May 28, 2024 • 33 mins
Enjoy a new episode of Ordinary Joe's Town Talk with host Joey Chapman, powered by Our Town Gwinnett Magazine. Broadcasting from the End Resultz Radio Network inside the Perimeter Roofing Studio fromthe Country Inn & Suites by Radisson Hotel in downtown Stone Mountain.
This show is a must listen as Joey interviews... Dr. Troy Bush, the senior pastor at Rehoboth Baptist Church.. Despite his humility, Troy is indeed a local hero making a significant impact in our community. This show dives into Troy's fascinating life story, including his family's passion for classic Mustangs and the incredible journey of revitalizing Rehoboth Baptist Church since 2012.
From discussing the church's historical struggles and transformation to the importance of community engagement and support, this episode is filled with heartwarming stories and insightful perspectives. Troy shares his thoughts on the role of local churches in today's world, the importance of investing in people, and the future goals for Rehoboth, including ambitious plans for a community center and crisis housing program.
Join us for an inspiring conversation that highlights the power of faith, community, and dedication in making a lasting difference. More info on Rehoboth at -> https://rehoboth.org/
*** Ordinary Joe's Town Talk with Joey Chapman is broadcast live on the End Resultz Radio Network.
All shows are broadcast from the Perimeter Roofing studio. Inside the Country Inn & Suites by Radisson in beautiful Stone Mountain, GA. Email info@EndResultz.com for more information on this or other shows OR learn how to host your own show.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello again everyone and welcome to another Ordinary Joe's Town Talk with Joey
Chabin and we're powered by Our Town Magazine.
We're broadcasting from the InResults radio network inside the Perimeter Roofing
Studio from the Country Inn & Suites by Radisson Hotel in downtown Stone Mountain.
And I'm just super excited to have Dr. Troy Bush here with us today.
(00:22):
Welcome Troy and thank you for taking time to be with us. I really appreciate
it. But Troy is the senior pastor at Rehoboth Baptist Church,
and we're just delighted to have you here.
And as you all know, my goal every week or every podcast is to talk to a local hero.
Troy says he's not that, but he is.
Troy's also been kind. I put him behind schedule, so sorry, Troy.
(00:44):
It's all good. I'm honored to be here. Thank you for the invitation.
Absolutely. And as always, I'm joined by Ryan Sowers, my co-host.
Yeah. Yeah, but I just let you guys do your thing, but I'm glad y'all are here.
I know we left a little short on time, but excited to be here.
Appreciate you always giving me some commentary.
But Troy, I know you make a difference in our community and I so appreciate
(01:05):
it. But let's get right to it. You gave us a fun fact, which is cool. Yeah.
And I want to ask you about, you said your whole family has owned Mustangs. That is true.
Tell us about that. Pastor has a need for speed. It's kind of an interesting
part of our life story. So my wife grew up in Northeast Arkansas,
and that's where I met her.
I grew up in Northwest Florida, so our paths did not cross until I was in grad school.
(01:30):
And I had a Mustang that my parents gave me.
I was smitten by Mustangs as an early child, and that was just my favorite,
favorite car. And absolutely loved that.
And then my parents ended up owning Mustangs as well. And then when I met my
wife, I knew, I knew there were two reasons why she had to be the person God
(01:55):
had brought into my life.
First and foremost, she was a Mustang girl.
And at the same time, we both share the same birthday two years apart.
So that was just a neat connection. but her dad has now owned a couple of different Mustangs.
And then she and I, Tina together, apart from those days, have owned other Mustangs.
(02:16):
And then all three of my adult children have owned Mustangs at one time or another.
So, and you know, all of these are not the current editions.
They are more of the classics.
And so it's just been a neat part of our journey. That is really cool.
What year, what year is your favorite year for the Mustang? My favorite year is 69.
69, okay. That is my absolute favorite. That's a gorgeous car. Yeah. Absolutely.
(02:40):
Now give us some, I know you said you're from North Florida.
Which city in North Florida? Northwest Florida, right outside of Pensacola.
Pensacola, okay, great area.
And then your wife's from Arkansas. Yep, little town called Crawfordsville.
Crawfordsville, wow. And then three kids. Three kids.
I have three adult children, all of whom are married. And we're just really
blessed that all three of our children have chosen to be part of our church
(03:02):
family as well and live in community.
And two of our children that are married, between them, they have seven of our grandchildren.
And our other son and his wife are expecting their first in September for our eighth grandchild.
So we went from six years ago, didn't hardly have any of them married to now
they're all married and we've got a bunch of grandkids and we love it.
(03:25):
Ryan and I have all that to look forward to. We do. We do. You got Joey O'Brien.
Spencer B., when's he getting married? June 8th. So I've got a wedding coming
up in a month. Awesome. That's awesome. It's crazy.
Joey's going to see what it's like to have a daughter in the family.
Absolutely. You can live my world. You'll enjoy.
Ryan has three daughters. I wouldn't trade it for the world,
(03:46):
but people are like, how do you do it? I'm like, dude, I didn't have a navigational panel.
I kind of figured it out on the fly. I, and I'm like, what I,
how I parent daughter three, who's going to be a senior in high school,
completely different than the first two. Cause you learn along the way. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Hey, and you're always outnumbered. So, oh, I'm always outnumbered
and I just, just give it up. I just, you're not going to win.
(04:06):
Somebody's gonna be mad at me.
I am. I am interested in, in what your three kids are doing.
Cause, uh, I just found it fascinating.
You know, it sounds like all three are very successful. Give us just a quick bio on them. Sure.
My oldest son, he's an electrical engineer, Georgia Tech grad,
and he is also one of our pastors at Rehoboth.
And my next child's son also, he is a Blackhawk pilot for the Georgia National Guard.
(04:32):
And my daughter, and he's also an active member, he and his wife of our church
family, as I'd mentioned earlier.
And then my daughter, she does graphics communications.
She actually does those for our church, but she and her husband are both active
members with Rehoboth also.
Wow. So you got the whole family there. That's really interesting.
(04:53):
And didn't you tell me that your middle son, he met his wife online?
Because I want my son to try to do that in case he ever listens to this,
which he probably won't. Yeah, he did. It's a.
For Caleb, even for our family would, would have not been a first thought,
but in God's providence, Caleb chose to, to follow that route very selectively.
(05:18):
And God was so kind to bring just a godly woman from a great family into his life.
And they, they married and went to the delight of our heart.
And now we're expecting their first child.
That is so awesome. Oh, that's great. Really cool. Really cool.
Well, I'll just jump in. And so I used to, when my youngest is 24,
almost 25 this year, my oldest daughter was really young.
(05:42):
She used to stay at Rehoboth Baptist. I think it was back in Mother's Morning Out or something.
Okay. All right. And so that was a little thing for my wife was working.
And then as a kid, we used to play a lot of basketball in the Rehoboth gym.
So yeah, I've been, Joey and I being from Tucker, whole area or Lilburn or wherever,
Rehoboth's been a key part of our life.
(06:03):
That's awesome. Yeah. But we're very blessed with an extraordinary gym.
And even just a few years ago, we completely renovated the floor and the lighting
and all in there. And so it's beautiful.
And our basketball program remains very robust. It was great.
I don't have the, I don't know, I can't shoot wrist a shot, elbow a shot.
But back in the day, if you bring me with about five feet, I can still swish.
You can make it. Yeah, yeah.
(06:25):
That's great. Talk a little bit about, I know you've been at Rehoboth since 2012.
Correct. So you've been there quite a while. And I think just like what you're
saying, Ryan, that church has had a huge impact on our community.
But I do think it's slumped a little bit. Is that the best word to use?
Yeah, very much so. We went through some very difficult years.
(06:46):
And you've managed to bring it back.
Tell us what the secret is. I mean, I'm sure a lot of prayer.
Yeah, the first and foremost would be I wasn't the one who brought it back.
Yeah, that's a great point.
The Lord has been so gracious, and it is an extraordinary church family.
In August, Rehoboth will celebrate 170 years. Wow.
All of them in this community, all of them on that same property.
(07:10):
I've been going since day one. Yeah, yeah.
I'm just making sure our audience is awake. And it is pretty cool that we have
families who, their families go back to the founding of Rehoboth.
But of course, now we have families from 15 different countries too,
who are part of our Rehoboth family.
So a really diverse family today, but Rehoboth had been.
(07:32):
It was one of the largest churches in all of Georgia, one of the largest in
all of the Southeast, had the largest sports rec program of any church in the
country, and did a lot of things in community and so forth.
And like many churches, like our communities as a whole, things change,
and our community has changed quite a bit.
And many churches have struggled through those kinds of changes.
(07:55):
Rehoboth wasn't immune to that.
And so when I came in in In 2012, Rehoboth had a lot of debt.
Had been through some really hard times. A lot of young families had moved away and moved on.
And so it was predominantly an older congregation with enormous facilities,
wonderful but enormous facilities.
(08:16):
And at the same time, not a lot of young people.
And Rehoboth has always been a church that has been based in this community,
that loves this community.
And what the church did was really remarkable.
Not a commitment to change beliefs in the gospel, because we believe that those
(08:38):
are eternally given by our God and they're good and right.
But the way you do sports ministry in today is not the same you would do it
in the 1980s and what that would look like.
And so our older adults embraced music that not a lot of older adults would necessarily embrace.
Yet they ask us to not forget them. And so we don't. We had a young couple visiting yesterday.
(09:03):
We had a number of guests in our service yesterday, and one of the young couples
wanted to talk to me after the service, and they asked about our music.
And I said, you know, is today kind of normal? And I said, well,
if you can call that normal, because we have chosen not to be niche in our music.
Music, we are not eclectic, but we are representative because we have folks
(09:24):
who love hymns and we sing hymns, both older and newer.
We have folks who love some Southern gospel and we sing some of that.
We have folks who love Black gospel, we sing some of that. We have folks who
love contemporary praise and we sing, because that represents who we are as a church family.
So what began to happen was a really great team of members and working with
(09:46):
me and great financial management.
And we did all the things necessary that you have to do with a lot of square
footage and a lot of parking lots and really put things in just a wonderful, wonderful place.
And we've engaged in a lot of ministries. We have an award-winning preschool
today that is state licensed.
We're very proud of that. We have a classical Christian school that is up and
(10:09):
running and very proud of that.
And we have two different homeschool groups that meet on our campus every week as well.
Plus we're very engaged in public schools and supportive there of the administration and students and.
So, yep, it's been hard, but all of y'all who are business leaders,
those have been hard days too through this period, especially through COVID.
(10:30):
Absolutely. And it's just been a remarkable season of a church family that really
came together to be a family, not just a religious center, that really wants
to serve in our community, our food pantry.
We have the longest continuous running feeding ministry in probably in DeKalb
County, but certainly in the Tucker area.
(10:51):
And this past week, we fed 55, 57 families, which we average between sometime
in the upper 40s to as many as 70 families a week that we feed in that feeding ministry.
So, yeah, it's been challenging, but it's been very good. God's been very gracious.
That's so cool. I was just going to say, you know, and I don't know what made
(11:12):
me think about this, but I remember Dr. Bice was there.
And I believe his, was it his daughter that got murdered and decayed?
Daughter-in-law. daughter-in-law got a murder indicator yeah tim and
vicky bice go to church with me now and one of his sons shout
out to them but great great couple yeah great family and
and then you had dr lee right after that correct he yeah he ended up going to
(11:34):
alpharetta was it alpharetta so in that day and it was novel in that day not
so novel today but rehoboth started a second campus of rehoboth incoming yes
and he was going back and forth and preaching at both campuses campuses.
And there came a point in the late 90s that he led the church to separate those
(11:57):
two campuses into two completely separate churches.
And the church there today is Redeemer Church incoming, First Redeemer.
And so there were two, and he left to go be with that congregation.
Right. And I went to school with Jason Lee, his son, and I think he's a police
officer. Yes, with DeKalb County.
I think he does radio program right today in the, in history or something this day in history. Dr.
(12:22):
Lee does. Oh yes, he does. Yeah. It's pretty interesting.
Yep. Anyway, really neat history.
Okay. And just talk about in, in today's world, you know, give us your opinion
on what the importance of the local church.
Cause I just feel like I talked to friends who are believers and they're like,
well, I find, you know, God in nature, I can go out hunting or fishing and,
(12:44):
you know, just what are your thoughts on that?
And how much time did you say yeah exactly yeah
that that really is an important conversation because you
not only hear some of those same thoughts from people who identify as christian
but you have some of those same perspectives of people who would not necessarily
(13:04):
identify as christians yet they feel drawn to the bible even jesus and yet sometimes
would say hey i kind of like Jesus,
but I'm not sure I like all these people that are in that church or this church.
And so I think there's a handful of things to think about.
One of those is that I think everybody, if we really get honest, desire something more.
(13:29):
And it doesn't matter what our background is culturally or otherwise.
And I believe, and the Bible teaches us that God has created that innate capacity in us to worship him.
And whether we're in the most blessed stage of life or the most challenging
stage of life, at the end of the day, I think every human being is wanting something more.
(13:51):
And now we fill that with a whole host of things.
And some people actually fill that with church. And that's a horrible thing,
to be quite honest. Right.
And sometimes I do think churches in seasons and sometimes churches entirely
completely get adrift from what Christ has called us to.
And that's certainly led a bad taste in people's mouths.
But one of the things we talk about, even with our church family,
(14:13):
is that we are really messy.
And that includes the senior pastor. And I'm not the only pastor in our church
family, but Christ has been so gracious to redeem me and to draw me into a relationship with him.
Them, that doesn't mean that I am sinless, nor does it mean that I too don't need accountability.
(14:33):
And in our church, we take those things seriously. I am the lead pastor,
but I graciously and joyfully submit to even our accountability practices in our church.
Another aspect of that comes is that sometimes people can think churches are looking down on them.
And the reality is we We certainly have convictional beliefs,
but I haven't met anybody who didn't have convictional beliefs.
(14:56):
Even those who would say, I'm not interested in church at all.
That's a convictional belief.
Sure. But how we interact with one another, how we treat one another.
And so at the end of the day, those who would call themselves believers and
say, but church isn't important.
I can have all of Jesus and not church.
I would challenge them to look at what Jesus taught and what he practiced.
(15:19):
Show me one of the disciples who walked with him who really,
really got it right all the time.
Some of them made egregious missteps, including Peter, who denies him.
And yet Jesus never abandons them. In fact, if anything, he calls other believers
to walk in covenant relationship with one another.
It's one of his great gifts to us to not only spur on our growth in him,
(15:45):
but by using one another in our lives.
To help us walk through those hard times, to actually experience aspects of his grace and mercy.
And when those who call themselves believers are not experiencing that,
it's a bit like going to the best steak restaurant that you can imagine,
the very best one, and tell them, hey,
(16:07):
I'm not interested in what's being served here.
I'm just going to get some takeout, but you leave out the steak.
You just give me the leftovers that are there. And unfortunately,
that's what they're experiencing. I would say this too.
I've had food poisoning a handful of times. I have had it knowing I ate at this
restaurant on this date.
(16:29):
And two hours later, I'm looking for an emergency room. It is that bad.
I have not given up on going to restaurants. Now, I may not go to that restaurant anymore.
But I've not quit going to restaurants. Listen, anybody who has walked with
a church family, you're going to get bruised because those people are just like you.
(16:49):
Right. And one of the things that the Lord draws us to, which I think is one
of the most key things in life as a whole, is not simply to be able to be right
all the time, but also to be a follower of Christ who learns to forgive those who hurt you.
And there's no pastor. There is no pastor who has not been wounded in a church. That doesn't exist.
(17:10):
My responsibility is to not only share that forgiveness, not because I'm Christ,
but I'm just a follower of Christ too, but to model that.
And we need to model that in our church families and our staff and so forth.
So those who would say, hey, I've given up on the church, man,
I would say, listen, there are some bad churches out there. There are.
But most churches are horribly imperfect and wonderful at the same time.
(17:34):
So go dig in with them. That's a great point.
And I think one of the things that I think I'm drawn to you for is because I
know you and I know your personal interest in people.
And I see this enormous church at Rehoboth. Like you said, you've got facilities that go for miles.
And I think sometimes there's going to be an albatross around our neck.
(17:56):
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. It's a lot of money to keep those places up, but I commend you for your
success, and I think you've personalized it and brought that church back to it.
It's a fascinating story to me.
I love what you just said, because when a lot of people's running the other
way when they hear the word church is there is no perfect church.
(18:19):
And you said everybody's just like you, and you may get, I like what you said
about food poisoning. I may not go back to that restaurant.
But I'm going to go to another restaurant. That's right. I think it's a really
powerful analogy for people because you've got to find what's the right thing for you.
I mean, it might not be the same as your next door neighbor or whatever,
but that's good. I really like that.
(18:40):
And I really appreciate that. And thank you, Joey, for your compliments.
And I just have to commend the Roebuth family. When you think of the families
over the decades that have given up vacations, given up extra homes,
given up all kinds of things in order to invest in those facilities.
And yes, we can look and say, okay, that roof's going to cost tens of thousands
(19:00):
of dollars to replace and we got a bunch of them.
Think about the things that happen on our campus because of those.
There's a theater group, a nonprofit theater group. They're not a Christian
group, but they are housed on our campus.
All of their supplies and everything are stored there and they do all of their practices there.
(19:21):
It is a safe, convenient, welcoming place for them to do that.
And then they do community theater that literally sell out virtually every time.
That wouldn't be possible. It wouldn't be as easy for them to do that.
When the gyms are overbooked at a couple of the public high schools near us,
you know, we're one of the first calls.
Hey, our girls team needs this. Our guys team needs this. Can they do that?
(19:45):
And so we see ourselves and, you know, we can't accept every request that comes
our way. But because of the sacrifice that people have done through Rehoboth,
we have been able to provide space and opportunity for all kinds of organizations.
Senior University is another one. Senior University, again, not a religious organization.
They're an educational nonprofit for older adults. They've been around now,
(20:08):
I think, about 40 years now.
They have previously been on Emory's campus and Mercer's campus,
and now they've been on our campus. I think we're in their seventh year or so.
Some 300 older adults are engaged in just phenomenal education classes.
And these aren't, okay, how do you unlock your phone after your grandson has messed up your iPhone?
(20:31):
No, no, no, no. These are like the history of the Byzantine Empire.
Current political idea. And they've got the retired head of Emory's history
department teaching this.
Wow. And we're able to provide those spaces for them. That's nice.
Plus the 50-plus families we fed last week.
Loving on the community. Yeah, administering the community without judging what
(20:52):
they're doing. That's exactly right. I mean, it's a walk in the walk.
What's amazing to me, though, is you have 5,000 people pass that church every single day.
I have no idea what's going on. I'm just saying, you know, it's just interesting.
It's how life is, I guess.
No, really good stuff. I appreciate the, uh, the breakdown of that.
And, and, and, and I would also say, you know, we just had a,
(21:15):
one of our friends in our neighborhood just lost their wife.
And I, my first thought is, do they have a church family?
That's exactly right. And I'm like, what do you do when you don't have that?
It's, you know, yes, the neighbors are going to bring food and stuff like that.
But I think it's such an important support group four times.
And, you know, when weddings are going on, people are happy for you and that
(21:37):
kind of stuff. Anyway, well said going, going, going on.
You've already poked some holes in the argument about not going.
And Ryan and I always talk about our goals with the program as well.
And we talk about how can we be successful in business, since we're both in
business, but also in life. And I think it just requires such a discipline.
(21:58):
And, I mean, the three of us rely on the Holy Spirit. And, you know,
just talk about your thoughts of success in business as well as spiritual life, you know.
Yeah. And maybe I've touched on some of that with the discipline.
I don't think that there's a difference.
Certainly the arena is different, but I don't
think the process and the
(22:20):
motivations are different from a local business owner or manager in a corporation
that happens to have a office here or a stay-at-home parent who is also doing
telework and they want to succeed in that. I think many of those are the same.
And for us, part of what we focus on, and even with our team and our staff,
(22:46):
that we talk about that it is so important to invest in the relationships of
those with whom you're working with and those whom you're leading.
And in the context of developing and investing in those relationships,
we don't do it for the motivation to get them to do something.
Listen, people are smart. They smell that pretty quickly.
And especially if they're under 15, they smell it instantly.
(23:10):
Our sense of smell tends to drop a little bit in some of those years as we get
older, but you invest in people not so you can get from them.
You're investing in them really for what is best for them.
And in our context, as we think about that, it's investing in them so that they
(23:30):
can use the gifts and the talents that God has given them to develop the disciplines.
To achieve what God has given them an opportunity to do.
And so I think all of those are fundamentally important. And I think that would
apply in each of your businesses and all of those.
And when we do that well, and those with whom we are working with,
(23:53):
when they are engaging fully in that, it's amazing.
It's extraordinary what can happen. And so we talk about those very things among
our staff and our staff leadership.
We desire to practice those things, but it really starts with investing in those
people because you see them as created by an infinite good sovereign God who
(24:17):
created them in his image.
They are messy just like I am messy.
And when we hire them or when we take them on as a partner in ministry or we're
engaging in them in community to minister to them, we are doing that knowing
we are engaging the messy too and everything in between.
And so we don't run away from that messy. Now, sometimes it requires some healthy
(24:39):
boundaries, but that's how we focus on that.
And we think that that's true for business too.
Absolutely. I was going to tell you, Ryan, and you as well, Troy.
We, after 22 years of being at my place of work and of course,
you know, we sell air conditioning filters, but the guys came to me and said,
I want to have a Bible study on Thursday mornings.
(24:59):
And it's embarrassing to me that I, I, and I had thought about it before, but.
I think in our world, we don't want to mix business and spiritual stuff.
And that is so wrong in my mind. It's like, why not?
Why are we not doing that? And I've seen some growth from these guys,
(25:20):
and it's just been incredible. It's awesome. Good for you.
And I say that, and I'm just very fortunate that somebody came to me and asked.
Let me just commension that, and I think that is extraordinary.
Ordinary, what none of us want to do.
We are champions of freedom of religion. But that also means being champion
for someone who wants freedom from religion, though I would contend,
(25:44):
you know, everybody has a religious view, whatever that may be.
So it's not forcing them to do anything. And I'll use our food pantry as an example.
Those who come to our food pantry, we invite them for us to have an opportunity to pray with them.
Now we're going to feed them if they say, hey, I don't want you to pray for me.
And sometimes people will do that. Sure.
(26:05):
It is amazing the number of times people who have been through the food pantry
at some point this week, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, who will come back
in because it lines up on Wednesdays when we do this.
Now get in line. This happens almost every week. Somebody will come in and say,
I didn't come here for food today.
The last time I was here, you prayed for me. Nice. I want you to know here's
(26:26):
what's happened in my life. Would you pray with me again today?
And honestly, you know, and we offer them a Bible if they want to take that.
It's remarkable how many people ask, and then they're like, can we pay for them?
We've had people come back weeks later who've gotten kind of on their feet.
Finances are a little different. And we'll write a check or give cash.
Hey, you fed us. You prayed for us. You gave a Bible. And we want to contribute back.
(26:50):
That's what it's all about. Yeah. Wow. So great. So great.
Real quick, I know we're running short on time, but I want to ask you real quick.
I had a Sunday school teacher one time that told me that he didn't want to teach
from the Old Testament and just felt like it was, you know, grace in the New
Testament that he wanted to talk about. And I kind of get that.
(27:11):
I mean, just, I could probably keep you here for two hours to talk about this,
but just give me your thoughts on that real quick. Oh yeah, we could,
we could spend a lot of time.
What did Jesus teach from? The Old Testament. Everything he quoted was the Old
Testament. Right. What did the Apostle Paul teach from when he quoted scripture?
Every scripture was the Old Testament.
(27:32):
We cannot divorce the New Testament from the Old Testament. it.
Grace and salvation that is initially even just hinted at in the Garden of Eden
when God curses the serpent and tells him that ultimately from the seed of woman,
that seed is going to crush his head even though the serpent is going to strike his heel.
(27:55):
That's the first glimmer of the hope of the gospel.
And it is carried on, almost think of it like a rose
that you get at the florist and you
know and they're in that cool chilled cooler and it's
real tight and you're like oh i can't give those to my
wife because well they they look like well they
look like they were just cut and they're not mature enough and within a
(28:17):
few hours they begin to unfold and over the next day or two they're just stunningly
gorgeous we see a very similar thing happening all throughout scripture where
god begins little by little more and more and more and he reveals to us jesus
christ so that the fullness of the revelation occurs even through the book of Revelation.
And so there's no way we can fully understand the New Testament without the Old Testament.
(28:40):
And here's the thing, everything, every person, every book, every incident,
everything of the Old Testament is pointing toward Jesus Christ.
And so a good friend of mine who's an Old Testament professor at just a phenomenal
Christian university here in North America,
When he teaches a course called Old Testament Survey, and everybody in that
(29:01):
university is required to take it, whether they want to or not,
if they're going to go there, and it is just a thriving university.
He will walk into the class, and the first thing he says to him in his Old Testament
Survey, I'm about to give you back two-thirds of your Bible.
And so I just encourage you, dig in. Absolutely. No, I appreciate that.
I appreciate it. I love that rose illustration.
(29:23):
Give me just the last question. And what are your plans and goals for like the
next two years at Rehoboth? I'm just curious.
Yeah, that's a great question.
To be candid, except for a couple of things, we generally aren't planning five, six years out. Sure.
Life changes too quickly. Absolutely. Especially with the internet.
(29:43):
And that's true. And who predicted that the pandemic would happen?
And so anyway, all of that said, one of the big goals that we want to do,
one of our facilities on campus as a 44,000 square foot building.
God has positioned us in the location where we're at right beside 285 on Lawrenceville
(30:04):
Highway and just north of Highway 78.
We're central in DeKalb County.
It'd be a little bit of a walk, but we can be in Fulton or in Gwinnett County in no time at all.
We would like to see that facility turn into a community center where we take
even our food pantry and turn it into a more robust food pantry. We have a.
(30:27):
A neonatal and postnatal ministry that has already approached us about partnering with them.
They actually already have one of the two ultrasound machines that they would
want to put there, and they would open up a facility in that.
We already have a counseling ministry that we do that we make available to the
community, and it's remarkable how many people at times reach out from the community that.
(30:48):
We would expand those offices and a host of other ministries that serve the
community. community, that's one of the major things we'd love to do is to renovate
that facility and see that happen.
One of the pieces that we'd want to do with that, housing is such a huge issue
for us and for our community.
And our church is in DeKalb County. I live in DeKalb County.
I actually live in the city of Tucker where our church is located,
(31:11):
but there is not one open housing facility in the the county of DeKalb.
And so being unhoused has a lot of layers, a lot of dynamics,
but because of where we're located, we encounter that all the time.
We hardly go a week where we're not engaging with someone who is in the throes of a housing struggle.
(31:36):
But there's a niche of people that we encounter on a very recurring basis.
Sometimes it's single parents, not often grandparents sometimes it's it's two
parents almost always with children but for whatever has happened they have
just slipped off the last rung and their only place to be able to stay together
as a family unit is in a low budget hotel.
(32:01):
They are struggling to survive or they're sleeping in their car.
And it is one of the most difficult things in our community to address.
But there are examples in some other places around the country where some services have been set up.
And one of the things we'd like to do in that community center is set up not
an ongoing housing, but a crisis housing whereby we could take,
(32:24):
and there is a nonprofit organization, not religious,
who does this, who has a high track record, that in 90 days,
they can take a family unit like
that, that has instability in housing and instability in their employment,
that can get them in stable housing and livable wage earning jobs in 90 days.
(32:46):
And they have a nearly 90% success rate in doing that.
We desperately want to do something. We encounter families like that all the
time that you need that one church can't do that.
One organization can't do that. It requires community partnership.
And those are some of the things we very much would like to do in the days ahead.
(33:07):
I mean, in my opinion, that's what the church should be doing,
right? I mean, it's a lofty goal, but it's hard.
It is hard and incredibly messy. Right. You know, crisis doesn't know our schedules.
That's good. Exactly. There's no, I always say there's no good time to die.
That's not the same thing. That's true. That's good, Joey. That's true.
Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for taking time, Troy. I really appreciate
(33:30):
it very much. Thank you for waiting. Absolutely.
And I'm going to close this up here. Thank y'all for tuning into another Ordinary
Joe's Talkdown with Joey Chapman on the InResults Network radio inside the perfect
studio from Country Inn and Suites by Radisson and Stone Mountain.
We appreciate y'all's time.
Hello again everyone and welcome to another Ordinary Joe's Town Talk with Joey
Chabin and we're powered by Our Town Magazine.
We're broadcasting from the InResults radio network inside the Perimeter Roofing
Studio from the Country Inn & Suites by Radisson Hotel in downtown Stone Mountain.
And I'm just super excited to have Dr. Troy Bush here with us today.
(00:22):
Welcome Troy and thank you for taking time to be with us. I really appreciate
it. But Troy is the senior pastor at Rehoboth Baptist Church,
and we're just delighted to have you here.
And as you all know, my goal every week or every podcast is to talk to a local hero.
Troy says he's not that, but he is.
Troy's also been kind. I put him behind schedule, so sorry, Troy.
(00:44):
It's all good. I'm honored to be here. Thank you for the invitation.
Absolutely. And as always, I'm joined by Ryan Sowers, my co-host.
Yeah. Yeah, but I just let you guys do your thing, but I'm glad y'all are here.
I know we left a little short on time, but excited to be here.
Appreciate you always giving me some commentary.
But Troy, I know you make a difference in our community and I so appreciate
(01:05):
it. But let's get right to it. You gave us a fun fact, which is cool. Yeah.
And I want to ask you about, you said your whole family has owned Mustangs. That is true.
Tell us about that. Pastor has a need for speed. It's kind of an interesting
part of our life story. So my wife grew up in Northeast Arkansas,
and that's where I met her.
I grew up in Northwest Florida, so our paths did not cross until I was in grad school.
(01:30):
And I had a Mustang that my parents gave me.
I was smitten by Mustangs as an early child, and that was just my favorite,
favorite car. And absolutely loved that.
And then my parents ended up owning Mustangs as well. And then when I met my
wife, I knew, I knew there were two reasons why she had to be the person God
(01:55):
had brought into my life.
First and foremost, she was a Mustang girl.
And at the same time, we both share the same birthday two years apart.
So that was just a neat connection. but her dad has now owned a couple of different Mustangs.
And then she and I, Tina together, apart from those days, have owned other Mustangs.
(02:16):
And then all three of my adult children have owned Mustangs at one time or another.
So, and you know, all of these are not the current editions.
They are more of the classics.
And so it's just been a neat part of our journey. That is really cool.
What year, what year is your favorite year for the Mustang? My favorite year is 69.
69, okay. That is my absolute favorite. That's a gorgeous car. Yeah. Absolutely.
(02:40):
Now give us some, I know you said you're from North Florida.
Which city in North Florida? Northwest Florida, right outside of Pensacola.
Pensacola, okay, great area.
And then your wife's from Arkansas. Yep, little town called Crawfordsville.
Crawfordsville, wow. And then three kids. Three kids.
I have three adult children, all of whom are married. And we're just really
blessed that all three of our children have chosen to be part of our church
(03:02):
family as well and live in community.
And two of our children that are married, between them, they have seven of our grandchildren.
And our other son and his wife are expecting their first in September for our eighth grandchild.
So we went from six years ago, didn't hardly have any of them married to now
they're all married and we've got a bunch of grandkids and we love it.
(03:25):
Ryan and I have all that to look forward to. We do. We do. You got Joey O'Brien.
Spencer B., when's he getting married? June 8th. So I've got a wedding coming
up in a month. Awesome. That's awesome. It's crazy.
Joey's going to see what it's like to have a daughter in the family.
Absolutely. You can live my world. You'll enjoy.
Ryan has three daughters. I wouldn't trade it for the world,
(03:46):
but people are like, how do you do it? I'm like, dude, I didn't have a navigational panel.
I kind of figured it out on the fly. I, and I'm like, what I,
how I parent daughter three, who's going to be a senior in high school,
completely different than the first two. Cause you learn along the way. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Hey, and you're always outnumbered. So, oh, I'm always outnumbered
and I just, just give it up. I just, you're not going to win.
(04:06):
Somebody's gonna be mad at me.
I am. I am interested in, in what your three kids are doing.
Cause, uh, I just found it fascinating.
You know, it sounds like all three are very successful. Give us just a quick bio on them. Sure.
My oldest son, he's an electrical engineer, Georgia Tech grad,
and he is also one of our pastors at Rehoboth.
And my next child's son also, he is a Blackhawk pilot for the Georgia National Guard.
(04:32):
And my daughter, and he's also an active member, he and his wife of our church
family, as I'd mentioned earlier.
And then my daughter, she does graphics communications.
She actually does those for our church, but she and her husband are both active
members with Rehoboth also.
Wow. So you got the whole family there. That's really interesting.
(04:53):
And didn't you tell me that your middle son, he met his wife online?
Because I want my son to try to do that in case he ever listens to this,
which he probably won't. Yeah, he did. It's a.
For Caleb, even for our family would, would have not been a first thought,
but in God's providence, Caleb chose to, to follow that route very selectively.
(05:18):
And God was so kind to bring just a godly woman from a great family into his life.
And they, they married and went to the delight of our heart.
And now we're expecting their first child.
That is so awesome. Oh, that's great. Really cool. Really cool.
Well, I'll just jump in. And so I used to, when my youngest is 24,
almost 25 this year, my oldest daughter was really young.
(05:42):
She used to stay at Rehoboth Baptist. I think it was back in Mother's Morning Out or something.
Okay. All right. And so that was a little thing for my wife was working.
And then as a kid, we used to play a lot of basketball in the Rehoboth gym.
So yeah, I've been, Joey and I being from Tucker, whole area or Lilburn or wherever,
Rehoboth's been a key part of our life.
(06:03):
That's awesome. Yeah. But we're very blessed with an extraordinary gym.
And even just a few years ago, we completely renovated the floor and the lighting
and all in there. And so it's beautiful.
And our basketball program remains very robust. It was great.
I don't have the, I don't know, I can't shoot wrist a shot, elbow a shot.
But back in the day, if you bring me with about five feet, I can still swish.
You can make it. Yeah, yeah.
(06:25):
That's great. Talk a little bit about, I know you've been at Rehoboth since 2012.
Correct. So you've been there quite a while. And I think just like what you're
saying, Ryan, that church has had a huge impact on our community.
But I do think it's slumped a little bit. Is that the best word to use?
Yeah, very much so. We went through some very difficult years.
(06:46):
And you've managed to bring it back.
Tell us what the secret is. I mean, I'm sure a lot of prayer.
Yeah, the first and foremost would be I wasn't the one who brought it back.
Yeah, that's a great point.
The Lord has been so gracious, and it is an extraordinary church family.
In August, Rehoboth will celebrate 170 years. Wow.
All of them in this community, all of them on that same property.
(07:10):
I've been going since day one. Yeah, yeah.
I'm just making sure our audience is awake. And it is pretty cool that we have
families who, their families go back to the founding of Rehoboth.
But of course, now we have families from 15 different countries too,
who are part of our Rehoboth family.
So a really diverse family today, but Rehoboth had been.
(07:32):
It was one of the largest churches in all of Georgia, one of the largest in
all of the Southeast, had the largest sports rec program of any church in the
country, and did a lot of things in community and so forth.
And like many churches, like our communities as a whole, things change,
and our community has changed quite a bit.
And many churches have struggled through those kinds of changes.
(07:55):
Rehoboth wasn't immune to that.
And so when I came in in In 2012, Rehoboth had a lot of debt.
Had been through some really hard times. A lot of young families had moved away and moved on.
And so it was predominantly an older congregation with enormous facilities,
wonderful but enormous facilities.
(08:16):
And at the same time, not a lot of young people.
And Rehoboth has always been a church that has been based in this community,
that loves this community.
And what the church did was really remarkable.
Not a commitment to change beliefs in the gospel, because we believe that those
(08:38):
are eternally given by our God and they're good and right.
But the way you do sports ministry in today is not the same you would do it
in the 1980s and what that would look like.
And so our older adults embraced music that not a lot of older adults would necessarily embrace.
Yet they ask us to not forget them. And so we don't. We had a young couple visiting yesterday.
(09:03):
We had a number of guests in our service yesterday, and one of the young couples
wanted to talk to me after the service, and they asked about our music.
And I said, you know, is today kind of normal? And I said, well,
if you can call that normal, because we have chosen not to be niche in our music.
Music, we are not eclectic, but we are representative because we have folks
(09:24):
who love hymns and we sing hymns, both older and newer.
We have folks who love some Southern gospel and we sing some of that.
We have folks who love Black gospel, we sing some of that. We have folks who
love contemporary praise and we sing, because that represents who we are as a church family.
So what began to happen was a really great team of members and working with
(09:46):
me and great financial management.
And we did all the things necessary that you have to do with a lot of square
footage and a lot of parking lots and really put things in just a wonderful, wonderful place.
And we've engaged in a lot of ministries. We have an award-winning preschool
today that is state licensed.
We're very proud of that. We have a classical Christian school that is up and
(10:09):
running and very proud of that.
And we have two different homeschool groups that meet on our campus every week as well.
Plus we're very engaged in public schools and supportive there of the administration and students and.
So, yep, it's been hard, but all of y'all who are business leaders,
those have been hard days too through this period, especially through COVID.
(10:30):
Absolutely. And it's just been a remarkable season of a church family that really
came together to be a family, not just a religious center, that really wants
to serve in our community, our food pantry.
We have the longest continuous running feeding ministry in probably in DeKalb
County, but certainly in the Tucker area.
(10:51):
And this past week, we fed 55, 57 families, which we average between sometime
in the upper 40s to as many as 70 families a week that we feed in that feeding ministry.
So, yeah, it's been challenging, but it's been very good. God's been very gracious.
That's so cool. I was just going to say, you know, and I don't know what made
(11:12):
me think about this, but I remember Dr. Bice was there.
And I believe his, was it his daughter that got murdered and decayed?
Daughter-in-law. daughter-in-law got a murder indicator yeah tim and
vicky bice go to church with me now and one of his sons shout
out to them but great great couple yeah great family and
and then you had dr lee right after that correct he yeah he ended up going to
(11:34):
alpharetta was it alpharetta so in that day and it was novel in that day not
so novel today but rehoboth started a second campus of rehoboth incoming yes
and he was going back and forth and preaching at both campuses campuses.
And there came a point in the late 90s that he led the church to separate those
(11:57):
two campuses into two completely separate churches.
And the church there today is Redeemer Church incoming, First Redeemer.
And so there were two, and he left to go be with that congregation.
Right. And I went to school with Jason Lee, his son, and I think he's a police
officer. Yes, with DeKalb County.
I think he does radio program right today in the, in history or something this day in history. Dr.
(12:22):
Lee does. Oh yes, he does. Yeah. It's pretty interesting.
Yep. Anyway, really neat history.
Okay. And just talk about in, in today's world, you know, give us your opinion
on what the importance of the local church.
Cause I just feel like I talked to friends who are believers and they're like,
well, I find, you know, God in nature, I can go out hunting or fishing and,
(12:44):
you know, just what are your thoughts on that?
And how much time did you say yeah exactly yeah
that that really is an important conversation because you
not only hear some of those same thoughts from people who identify as christian
but you have some of those same perspectives of people who would not necessarily
(13:04):
identify as christians yet they feel drawn to the bible even jesus and yet sometimes
would say hey i kind of like Jesus,
but I'm not sure I like all these people that are in that church or this church.
And so I think there's a handful of things to think about.
One of those is that I think everybody, if we really get honest, desire something more.
(13:29):
And it doesn't matter what our background is culturally or otherwise.
And I believe, and the Bible teaches us that God has created that innate capacity in us to worship him.
And whether we're in the most blessed stage of life or the most challenging
stage of life, at the end of the day, I think every human being is wanting something more.
(13:51):
And now we fill that with a whole host of things.
And some people actually fill that with church. And that's a horrible thing,
to be quite honest. Right.
And sometimes I do think churches in seasons and sometimes churches entirely
completely get adrift from what Christ has called us to.
And that's certainly led a bad taste in people's mouths.
But one of the things we talk about, even with our church family,
(14:13):
is that we are really messy.
And that includes the senior pastor. And I'm not the only pastor in our church
family, but Christ has been so gracious to redeem me and to draw me into a relationship with him.
Them, that doesn't mean that I am sinless, nor does it mean that I too don't need accountability.
(14:33):
And in our church, we take those things seriously. I am the lead pastor,
but I graciously and joyfully submit to even our accountability practices in our church.
Another aspect of that comes is that sometimes people can think churches are looking down on them.
And the reality is we We certainly have convictional beliefs,
but I haven't met anybody who didn't have convictional beliefs.
(14:56):
Even those who would say, I'm not interested in church at all.
That's a convictional belief.
Sure. But how we interact with one another, how we treat one another.
And so at the end of the day, those who would call themselves believers and
say, but church isn't important.
I can have all of Jesus and not church.
I would challenge them to look at what Jesus taught and what he practiced.
(15:19):
Show me one of the disciples who walked with him who really,
really got it right all the time.
Some of them made egregious missteps, including Peter, who denies him.
And yet Jesus never abandons them. In fact, if anything, he calls other believers
to walk in covenant relationship with one another.
It's one of his great gifts to us to not only spur on our growth in him,
(15:45):
but by using one another in our lives.
To help us walk through those hard times, to actually experience aspects of his grace and mercy.
And when those who call themselves believers are not experiencing that,
it's a bit like going to the best steak restaurant that you can imagine,
the very best one, and tell them, hey,
(16:07):
I'm not interested in what's being served here.
I'm just going to get some takeout, but you leave out the steak.
You just give me the leftovers that are there. And unfortunately,
that's what they're experiencing. I would say this too.
I've had food poisoning a handful of times. I have had it knowing I ate at this
restaurant on this date.
(16:29):
And two hours later, I'm looking for an emergency room. It is that bad.
I have not given up on going to restaurants. Now, I may not go to that restaurant anymore.
But I've not quit going to restaurants. Listen, anybody who has walked with
a church family, you're going to get bruised because those people are just like you.
(16:49):
Right. And one of the things that the Lord draws us to, which I think is one
of the most key things in life as a whole, is not simply to be able to be right
all the time, but also to be a follower of Christ who learns to forgive those who hurt you.
And there's no pastor. There is no pastor who has not been wounded in a church. That doesn't exist.
(17:10):
My responsibility is to not only share that forgiveness, not because I'm Christ,
but I'm just a follower of Christ too, but to model that.
And we need to model that in our church families and our staff and so forth.
So those who would say, hey, I've given up on the church, man,
I would say, listen, there are some bad churches out there. There are.
But most churches are horribly imperfect and wonderful at the same time.
(17:34):
So go dig in with them. That's a great point.
And I think one of the things that I think I'm drawn to you for is because I
know you and I know your personal interest in people.
And I see this enormous church at Rehoboth. Like you said, you've got facilities that go for miles.
And I think sometimes there's going to be an albatross around our neck.
(17:56):
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. It's a lot of money to keep those places up, but I commend you for your
success, and I think you've personalized it and brought that church back to it.
It's a fascinating story to me.
I love what you just said, because when a lot of people's running the other
way when they hear the word church is there is no perfect church.
(18:19):
And you said everybody's just like you, and you may get, I like what you said
about food poisoning. I may not go back to that restaurant.
But I'm going to go to another restaurant. That's right. I think it's a really
powerful analogy for people because you've got to find what's the right thing for you.
I mean, it might not be the same as your next door neighbor or whatever,
but that's good. I really like that.
(18:40):
And I really appreciate that. And thank you, Joey, for your compliments.
And I just have to commend the Roebuth family. When you think of the families
over the decades that have given up vacations, given up extra homes,
given up all kinds of things in order to invest in those facilities.
And yes, we can look and say, okay, that roof's going to cost tens of thousands
(19:00):
of dollars to replace and we got a bunch of them.
Think about the things that happen on our campus because of those.
There's a theater group, a nonprofit theater group. They're not a Christian
group, but they are housed on our campus.
All of their supplies and everything are stored there and they do all of their practices there.
(19:21):
It is a safe, convenient, welcoming place for them to do that.
And then they do community theater that literally sell out virtually every time.
That wouldn't be possible. It wouldn't be as easy for them to do that.
When the gyms are overbooked at a couple of the public high schools near us,
you know, we're one of the first calls.
Hey, our girls team needs this. Our guys team needs this. Can they do that?
(19:45):
And so we see ourselves and, you know, we can't accept every request that comes
our way. But because of the sacrifice that people have done through Rehoboth,
we have been able to provide space and opportunity for all kinds of organizations.
Senior University is another one. Senior University, again, not a religious organization.
They're an educational nonprofit for older adults. They've been around now,
(20:08):
I think, about 40 years now.
They have previously been on Emory's campus and Mercer's campus,
and now they've been on our campus. I think we're in their seventh year or so.
Some 300 older adults are engaged in just phenomenal education classes.
And these aren't, okay, how do you unlock your phone after your grandson has messed up your iPhone?
(20:31):
No, no, no, no. These are like the history of the Byzantine Empire.
Current political idea. And they've got the retired head of Emory's history
department teaching this.
Wow. And we're able to provide those spaces for them. That's nice.
Plus the 50-plus families we fed last week.
Loving on the community. Yeah, administering the community without judging what
(20:52):
they're doing. That's exactly right. I mean, it's a walk in the walk.
What's amazing to me, though, is you have 5,000 people pass that church every single day.
I have no idea what's going on. I'm just saying, you know, it's just interesting.
It's how life is, I guess.
No, really good stuff. I appreciate the, uh, the breakdown of that.
And, and, and, and I would also say, you know, we just had a,
(21:15):
one of our friends in our neighborhood just lost their wife.
And I, my first thought is, do they have a church family?
That's exactly right. And I'm like, what do you do when you don't have that?
It's, you know, yes, the neighbors are going to bring food and stuff like that.
But I think it's such an important support group four times.
And, you know, when weddings are going on, people are happy for you and that
(21:37):
kind of stuff. Anyway, well said going, going, going on.
You've already poked some holes in the argument about not going.
And Ryan and I always talk about our goals with the program as well.
And we talk about how can we be successful in business, since we're both in
business, but also in life. And I think it just requires such a discipline.
(21:58):
And, I mean, the three of us rely on the Holy Spirit. And, you know,
just talk about your thoughts of success in business as well as spiritual life, you know.
Yeah. And maybe I've touched on some of that with the discipline.
I don't think that there's a difference.
Certainly the arena is different, but I don't
think the process and the
(22:20):
motivations are different from a local business owner or manager in a corporation
that happens to have a office here or a stay-at-home parent who is also doing
telework and they want to succeed in that. I think many of those are the same.
And for us, part of what we focus on, and even with our team and our staff,
(22:46):
that we talk about that it is so important to invest in the relationships of
those with whom you're working with and those whom you're leading.
And in the context of developing and investing in those relationships,
we don't do it for the motivation to get them to do something.
Listen, people are smart. They smell that pretty quickly.
And especially if they're under 15, they smell it instantly.
(23:10):
Our sense of smell tends to drop a little bit in some of those years as we get
older, but you invest in people not so you can get from them.
You're investing in them really for what is best for them.
And in our context, as we think about that, it's investing in them so that they
(23:30):
can use the gifts and the talents that God has given them to develop the disciplines.
To achieve what God has given them an opportunity to do.
And so I think all of those are fundamentally important. And I think that would
apply in each of your businesses and all of those.
And when we do that well, and those with whom we are working with,
(23:53):
when they are engaging fully in that, it's amazing.
It's extraordinary what can happen. And so we talk about those very things among
our staff and our staff leadership.
We desire to practice those things, but it really starts with investing in those
people because you see them as created by an infinite good sovereign God who
(24:17):
created them in his image.
They are messy just like I am messy.
And when we hire them or when we take them on as a partner in ministry or we're
engaging in them in community to minister to them, we are doing that knowing
we are engaging the messy too and everything in between.
And so we don't run away from that messy. Now, sometimes it requires some healthy
(24:39):
boundaries, but that's how we focus on that.
And we think that that's true for business too.
Absolutely. I was going to tell you, Ryan, and you as well, Troy.
We, after 22 years of being at my place of work and of course,
you know, we sell air conditioning filters, but the guys came to me and said,
I want to have a Bible study on Thursday mornings.
(24:59):
And it's embarrassing to me that I, I, and I had thought about it before, but.
I think in our world, we don't want to mix business and spiritual stuff.
And that is so wrong in my mind. It's like, why not?
Why are we not doing that? And I've seen some growth from these guys,
(25:20):
and it's just been incredible. It's awesome. Good for you.
And I say that, and I'm just very fortunate that somebody came to me and asked.
Let me just commension that, and I think that is extraordinary.
Ordinary, what none of us want to do.
We are champions of freedom of religion. But that also means being champion
for someone who wants freedom from religion, though I would contend,
(25:44):
you know, everybody has a religious view, whatever that may be.
So it's not forcing them to do anything. And I'll use our food pantry as an example.
Those who come to our food pantry, we invite them for us to have an opportunity to pray with them.
Now we're going to feed them if they say, hey, I don't want you to pray for me.
And sometimes people will do that. Sure.
(26:05):
It is amazing the number of times people who have been through the food pantry
at some point this week, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, who will come back
in because it lines up on Wednesdays when we do this.
Now get in line. This happens almost every week. Somebody will come in and say,
I didn't come here for food today.
The last time I was here, you prayed for me. Nice. I want you to know here's
(26:26):
what's happened in my life. Would you pray with me again today?
And honestly, you know, and we offer them a Bible if they want to take that.
It's remarkable how many people ask, and then they're like, can we pay for them?
We've had people come back weeks later who've gotten kind of on their feet.
Finances are a little different. And we'll write a check or give cash.
Hey, you fed us. You prayed for us. You gave a Bible. And we want to contribute back.
(26:50):
That's what it's all about. Yeah. Wow. So great. So great.
Real quick, I know we're running short on time, but I want to ask you real quick.
I had a Sunday school teacher one time that told me that he didn't want to teach
from the Old Testament and just felt like it was, you know, grace in the New
Testament that he wanted to talk about. And I kind of get that.
(27:11):
I mean, just, I could probably keep you here for two hours to talk about this,
but just give me your thoughts on that real quick. Oh yeah, we could,
we could spend a lot of time.
What did Jesus teach from? The Old Testament. Everything he quoted was the Old
Testament. Right. What did the Apostle Paul teach from when he quoted scripture?
Every scripture was the Old Testament.
(27:32):
We cannot divorce the New Testament from the Old Testament. it.
Grace and salvation that is initially even just hinted at in the Garden of Eden
when God curses the serpent and tells him that ultimately from the seed of woman,
that seed is going to crush his head even though the serpent is going to strike his heel.
(27:55):
That's the first glimmer of the hope of the gospel.
And it is carried on, almost think of it like a rose
that you get at the florist and you
know and they're in that cool chilled cooler and it's
real tight and you're like oh i can't give those to my
wife because well they they look like well they
look like they were just cut and they're not mature enough and within a
(28:17):
few hours they begin to unfold and over the next day or two they're just stunningly
gorgeous we see a very similar thing happening all throughout scripture where
god begins little by little more and more and more and he reveals to us jesus
christ so that the fullness of the revelation occurs even through the book of Revelation.
And so there's no way we can fully understand the New Testament without the Old Testament.
(28:40):
And here's the thing, everything, every person, every book, every incident,
everything of the Old Testament is pointing toward Jesus Christ.
And so a good friend of mine who's an Old Testament professor at just a phenomenal
Christian university here in North America,
When he teaches a course called Old Testament Survey, and everybody in that
(29:01):
university is required to take it, whether they want to or not,
if they're going to go there, and it is just a thriving university.
He will walk into the class, and the first thing he says to him in his Old Testament
Survey, I'm about to give you back two-thirds of your Bible.
And so I just encourage you, dig in. Absolutely. No, I appreciate that.
I appreciate it. I love that rose illustration.
(29:23):
Give me just the last question. And what are your plans and goals for like the
next two years at Rehoboth? I'm just curious.
Yeah, that's a great question.
To be candid, except for a couple of things, we generally aren't planning five, six years out. Sure.
Life changes too quickly. Absolutely. Especially with the internet.
(29:43):
And that's true. And who predicted that the pandemic would happen?
And so anyway, all of that said, one of the big goals that we want to do,
one of our facilities on campus as a 44,000 square foot building.
God has positioned us in the location where we're at right beside 285 on Lawrenceville
(30:04):
Highway and just north of Highway 78.
We're central in DeKalb County.
It'd be a little bit of a walk, but we can be in Fulton or in Gwinnett County in no time at all.
We would like to see that facility turn into a community center where we take
even our food pantry and turn it into a more robust food pantry. We have a.
(30:27):
A neonatal and postnatal ministry that has already approached us about partnering with them.
They actually already have one of the two ultrasound machines that they would
want to put there, and they would open up a facility in that.
We already have a counseling ministry that we do that we make available to the
community, and it's remarkable how many people at times reach out from the community that.
(30:48):
We would expand those offices and a host of other ministries that serve the
community. community, that's one of the major things we'd love to do is to renovate
that facility and see that happen.
One of the pieces that we'd want to do with that, housing is such a huge issue
for us and for our community.
And our church is in DeKalb County. I live in DeKalb County.
I actually live in the city of Tucker where our church is located,
(31:11):
but there is not one open housing facility in the the county of DeKalb.
And so being unhoused has a lot of layers, a lot of dynamics,
but because of where we're located, we encounter that all the time.
We hardly go a week where we're not engaging with someone who is in the throes of a housing struggle.
(31:36):
But there's a niche of people that we encounter on a very recurring basis.
Sometimes it's single parents, not often grandparents sometimes it's it's two
parents almost always with children but for whatever has happened they have
just slipped off the last rung and their only place to be able to stay together
as a family unit is in a low budget hotel.
(32:01):
They are struggling to survive or they're sleeping in their car.
And it is one of the most difficult things in our community to address.
But there are examples in some other places around the country where some services have been set up.
And one of the things we'd like to do in that community center is set up not
an ongoing housing, but a crisis housing whereby we could take,
(32:24):
and there is a nonprofit organization, not religious,
who does this, who has a high track record, that in 90 days,
they can take a family unit like
that, that has instability in housing and instability in their employment,
that can get them in stable housing and livable wage earning jobs in 90 days.
(32:46):
And they have a nearly 90% success rate in doing that.
We desperately want to do something. We encounter families like that all the
time that you need that one church can't do that.
One organization can't do that. It requires community partnership.
And those are some of the things we very much would like to do in the days ahead.
(33:07):
I mean, in my opinion, that's what the church should be doing,
right? I mean, it's a lofty goal, but it's hard.
It is hard and incredibly messy. Right. You know, crisis doesn't know our schedules.
That's good. Exactly. There's no, I always say there's no good time to die.
That's not the same thing. That's true. That's good, Joey. That's true.
Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for taking time, Troy. I really appreciate
(33:30):
it very much. Thank you for waiting. Absolutely.
And I'm going to close this up here. Thank y'all for tuning into another Ordinary
Joe's Talkdown with Joey Chapman on the InResults Network radio inside the perfect
studio from Country Inn and Suites by Radisson and Stone Mountain.
We appreciate y'all's time.
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