Welcome back to the Stone Bible Podcast, the SOBC Pod. This is Craig, and I'm joined by two Justins. Hello, Justin and Justin.

Hello.

Hola. We have Justin Evans, our lead pastor and Justin Bishop who is one of our lay elders. Bishop, I think you've served in almost every role inside of our church at one time. I'm trying

to hit them all. I'll get senior pastor one of these days.

You're getting close, man. So yeah, today, man, it's a special day. This weekend, we had fun event. We had a ladies event. And yesterday, we didn't make a big deal about it, but yesterday was actually our eleventh anniversary as a church, which we celebrated ten years.

We made that one a big one, but know, we had to make the decision of, do you celebrate every single year then, or do you only celebrate the big ones? And then, like, what's a big one? We kinda decided everything with a zero or a five at the end. We're kinda thinking our big ones. 11 doesn't fit into either one of those categories.

So it was a normal Palm Sunday for us. But as we're thinking just through podcast and kind of the different things that we wanted to bring forward, One of the things that we thought we wanna talk about was just the history of Stone Bible Church, of how she came to be, how we got to where we are currently. So we brought in two of our oldest Justins in the life of our church. Myself and Justin Evans were there from day zero. And then Bishop, you came like week three.

Yeah. I think it's about three weeks in.

Yeah. I I think it was it was right at the beginning. I remember that much. Mhmm. That's awesome.

So you're three weeks in, so you're still pretty fresh with us. So let's begin here. Justin, take us back to the beginning then. Take us back to just the idea. How did the idea of Stone Bible Church first come about?

I thought about this and I think every time I've told this story it has gone in a different direction, so I have no idea where this is going to go. But I was in seminary in 2030 I think around there. Yeah 2010.

And

I took a church planning boot camp class and I remember Wait

you took a class

that was called boot camp. It was awesome. Just a beating and they forced your wife to be it too so she remembers it.

Pause. How did you convince your wife to take a class that's called Boot Camp?

We were young and excited. We would charge the hill.

Yeah, well done. Alright, so you're in boot camp.

Yeah, so boot camp and I had seen the way God had used church plants by being a part of them in the past. And this boot camp was coming up and I was just thinking like what would God have for me? How would He have me serve? And so I took it not knowing what God was going to do and I remember in this boot camp I was asked to do a proposal as though I was planting a church. Tell me where.

Tell me how. Tell me everything. And so we just started toCandace and I took it seriously and prayed like okay if God were to send us to plant somewhere, let's find a place and let's just pray and what happens? And I remember us picking North Central San Antonio and writing a 40 page church planning proposal on this North Central San Antonio, turned it in and then went about life for the next three years and didn't think anything about it.

And then

all of a sudden in 2013 I got a call that there was a church in San Antonio called Northeast Bible Church that was looking to plant a church in North Central San Antonio and my proposal got put on that desk and all of a sudden something that was just a dream started to maybe be a reality like it could actually happen and that was kind of the seeds of it. It started as a project and ended up as a calling to move from Dallas.

So the short version is our church is just a school project.

It's the best school project ever.

Did you get an A? I Okay. That makes me feel better.

I not only got an A, but I got a job because of It fantastic. You get an

A in my book.

It's something I never thought God was going to do, and here we are.

So why San Antonio? You were living in Dallas at the time. Why San Antonio?

I love San Antonio. Born and raised in San Antonio and saw just a ton of potential in San Antonio with the amount of people that were moving here. You

raised on the Northwest Side

of I was on Northwest, yeah, in the Holodus area.

Which I'm sure it's changed

considerably Oh, 100%. None of this was here. And when we moved in North Central, was the same. It was just a bunch of beautiful hills. Or when we moved away, was just beautiful hills.

There was no houses. When we moved back, was rooftops everywhere two eighty one blowing up and just so many people and so much opportunity for the Gospel and to connect these people. Yeah, that's what led us there and I'm glad you did.

Yeah. I I remember whenever we first moved here, February was still the turnaround. February. You guys remember those?

Oh, yeah. I heard it

was designed by Aggies.

I don't know if that's good or bad.

I'm married to one, so no no comment from me.

Yeah. Like, February used to be it was, like, four lanes. Yep. And everything was just turnarounds.

It was

weird compared to what 281 is now. So we go from it being a a school project. You get connected with this church, Northeast Bible Church. From there, what happens?

Yeah, from there they just incredible. They brought me in, they brought us in, and they gave us a place to belong while we did the work of planting and, not only the work of planting, but we were in the middle of an adoption from Ethiopia. We had our life was crazy. And they just loved us, served us, came around us and gave us the space so that when we planted we were ready, supported and it wasn't a we better start something because we're not going to eat. They supported us and it gave us the ability to launch healthy.

So we moved in 2014 and started the work about a year before we actually launched the church.

Justin and I go way back. We actually met an undergraduate in Kansas City. Somehow, he ended up at Church Point in Kansas City and got aligned our paths together. And we found out we're going to Dallas together and then became closer friends and then kinda went separate a little bit for about a year or two in Dallas, I framed different churches, different degree paths, but still remained friends. I remember you called me up and said, Hey, you've got a possibility of planting a church in San Antonio, Texas.

You said no.

I didn't say no.

You did.

I said no without saying the words no.

No, it was clear.

Like everything about it was no, except for my words being no. My wife and I had our oldest at that time when we moved back towards grandparents, back towards Missouri, but God had different plans. I can say now it was the grace of God. At that time, it almost felt like the punishment of God. Like to move further south away from family, to move into a brand new city, to move into just the hottest hot, known to man to not get seasons.

I think that's the biggest thing I miss is

It's a bummer.

Every season is a hot season, except for winter, you get two weekends of it. That's about it. Okay. So you're at Northeast Bible. Are you officially on staff with Northeast?

What's that actually look

They brought me on staff, but I did nothing other than I was on staff in order to plant as cool as that sounds. I got to preach some and Drew Lever, pastor's there and he just graciously gave me a front row seat to everything and allowed me to walk with their elders and their staff and their volunteers and learn and preach and he's a little bit of a guru when it comes to scheduling and I got to steal a lot from him. Was great. And so I was on there as a resident with them for a year, provided a year.

Do you feel like that's the point where it went from of like hey this is an idea, this is a paper assignment to do you feel like the move is what really made it real for you? Was there another moment whenever you look back at the history where was it first Sunday? Like at what point did you feel this is real?

There were two moments. One was when we moved because that's a big deal. I had no family at the time in San Antonio. We were moving back.

Now you have all of your

family almost. I got one here. Felt real but I got to tell you our first time when we got our core group together that was one of those Oh my! Moments of there are actually people here and this is happening. We're out there now.

I think that was a moment where it just set in that this is real. I don't even remember our first Sunday. I feel like our first Sunday was that core group meeting. The first Sunday was just we're just going but that was for whatever reason big for me.

Okay. We fast forwarded a little bit there. We hit core group already. Your time at Northeast, you're on staff with them, but you don't really have a real job. No.

You're doing announcements. You're preaching every once in while. You're a fly on the wall. Just talk to me about the heart that it takes for a church to I'm assuming you were getting paid from Northeast Bible. What kind of heart does it take for a church to do that, to bring you in?

And I think the bigger driving question for me is why? Why are they using expenses and funds to do something like that?

Yeah, it was sacrificial on their part. They put time, money, people and they did it because the gospel is bigger than any one church. They believed in ministry outside of their walls and it was so, it had such an impact on me and on us that that is exactly what we set out there. We wanted to multiply that. We wanted to do that too.

And the reason why is because it was just such an open handed way of doing ministry and the reality is that we've seen people come to Jesus and get baptized and grow in their faith that would never have stepped foot in the doors of Northeast Bible. And they saw that before it ever happened that there's a potential here to reach more people with the gospel and that's why they did it and that's worthy of reproducing.

Yeah. So you're currently at Northeast Bible. I'm working over at San Antonio Christian at this time. And I remember those early days. We describe it, I think you and I have a lot, as speed dating.

Talk to me about those days because in order to have a church, a church is a group of people. And at this time, the group of people were you and me and our families, which, hey, that sounds great, but we're missing a lot of things to really be a church. What did that look like in kind of that growth stage?

There's a couple things. One is we felt a conviction that to plant this church in North Central San Antonio it was important to connect people in North Central San Antonio to the church, not to just rely on Northeast Bible and people that came from Northeast Bible, but to actually connect with people. And so what that meant is like you were saying, it's almost like you were meeting people and casting this, here's what this church could be, you should come back in four months and be a part of it. It was such an awkward time. It was a very awkward, God was good.

We learned Hit that again though. Were you saying? What was this? If you had to go back and sit in that chair again, let's say you're heading out this weekend, Easter weekend and you're inviting somebody to come but there's nothing really to come to. What are you saying?

What are you inviting them to?

So my sales pitch was underwhelming in a lot of ways. My hope and my vision was to plant kind of the most ordinary church we could possibly plant.

That sounds very exciting.

Doesn't it? Because there was something for me, the vision was to see a church that was so fixed on the important things and didn't get sidetracked or running off into rabbit trails trying to do too many things but was so I wanted to be excellent at the things that all faithful churches should share in common. And so it was vision casting for a very it wasn't flashy, it was just intentionally simple has kind of marked us from the beginning and centered on the Gospel and so when I would talk to these people I would say this is the kind of church, this is the of people, this is kind of what we want to see planted. And it was an invitation at those days before we had launched to be a builder. Wouldn't it be great if that happened?

Well in order for that to happen what would it look like to co labor for that and to work toward that? And so it was not an invitation to sit and watch it. It was an invitation to okay at this stage there is nothing to sit and watch but here is a hammer. Let's go get to work and let's build this thing. And so it was an invitation into a group of people that we called the CORE who were able to do some of this building, who captured that vision and were able to get to work with us.

That's what we defined as our core group. We kind of gave them that title. I remember the first few meetings we had. We were meeting with a local church and they gave us their youth portables. They gave us the back corner of their property, which had a youth trailer back there that we were so excited to get.

And we could fit maybe 40 people in there. And it was fantastic. I remember during those first few sessions, we took our core values which at that time I think we had seven.

We did. We had too many.

Two of them. We now have two. They were all great. But they weren't like the identifying factors for us. I wouldn't say they're aspirational because still

relevant. Was community, one was mission.

Authentic worship I remember that was a piece of it. And so those are all things that I think we still desire and need and reside with. But at the same time, they weren't the identifying factors for us. But I remember in that corner

Kind of refined it.

Yeah. We walked through each one of those.

You remember what it was called?

Trivia. Was called Rooted. Nope. New Roots. Yes.

I probably still pull up the logo.

Yeah, I got the logo. Bishop, were you there?

I was not there, but I was watching the website because I was part of an EFCA church in Houston, and so when I moved back to San Antonio I knew I wanted to find another EFCA church because I really loved the church I was at there which was Grace Bible who I think is Yeah. Well connected

I had forgotten that. Okay.

We were just there last month. Yeah.

So I had been watching this website wondering like when is this new EFCA church going to finally launch?

You were asking the same questions.

And I saw all the things about the Rooted Gatherings and it never worked out where I could make it to one of those but I was anxiously awaiting the official launch so I could check it out.

That's a fun story. Justin, do you remember the story of the website? Should I? We needed a website and your wife entered a drawing of somebody that was giving away a free website design and somehow she won it. And so we had an official company that designed our very first website.

Well, Norfolk, it looks so good.

And Bishop is here now

because of the website. Because

Candice entered and won the raffle, we got a free church website out of it. I forgot about that. That's how Bishop came to be apparently.

There you go.

That's great. So we were in core group. I think we had like eight or nine sessions, if I remember right.

We had eight. Yeah.

And we did it every other week, right?

Every other Thursday.

Yeah. And then we took a break for a season if I remember right?

We did after in January.

Yeah.

I think.

Yeah. I feel like that's right. Yeah. No, it was November.

Because we celebrated Thanksgiving together. That was beautiful. I think we got up to the holidays. Yeah, that would have been right. And

then January 2013 now, we launched community groups right at the beginning. And then we did preview services, which those were fun. A preview service, for those of you that don't know, is like, hey. Let's for us, I have the pictures of it. It's about 30,000 Amazon boxes that we were opening.

On the morning well, funny story. I don't you weren't here for this.

Yeah.

I had all of our tech stuff delivered to our house.

Yeah.

And they dumped it on several pallets in my driveway. Yep. And I had the sound

that You had Hector.

Hector, who was who was here with us. He came and we unboxed everything and all I did was this little screwdriver, just screw things together and we tested everything in my driveway. It took us I think we were done at like three in the morning.

Yeah. By the way, Hector, if you ever listen to this, we still have the same board probably still have all of the same things that you set up for us. If you

can come back and help us out, it'd be great.

We're in the church we are, it's sound

the way we sound because you We'll set us

get you on the planning center. Yeah, I remember that you guys were in your garage

working for a Very loud. Yeah, it was like a club in our garage.

Your neighbors loved you. Yeah. And then we showed up that first preview service which preview service is just like, Hey, we're going to try all of the things. It's a real service.

We don't really invite the community yet because it's not ready but we worship together. It was beautiful. It was wonderful.

Location? Where were we at for the first location?

Stone Oak Elementary.

Yeah, we're at Stone Oak Elementary.

In the elementary sized chairs.

So good. The elementary sized toilets too. Yeah, toilets. One of my first impressions actually was just the small bathrooms.

Yeah, absolutely. All of the stage was low as well. Every location has been interesting for us. What was your favorite part about Stone Oak Elementary?

Favorite? The lady, I think her name was Rose,

who worked there. Oh the custodian.

She was the first person to come to faith at our church and she was listening in her office in the back of the room. That is my favorite thing about Stone Oak. The layout was wonderful. I have good memories of Stone Oak Elementary. I really do.

I remember when they decorated for a bookathon or whatever. It was like hanging like rainbows and unicorns were hanging above my head on the stage. That was fun.

Bishop, that's where you joined us. Was at Stone Oak Elementary. You have a favorite part?

Those are my core Stone Oak memories from Stone Oak Elementary.

Mine too.

Maybe it was just the newness of

it or whatever. It was a sweetness.

Yeah and I didn't know what I was getting into that part of the whole experience so yeah a lot of setup and tear down memories from Stone Cold. Oh yeah. Was heavily involved in that for a while and yeah. Can I

tell you my favorite memory? I'm not going to share a name but when I was preaching and someone in the front row holding a baby the chair broke and he went falling backwards and like a champ dad holds his baby girl up and doesn't let her fall. I remember that.

If I remember I'd get coffee in one hand and the baby in the other and the coffee spill all over but him and the baby

is dead of the earboard there.

The Stoic Elementary had the entrance. If you guys remember, it was right up front, like right by the stage. And so we had to make the fake hallway.

Yes. You don't walk into the stage.

You don't walk in right into the front of the auditorium. We had two different entrances. We had kids entrance and

Which that works out well. Side.

Yeah. Yeah. It took some signage. Had do you guys remember the tent we had outside?

The tent.

Yeah. We had the greeting tent. We had music playing outside. The good old days. Okay, that was your favorite.

What was your least favorite memories about that location?

Oh man.

I'll go first. Mine's The an easy thunderstorm. Do you guys remember that one time we had that absolutely terrible thunderstorm? And it was set up in Tarrantown. It's like the worst.

It was like black too. I remember why we were getting there so early. But it was pitch black outside.

We used to get there so early. You didn't know what

we were doing.

Yeah. 6AM wake up. Exactly.

But part of it was we had no idea what we were doing. We were opening all the boxes that were brand new.

Okay, I do have a least favorite part. It was the temperature. Do you remember I shouldn't even say that I am going to. The temperature was just hot all the time

and it was controlled

by corporate offices and so we would put a heat lamp on the thermostat to trick it to turn on the air condition so that it wouldn't be 80 degrees in the room.

This is Church Planter one hundred one

by the way. One week we put it too close and melted the thermostat.

One week we bought them

a thermostat. That was fantastic. That wasn't great. Never forget

our first church planter in residence, the set of tour, that white jacket that one day.

Yeah, Mike Kraft. Good ol' Mike.

Regretted that decision after a few He minutes

of saw him sweating through the jacket. Yeah.

I mean the thing about Snow Oak Elementary was that stage was so short that the lights were literally on top of you.

It was hot.

It was very hot.

We sweat a lot these days.

A lot of memories from the teacher's lounge too.

Had a lot

of classes in the Some teachers seminars in there.

Where Stone Oak one hundred one was kind of our introduction to who we were, kind of the beginning of membership.

Where we shared the thirty minutes of our church history. Yeah,

absolutely. And then we did seminars back there. We did a bunch of different things there.

It was a great spot.

It was also the awkward spot of you had to make sure we parked there at two parking lots. Oh, yeah. We got from week three. Was like, didn't think anybody was here because we were all parked in the back parking lot that we had to say, hey, we need some people to park up front so they can actually see that our signs are doing something. Anything else from Stone Oak Elementary you want to throw out there?

I feel

like some of our best traditions were started there. Some are in the Psalms. That's endured pretty much every year I think.

That's where that one can for sure.

Yeah, I would agree.

You mentioned in my read about we brought our first church planting resident on, was in that timeframe so we launched Palm Sunday, I believe it's March 29 if I'm remembering correctly of 2015.

Or twenty ninth.

Yeah, something around there. And then Mike came on June, July, August sometime in there he came on officially. We had all the conversations with him. Him and his wife and his family moved from Connecticut to plant a church in San Antonio and they're still going over on the West side of town, Mission Community Church. That's where Mike was brought on, just carrying on that DNA of what would be a church plant that planted churches.

And so there's no better time than now to begin that process. And we were foolish and brought him on and he got to see all of our mistakes and all of the things that you probably shouldn't do in a church plant scenario because we were figuring it out as we went.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Oh my. Yeah. Okay. Anything else from Stone Oak elementary days?

No. First elders and deacons too. Yeah, brought elders and deacons online.

Yeah, they were established December 2015. We brought on the first group of elders and deacons. Yeah, absolutely. Alright and then we go from Stone Oak Elementary to we graduated.

Went to middle school.

We go to middle school. We went to Bush Middle School right there off of Evans Road. Slightly larger chairs. We needed a bigger location. We were starting to kind of outgrow the Stone Oak location.

I don't remember why we moved out of Stone Oak, but I believe it was because of construction.

Yeah. They would have blackout dates that were coming.

Yes, I believe it was

the gym I think is what they were And looking to

it caused us to just look and Bush Middle School was interesting, great location. It was two story, which was difficult.

So we used the same kind of setup that we did with Stone Ecometric. We used a cafetorium which is cafeteria.

It was like a three tiered

Yeah, you've ever been in Bush Middle School, it has three different tiers to the cafeteria and then a large stage as part of it, which that was interesting. And then we did children's ministry in the two middle school sized gyms. Our children's ministry got a huge size upgrade, but it complicated things with setup and teardown where we had to load and unload our trailer in two different locations. So we had like team one,

team two. Multiplied our time

with it. Yep. And everything up top had to be picked up and carried in from that ramp.

We were wheeling things up very long ramps.

We were replacing wheels on pretty much every item that we owned. We had to get new wheels for everything. That's where all of our dollies came in during those days.

We were there for two years I think.

That. After

two years and it was an interesting time for our church. Was kind of like I view that it's fitting that it was in a middle school because I view that as our middle school years. The awkward middle school We awkward adolescents at that time and I felt that way. But yeah, we saw God do some good things in that while we were there.

Yeah, absolutely. Those are fun years as well. It was just an interesting location which made it challenging. I remember just the security concerns of having kids so far away from adults.

Yeah, I didn't like that.

It was a great lobby space Yeah. But then you had to either go upstairs to

serve entrances. Yeah. Yeah. Or you had

to go down the the dark hallway. Yeah. Children's ministry. Yep. Yeah.

So we go from Bush Middle School, then COVID happens, and we get kicked out.

We get kicked out on a Thursday I believe and told, You're not coming back.

Yeah, we get the phone call on Thursday and said, Hey, can't come back on Sunday.

We were homeless for a few months.

I think it was like three, maybe four months that we were

homeless Yeah, and we were searching, we were looking, but the world didn't want people to gather at that time so it was hard to find a place. But yeah we went online for a little bit until we were able to find it.

Those are some of my favorite sermons by the way If you go back and watch those, the COVID sermons.

I

remember I was preaching through I don't remember why, but I had a full series and I

preached the book of Jude. And

I set up a full teleprompter for myself. Yeah. So I used my iPad and an old

You gotta do what you gotta do.

Yeah. It worked out well.

Our house was always clean because I was always on video during those years.

I heard months. We would always play like spot the changes from week to week. What did kids rearrange in the living room?

Those were the times thatwhat? We did what? Yeah, we did. And then we found a location.

I view it as a temporary. So Living Rock was next.

Yeah, Living Rock Academy

in Velveti. It's a little far north for us.

It was.

And at that point when we came back, none of us knew if COVID was going to take us. We didn't know what it was. There was a lot of fear. We came back, everything was sterile. We set six feet apart We from each

just had hand sanitizer

We with little just carried hand sanitizer with us. Was crazy. Six feet apart. Family units set in clusters throughout. It was awkward, but it was good to be back.

We did communion the only way that we could. We did the McDonald's way.

The ones

that have little tiny cups and you pulled one wrapper

off the It was good to do communion together.

I've got

to tell you it was just good to be together. We did baptisms outside and we had people watching from their cars during that time when we did baptisms outside.

We did the movie night. That one was out there on the lawn. Pilgrim's Progress.

Pilgrim's Progress.

We had a worship night out there one time.

Yeah, I remember that.

We did

what we could. We were only there for a little bit. Three months? Four months?

I think it was longer than that. I want to say it was like six to eight, something around there.

Time flies.

If you

had a baby, it would have felt much longer. I had a 10 old when we first started meeting at Living Rock and lest you forget, our nursery was their locker room.

A closet that smelled like feet. It did. It did.

That's where the babies got to go.

Yeah, that was the best we could do in those moments and it was not good.

And fortunately they were open for us to know.

Absolutely.

I was grateful and I think the next location from that was a very similar story.

They

were open and so thank God for places who were open at that time.

Yes, we went to the Shrine Event Center and then from there which that was a location.

Out of

all of our locations, that was the hardest on our church I think is that location.

Yeah, think looking back on it, I feel that same way, Justin, but looking at the people that came to us in that season.

God was

faithful even in the midst of changing locations, even in the midst of even Living Rock, we had new families come. That's where we we really got to know Luis and Vanessa

Yeah.

Who's at Living Rock. They they came early late in Bush. But then really came and

COVID hit, but then Living Rock kind of hit. God uses the less than ideal situations and He has and trying was hard for so many reasons and God was building His church in spite of our location He showed us He is bigger than our limitations. The dungeness rooms and it was a tough place.

Yeah, it was. We were there for almost a year.

You kind of had to walk through a prison, like bars I to get

was talking with somebody last weekend. It was one of our deacons, Jason. I was talking with him about the outdoor services. I was like, that would have been great if we had ever planned any of those but because we didn't plan them, it wasn't quite as nice because the other Sunday we were sitting outside at picnic tables and it was just a gorgeous Sunday. Like, We should do church outside.

And I was like, Do remember whenever we did?

I love to do it intentionally.

Yeah, exactly.

It was a lot different. Did some of my favorite church meals though. Happened outside Bishop, of the you seemed to always be on a grill.

I did get to man the grills a lot

out there. Yeah, you did. You always volunteered to bring your grill as well?

I volunteered, volunteered.

Yeah, same thing. Yeah. So it was the Shrinatorium and then we ended up at where we're at currently, San Antonio Christian. Yep, Christmas Eve, first service.

My wife told me it was the first time she felt comfortable in a chair in

any of our church services. Thank you for the comfy chairs. Yes, it's taken a while but we got there.

We got there.

So as we look back, we've been at different locations overall as the church. Do you have a favorite first and foremost? Not necessarily location minded favorite but possibly like season favorite.

I look back on all of our locations and I got to baptize one of my kids in almost every one of them.

It's hard to pick.

They all have sweetness. Stone Oak Elementary was the sweetness of that new and that one always stands out to me but they are all so sweet and I look back at pictures of what God did in these places and yeah it's hard to pick. I'd have to say Stone Oak just because it was the beginning. Stone Oak Elementary

definitely holds a special spot. The shrine for all of its flaws and for all of its not knowing what you were going to walk into,

and knowing what other fish were going how

long the COVID testing tent line was going to be, all of that. There was just something really neat about just the fact that we had to adapt and overcome and be a body and be unified and pull it together every Sunday, and like you were saying earlier, lot of the folks that are kind of our core people, you know, are still with us came during those days and got to meet a lot of new folks and our kids ministry really kind of started to grow and we brought on Ross when we were at the Shrine.

That's where Ross came in was the Shrine Auditorium.

So we did some good growing there I think.

Yeah, absolutely. So as we look back, gentlemen, looking back to 2015, we launched. What's something from first Sunday to yesterday's Sunday that's remained the same that you would say from the very first time we gathered all the way through until just the most recent time we gathered is the same first Sunday to last Sunday?

Bishop, you want to go first on this one?

You know I think our kind of core statement of intentionally simple. I think that's really stuck with us throughout every location and the fact that our signage has always had to change and locations changed and people have changed a bit over the years, but I think we've maintained that. I think we stay true to that of keeping the primary things primary and being centered on the gospel no matter what the circumstances around us

were. Yeah.

I would agree. I was thinking back to the sales pitch that I gave to people when we were speed dating before the church started and there's very little that has changed in that call to just a simple gospel centered church and to not focus like programs aren't going to change the world, performance isn't going to change the world, it's the gospel that's going to change the world, to not let ourselves be so busy and scattered, but to just be intentionally focused on what matters and to be the most ordinary church in the world. And I think I'm proud of that because I think it's faithful and so yeah I think that stayed the same. We have changed a lot. We have grown up

a

lot but that hasn't changed.

Yeah. Alright, let's end with this. What's your funniest Stone Bible story?

Oh my goodness.

The one that whenever you think about it you still laugh about? I'll go. Yeah. My favorite was we had, in the early days, a youth individual. He was a youth director for us, our very first one.

Got up to do announcements with his zipper down the whole time. Did not realize it at all and came off the stage and that was the first thing his wife said to him was, Your zipper was down the entire time. I was like, That's a good one. That's good. That's pretty good.

There are so many. One that I can't get out of my mind I'm going to pick on Mike Kraft. I remember the Saturday night getting a phone call. He was supposed to preach on Sunday morning and he calls me on Saturday night to tell me, Don't worry but my retina separated. Remember that.

What does that mean? I didn't even know what that meant. He was like, I still got it. Don't worry about it but my retina separated last night. I am in the hospital.

And he showed up on Sunday to preach and I remember it was like he got stung by a jellyfish on the side of his face. It was like red.

Well if you remember, he started out preaching and it was fine. Yes. And as he continued

It was like a jellyfish stung him on the face, just a red tentacle all over his face. And then the sweat started pouring from his body and he looked like he was going to fall off the stage.

By the end of it, he did not look good.

No, we rushed him basically to the hospital from that. That was a memory I will always keep. I should have had the wisdom say, Mike, you're not going to preach tomorrow. I don't know what a retina separating is but it does no, you're not going to do it. Yeah, that one sticks out to me.

Yeah, hey good news, he's perfectly fine today.

He's got his retinas today.

Can see out of both eyes. Yeah, you

can still see.

Bishop, you have a funny story.

Yeah, the collapsing chair takes the cake. I did think about that one earlier. Yeah, that's a good one.

I've got one more. Our very first baptisms.

Oh, and it popped the pole.

That was good. With baptisms, we had no idea how to do the mobile. Like our system right now with a horse trough, it sounds terrible, but it's actually the best system ever. A horse trough and a concrete block could do a lot of work. In the early days, we looked at water birth pools.

That was probably the best option, but we were broke and those were expensive. And so we decided, hey, let's use a kiddie pool. Turns out whenever you put grown adults inside of a kiddie pool on some San Antonio sharp grass, your baptism tank, don't need to worry about emptying because it will self empty by the time you're done. The cleanup from that was pretty much just crumple it up and throw it in the trash can.

Dumpster right over there.

That's why we switched to the stock tank I guess.

Alright, guys. Looking back at our history, anything else you want to bring up, discuss, any other memories you want to share?

I don't think so. I'm just encouraged by God's faithfulness over the last years and it gets me excited for what He's going to do, what He is doing in our church now. And it just reminds me, anyone hearing this, join me, it reminds me we need to pray more for our church. And God's building His church, He's not done and I'm excited for what's next.

Yeah, absolutely. Bishop, anything from you?

Yeah, same. It's hard to believe it's been eleven years and the time has flown and I've had four kids since then and my life has changed a lot, but it's refreshing that the church has stayed the same and stayed true to that mission of being intentionally simple and being gospel centered. And That's my prayer for us going forward is that we just continue on in that.

I think as I look back, there's just a constant theme. That theme is God has been faithful throughout the many location changes, throughout the many changes in in people and staff and in elders and all of those things. The one thing that has remained is the faithfulness of God to us as as a body. And there's lots of mistakes we've done. There's lots of things that we could have done better.

And in the midst of all of those, God has remained faithful. So church, thank you for listening to the Stone Bible Podcast. We hope you have a great week. We would love to see you this Sunday as we celebrate the resurrection of Christ for Easter Sunday.