 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 I Like I shared earlier my own experience in evangelistic efforts Is that is it 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 that identity of going out and leading other people is it's 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 So 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 a patrick why not Chambersburg? Why do we think that somehow we can go to LA and and you know these big places where there's 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 as 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 in our in our smaller towns The other thing is I 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 if we're not engaging the world around us at a spiritual level I feel like it's a reflection on our own on our own spiritual health our own what it our own discipleship of Christ falling Christ, so that's part of personally my my outlook on the whole thing is is we all should be Looking around us and saying where how can we engage our society on a meaningful level and and show Jesus to them It's 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, you know, it's really nice to show up to Puerto Rico and say I'm like cotton candy and they want to eat it when they leave when I leave What are they gonna 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, so yeah, basically you're advocating Not missions moving in and just being there, you know one of the things I've run a thing called harken 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, right? I never did that so I had this idea that if I start a halfway house I'll learn about the motions and I went to the men and they said I Need to learn about the motions. Will you help teach me and nail their involved because they're an intricate part of this yeah, and that's I Like the idea of an organic not an organized thing Organic it grows out of a need or organize what happens is you think they have a need and you put your Heavises on what you think they need I need it 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. Mm-hmm I think in another conversation. He had said something about wanting to start a plain church among the soup kitchen constituency Talk talk to us a little bit about that. Why are you thinking that particular demographic instead of save? 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 in 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 You know my my heart is drawn to people who are from my past so I Wanted to cycle the people that I know and you know 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 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 and 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, that's it's not like we think that this is the the You know 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 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 just it's what's here And I we're totally open to middle-class people come in here. We've actually had Some people come in Like for the Bible study and things like that Who had a job had a hanging 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 like Patrick started with the people that he was the crowd He was he had been part of his own life story And we've just tried to do something with 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 whole homeless the reality is I have the ability to talk to people that went to harbor and sustain a conversation to a degree not perfection I can carry a conversation on 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 to across all demographics. It's just right now. I you know 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 in 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 the 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 It's there was a movie called fields of dream Field 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 you I redid this entire building And I know where every piece in this place came from because I remembered the person put in it our 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 15 14 15 months later. Yeah, but the primary goal of the people that come in here Are more important than the word still stands Joe 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 a corner somehow turned 90 degrees not 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 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 It's like you've created a little embassy of light I like that, you know, I remember people coming here sitting on the steps and the owner of the building looked at me Oh, do you throw him off the step and I said if they feel safe? That's all that matters um, and I think God's love radiates out of this building call me a dreamer But I think people in town like 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 they 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 embassy of light and that's what I feel like every every home Every every church should be as a as an embassy a place where the interests of the kingdom of god are 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 what we've said that Yeah, we don't have like a lot of people that look like good men night 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 people come in or they get mad and they leave But we're seeing that turnover of them getting mad leaving coming back getting down to one day. They'll say they'll Literally cuss us out stomp out and come back the next day and say, you know You guys are you're telling the truth in here. Um, and that that to me is that's that's that's the uh That's the affirmation that I need to simply if I can sew jesus I can 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. Um, and and it's it's like you said that's a big key in Any sort of evangelism type of work is longevity. Um The the stories of the person that gets handed a track on the street and you know says a prayer and And their life turns around those those happen, but by and large, it's not not the way it works. It's it's a long-term investment Where we keep sewing we keep watering and and we learn we we keep learning And and god the increase that comes out of that is up to god And I also I want to say this because we talked about about um going to la and things like that I do not in any way want to Put down somebody who goes out and passes out tracks or holds up signs or You know goes to la I've I've done a lot of those things that some of those kind of things is where I I began to learn and got my feet wet and You know I listened to ray comfort for a long time and and that's what prompted me I felt I could tell the story of the first time I 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 any of those things, but I really feel like the way of discipling um building relationships with people and Walking with them through the change and the growth god wants to do in their life That's that's how any sort of a long-term fruit is gonna is gonna 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 choose 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 break up his marriage Which causes fronication 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 asked last night asked him 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 free freely do that then I'm bringing some negative things towards myself and She didn't understand it. She says well you you're um, what did she say? Yeah, you're judging me. I said, I don't judge you. I'm not judging you. I'm just I don't know you well enough and That particular person was uncomfortable with it, but we'll stand firm in what price 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 the volunteers in here and they're intricate parts Of this room because we work as a collaborative effort one accord. I believe You know, I got a nod there, but good It's it's harmony. It's unity and diversity. Yeah, but that that exact that 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 the next week because she knows that we care about her We've spent time with her. Yeah, 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, right? And I and people people can see through if there's uh, if there's an agenda And if you guys truly genuinely I have your best interest in mind 100 the whole way through That I mean that you can't disguise that, you know, so how do we take this package that A group of renegades started and pass it on to another little town somewhere's in like Topeka, Iowa or somewhere's in Idaho How how do we get this to grow? Yeah, that's okay. That was exactly that's what I wanted to ask you and and if I think I mean, you know 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 I believe the the vision you're doing here is could have 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 use that vision uh 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, uh And put their foot in the water and it opened So I'm 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 wearing them here now than I was 20 years ago And what it took was a group of people playing 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 these people in your town I one thing that I'm I'm concerned about Is is how much we try to duplicate other movements? I feel like as an abaptist people we have we've made a big mistake of that. We have gone back and tried to mimic things that have That people have done in the last 400 years in an effort to following following jesus The original anabaptists we're 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 it's going to be a flop. It's not going to work. Patrick doesn't live in tepica, idaho or was it iowa? Whatever And and and so But but 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 thing is is Is simply finding a people group where there's a need and And uh at soldiers of the cross When finney crowville has taught the evangelism class there, that's one of the things we've done is list it off and there's in any community there's all kinds of things there's there's um there's uh student mentoring programs where you can mentor a middle uppers upper A middle or high school student. There's immigrant immigrant groups. There's esl classes. There's pregnancy crisis centers There's just 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 have needs and start just showing them jesus love and bringing an example of and and 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 and that's that's a journey for each person but I think that's the important thing is Is first of all to realize this is something about following jesus not following us here They hopefully there's things they can learn But to find it find where 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 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 in the world around us through it And this is where I bring in I've been talking to bill about soldiers across 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 tidings of peace in york The west side fellowship is beginning in haggars town 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 pico 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 You know thinking about doing it won't get it done You know that nike commercial just do it That's what we mean 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 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 brianado who's down in grandview, texas Exxamishman said I don't know how to do this and I turned him and I said Hi, my name is 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 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 It wasn't here you are 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 call 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. Nailed it. 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 and who would have thought that a A street thug like myself would be working with A gentleman from Tennessee who had anabaptist Attractions or living an anabaptist life and you know that you put the two of us together and we're diametrically different He's type a personality and I'm type big and somehow I had to learn the strengths of my life and the weaknesses in my life and he did too And I realized that when I pushed I needed to not push and let him push Like this is a reciprocal agreement And we learn each other the more we're together. Yeah, and You know if it was eagle 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 I believe that we've looked at each other's strengths and we amplify each other Is that correct anything else y'all would like to share as far as fruit and success Like like I shared earlier the The harvest is gods My my responsibility is to sow And so if for myself for one I feel like there's success happening when we as as people who are already Christians are growing and being challenged um when people That's guess 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 my dream is is to see a group of of people who are living out in the kingdom of god living in town here and that growing um bringing in indigenous people To increase that 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 that's my that's my dream whether or not That's the role god has for this room and for our inaction here. Um, I don't know and I'm I want to be fine with whatever however large or however small the thing he wants us to do but um That's 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 that people are meeting jesus here That's that's yeah, that would that's amazing. Well, maybe we'll come back in a year or two or three and do another episode with y'all See where things are at. Thanks y'all for for joining us for this episode. This has been wonderful. I really enjoyed it Anyway to get in touch with me Dot harkin h-e-a-r-k-e-n house dot org Email me at patrick at harken house dot org bill is bill to teach at gmail dot com