're able to adjust, and the theology is not gonna change. What God says is right is still gonna be right. What God says is wrong is still gonna be wrong.

Tony Liston: 26:52

But how we deliver and what we do can can modify, can adapt to share. The world's becoming more and more digital. And so I think our ministry is gonna have to become more and more digital. Music's gonna have to evolve. Maybe even this setting has to evolve.

Tony Liston: 27:09

We're gonna have to continue to reach out. But the reality is no matter how much everything else changes, the one thing that will never change is that people still have to have people. And the gospel still has to be shared, and it's 99% of it is gonna be 1 on 1. Yeah. And people have to continue to share the gospel 1 on 1 with their friends, with their loved ones.

Tony Liston: 27:35

And that's really what we're gonna have to we just have to make sure that stays the same. Everything else can change. I don't care. Maybe we go back to chairs someday. Maybe we go back to straight rows if that's what the if that's what the younger culture is gonna need at some point.

Tony Liston: 27:48

I'm okay with that. But the message doesn't change. All this other stuff is these are accouterments.

Travis Roehm: 27:54

I'm not going back to pews.

Tony Liston: 27:56

You're not going back to pews?

Travis Roehm: 27:57

I'm not doing that.

Tony Liston: 27:58

So I have one back there just for Dave Lang, so he feels at home. I come in and find him whimpering on that pew once in a while. But, anyhow

Travis Roehm: 28:06

No. I appreciate that. Because the the one thing that the death of every church is when the people of the church quit developing new relationships and quit inviting friends. Period.

Tony Liston: 28:18

Yeah.

Travis Roehm: 28:19

Right?

Tony Liston: 28:19

That's it.

Travis Roehm: 28:22

Yeah. Again, today is a little bit different. And, hopefully, it's been a little bit fun, maybe a little insightful. I I think the the big thing that we, that we were hoping would come out of this is just it's not as much looking back. And, again, it's not to put Tony and Steph on a pedestal or to do any of that.

Travis Roehm: 28:37

It's really just to go back to who are we. And the reality is the vision's never changed.

Tony Liston: 28:44

Right. No.

Travis Roehm: 28:45

And the vision is still the vision. The the thing that got planted, that dream that got planted is still the dream today of of reaching people, broken people, hurting people, people who don't fit anywhere else and giving them a place to encounter God and people to, walk with them encountering God and doing that. Is that a fair summary?

Tony Liston: 29:05

That's a fair summary. Yep.

Travis Roehm: 29:07

Anything what what do you wanna say just the end of this thing as we close this out?

Tony Liston: 29:12

I love you guys, and my wife especially loves you guys. She loves all of you. I love most of you and like some of the others, but, I'll tell you the the whole thing with adventure. I mean, this is my wife and I, this is our church. Someday, we won't be on staff here anymore.

Tony Liston: 29:34

Don't know when that'll be, but this is still gonna be our church. And, we love this church. We'll always always be around somewhere even if roles change. But, my best encouragement to you, keep your eyes on Jesus. Don't follow the culture.

Tony Liston: 29:53

Keep your eyes on Jesus. Look at what Jesus has said. Look at what he's taught. And, look at look at the New Testament. That describes the church, the new testament.

Tony Liston: 30:03

The rest of the new testament is the commentary on how the church is to live out what Jesus said. Don't rule part of it out. Don't do this crap where people say, oh, that was 2000 years ago and I don't believe that anymore. It's still true. It's still true.

Tony Liston: 30:20

And it doesn't matter if you believe it or like it or not, it's still true. And a life that isn't built on that kind of understanding of scripture is a life that's built on a fake gospel and it's built on a fake savior. Fake savior the the real savior makes demands of us that we don't like, and the new testament explains what some of those demands are. So stay faithful to scripture even when you're told by your friends that's foolishness, that's bigotry, that's hate, What scripture says is wrong is still wrong, and we've gotta be faithful to that. That's the whole thing we're built on.

Tony Liston: 31:05

I just encourage you, continue to grow and continue to be faithful. And, this family of God in this place, this location may change locations over the years, may branch out over the years, but the reality is it can continue for generations to come and have the same loving principle of evangelism and getting Jesus to broken people that you have had. So I'm

Travis Roehm: 31:28

gonna ask you guys to do something he would never, he'd never do on his own. I I wanna pray over Tony and Steph and their ministry over the last 25 years and also just pray over adventure, where it is now and where we go. 24 years, and I thank you for the dream that you planted in Tony and Steph 25 years ago. And, I get to be part of that too. I don't know if I would be in ministry today if 15 years ago, I didn't encounter adventure and Tony and Steph and, just everybody who is who is a part of this.

Travis Roehm: 32:08

So I'm a product too, and I thank you for for how that you've impacted me and impacted so many people, because it's not just the the people who show up on Sundays now. Over the last 25 years, it is 1,000 and thousands of people. And keep them faithful to to what you've called them to. But father, I also pray that you move adventure forward in whatever way, shape, or for form that you need to do. Father, just help us to be faithful to being open to whatever next steps you lay in front of us, whatever they look like, whatever it entails.

Travis Roehm: 32:52

No matter what, father, just never let us get in the way. Father, we thank you for what you do. We thank you for how you love us. We thank you for drawing us together as a family. We thank you most of all for Jesus.

Travis Roehm: 33:08

It's in his name we pray. Amen.