Notice what Jude says in verse 22, And of some, and of some have compassion, making
a difference.
You all know why we're not making a difference today?
We have churches and we have buildings filled with people going to church, not just here,
but all over the city, all over this country, all over this world.
We have churches, yet it seems like nothing's getting done.
Nothing is changing.
We're losing the battle.
You say, well, why are we not making a difference?
I'll tell you exactly why we're not making a difference.
Because compassion makes a difference, he said, and of some have compassion making a
difference.
You know why we don't make a difference?
Let's just be honest.
We don't care.
I mean, we would all theologically nod our head and say, yes, something needs to be done.
Yes, the gospel needs to be preached.
Yes, the world needs to be reached.
But when we say, will you go?
People say, well, I don't know about me.
I don't know if I can make it.
I don't know if I can be counted on.
Well, why?
Well, you understand I'm tired.
Well, why?
Well, you understand I'm sick.
Well, why?
Well, you understand I'm hungry.
Well, why?
Well, you understand I just got, I got too much going on.
I cannot be bothered.
Jesus made a difference because he was compelled, but he was compassionate.
He looked at an individual and he said, this person has a soul that will spend eternity
in heaven or hell.
This person, no matter what others think, no matter what they're into, no matter what
they're doing, this person is important.
He was moved with compassion.
And here's the thing, compassion makes a difference.
On this edition of the preacher profile series, we find out how one of the most influential
pastors of our time got to where he's at today.
He'll talk about his background, his church, his journey, and more.
His name is synonymous with the term new IFB.
He's the very definition of what it means to be bold, an unapologetic Bible preacher
who stands for the truth.
We've all learned from his sermons.
We've all watched as his ministry grew and he became one of the catalysts for the soul
winning revival that has swept America.
Coming up next, please welcome pastor Roger Jimenez of Verity Baptist church.
Hello everyone.
And welcome to this edition of the preacher profile series.
I'm about to be joined by the man behind Verity Baptist church.
You all know exactly who I'm talking about, but before we get started, I think it would
be wrong if I didn't thank pastor Aaron Thompson for helping to orchestrate this.
Thank you so much pastor.
And I look forward to interviewing you in the near future.
But right now I'm about to speak with the man behind Verity Baptist church.
Every once in a while, there comes along a man who wants to be a visionary, someone
who wants to make a global impact in the ministry.
And I think I'm about to speak to that man, folks, you've all seen his preaching.
You've probably learned a thing or two from him.
He is the one and only there's no one like him.
Pastor Roger Jimenez has taken the time out of his very busy schedule to appear here on
the preacher profile series, pastor, thank you so much for carving out some time out
of your schedule.
Like I said, I'm sure you have a very busy schedule.
And so it means a lot to me.
I'm going to throw it over to you now and give you the floor and sir, I appreciate it.
Yes.
Thank you very much for having me.
That's quite an intro.
I don't know if I'm going to live up to that, but yeah, thank you.
And it's my honor, my pleasure to be here.
I appreciate you inviting me on.
No doubt about that.
And pastor, I wanted to start things off by talking about your humble beginnings, I guess
your childhood, where did you grow up?
Well, you know, I was actually born in Venezuela, which is a country in South America.
And I lived there only till I was four years old.
So I've lived in states most of my life.
But we moved to the US, my family moved, obviously, I was, I was a little kid, here to the US
and to California.
And I grew up in the Bay Area, the Oakland, San Francisco Bay Area, I was basically from
in the Bay Area from four years old till a sophomore in high school.
And then when I was a sophomore in high school, we moved to Sacramento.
And this has been my home ever since basically, I was in the Air Force for a while.
So I traveled a little bit while I was in the military, but ended up coming back here
to my home.
Now, you got saved at a very young age, right?
Is it a four years old, I believe?
Yeah, four years old is when I got saved.
You know, close to five years old, but I was four at the time.
And of course, you know, not everybody gets saved at a real young age like that.
But I grew up in an independent frontal Baptist home, IFB my whole life, it's all I've ever
known.
But I think because of the fact that I had siblings that have been saved and parents
that were very involved in church and things of God, I think that, you know, maybe it came
a little earlier for me than most people.
I believe Pastor Anderson as well was saved at a very young age.
I'm curious, do you think that it gives you any sort of advantage as an adult in the ministry
to have gotten saved as a young child?
I think it does, absolutely.
Not necessarily that you got saved, but that you got saved as a young child, but that you
got saved as a young child and you grew up in a Christian home.
I think that's where the advantage comes in because of the fact that, you know, I
was living in a house where we're going to church three times a week, we're going soul
winning, you know, we were having Bible devotions and family devotions.
I think that definitely gave us a leg up.
Of course, you know, thinking about spiritual things and allowed us to, as young men, be
serious about the things of God.
So you know, sometimes people will look at someone like me or men like myself and say,
oh, you guys are young, you know, which is always funny to me because Paul specifically
told Timothy, you know, let no man despise that youth.
But what I tell people is, you know, especially like the kids that are growing up in our churches
today, you know, we're going to have some very young men who are going to be maybe 25,
25, 27, 30 years old starting churches, but they'll probably have read their Bible cover
to cover 20 times because of the fact that they were kind of set up for that, you know,
so spiritual maturity has less to do with, you know, number of years and more to do with
how much time you spend on the word.
So I think that definitely helped us, you know, and gave us an advantage, absolutely.
Some people believe that they're called to be a pastor.
I know that in the case of the evangelist brother, Adam Fannin, who runs Steadfast Jacksonville,
he was literally called, as in Pastor Donnie Romero gave him a phone call and said, I need
somebody to go to Jacksonville.
When was that moment for you that you realized, I want to pastor, this is what I want to do
with my life?
Well, you know, I feel like it's always been a desire that I've had, you know, the Bible
talks about if a man desire the office of a Bishop, you know, he desired the good work
and I would say that's the calling, you know, if you have a desire in your heart to do that
work, then yeah, you know, that's the call that God has placed on your life, right?
You know, it's always nice when you actually physically get a phone call and someone tells
you we need you in ministry, that makes it real easy, but honestly, I felt like it's
something I wanted to do my whole life.
And I was probably 12 years old when I decided like, one day I will be a pastor, you know,
Lord willing, if I could work towards that.
And even when, you know, I was doing different things, you know, even when I joined the Air
Force, and I was kind of committed to something else for four years, I always kind of knew
that I was going to head in this direction.
So I just, I think it's because I grew up in a Christian home, and I'm not saying that
everyone that grows up in a Christian home has to go into ministry, but it was something
that I was always around preaching, and I enjoyed ministry.
So I've just always felt like it's something I wanted to do, but definitely by the time
I was 12, 13 years old, I was thinking about the fact that this is what I wanted to do
with my life.
So
Yes, and of course, just to clarify, Brother Fennan had wanted to preach for years before
he got that call, but of course, the call from Pastor Romero's would open the door for
him.
Pastor, now I want to just take a quick detour here, and you know, before we get back to
kind of your journey, when I heard you talk about when you wanted to pastor, it got me
thinking about just how much goes into being qualified for the position.
The Bible talks about certain qualifications that are required for someone who wants to
pastor.
It seems like though, in their zeal, some young men circumvent those qualifications.
They either don't have the children or they just simply don't meet up to what the Bible
says.
You must, you know, be qualified in order to preach.
How important do you believe it is to be biblically qualified before you pursue this position?
Well, I mean, absolutely.
I think it's extremely important.
I mean, the qualifications are there for a reason, and you know, you don't have to try
very hard to look at some of these guys that have circumvented the qualifications and seen
some major mistakes.
And I'm not saying everyone that's done that has, you know, ruined and ruined in the ministry,
but it's easy to see that pattern.
So I think it's extremely important that people take those qualifications seriously.
And what I think is also important, you know, because sometimes the qualifications, some
of them are very specific.
You're told, you know, you got to be married, you have to have children, plural, things
like that.
Some of them are not as specific, you know, not being a novice, you know, what exactly
does that mean?
So I believe that as a pastor, my job is to come alongside those qualifications and quantify
them a little bit, you know, make it so that someone could, you know, so that we can check
that box off and say, hey, you're not a novice anymore, or whatever it might be.
And that's why we come along and say, you got to be married for a certain amount of
time, you have to be saved for a certain amount of time, you have to read the Bible a certain
amount of time.
Not that we're adding to the qualifications necessarily, but we're kind of quantifying
them so we can figure out, you know, what does it mean that you're ruling your house
well, or that you're not a novice or, you know, things like that, so that you're doing
the work of an evangelist.
So I think it's extremely important.
Alongside with that, though, I love the fact that our movement is really opening up avenues,
you know, because we are interested in reaching the world, you know, we're not sending our
young people to some Bible college to be ruined, you know, by a Bible college experience.
So because of that, we've got some young men, and we've got men that maybe meet qualifications,
but they're waiting on one or two, you know, things.
Maybe it's just how long they've been married or just, you know, we're waiting to see if
they can have some more children or whatever it might be.
And because we have satellite ministries and mission strips and things like that, you know,
those men don't have to sit on the sidelines, right?
You can get a call from your pastor and put you in ministry and still be under the biblical
authority of a pastor until you meet all those qualifications.
So I think it's important to meet the qualifications, but it's also important to realize that maybe
if you don't meet those yet, there are still opportunities for ministry that you can, you
know, and obviously God can use anybody.
And even if you're not in a ministry position, God can use you in a great way.
Absolutely.
And just to piggyback off that, I would certainly add that you don't want to do it the wrong
way, because then you'll be starting off your ministry with a dark cloud.
And I think also God's not going to bless that.
So folks, if you're a young man out there and you want to get involved in this capacity,
do it the right way.
The Bible outlines that for you.
Let's get back to you now.
Verity Baptist Church, actually, before we get to your church, I wanted to ask about
your ordination.
Do you have any memories from that moment where you were ordained?
Yeah.
You know, I remember when I was ordained for the ministry, it was a Sunday night.
It was at the church that sent us out.
Unfortunately, the church closed down that sent us out.
It doesn't exist anymore.
They reorganize under a different name with a new pastor that doesn't acknowledge us,
you know.
But, you know, before that, it was a Sunday night.
The pastor basically stood up and he, you know, explained that the church was sending
us out to go start a church in Sacramento, California.
And he had me preach that night.
I preached on the need to reproduce ourselves and to bear fruit, you know, as far as reproducing
Christians and churches and things of that nature.
And then they prayed for us and, you know, that night sent us out.
The next week we started Verity Baptist Church.
So it was real basic, but, you know, just appointing us to the ministry.
So I always remember that, you know, remember that time fondly.
What year was it?
It was 2010.
You know, we started the church in September of 2010.
We started September 5th of 2010.
So it had just been, you know, the Sunday night before that is when we were sent out.
Awesome.
Now, obviously, you've been friends with Pastor Anderson for a long time.
How was it kind of having that friendship along with you as you entered this position
and God ordained and became a pastor to have a friend like that by your side through that
experience?
It was great.
Pastor Anderson obviously has been a huge influence in my life.
I know many thousands of people can say that, but, you know, my experience is unique in
the sense that we've been friends for a long time.
We're friends before either one of us was a pastor, we're friends before I was married.
So you know, we've been friends since I was 16 years old and 32 now.
So you know, it's been a long time and even they started, Faithful Word started, you know,
several years before we did, I think five years before we did.
So watching him, you know, go into ministry, and of course, those first five years wasn't
like it is now, you know, it wasn't this huge movement with, it was the beginning days,
but I remember, you know, listening to all those sermons as they were being preached
because I really enjoyed his preaching and I was learning a lot and he would have me
come out and preach for him, which I really appreciated.
And you know, when I was there, he would talk to me about how he started the church, you
know, and I was just soaking it in and learning a lot from him in regards to starting in a
house and, you know, all of those things.
So and of course, he was a huge, huge encouragement when we went into ministry, you know, and
when we just encouraging us along the way, giving us advice, I mean, till this day, I
call him from time to time and say, hey, what do you think about this?
Or, you know, I've got this idea, am I crazy or whatever.
So you know, and a lot of pastors do that, you know, we're well, in the multitude of
counselors, there's wisdom, right?
So you know, a lot of pastors will do that, but I appreciate his friendship and it's definitely
been a blessing and an influence on me and Verity Baptist Church.
Amen.
I asked this to Pastor McMurtry and Pastor Boyle, I'll ask you as far as your church
is concerned, how did you come up with the name for it?
Well, you know, the word Verity is found twice in Scripture.
One in Psalm 11 seven, I'll read it for you.
It says, the works of his hands are Verity and judgment.
All his commandments are sure, the second time in 1 Timothy 2 seven, we're on time also
ordained a preacher and an apostle, I speak the truth in Christ and lie not a teacher
of the Gentiles and faith and Verity.
And the word Verity simply means truth comes from the same root word where Jesus would
say Verily, Verily, you know, truly, truly.
And you know, the word just always jumped out at me.
I liked it.
And I just honestly, I don't know the name of the church.
You know, I knew that I was going to pastor a church if the Lord allowed me to call Verity
Baptist Church, probably when I was a young teenager, like I've had that in my mind.
I always remember reading that and thinking that would be a cool name for a church there.
So it was that's just what it was.
And then when we started the church, you know, I remember doing some research and just Googling
it or whatever, trying to see if there's and I couldn't really find any other church that
had the name Verity.
So I thought it was a unique name.
What's interesting is that another Verity Baptist Church was, which is an independent
formal Baptist Church in Colorado, started, I can't remember if they started six months
before us or if we started six months before them.
But within six months, there was two Verity Baptist Churches, which are the only two that
I think even exist to this day.
And you know, I think they ended up regretting that when the whole Orlando protest thing
happened.
They had to put something on their website that said like, we're not that Verity, you
know, so, but, you know, I don't know, maybe they should, maybe they changed their names
now.
Yeah, I've always liked that name and I've always, you know, and the fact that, you know,
we preach the truth and we don't compromise on the truth, I thought it was an appropriate
name for church.
And I think it's a unique name, like you mentioned, certainly, it's not a Trinity Baptist Church.
I don't know about you, I feel like there's a million Trinity Baptist Churches, which
is fine.
Obviously.
Hey, I love the Trinity, nothing wrong with that.
It's just that.
Better than Oneness Baptist Church.
There you go.
So there's nothing wrong with that.
Do you have any memories from the very first service?
Yeah, the first service, I remember just being real nervous.
You know, we started in our house.
So when we started our church, we met in our living room and, you know, we cleared out
the living room and tried to make it look as much like you would think of a church as
possible, you know, with a pulpit and signs and hymn books and chairs and things like
that.
But, you know, what I remember is we, that weekend, we had people that were staying with
us, you know, talking about Pastor Anderson and supporting us.
He had sent a couple of families up to kind of help us on our first day.
Pastor Burzins, you know, before he was a pastor, had came and they were staying, him
and his wife and his kids were staying with us that weekend and they were there for the
first service.
So that's something I remember, you know, I'm always thankful to Pastor Burzins being
there and being a blessing.
And, you know, we had a lot of friends and family that came to kind of support us that
first service.
So I don't remember the exact number, I think we had like 40 something, 40 some odd people
there for day one, you know, with all the friends and family that came.
And honestly, we probably had eight to 10 first time guests from the community, from
the soul winning that we've been doing, you know, before that.
But you know, so week number two, you know, you go from like 40-ish to week number two,
it's like 10 or, you know, something like that.
So which was fine, you know, obviously you start growing and the Lord blesses.
But yeah, it was, I just remember being nervous.
I preached a sermon called Verity and I talked about how we're going to stand for the truth,
you know, and yeah, it was a great day.
Do you have any iron men or iron women and what I mean by that or is there any families
that have been there since the very beginning?
Absolutely, yes.
So the family that we've had with us since day one, you know, other than my family that
is related to me, you know, my parents come to my church, my sister and her family comes
to my church.
So you know, other than my physical blood family, you know, the family has been with
us since day one is brother Ray Anderson, Ray and Denise Anderson, who's Pastor Anderson's
dad.
So, because of course, Pastor Anderson grew up in Sacramento, you know, this is where
we grew up and met.
So his dad started coming to our church from day one, brother Ray and Ms. Denise, and they've
been with us ever since, you know, and they're great, great members.
So they're, you know, I'm always thankful and grateful for them and just being with
us all of these years.
And then, you know, we've had other families that came, maybe not necessarily the very
first day, but I mean, I've counted and I think we have like, because we started in
a house, you know, and I think today, you know, this September will be eight years of
us having, you know, being in ministry.
And to this point, we still have probably eight families, eight families, individuals
that were with us since the house, you know.
So I'm very thankful for them, you know, I feel like the Lord really blessed us when
we were in the house.
We spent about a year and a half in, you know, holding services in the house and God gave
us some great families in those early days.
And I think it takes a certain type of Christian to be okay with meeting, you know, in a house,
you know, and not being caught up with, you know, these people don't have a building or
whatever it might be.
So yeah, we've got some awesome families and of course, I mean, we've got great families.
I mean, we've got, I think the best church in the world.
I'm a little biased, but you know, so obviously I'm not undermining anyone else, but I'm very
thankful for the people that have been with us since the early days and of course, there's
a connection there that you'll always just be grateful for it.
Now since then, you've preached a lot of sermons.
I think that is an understatement.
I'm curious, you know, personally, as someone who listens to all this preaching and just
soaks in all of this Bible knowledge to my benefit.
So thank you for that pastor.
But how do you come up with consistently an original sermon every single week?
You know, you always have a topic that you're preaching on.
To me, that would appear to be one of the more challenging aspects of the job.
How do you do it?
Absolutely.
When I first started in ministry, that was definitely probably one of the harder issues.
You know, at first you're real excited because you want to preach, you know, just what you've
been waiting for.
Then after you do it for three or four months and you start realizing, wait, I'm gonna have
to preach three times a week for the rest of my life.
So it starts, you know, that can weigh on you a little bit.
You know, not complaining, but you know, so the way I deal with it.
Now I talked to the guys in the movement, the pastors, and as far as I can tell, I think
I'm unique in this sense.
And you know, maybe I'm wrong about that.
Maybe there's someone I don't know, but I, the way I deal with it because I can't deal
with that type of stress on me.
You know, the thought, what am I preaching on Sunday or Sunday is coming.
So what I do is every fall I take three or four months and I develop what I call a preaching
calendar for the next year.
And I actually just try to stay well organized with it.
And I, my goal is at any given time, I can tell you what I'll be preaching on for the
next 12 weeks, at least, you know, I mean, it's, it's July 30th right now.
And I think right now I can tell you what I'm going to preach for the rest of the year.
Now my preaching calendar is not set in stone in the sense that obviously the things happen
as the Lord leads, I'm definitely okay with changing things or, you know, if I feel like
there's a sermon that needs to be preached, you know, it's not like it's set in stone
and it, and I'm also not saying that I have those sermons written.
I'm not saying I've got 12 weeks worth of sermons written.
I write the sermons the week of, you know, that I'm going to preach it, but I try to
schedule it.
I try to have a plan, you know, I preach through series on Sunday mornings and Sunday nights
and I definitely preach standalone sermons, but I plan out series that I'm going to preach.
So like, for example, even now I'm working on next year's calendar and next year, for
example, the beginning of the year, starting in January and going to about Easter, we're
going to have a focus at our church on the Holy Spirit.
So I'm going to be doing a series where we're just learning about the Holy Spirit as far
as like a doctrinal, just the person of the Holy Spirit, the work of the Holy Spirit,
things like that.
At the same time, that'll be on a Sunday nights, on Sunday mornings, we're going to
be dealing with more of like the walking in the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit
and things like that.
So I try to stay organized in that sense, you know, not, that's not for everybody.
I know some people have different personalities and that would make them go crazy.
So you know, you have to do what you do best, but that's how I do it.
I try to have it planned out.
On my phone, I've got a little memo pad and you know, whenever I'm reading the Bible or
driving down the street or whatever it might be, if something pops in my head as far as
a sermon I'd like to preach or a series that I would like to do or whatever, I have somewhere
where I can jot that down, you know, and because if I don't write it down, I lose the thought
and it never comes back, you know, so I might write down, you know, a title that I came
up with or a text or something that I want to preach.
So you know, you're always planning, you know, when you preach three times a week and you're
going to do it for the rest of your life, you're always writing a sermon.
You're always, you know, planning for the next sermon.
So you know, things happen and it makes me think like, oh, that would, you know, I need
to preach on that or I'm reading something or sometimes you're listening to someone preach
and maybe they're something they're not even preaching about, but just one comment they
make makes you think of like, oh, I'd like to preach something about this or whatever.
So always looking for ideas, but I try to, I do my best to stay organized and planned
out in that way.
And again, I'm not saying that people who don't do that are wrong or whatever.
I realize when it comes to preaching, you got to do what is best for you, but that's
what works for me.
So that's how I do it.
I'm sure that when you've gone to conferences, people have said to you, you know, I've been
blessed by your preaching.
I've learned a lot.
You've helped to turn my life around, but I think there must be something a little more
unique about seeing people in your church in front of your very eyes benefit from what
you're teaching and grow in the Lord and become better soul winners and grow in their
Bible knowledge rather.
As a pastor, obviously your responsibility is the flock, but is there anything special
about seeing a rookie or a novice grow under your teaching, seeing them take that next
step?
Obviously parents get that feeling when they see their children take the first step.
You know, they're kind of proud, right?
As a pastor, do you get that same feeling about your congregation when you notice certain
people are growing?
Absolutely.
I mean, I think that's what keeps us motivated a lot of times in ministry.
Not that we wouldn't do it if we didn't see that, but it helps you, you know, it encourages
you that obviously when people, you know, at the end of every church service, I stand
at the back door and greet people on the way out.
And when people are telling you, Hey, great sermon, or I enjoyed that sermon or that helped
me or whatever.
All of that is encouraging, of course, people send emails or you meet someone at a conference
and they talk to you about this sermon really helped me, all of that stuff is encouraging.
But what's the most encouraging is when you actually see growth in people's lives, absolutely.
And you know, one thing that I have to learn as a pastor is that it doesn't happen in the
way that we think.
You know, what we think is I'm going to preach a sermon on soul winning, and then everyone
that doesn't go soul winning is start going soul winning, right?
Or I preach a sermon on, on whatever, you know, tithing and everyone that doesn't tithe
is going to start tithing.
That's not necessarily how it works, you know, and the Bible tells us that the Bible says
that it's here a little there a little.
And what I've learned is that a lot of times you're just preaching, you know, what the
Lord lays on your heart, you're praying for the needs of your, of the people that, you
know, call you pastor and the, you know, whatever it might be, you're planning these things,
but the Lord is working on their lives.
So you can't look at it on a week by week basis.
You kind of have to look at it almost a, you know, a season by season or year by year,
you know, you look at an individual and you think, man, you have changed from the, when
you got here, you know, you got here and I mean, we've had individuals, they, they came
to church, they were, you know, a male and a female living together with kids or whatever.
And a year later, they're married and they're soul winning and they're, you know, homeschooling
and they're doing whatever.
And that is definitely just the most encouraging thing, realizing that, you know, sometimes
you feel like all you're doing is upsetting people with your preaching.
But when you see the growth, you see people actually doing, you know, what is coming from
the pulpit.
It's, it's, it's the greatest thing in the world.
It's the best job in the world, I think.
And speaking of growth, how about the growth of your church?
It was really, I think one of the catalysts for this movement.
And now you've got a very popular YouTube channel.
You're influencing a very large group of people all over the world, but how did you get to
this point?
Is there any formula that you would recommend to new pastors out there for them to reach
that level?
How did Verity Baptist Church grow to be what it is today?
Yeah.
I mean, you know, of course, glory, glory to God for whatever, anything that's been
done here, it's been done, it's God using weak vessels, and I'm thankful for it.
We basically had, you know, our approach, and again, this is a little different maybe
than how other people do it, but when we first started Verity Baptist Church, we of course,
focused on soul winning, but we also focus a lot on follow up.
And that's something I believe in strongly.
And I, you know, if people don't do follow up or whatever, I'm not saying they're bad
people, obviously, whatever they want to do is great, you know, but I really believe
in follow up.
I feel like it's really worked for us as far as investing the time and getting converts
into church, getting them baptized, helping them to grow.
There was a time in our church, you know, years ago, and it's not this way now, but
there was a time in our church when half of our church was people that we had reached,
you know, through door to door soul winning and following up on them and things like that.
We've gone away from that a little bit more than I would like to, you know, even admit.
In fact, I recently told our church people that we're going to get through this summer,
we got to get through the Red Hot Preaching Conference and different things going on this
summer, but this fall, we're going to bring the focus back on following up on our converts
and things like that.
So I feel like that's been something that has been good for us is not just focusing
on soul winning and reaching people to gospel, but when there is a good, you know, not every
convert is a good convert to follow up on, and that's, you know, obviously something
we need to understand.
But when there is someone that has good potential to not just leave them alone, you know, but
try to help them along the way and bring them in, that's been something that we've done.
And then of course, we've tried to leverage the internet as a tool as much as possible,
you know, and of course, Pastor Anderson is the one that's led the way there and, you
know, learning from him and things like that.
So but, you know, we're trying to do the best we can.
And you know, in the beginning days when I was working full time and pastoring, because
I'm not the most internet type guy, as far as computers are concerned, it was something
that maybe lacked in the beginning of our ministry, but now that I've got staff that
knows what they're doing and things like that, we're trying to focus on it.
And you know, we've got a goal to, I think when we started this year, we had a goal of
having 10,000 subscribers on YouTube by the end of the year.
And we're definitely on our way to reach that goal.
I think we got 8,000, couple hundred subscribers now.
So you know, we're just intentional about it, trying to put good videos up.
Of course, if you want people to listen to your preaching, you got to try to preach well,
which means that, and I'm not saying I preach well, but I'm definitely working on it, you
know, every day trying to get better at it and things like that, preach interesting things.
But even more than that, we've got guys, Brother Stuckey works for our church and he makes
videos and a lot of times they're not even, they don't even include my preaching.
He just makes these awesome, interesting videos, you know, so we're just trying to focus and
use the internet as a tool to reach people, of course, not get left behind on the internet
and, you know, using the social media and things like that.
I love those little clips that he's putting up, specifically the ones where it's like
some false prophet, right?
He talks about whatever, it's workspace salvation.
And then you hear this happy hymn and then you have this, the words that are scrolling
on the screen and it's like, here's why this person is going to split hell wide open.
Right.
I just love it.
It's good stuff.
I mean, I don't know if I should, I don't know if I should say this, but sometimes I
get all this hate mail, right, from people and they're like, you're so mean, I can't
believe you would say that.
And I'm thinking to myself like, that wasn't even me, that was Brother Stuckey.
I don't, you know, I pay him to make those videos and I mean, he, you know, I approve
them and things like that, but yeah, he's doing a great job.
I'm very happy with the videos he's making.
And it's funny because like a lot of these, we found that some of the best videos are
exposing these international false prophets that I've never even heard of.
Yeah.
There's this guy, Apollo Puebloi in the Philippines who says he's Jesus or says he's the son of
God.
I think he just recently declared himself God the father.
Never heard of this guy make a video, Brother Stuckey makes a video exposing him.
It's got 212,000 views.
It's gotten us like 500 subscribers.
It's crazy.
So I think taking the time to make good solid videos that people want to watch is definitely
a key to leveraging the internet.
And then you've got to have a balance, you know, you, you can't focus all of your attention
on the internet and ignore the congregation that's physically there.
And if you have to make a decision, the congregation that's physically there is obviously the priority.
But once you're grown to the place where maybe you have staff that can help you with things
like that, or if you've got a talent for that you know, definitely you want to be balanced,
use the internet, you know, because it's a great medium to get our message out.
Well, switching gears here, the oneness heretics, one of the accusations that they've levied
toward our brand of churches is that we're a denomination.
Well, let me tell you something, I've gone to Faithful Word Baptist Church, and obviously
I've gone to Steadfast Jacksonville, and I can tell you beyond any shadow of a doubt,
they are different.
They have some teachers who teach differently, there's a different kind of atmosphere.
They're independent churches.
I don't believe we're a denomination.
I think we do a very good job of maintaining our independence.
But for somebody that's sitting on the sidelines, and maybe is not really sure what the big
deal is about the I in IFB, yes, we do fellowship with each other.
And you talked about, you know, you mentioned here moments ago, the fact that you maintain
a relationship with some of the other pastors.
At the same time, though, how important is it to maintain that independence, to make
sure that we never fall into the pattern of becoming a denomination?
And you know, essentially, what I'm asking is the importance of the I in IFB.
Can you speak to that?
Absolutely.
Like I said, I've been an independent fundamental Baptist my whole life, and I definitely believe
in the independence, the autonomy of the local church.
Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with fellowshipping with churches of life,
faith and practice.
You know, we call it a movement.
I don't have an issue with that.
I like, you know, I think it's great that, you know, this is a movement.
This is a movement of churches that are reaching people that are going back to the old past
that are focusing on being zealous for soul winning and heart preaching and things like that.
I think all of that is awesome.
And we're working together, you know, to do great things, make documentaries, have conferences,
have big soul winning events, you know, like the big mega soul winning marathon.
I mean, that brought in all of these churches to have a great soul winning day.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
I think you can even, you see that in the book of Acts, as you read the book of Acts,
you see these churches, you know, working together, even taking offerings for, you know,
churches coming together, taking a special offering for another church that's struggling
in Jerusalem or whatever it might be.
So I don't think it's unscriptural or biblical to do that.
With that said, we need to realize that we're not a denomination and we need to keep our
independence.
And I love the fact, because I've been to all, you know, all of these churches.
I don't think I've been to Jacksonville yet.
I'm sure, Lord willing, one day I'll go there.
But I've been to most of the churches in what you would call this movement.
And yeah, they're all different.
They all have their culture and their, you know, their different style.
And if you ever come to Verity, we have a certain style here of how we do things.
And I think that's great.
I think it's great that we keep that.
And then of course, even when you get the doctrine, I mean, we don't all believe a hundred
percent exactly.
I mean, I think the reason that we get along is because we definitely agree on most things.
But even certain things we agree on, we may say, yes, we agree on this, but we even see
those things a little different or whatever it might be.
I think that's healthy.
I think it's healthy, you know, to allow a pastor to be a pastor and not to have to feel
the pressure that we have to conform to all, for all of us to be, because that's the problem,
you know, and that's the problem with the old IFP.
You can, I could walk into an old IFP church and tell you where the guy went to college
because it looks a certain way.
You know, they make these cookie cutter churches and it's like, he went to Golden State or
he went to Lancaster or he went to House Anderson or whatever it might be.
So I think that we need to always fight and defend to keep our independence.
And when there is disagreement, because what I've found in this movement is that sometimes
when there's a, maybe a disagreement, you know, two pastors preach on the same subject,
but maybe preach it differently or see it differently.
And it's this big, like, oh no, you know, is the world going to end?
And honestly, I think when you have those differences, it's good, you know, it's not
good for the sake of being good, but you know, if they legitimately see it differently and
they have their reasons or whatever, in some ways it's safe for us to have our independence.
So I'm all for the movement and loving what's being done, but you know, I'm definitely on
the side of defending the autonomy of local churches and the independence.
And I love it that everybody has their own style and their own flavor, the way they do
things.
I think it's healthy.
I think it's great.
Absolutely.
And you talk about style.
Each pastor that you fellowship with, sir, I would say has a different way of preaching.
If I listen to Pastor Donnie Romero, I'm going to get a different flavor compared to a Pastor
Roger Jimenez or Pastor Michael Johnson or Pastor Tommy McMurtry.
I like that as a listener.
My question to you is this, how did Roger Jimenez develop his style?
Because I think you are distinct from all the other pastors.
You have your own way of doing things.
You have your own way of expounding on the scriptures and explaining the scriptures.
And I'm curious how that developed.
Did you learn from someone else and then kind of apply that to yourself?
Is it just something that you acquired through repetition, doing it over and over again,
eventually you just developed this way of preaching?
How did it happen?
Well, I think everybody needs to develop their own style.
All of us are different in the way that we think and the way that we act.
I think it would be a mistake to try to be like someone else.
I would say find your own style and figure out who you are and how you want to do things.
As far as me, I will tell you, developing my style of preaching, it happened, you know,
when I was 16 years old, I don't even know why I made this decision.
I can remember the day that I made the decision.
I remember the day that I started this.
I don't know why I did it.
Maybe I heard somebody, maybe someone advised it or maybe I heard him preaching.
I don't remember.
But for some reason I decided that I was going to take notes at every church service.
So I went and got myself a little notebook.
I was 16 years old and I just decided, I was actually at a conference when I decided this
night.
I think it started because I was thinking, I'm going to take notes of every sermon in
this conference.
And I liked this so much that I just kept doing it.
I went home and Sunday morning I had my notebook and I took notes and Sunday nights and Wednesday
night, we had guest preachers and I'd go somewhere else to hear preaching.
And everywhere I went, I took notes for years and years and years.
I took notes.
In my opinion, that was probably the best training I received for writing sermons because
I began to see as I was taking notes from different preachers, how they outlined their
sermons, how they structured their sermons.
Usually when you're listening, that's all you're doing, you're listening.
And most people aren't listening for an outline, which is fine.
They're kind of listening for the sound bites and I'm not saying that in a wrong way.
I mean, they're listening for what applies to them and that's great.
Praise the Lord.
The Holy Spirit's using that in their lives.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but you can't preach sound bites.
Sometimes young preachers think they can preach sound bites and they end up preaching a 20
minute sermon and they said the four or five lines they thought were going to get an amen
and then they've got nothing else.
So I'm not against the sound bites and I'm not against those things, but you've got to
have some structure to it.
So it really helped me to see how people develop their sermons and some pastors having more
structure than others or whatever it might be.
I think that was probably the best thing that helped me.
I preach through outlines.
I'm in my zone when I'm organized and I've got a plan and I know what I'm doing.
So I preach through outlines 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, not all the time, but most of the time I would
say I'm preaching through outlines.
And I think a lot of that came from writing notes.
So I tell the guys at our church, the young guys that want to preach, I tell them, take
notes, take notes while anybody's preaching and it'll help you.
The other thing that helped me is I just took every opportunity that I could.
Anytime anybody would allow me to preach.
I lived in Sacramento, California and I'd drive 1400 miles or whatever it is to Phoenix,
Arizona.
Cause pastor Anderson said, Hey, you can preach on a Sunday night.
You know what I was like?
Yeah, I'd love to preach.
So, um, I just took every opportunity I could and just try, you know, try to try different
things.
You know, I try, uh, to, to change, even now I try to change things up and make things
different or whatever, try, um, you know, doing different things and just trying to
see what you're comfortable with.
But, um, yeah, as far as that, that's what I did.
And I felt like that really helped me in the beginning days.
I can tell you personally that it's very, it's kind of different when you end up watching
yourself.
You know, I'm my, my, my own biggest critic.
And I remember after the first sermon I ever preached, I looked at the video, I said, man,
I'm so awkward.
My movements are awkward behind the pool, but it looked like Kramer or something.
I'm like moving around like this.
And uh, you know, my point is pastor, uh, when you watch yourself, do you pick up things
that maybe other people don't?
Are you also your own worst critic?
Absolutely.
I'm glad you brought that up because that's actually the other thing I tell young guys
is watch yourself because no one will be a better critic of yourself than yourself for
a couple of reasons.
Number one, most people are going to be too nice to tell you that, you know, you said,
um, you know, a hundred times or whatever.
And the people that aren't too nice to tell you that and will tell you that it's not going
to help you because you're going to be so mad and offended at them that, you know, you're
just going to end up making them an enemy.
So a lot of times it's good for you to watch yourself because you're not going to lie to
yourself.
You're going to tell yourself, wow, I didn't like that.
I didn't like this.
And it's hard, trust me, it's hard to watch yourself.
I mean, this is coming from a guy that's not only preached a lot of sermons, but been featured
in a lot of documentaries and been a part of, you know, things where I had to sat there
and watch myself.
And I think to myself, what in the world, you know, why did I say that or why do I sound
like that?
Because I always think we sound a lot better than we do, right?
You know, I always think you have this deep manly voice and then I'm like, why do I sound
like that?
So, you know, but when you watch yourself, you start realizing, you know, I don't like
this.
I don't like X, Y, or Z.
And then you start working on the things you don't like.
You start, maybe you see yourself do something like, I really like that.
I need to try to do that more, incorporate that more.
It helps.
So as hard as it is, I would definitely encourage anyone to watch themselves.
And again, even now with this, you know, I have a busy schedule and I have lots of things
going on, but I try to put it in my schedule.
I don't do it as much as I need to, but I try to put it in my schedule to watch myself
preach, you know, once a week if I can.
It doesn't happen all the time, but if I can, I try to go back and watch, you know, the
previous Sunday morning sermon or Sunday night sermon just because it helps me and helps
me see what I could do better.
And that's what you always want to do, right?
You want to try to preach better, help people.
And, you know, you don't want to be that guy that people are coming to hear you preach
out of duty.
You know, you want them to want to come to hear you preach.
They enjoy your preaching.
So I think that's helpful.
Sure. We talked about the movement moments ago.
I wanted to ask you a two part question.
First of all, what you like the most about the new YFP, which I think you kind of touched
on a little bit, and then if you have any constructive criticism or maybe areas that
you think we could improve on, I think it would be interesting to get your perspective
on that as well.
So you have the floor.
Absolutely. You know, what I love about this movement, of course, is just the hard
preaching and the soul winning zeal.
I mean, you don't see this anywhere today where you've got hard preaching, not watered
down, not, you know, compromising, preaching the whole counsel of God.
And you've got people that are just zealous for soul winning, reaching people with the
gospel of Jesus Christ.
That's what I love about this movement.
And I think this is why God is blessing this movement, you know, because those two things
are emphasized.
As far as constructive criticism, you know what I have found, and I think as I've talked
to other pastors, you know, other other men have agreed with this is one of the things
that it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's something that I think we could maybe
do a better job helping people along the way with is I feel like we have a lot of young,
immature Christians that think they're mature Christians.
And because of it, there's arrogance and pride and even fightings that go on.
And don't get me wrong, I'm all for fighting, you know, the good fight.
And I'm all for honestly contending for the faith.
But I think sometimes people don't understand that contending for the faith is not the same
as being contentious.
And I think sometimes we've got some newer Christians, and I'm not even saying just young
people, but just newer Christians who have not really been Christians for a long time,
at least walking with the Lord for a long time, haven't read a lot of the Bible, haven't
really, you know, had a lot of experience outsoleing.
But what they have done is they've watched a lot of YouTube videos.
They've watched a lot of documentaries, a lot of knowledge, which is great, but that
knowledge is puffing them up a little bit.
And that's my only concern.
And it's not something that's a big deal.
I just think it's something that, you know, it'd be good for us to be mindful of that
and try to help people along the way and to remember that, you know, a mature Christian
is going to show charity to other Christians and things of that.
And again, I'm not talking about compromising on preaching or, you know, against the
reprobates of the world or whatever.
And I think I've proven that in my ministry.
I'm willing to fight the world if I need to.
But I'm just talking about just how we deal with each other and things like that.
I think we ought to be afraid of the consequences for being prideful because God will
abase those who get full of themselves.
You would agree with that, I'm sure.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And that's the thing, you know, God resisted the problem, you know, so we don't want to
come to a place where we start being so arrogant, you know, because God is using us, you
know, let's not get proud of that to the point where God can no longer use us because
we're so proud of what he was doing.
Right. That's exactly the exact trap that the Jews fell into in the Old Testament.
You know, they started to think it was more about them than God.
And I'm not saying that's happening in our movement, but we just want to be careful with
that. And if there's something I've seen is it's maybe that's the thing that I, you know,
would like to try to influence, you know, younger Christians to let's mature, let's grow.
The more you read the Bible, the longer you've been doing this, you know, develop some
people skills and we can work together realizing that we're all different, you know, and
even I've been I've had people try to pin me against other pastors or whatever.
And it's like, you know, it's OK, we're independent.
Right. So those are my thoughts on that.
The Bible says be sober, be vigilant, and I don't think there's anything wrong with
being vigilant against certain things before they creep in.
Now, a few years ago, you went through some persecution and that is an understatement.
Obviously, I don't want to spend too much time on this because I'm sure, you know, you've
talked about it a lot already.
But, Pastor, I'm curious, how difficult was that?
You had the world attacking you incessantly.
You had to switch buildings.
They attacked you personally.
They attacked your family.
They made you out to be a monster and a wicked person, all because you stood for the
Bible. You stood for traditional family value.
You did not choose to mourn a bunch of pedophiles.
I mean, that was obviously, I would think, the heaviest attack you've ever endured.
How difficult was it to go through that?
And what did you learn about that experience?
You know, absolutely, I would say and as far as our ministry is concerned, that's
definitely the heaviest attack that we've ever had.
I mean, we had issues with our landlord where they would not, you know, they didn't kick
us out, but they didn't want to renew our lease, which was not a problem since we'd
outgrown that building anyway.
But the problem was because of the media, no one wanted to give us a lease.
So, you know, it was about six months there where me and two of our full time staff every
day, all we were doing was looking at buildings, trying to see if there's anyone that's
willing to take us in, you know.
So things like that were difficult.
Obviously, death threats, you know, you've got when the sheriff's department parks a
trailer in front of your house that has cameras facing every direction and has one that
goes 30 feet in the air to get an aerial view, you know, of course, those things are,
you know, different, you know, not something that happens every day.
So, you know, it was difficult.
Obviously, I rejoice in the fact that if we're being persecuted for the things of God
and praise the Lord, you know, more rewards for us in heaven.
As far as, you know, making it through the persecution and going through that, you know,
my my thoughts on that and I've talked to my wife about this and just kind of that time
in our lives and what we did and how it helped us.
And I think one thing that we both agreed on is we just tried to keep the right
perspective, realizing that, yes, it was heavy persecution.
And for the United States of America, you know, it's heavy persecution in comparison to
what maybe, you know, most churches in this country are doing.
But when you keep it in perspective of Christianity, you know, for all of history,
you know, I never got stoned.
Right. I never go to prison.
You know, I'm not I don't I don't think even it would get me put into the Hall of Faith,
Hebrews 11. So just try to keep the right perspective that it could have been a lot it
could be worse. And one day it will be worse.
You know, when the great tribulation happens, I'm not minimizing what we went through.
We definitely went through difficult times and hard times, you know, our church did.
But we just try to keep the right perspective that Christians have been going through
tribulation for all of time.
And if they crucified our savior, then, you know, what can we expect?
The other thing I would say is that we just took it one day at a time.
You know, we weren't looking to try to get through it or be done with it.
You know, it's just every day as things came up and as new obstacles came, we just try to
take it one day at a time. And eventually things got, you know, better and better.
I mean, we're still dealing with with some of it here and there.
But that's what I would tell people if they're going through persecution, if they're
going through a hard time is try to keep the right perspective and just take it one day
at a time. And of course, the Lord strengthens you and he gives you grace.
And and and, you know, I'm thankful for all of our friends.
Right. All of the pastors that were in this movement that were there to encourage us to
help us along the way.
Obviously, all of that, the prayers and all of that was a huge encouragement as well.
Yeah, the Bible says in Jeremiah Chapter 38, it talks about the fact that they took
Jeremiah, they cast him into the dungeon.
He sunk in the mire.
There certainly wasn't anything physical that happened to you, thank God, in terms of
getting thrown into prison or anything like that.
But I think from a psychological standpoint, having this, you know, the media viciously
attacking you must have been kind of a tough deal to go through.
So I commend you, Pastor, for going through that.
And thank you, because I understand that at the end of the day, being a pastor is a
selfless service.
You were doing that to warn us you were doing that for the sake of the hearer.
And so I appreciate that.
Well, I appreciate I appreciate your encouragement.
Thank you. Let's talk about the the job you have, which we have been already, but
specifically the most difficult aspect of pastoring a church.
Like I said already, you know, it's a popular church.
OK, many people are listening to you preach online.
You run good numbers at your church every single week, I'm sure.
How difficult is it to manage all that?
Because you have so many personalities that are coming together.
People want your time.
People want to come to you with their problems.
There might be whiners that you deal with.
There might be people who are a blessing to your church.
But what would you say is the most difficult aspect of what you do?
Well, you know, obviously there's there's a lot of aspects to this to this ministry.
You know, I always tell people about the three different titles that God gives a
pastor, you know, in the scriptures are called an elder, they're called a pastor, a
shepherd, and then they're called the bishop.
And those three different titles are all used synonymously about the same position.
But I think they really emphasize three parts of this ministry.
You know, the elder, I think that focuses on the spiritual maturity, the fact that we
need to be spiritual, we ourselves need to be in the Bible, learning, studying, growing
so that we can lead a growing church.
So we need to make sure that we are not only start off as elders and mature
spiritually, but we continue to grow.
Then you've got the the bishop aspect of it, which is used in scripture, you know, as
being synonymous with being the overseer or the ruler.
That's the administration part of it.
And that part is not easy, but it comes easier for me.
I'm I tend to be more of the type of an organized type of person.
I like to plan things out and I have a preaching calendar and a church calendar
and, you know, events and things like that.
So there's that aspect of it.
And then there's the pastor and the pastoring part of it, the shepherding, the
block part, that's that's the spending time with people and making the hospital
visits and writing the notes and things like that.
And I think as a pastor, you have to try to balance all three of those.
You know, you can't spend so much time with people that you are neglecting your
own spiritual health.
Right.
But you can't beat you.
But you also have to be organized if you're going to try to reach, you know, if
you're going to, you know, praise the Lord.
Our church averages 70 to 80 soul winners every week in our community.
And I'm thankful for that.
I'm I'm content, but not complacent.
You know, I'm praying that one day we'll have 100 soul winners every week.
But here's the thing.
Eighty, you know, having 80 soul winners on the community every week takes a lot of
organization, takes a lot of, you know, trying, you know, mobilizing those people
and motivating them and training them takes work.
So all of those things need to be balanced out.
And I'm not minimizing any of those.
They're all they all have their pros and cons and what makes them easy.
What I would say, though, if the question is, what is the most difficult part of
pastoring, I would say, without a doubt, the most difficult part.
And I'm not and I hope I sound like I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining
because I'm not complaining at all.
Um, I love what I do and I love that the Lord has allowed me to do it.
But the hardest part I would say is investing into people's lives.
You know, you, you love people, you pray for them.
You spend time with them, you disciple them, you try to help them grow.
And then either watching them get backslidden, uh, and end up leaving the
church and things like that, that's hard, you know, because you, you spend so much
time investing into somebody and, you know, I've been doing this now for eight
years when we first started, it was more of a surprise to me, like so and so quit
the church or so and so, you know, got backslidden or what happened, you know, I
didn't know now that we've been doing it for so long, my wife and I, I mean, it
seems like months in advance, you know, uh, we kinda, you start seeing the tell,
tell signs, you know, and, and it's, it's hard to pinpoint it, but you just sense
it and people's attitudes, their facial expressions, just the spirit about them.
You start realizing that you're losing them, you know, and, and sometimes you're
just watching this almost train crash or car accident in slow motion.
It seems like, you know, right afterwards, everyone in the church is like, what
happened to so and so, you know, uh, I can't believe, you know, and it's like,
yeah, but we we've been watching it for like six months now, you know, or a year
now, we weren't really surprised by it.
And I think all pastors can probably say that when they've been doing it long
enough and they've been vigilant and, and been observing people.
And I would say that's the hard part.
And then the worst part is when you're invest time, love people, help people,
defend people, protect people, and then they stab you in the back.
I mean, that's definitely the worst part of it.
And, and the, the problem with it, the, the, the, the part that's hard about
it is that in your flesh, you want to just kind of back off in your flesh.
You want to just kind of close up and isolate yourself, you know, in the flesh,
you kind of want to tell yourself, you know what, I'm just going to preach my
sermons and I'm not going to invest into anybody's life.
You know, I'm not going to even try to get to know people or whatever, you know,
in your flesh, that's what, and that's what Satan is trying to get you to do.
And of course you can't allow yourself to do that.
You know, as a pastor, as a pastor's wife, you need to be involved in people's
lives and try to help them and love them no matter what happens.
I mean, even right now, right now, I can tell you what people that I'm
trying to help, I'm trying, you know, they're getting back saying, they're
not mad at me, they're not mad at our church, they're just, their hearts aren't
right, you know, and I'm trying to reach out to them, you know, and before it was
like, Hey, I sent them a text message and they would message me back immediately.
Now you send them a text message and there's no response, you know, things
like that can be difficult and you just have to realize that that's part of ministry.
And the great thing is when those people come back, you know, when they
have their prodigal son moment and they get to the end of themselves and then
they, you know, you get, eventually you stay in it long enough, you start
seeing them come back and, and you rejoice over that, but I would say at
least for me, that's the most difficult part is when you've invested into
people's lives and you watch them either go back to the world or, you know, the
worst part is when they just stab you in the back, I mean, that's, that's terrible.
Sure.
Absolutely.
All right.
Well, let's round things out here.
I wanted to talk real quickly about this new satellite church that you're
going to be starting and specifically the preacher, Joe Jones, I'm very impressed.
I saw a few of his sermon Steadfast Jacksonville uploaded a clip and a full
sermon broke back Baptist, which I heard on my way home as I was driving home from work.
Can you talk a little about that satellite church?
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, you know, we're really excited about, about this church.
I'm actually gonna be preaching there this week.
Uh, um, and, and I, we're excited about it.
There's a group up there.
There's about 20 people that we've identified.
I know there's more than that, but there's about 20 that we've identified
so far that are people that are listeners.
They listen to pastor Anderson, they listen to me or whatever.
And, um, they, they are, you know, uh, wanting to get a church going up there.
They've been kind of disenfranchised.
Uh, Boise is, uh, the, the home turf of Sam Giff.
And I think his influence has really hurt them in the sense that some of
them are getting kicked out of church.
I mean, I'm hearing stories where they're going to visit church and
they're being stopped at the door being asked, do you listen to Steven Anderson?
You know, and it's like, yes, you're not welcomed here type thing.
Um, so it's, uh, it's crazy, you know, uh, I, I feel like it's God moving,
you know, we just got done with our Vancouver church plan.
Uh, I ordained brother Aaron as pastor Thompson.
They became sure foundation Baptist church.
And we're just going from that last week to starting a church in Boise this week.
And I think it's a God, you know, just how the way the transition has worked out.
And I'm excited, uh, for brother Joe, brother Joe and his
family are a wonderful family.
They they they've been nothing but a blessing to us here.
And what I love about brother Joe is that, you know, as you can, if you
listen to a sermon, you know, the guy can preach and he's got zeal
and, um, righteous indignation.
And, uh, what I love about him is that, uh, I don't think anybody in our
movement likes dispensationalism, but I don't know that there's anyone in
our movement who hates dispensationalism as much as Joe Jones and, and I don't
think, I don't think anybody in our movement likes Sam Gipp, but I don't
think there's anybody in our movement who hates Sam Gipp as much as Joe Jones.
So I just think it's of God that he's going to Sam Gipp's backyard.
I'm excited to just see how that all of that's going to turn out.
But, uh, you know, step aside, Sam Gipp, uh, we're taking over in Boise.
So, uh, yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Get out of the way because Joe Jones is a freight train.
Okay.
And, uh, brother Fannin, by the way, has been very impressed with his
preaching and he looks forward to that Red Hot Preaching Conference.
Let's end with this.
It's coming up and I am excited because, you know, uh, there's going to be some
names there that are going to be appearing for the first time, but pastor,
let's go ahead and do this.
Let's preview the Red Hot Preaching Conference 2018.
Absolutely.
Red Hot Preaching Conference is, um, I think an awesome event.
If you've never came, I, you know, I want to encourage you to come.
This is our third year that we're doing it and every year has been great.
And I think this year is going to be, you know, the best year and yeah,
we've got some new guys lined up, obviously as the movement grows.
And as there's more and more preachers that are like us, it's going
to get harder to bring them all in.
So we're going to start having to rotate, you know, and just have some guys in this
year and that maybe we didn't have last year and next year, bring in some other
guys and do the best we can with that.
Um, but yeah, we're having brother Adam Fannin, which I'm really excited
for him to come out and preach.
Of course, uh, pastor Donny Romero's, uh, coming out with him as well.
Pastor Steven Anderson, of course, will be there.
Brother Bruce Mejia, uh, from Los Angeles, pastor Joe Major, and then
our, uh, own brother Aaron, pastor Thompson will be there, uh, preaching.
Brother Stuckey is going to be preaching and we're going to be
ordaining them as an evangelist and sending them to start a church in
Manila also in November of this year.
So he'll be, uh, leaving us soon.
Still part of the Verity family, but starting a church in Manila.
So he'll be preaching as well.
And, uh, let me see if I missed any of the guys, but, uh, I think that's,
those are the guys that are preaching brother Adam, pastor Anderson, pastor
Romero, brother Mejia, pastor Joe Major, pastor Thompson, and brother Stuckey.
And, you know, of course I'll be preaching there on the Sunday as well.
And on Friday morning, we're going to be showing the first time the first showing
of a dispensation of heresy documentary.
So, um, that's going to be a great event as well.
And, uh, I'm, I'm really excited about that.
That's a documentary we've been working on with brother Bruce.
And, um, and when I say we've been working on, I mean, we were partnering with him,
but he's definitely doing the lion's share of the work.
So, uh, just to give him a shot out there, I appreciate all the work that
we've done with the editing and all that, but we'll be watching that
at the conference for the first time.
Uh, so it's going to be a great conference, great preaching.
Uh, soul winning every year.
We've had over 200 soul winners on Saturday morning.
I think last year we had 226 soul winners on Saturday morning, and we're
hoping this year we'll break that, you know, and it's just a great
time of fellowship preaching.
And, um, what I like about the Red Hot Preaching Conference is that
it feels like a family reunion.
You know, it feels like, you know, all of these extended family is coming together.
And I, you know, if you haven't, if you're, I realize it's like a couple of
weeks away, but if you're watching this and you haven't made plans, if you're
able to take the time off and get here, I'd encourage you to come, uh, for the
Red Hot Preaching Conference.
It's going to be great.
Awesome.
Yeah.
I can't wait to see that documentary on dispensationalism.
I hate dispensationalism and I'm glad that you guys are attacking
this weird doctrine.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
No, no, no.
I was, I was just agreeing with you.
Absolutely.
You know, because one of the reasons, so the reason that we started making
this documentary with Brother Bruce is because we're going to send
Brother Stuck to the Philippines.
And the Ruckmanites are big in the Philippines.
As far as IFBs are concerned, it's Ruckmanite country.
So we actually decided that we wanted to do a documentary on dispensationalism,
uh, so that he could have a good resource in the Philippines.
Well, we found out that Brother Bruce was also, uh, planning on making a
documentary on dispensationalism.
So of course, you know, I thought about suing him and making
sure that he didn't get to do that.
I'm just kidding.
You know, instead of two dispensational documentaries, we decided,
Hey, why don't we work together?
And, uh, so we made that one.
But what's interesting is that since then this church plant in, uh, Boise,
uh, opened up, which has, you know, Sam Gibbs stomping grounds with that
treasure valley church up there.
That's big into dispensationalism.
So I think it's all coming together.
It's all of God.
Um, so I'm excited about the movie and I think everybody's
going to really like it.
Yeah.
Hopefully it triggers some of these dipstick ruck cards and you know, into oblivion.
All right, pastor, we're out of time.
I really appreciated, uh, the fact that you came here and did this.
It means a lot to me.
I'm sure you have a very busy schedule.
So thank you again, sir.
It's just, it was an honor.
It was an honor to get a chance to chat with you folks.
I believe that he is the embodiment of professionalism and
class. And if you haven't done so already,
you must subscribe to the Verity Baptist church, YouTube channels,
search for it on YouTube.
The backup is Verity and pastor Jimenez.
If there's anything else you'd like to add now is the time.
No, just thank you. It's, it's my honor to be on your, on your show.
I've heard a lot about you and we've met a couple of times. Um,
but I appreciate you taking the time to have me on.
And if you ever find yourself in Sacramento, uh, you know, let us,
let me know and wouldn't go out and have dinner or something.
Oh, wow. That'd be amazing. Of course, of course will do.
That's it for this edition of the preacher profile series.
Thanks for watching. And if you want to see more of my content,
make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel,
youtube.com slash Ben, the Baptist is the place to go for that.
I appreciate your support and what an amazing opportunity this was.
And I look forward to doing more of these, the preacher profile series,
a chance to get to know these ordained pastors,
evangelists in our movement. They all are great men of God.
And it is my honor. My pleasure to get a chance to speak to them until next time
on behalf of pastor Roger Jimenez from Verity Baptist church in Sacramento,
California. This is Benjamin Knight signing off. God bless you all.
And like I always say, I'll talk to you guys again after a while.