Ministry in Small Towns: Part 2 — Patrick Matthews & Bill Shiley — Ep. 088

Yeah, what you were saying earlier about discipling, that I think it's unique that the first and the last job description Jesus gave to disciples was discipling. And like I shared earlier, my own experience in evangelistic efforts has helped me to grow as much or more than anybody. And I really feel like that's part of what Jesus built the church that way on purpose, that in order for us to grow and to mature and to achieve stability and all that, that identity of going out and leading other people is an integral part of that. And we're not going to grow in our own health unless we are constantly having that challenge of being put in a place where we have to explain to people what it means to follow Jesus and help them walk through things.

That's where we get a lot of for our own lives. Paul says that to Timothy, that if you keep the brethren in remembrance of these things, you yourself will be nourished up through that. You're going to be nourished up in the words of faith and sound doctrine. And I guess the question, why Chambersburg?

I like what Patrick said, why not Chambersburg? Why do we think that somehow we can go to LA and these big places where there's the same things present here in Chambersburg? There's sex trafficking, there's drugs, there's gang activity. It's just not on us as wide of a scale or nearly as dramatic. And so I'm not sure why we think we can go and somehow make something happen there when we can't in our smaller towns. The other thing is I would like to see, I feel like God wants to see the term missions disappear from our vocabulary because every Christian, every church should be a mission church. And if we're not engaging the world around us at a spiritual level, I feel like it's a reflection on our own spiritual health, our own discipleship of Christ, following Christ.

So that's part of personally my outlook on the whole thing is we all should be looking around us and saying, how can we engage our society on a meaningful level and show Jesus to them? Is sustainability. If I go somewhere for two weeks and I leave, how can I sustain that? It's required that other people go do that. You need the indigenous people from the area to build this thing, indigenous churches.

It's really nice to show up to Puerto Rico and say, "I'm like cotton candy," and they want to eat it. But when I leave, what are they going to do? You have to walk with the people. Christ did that. That's what he did. He walked with you. He didn't walk away from you.

Yeah. Yeah. Basically, you're advocating not missions, moving in and just being there. One of the things, I run a thing called Harkin House Ministry, which is a halfway house for ex-convicts. And one of the things I realized growing up in a way I did, I'm watching all these people around me do devotions and I'm going.

So I would go over to their house and they're like, "Let's do devotion." What? I never did that. So I had this idea that if I start a halfway house, I'll learn about devotions. And I went to the men and I said, "I need to learn about devotions. Will you help teach me?" And now they're involved because they're an intricate part of this. And I like the idea of an organic, not an organized thing.

Organic, it grows out of a need. Organized, what happens is you think they have a need and you put your emphasis on what you think they need. I need devotions in my life. I need to know how to serve Christ daily, every morning. And so I asked them to help me. And it's succeeding so far.

I think in another conversation, you had said something about wanting to start a plain church among the soup kitchen constituency. Talk to us a little bit about that. Why are you thinking that particular demographic instead of, say, I don't know, middle-class Americans?

In Chambersburg here, we have many churches and they're serving the needs of the middle-class and upper-class people. And the unfortunate thing, I was having a conversation with someone and he said that he wants to disciple mid and upper-class people. And I told him, "That's a really cool thing. But when you disciple upper and upper-class people, people on the street can't see that. But if you work with street people, the people in the mid to upper class can see what you're doing." I think we have an upside-down view of discipleship. It starts with the people who are involved in your life. I'm a criminal, so I hang out with criminals.

And my heart is drawn to people who are from my past. So I want to disciple the people that I know. And I can go anywhere in this town and people know who I am. And it's because they feel the love that I have for them. And if we're only getting together on Sundays, we're really not doing anything more than just visiting. And I think if we open our doors and bring these people into our lives on an ongoing basis, we build relationships that can go further. And that, I think, is a sustainable view of discipleship, not an abstract view. Bill? Yeah. Again, it's not like we think that this is the ultimate demograph to reach or that it's an easy one by any means or anything like that.

It's just simply for Patrick, it was the people that he was part of. For me, it was an open opportunity. And in a lot of ways, from my own life story, I can connect with a lot of these people. I've been through some of the kind of things that they've been through. And so it's what's here.

And we're totally open to middle-class people coming in. We've actually had some people come in, especially for the Bible study and things like that, who had a job, had their own apartment, and weren't necessarily the normal run-of-the-mill that comes in here. So it's not like we're trying to isolate something. It's just something that Patrick started with the people that he was, the crowd he had been part of, his own life story. And we've just tried to do something with the opportunities God's put in our lap. Yeah. The unfortunate part of coming from a bad demographics is you get pegged into one specific spot. And I find people talk to me, they think, "Oh, homeless." The reality is I have the ability to talk to people that went to Harvard and sustain a conversation to a degree, not perfection.

I can carry a conversation with the county commissioners who are friends of mine. They know the crime that I committed and they still talk to me. And I'm able to go across all demographics. It's just right now, Christ, I remember them saying, "When did I feed you? When did I give you water? When did I visit you in jail? When you visit the least of me, you've done it to me." And that resounds in my mind all the time. And I kind of guess that's my drive. Yeah. Going to the least of these. Yeah. Yeah. Because that is a specific, that is something Jesus very specifically points out many times in his ministry, going to the least of these.

I grew up in a town that I literally grew up on the other side of the tracks. Rich people were over there and I was on the side of the tracks where the Irish class, low-class person lived. So I always wanted to cross over that track to feel a part of a community. And the reality is I would never fit into that community. And it's a lot said about my Christianity and my life. I don't need to cross the tracks anymore. I find that the people that God wants you to work with will show up.

There was a movie called Fields of Dreams, and it said, "Build it and they will come." And the premise behind that was this stupid little room. This little room was destroyed, ripped up, tore up. I redid this entire building. And I know where every piece in this place came from because I remember the person putting it. Our mission in the early stages was if we're doing work in a bathroom and somebody came in limping, the work was secondary. The person's primary. And I think the reason our volunteers get a little upset, this wall here was hit by a truck. A truck ran into the room and destroyed everything. And it's almost a year later. It's actually 15 months later.

It's actually 14, 15 months later. Yeah. But the primary goal of the people that come in here are more important than the work still stands. Judd was allowed to go through these trials and tribulations, but God had a hand of protection. When the guy ran through the window, it was an impossible situation. He came around the corner, somehow turned 90 degrees, knocked two cars out, and came through the front of this building, but didn't hit the structural members. Wow. So the wall was just there. And that night, I talked to the local code guy. I said, "Can we have a Bible study?" And he said, "Yeah, go ahead. Clean it up but knock." And we kept going.

Wow. We didn't let that stop. If that truck was five inches one way or five inches the other way, the entire building, the roof would have come down. And I think God has his hand of protection on this room. And I think Satan, in a lot of ways, doesn't like what's going on here. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you've created a little embassy of light.

I like that. I remember people coming here, sitting on the steps, and the owner of the building looked at me, "Oh, why don't you throw them off the step?" And I said, "If they feel safe, that's all that matters."

And I think God's love radiates out of this building. Call me a dreamer, but I think people in town, we've not been—somebody stole one drill five years ago, and the participants in town made the guy bring it back.

I mean, a friend of mine had a phone. He left it at Domino's Pizza, and it was two hours later, and I made a phone call and I said, "I'd like that phone back." And they brought it back, and I gave it to the guy. There's something that's happening in this room that the people in the town recognize.

So with that momentum, we're trying more, and that's where Bill comes in. I like that theme, the embassy of light. And that's what I feel like every home, every church should be as an embassy, a place where the interests of the Kingdom of God are furthered in the area and where people can come and experience the way of life of the Kingdom of God. I really like that. The subject of fruit and all that, we've said that, yeah, we don't have a lot of people that look like good Mennonites sitting in the pews.

But the fruit is when we see people learning, when I feel like people are seeing Jesus here, when they can come and they can open up, they can learn to trust, that's a huge thing. And what we're starting to see is people come in here, they get mad, then they leave. But we're seeing that turnover of them getting mad, leaving, coming back, getting down to one day. They'll literally cuss us out, stomp out, and come back the next day and say, "You guys are telling the truth in here." And that, to me, that's the affirmation that I need to simply—if I can sow Jesus, I can live toward them like Jesus would, and I can speak his kind of words to them.

The fruit is really up to him. And it's, like you said, that's a big key in any sort of evangelism type of work is longevity. The stories of the person that gets handed a tract on the street and says a prayer and their life turns around, those happen. But by and large, it's not the way it works. It's a long-term investment where we keep sowing, we keep watering, and we learn. We keep learning.

And the increase that comes out of that is up to God. And I also want to say this because we talked about going to LA and things like that. I do not in any way want to put down somebody who goes out and passes out tracts or holds up signs or goes to LA. I've done a lot of those things. Some of those kind of things is where I began to learn and got my feet wet. And I listened to Ray Comfort for a long time, and that's what prompted me. I felt I could tell the story of the first time I realized God wanted me to step out and make a conversation instead of waiting for people to come talk to me.

So I don't want to put down any of those things, but I really feel like the way of discipling, building relationships with people, and walking with them through the change and the growth God wants to do in their life, that's how any sort of a long-term fruit is going to happen. And it's not easy. Yeah. No kidding. Yeah. The principle of the compound interest principle in a sin-driven life. Okay. That's an abstract thought. But what chews somebody apart in financial things is not the debt. It's the interest from the debt. And the lives that people come in here, they have interest in their sin-driven life, which is pornography, which causes a breakup in marriage, which causes fornication.

And all those things are tied together. And what we're simply doing is standing there in a way they call tough love, saying, "No, we're not going to budge." Someone last night asked him if she wanted to participate in communion last night, which we practice with our volunteers here.

And first time in my life, I had to say no. And I had to explain to her why. I don't know where you are spiritually. And I think if I give you communion and freely do that, then I'm bringing some negative things towards myself. And she didn't understand that. She says, "Well, you're—" what did she say? Judging me. Yeah. "You're judging me." I said, "I don't judge you. I'm not judging you. I don't know you well enough." And that particular person was uncomfortable with it, but we'll stand firm in what Christ says and explain the best we can. And then the next time, we'll explain it a little bit better because Bill will come to me and say, "I don't like how you did that," or, "I like how you did that."

It's a combined effort. There's a couple of volunteers in here, and they're intricate parts of this room because we work as a collaborative effort, one accord, I believe. I got a nod back there, but good. It's harmony. It's unity and diversity. Yeah. But that example there, she said, "Well, I'm never coming back here." I guarantee you she'll be back sometime in the next week, if not maybe two weeks, but I'm pretty sure probably even in the next week because she knows that we care about her. We've spent time with her. We've helped her out with stuff. And she doesn't have that anywhere else. She knows this is a safe place. We're going to give her good advice.

We're going to help her take positive steps in her life. And you have her best interest in mind. Right. And people can see through if there's an agenda. And if you guys truly, genuinely, "I have your best interest in mind, 100%, the whole way through," I mean, you can't disguise that.

So how do we take this package that a group of renegades started and pass it on to another little town somewhere in Topeka, Iowa, or somewhere in Idaho? How do we get this to grow? Yeah. That was exactly—that's what I wanted to ask you. And I think, I mean, a lot of people watch these, listen to these episodes.

I think they need to know how to get ahold of you and maybe get some advice because I believe that the vision you're doing here could have a massive ripple effect if people would catch the vision. Well, see, I was telling you about something, the practical application of something. See, in our communities, we have theoretical people. We have a think tank. They can tell you everything about that. And they can describe it to you, but they've not practically did it.

And I just used that vision when the Egyptians were escaping from Egypt and they were going to the promised land. There was the Red Sea in front of them. And it was there until somebody went, "Ugh," and put their foot in the water and it opened.

So what I'm trying to get across is you have to be willing to step out. And it's going to cost a little bit. You will go through heartache and all that. But the reality is I'm much better where I am here now than I was 20 years ago. And what it took was a group of people, plain Christians, who see me for who I am today, not what I did on paper. And that kind of love drew me in. And that's the kind of love that will draw all these people in your town.

One thing that I'm concerned about is how much we try to duplicate other movements. I feel like as Anabaptist people, we've made a big mistake of that. We have gone back and tried to mimic things that people have done in the last 400 years in an effort to follow Jesus.

The original Anabaptists were going back and trying to learn how to follow Jesus. And so what I'm saying is if people look at us and try to duplicate what we're doing, it's going to be a flop. It's not going to work. Patrick doesn't live in Topeka, Idaho, or was it Iowa? Whatever.

But following the core of Jesus' teaching and following the way he related to people is going to open up different doors in their lives. I think one of the things is simply finding a people group where there's a need. And at Soldiers of the Cross, when Finney Croville has taught the evangelism class there, that's one of the things we've done is list it off. And in any community, there's all kinds of things. There's student mentoring programs where you can mentor a middle or high school student. There's immigrant groups. There's ESL classes. There's pregnancy crisis centers. There's lots of different ways. There's weight loss groups, people who want to be free from pornography, and just lots of opportunities to engage people around us who have needs and start just showing them Jesus' love and bringing an example and speaking the truth into their lives and teaching them how to follow Jesus.

And so everybody is going to have to do is look at their situation and listen to Jesus, allow him to lay a burden on their heart, and begin to do something. Yeah, just begin to engage. And that's a journey for each person. But I think that's the important thing is, first of all, to realize this is something about following Jesus, not following us here. Hopefully, there's things they can learn, but to find where are the needs around them and then begin to do something about it. And God will lead and grow that just like he's doing here. I don't know where all this is going to go, but I feel like God has been working in my life, helping me to learn a lot about following him.

And he's doing things in the world around us through it. Yeah. And this is where I bring in—I've been talking to Bill about Soldiers of the Cross in a practical way, doing it in Chambersburg, bringing people in that are interested in trying to do a ministry in their little town. Come here. And there are three places right now: Tydings of Peace in York, the West Side Fellowship is beginning in Hagerstown, and we're trying this here. Now, there's other things in this area that I'm not thinking about, and that's not to exclude them, but there are some things going on. And if we can bring somebody from Topeka, Iowa, and give them a week where they walk through what we're doing here, maybe it will give them some ideas.

But own it. You have to do it. Thinking about doing it won't get it done. That Nike commercial, just do it. That's what we need. When Conrad Grebel felt the need, he stood up and said, "I disagree." We have to learn that boldness. And if we don't have that boldness because we come from the farm—I didn't come from a farm. These guys might have. But if you come from the farm and you're afraid to talk to people, that's going to be the hardest thing. My friend Brian Otto, who's down in Grandview, Texas, ex-omniscient, said, "I don't know how to do this." And I turned to him and I said, "Hi, my name's Patrick. Tell me about yourself."

And he took that, and I watched him teach other people that. And that's actually how it's done. You just start talking to people, and people will tell you what they need. Give them 15 minutes, and they'll tell you how they need money or whatever it is. But you'll learn about the person if you listen. And I don't seem like I listen, but I listen attentively.

I just don't appear that way sometimes. Sure. Wow. Have you seen positive results from this work? And when will you think you have reached success, I guess you could say? Bill is here. When I first met him, he wasn't going to do it.

He wasn't in his life. And here he is. And the torch has been passed. I always said that we're to go and get just one person. And in our original conversations with the churches, they said, "Well, how can we count the converts?" And I said, "Well, I don't think we are supposed to count the converts. It says that we should make sure that what we teach them counts according to the scriptures, first of all. Second of all, we're going after one convert. Now that you got one, me. Let's go for the second one." So it's already a success from the beginning.

Yeah. Here's number two. Now that we got two, let's go get three. And that's how it exponentially grows. That's the beauty of discipleship right there. Wow. And who would have thought that a street thug like myself would be working with a gentleman from Tennessee who had Anabaptist attractions or living an Anabaptist life? And you put the two of us together, and we're diametrically different. He's type A personality and I'm type B. And somehow, I had to learn the strengths of my life and the weaknesses of my life, and he did too. And I realized that when I pushed, I needed to not push and let him push. This is a reciprocal agreement. And we learn each other the more we're together.

And if it was ego involved, then I would push when he needed to push, and then we would butt heads. And I think what draws us together is we've learned each other's weaknesses, and we've not pointed them out. But I believe that we've looked at each other's strengths, and we amplify each other.

Is that correct? Yeah. Anything else y'all would like to share? As far as fruit and success, like I shared earlier, the harvest is God's. My responsibility is to sow. And so for myself, for one, I feel like there's success happening when we, as people who are already Christians, are growing and being challenged.

That's my big concern, is that people see Jesus, that they encounter Jesus, and there's a testimony, whether they accept it and allow it all to change their lives or not, but that there's a testimony that they see Jesus and what's happening in our lives. And long term, what my dream is, is to see a group of people who are living out the kingdom of God, living in town here, and that growing, bringing in indigenous people to increase that to where Chambersburg is full of where you can't walk a block without walking past somebody's house that is part of the kingdom of God. That's my dream. Whether or not that's the role God has for this room and for our action here, I don't know.

And I want to be fine with however large or however small of a thing he wants us to do. But for me, that success is when I'm taking the next step in the challenge God puts in front of me to grow personally and when there's a witness going out that people are meeting Jesus here.

Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. Well, maybe we'll come back in a year or two or three and do another episode with y'all and see where things are at. Thanks, y'all, for joining us for this episode. This has been wonderful. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Anyway, to get in touch with me, www.HarkenHarkenHouse.org. Email me at Patrick@HarkenHouse.org. Bill is billtoteach@gmail.com.