 He's got a story. I've got a story. You've got a story. Where's God in your story? We're going to find out more about that. This is hope today. I'm Tom Hollis. I'm here with Sydney Goldman and Amy Schaefer. We've got God stories. God stories. It is so, I mean, we read the Bible and we love to read the stories of faith, the stories of Esther and Ruth and Sarah and Abraham. Well, today, not that I'm in that category, I want to share it with you. Let me see if you're in here somewhere. I don't know, but I think there's like definitely traits of the women that you mentioned, the Bible that you do have this quality. So we're just like super excited for Amy to share her story and just even her journey. So I think there's something we all can glean and we can learn when we hear your story. So we're super excited. And I loved hearing Tom's story. I love hearing Sydney's story because it kind of puts pieces of the puzzle together and you're like, oh, you know, we sit and talk every day with people. And really you are like family to us. And we feel like we know you. You feel like you know us. And so when you hear a piece of the story, you're like, oh, that makes sense. And that's why they're doing that today. So it'll be great. Oh, I'm really looking forward to it. And you know, as I said at the open, you've got a story too. And if you have something you want to praise God for, maybe you have a prayer request. You can always call our prayer partners. They're always there standing by the numbers there on your screen. And they'll pray with you. But I'll tell you what, if you've got a praise report, we'd love to hear that too. We'd love to hear the good things that God's doing. So give us a call and let us know all that God's up to in your life. Yeah. So I think Amy, without further ado, we would love for you to just share and take us through how God has walked with you step by step. So Amy, tell us your God story. Yeah, I'm really excited. You know, over a month ago, I was sitting in a group in a book club. They didn't know me. I don't know them. And we're coming together to talk about this book that we were reading. And they asked me, they said, Amy, how did you meet Buck? And how did you end up in Pittsburgh? So I thought, maybe you might want to know how I met Buck and how I ended up in Pittsburgh. Because when I look back at every intricate detail, God was all in my story. You see, my parents raised me up in a church. I was born and raised in church. I can count maybe on two hands in the 20 years I lived with them, how many times we missed church. It was not an option. You show up at church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and whenever else. And that was our priority. So I had a deep, deep love for God's house. So I'm in college. And I mean, I just, I was like, God, what are you going to do? And, you know, you're just trying to create your life in your head. You know, and you're like, well, I love acting. I love singing. I love dancing. I'm going to be a musical theater major at Oklahoma City University. My voice teacher, Florence Birdwell, 90% of her students went to Broadway. I was living the life. I mean, life was good. I didn't need to change anything. So I'm at my home church, Crossroads Cathedral, in Oklahoma City. And it is the Easter production. And I'm standing behind the curtain. And here's a little clip of when I was Mary Magdalene in the drama. There is power in his presence. There is such power in his touch and in his words. And there's power in his name. So I'm behind this huge, I know I have a little girl. I'm standing behind it. I'm getting ready to go out. There's the church see 5500 people. It's packed. It's our Easter drama. I'm standing behind the curtain and I heard the voice of the Lord say to me so clear, I want you to go to Ramah and you will minister to thousands. And so I do the drama. I get done. I've never heard of Ramah. So I go to a couple of older ladies in the church, Gladys Luno. And I said, Gladys, where is Ramah? And she said, that is Kenneth Hagin. That is a Bible school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I said, the Lord told me to go to Ramah. And she said, well, that is the most wonderful ministry. You know, it's just an hour and a half away. I get in the car and on the radio, you know, I'm listening to Christian radio. Yeah. And this guy comes on. He says, Hey, I find apartments for Ramah students. And I went, Oh my gosh, I got his number down. I go home and I tell my parents, God has told me to go to Ramah. So that was Easter of 1993 by the fall. I was enrolled at Ramah Bible School. Now my last name, my maiden name was Allen. So I was always at the first in line, the first in class. And I ended up sitting by the S's. I don't know how, but God, and so I'm sitting next to Kevin Schaefer and Mark Schaefer, who are my husband, but his brothers. And I'm singing in the choir with the lady named Keely Schaefer, who ended up being my sister-in-law, Kevin and Mark and Keely. They're like, you've got to meet our brother. You've got to meet our brother. And I thought, Oh my gosh, you know, because they did call it at times, Ramah bridal training center. I was like, take a number. Listen, when you're a Bible school and you can sing, it's like, take a number. Because the guys at that time, that's the only thing they were looking for. I need a girl that can sing. So Buck's brothers and sisters had a big setup. They invited me over for dinner. And they said, Buck, make sure you call. So he called me. And when I picked up the phone, I said, hi, this is Amy. And he said, I'm going to marry you. First thing he said. And I said, I'm going to marry you. And I knew that he was going to meet my husband. Now, before you freak out, we did date two years before we got married and we proved out the will of God. But in December of 1995, we got married. So now we are this young couple, just full of vision and ministry. And we loved God. And we just wanted to preach and sing all over the world. And so we did. We traveled for one full year in ministry. We were all over the United States. We were all over Europe. I mean, we would spend a month in England, Scotland and we'd be in Germany and we'd be in all over England if I said that. And so we got home and we're trying to make plans up in our head. What seems right? And we thought, Vienna, Austria, 100%. I mean, Vienna, Austria. It had this big, amazing Bible school and they needed a church and they needed passage. We're like, sign me up, Jesus, Vienna, Austria. So he's in the room and he's writing the newsletter to all of our partners out there. And man, I'm in the other side of the house. He's in the office. I knew we were not going to move to Vienna, Austria, because God said to me, Pittsburgh, so Buck comes in the room and his face is in agony. There's papers all over the floor. He was tight. You know, this is in the old days. We had to type and, you know, on the computer and print. And he said, Amy, we're not going to Vienna, Austria. I said, I know. God called us to go to Pittsburgh. So we packed up a U-Haul and headed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Pioneer Church. We had no clue how to start, what we were doing. There were not systems or structures or lessons or anything on how to plant a church. And here I was moving from the Midwest to the Northeast. The culture is different. And it is amazing in our God story, guys, how God had set us up to pioneer this church. Every need was met. We went to my home church. A lady came up with a wad of $100 bills, thousands of dollars. She said, this is about to pay for the move you're about to make. We're sitting in a meeting with Kenneth Hagan. He said, you're right here. You're an evangelist. God has called you to pastor. Go. And we're God guides, God provides. And my parents said, Buck and Amy, go and do the will of God for your life. So here's a picture of Buck and I when we first got here. We're on Mount Washington. I mean, look at that. Buck has hair. Buck has hair. I mean, that is it. And guess what? 27 years later, we're still here. Awesome. We're still building the kingdom. We're still building the church. And so we pioneer Grace Life Church in Easter. Isn't that interesting? It was the same timing that God had called us not planned at all by me, but God knows. We planted the church in 1997. God has been faithful throughout all of these years, all of these decades, the nine buildings that we were in, the staff and the leadership and the people. We are still planted. We are still flourishing. And guys, this really has everything to do with my life scripture. Those planted in the house of the Lord will flourish in the courts of our God. So I brought a picture of our East Campus. And that's the North Campus and the East Campus. And it's just amazing what God will do with your life, with your story. And I do believe that those planted in the house of the Lord will flourish in the courts of our God. So I wonder today in your story, maybe you're searching for significance and purpose everywhere else, but maybe just maybe like Jesus did, you know, they said of Jesus that as was his custom, he goes to the house of the Lord. He went to the temple. Where was Jesus? They found him in the temple. So I'm wondering if the purposes of God, the plans of God, hearing from God, there's something about being in God's house with God's people, with God's word being taught in the worship of God, being a part of a body, being connected to the body of Christ that God wants to speak to you and move in your life like never before. So I don't know, did you guys know that? Any of that about me and my story? I didn't know about Vienna. I thought maybe you wanted to, you know, the hills are alive with the sound of music. It would go 100% 100%. You still have hills here though, right? I mean, you got hills. So but tell me about like I wasn't when you started planning this church. I remember you guys showed up here. You were answering phones on the prayer line for a while there. God brought you through to where I mean, it's such a tremendous success now, but it was a process. Well, the whole, I mean, that that's just like a touch of my story. There's a whole other story about pioneering the church, the trials, the struggles, the losses, the buildings that fell through, the people that let, I mean, it's like, and it's weird because you're right. We were always connected to here at Cornerstone Television. We did at, we, I mean, we just thought whatever we have, whatever we can do, we want to help build the kingdom, whether it's ministry. And you know, even at Crossroads at my home church, I was always on TBN, Trinity Broadcasting. I would sing, you know, in the shows, any of the guest speakers would come, we would have TD Jakes, R.W. Shambach, you know, John Hagee, Rod Parsley, I mean, and I would sing before they would preach, you know, these Sandy Patty songs and lift the roof off the place, you know. And so when we came here, not serving in and helping in any ministry was not an option. So we would answer the phones here and pray. And then our worship team was always very solid. I mean, it's amazing because I came here and we had just nothing, just absolutely nothing. And you know, you're just building and you're gathering teams and you're, you're learning and we would come and play here often as a young team. You know, we'd have 10, eight people on set leading worship and doing the telethons. And then one day is when it all shifted for me concerning tell, you know, Christian Cornerstone television. And I was preaching at the movie theater. Buck was in Oklahoma and it's our Easter Sunday again, Easter. And he had a video going of his Easter service, a guy in a wheelchair backed up and the cord that powered everything, the lights, the sound, the video got wound up in his wheel and it ripped out of the wall. And so I had papers, I had his sermon notes in front of me and I was like, this is not happening. This is not happening. This is not happening because I really just want to be on the background. I just want to help. I don't want to preach. I don't want to step out there and teach. When the lights came on, I was up there with his notes and I finished out Easter Sunday. I will never forget that day. And it was because of that, you know, I started preaching every other weekend, once or twice a month. I'm preaching again this weekend. My husband is on a mission trip and it was in one of those services. An executive producer here said, you know what, she would be really good on television. And he said, will you come and they're doing this whole sister thing and they're doing some things for real life. And I mean, it wasn't but a couple of months and I was on the sisters, which we're now celebrating our 10th anniversary of sister to sister. That is amazing. I mean, really, I feel like we've grown up together in many ways, you know, just grown through so much hardship, so much good things, so much trials, but through it all, God is so faithful. Real life, it was every day. We would do, we'd film two hours every day, you know, here and then now on hope today. It's just been a beautiful, beautiful God's story, but truly those planted in the house of the Lord will flourish in the courts of our God. So I wonder, you know, if you're not flourishing, are you planted in the house? Because I know God's plan, God's will, God's purpose is that we do flourish in life and Sydney, you know, really it's flourishing in the hard times as well as flourishing in the good times. It's in the dry seasons. It's in the hard seasons. It is flourishing. And I just want to say just such an honor just to hear your story and to see how you have flourished so much. And we know that the best is yet to come. And there's so much. And just thank you for just sharing. Even that moment just really sticks out to me when you were talking about being behind the curtain and you're singing. And I never heard like, we've heard her sing sometimes on set, like, but I haven't just to hear how like that bravado and just like your voice is so beautiful. You don't hear it sometimes, but we hear like eight people be singing. But just in that moment that your step of obedience of just saying, okay, God, I'm going to pursue you and I'm laying down this dream of wanting to be on Broadway to literally share the gospel. That's truly incredible and to see the great stages and the places that he's put you to preach the gospel. So I just want to say it is an honor to have you with us. It is an honor for what you share and what you deposit the joy and the hope of the Lord every single day. That's what we do. That's who we are. Yeah. Well, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to dive into our 21 days of prayer and we're going to talk about the matters of the heart. We'll be right back. 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We are so glad you're joining us as you know that Cornerstone Television Network, we are on a journey of 21 days of prayer where we're taking each day, we have a specific prayer focus. And today it really ties in when you're listening to Amy's story about really having a heart that mirrors God. We just heard how Amy that she had to lay down her dream and sacrifice what she really wanted her desire to go on to Broadway and to sing. But when God called her to be a preacher, to be an evangelist and to literally share the gospel thousand, she was mirroring God's heart. And we have a scripture that goes with that today and it comes from Psalm 5110 and it says this, you're probably really familiar with it. Create in me a pure heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. You know, I know a lot of us have heard this scripture time and time again. Maybe there's been times that you've been praying to God and you've been speaking that over yourself that God created me a pure heart, you know, renew a right spirit within me. And what I think one of the things, you know, when we talk about purpose and we talk about calling, the one thing I heard a while ago that the greatest calling that we have is literally for our lives to mirror after Jesus, for our lives to reflect the heart of God. And so today as you're taking time, as you're meditating on the scripture and you're journeying with us on the 21 Days of Prayer, we just encourage you today to just seek the heart of the Father and say, God, what are some things that need to be removed out of me? What are some things that you need to do a deep, deep, deep rooted cleaning in my heart that come out of so that I can walk in your fullness, I can walk in your purpose. I can show your glory to people that need it because a lot of times, Tom, you know, and I think about when we're pursuing the heart of God, he does call us to sacrifice and to lay down things, maybe, you know, dreams and visions and things that we want to pursue in the world, but so we can do what's on his heart and on his agenda. Yeah, I think of David, of all the things that David did, slaying the giant and leading the hosts of Israel to victory and leading as a king, of all the things that was said about him, the thing that we remember the most and the thing that was probably the most significant, I'm sure to him, is that he was a man after God's own heart. That's what really matters. It matters where we are in that relationship. Are we following after God? Is our heart completely his? Because let me tell you, it's easy to, even after we're saved, to grab your heart back and put yourself back on the throne and start to, you know, kind of follow your own way. But David, and he did some real foul ups, let me tell you, but he realized that God was where he had to stay. Is that where you are today? Is that where you say I'm a person after God's own heart? I'm someone who wants to see God glorified in all things. And you can kind of test that when everything doesn't go your way. Are you still following after God? Amy, I think that's a key for anyone in ministry, anyone at any stage of their Christian life. Where is my heart? Is it really after God's desires or my own desires? Well, and if you're going to follow God, you're going to have to step out in faith. I mean, when God said Pittsburgh, it wasn't all set up where there was a home for us, a church for us, a leadership. It was, it was nothing. We had to step out in faith, trusting God, and I'll never forget driving to Pittsburgh. And we did not have a place to stay. I don't know what we were going to do, like to live. So we have a U-Haul full of furniture and no place to go. And I'll never forget when we got a phone call and we were at West Virginia. We had almost pulled over the Pennsylvania state line and we got a call that said, Hey, our friends have this house for you. It's in, uh, Squirrel Hill area. So we pull up to this house, five bedrooms, four bathrooms. We had our church offices downstairs and every room, listen to these details. Every room matched every piece of furniture that we had brought. God cares about the details, but in order to follow him, you're going to have to step out in faith and you're going to have to make a big, bold move. So maybe you today need to make a big, bold move. And you know, you've heard from God and he told you something and that word is so strongly impressed in your heart and in your spirit, but maybe fear is holding you back. And I just break that spirit of fear in Jesus name. Just step out and go, just go for it and do what God is asking. Abraham and Sarah, what they do, they went and they didn't know where they were going and God led them into the promised land. God has a promised land for you today. I just feel like you are preaching. You are a ministry just dropping so many gems and nuggets in your story. And I just think about when we are called to follow God, man, it is not easy. I know we can all attest about seasons and times where God was just like, take this step out. You've no idea where you're going. You have no idea what's going to happen. But you know, one thing that I always like to think about like, I'm one of those like, I think one of my love languages surprises, I love to be surprised. And you know, I know God loves to do that. You know, you just heard with Amy's story about when they moved and they didn't know where they're going and a couple, like bless them to live in a house in Squirrel Hill and everything matched the furniture. God is in the details. And sometimes I think we're, you know, we like to be in control. Let's all be honest. It is so scary not to be in control, not to understand what's going to happen, not knowing where you're going to going. But there are seasons and times and I really believe in this season that God is trying to get all of us to a new place where we consecrate our lives to him, where we fully devote ourselves to him, that we are so surrendered in September that we know God wherever you're leading me and wherever you're taking me, that I'm going to trust you. I'm going to follow you even though sometimes it may be dark, but there's a light. There's another side at the end of this. And so we want to encourage you today that you just seek the heart of God. You be still and you don't move until you hear his voice. But we know that our God is faithful. We know that our God, he is like, there's a new word I've learned of God. It's like a Hebrew. It's el, a math. It means the faithful God. He is faithful to us. He is our husband. He is one that looks after us, that he is surely going to take care of you no matter what the journey looks like. I love that. And I still keep going back to David. He's such a lesson for us because we have a lot of where he wrote a lot of the Psalms, about half of them. And he's got, you know, some of the really high crescendo times, Amy, where everything's going great. And he even is standing before you. He's like, search me, oh God, know my heart. And it's like, everything's good. And then the verse right before the one we read, you know what he said? He's like, hide your face from my sins. You know, like he knows that he messed up with Psalm 51, the great Psalm of repentance that David had. So, but God is with him no matter what. He's with him no matter what. He's ready to forgive. He's ready to restore. He's ready to create that clean heart. So I just have to ask you once again, have you made that commitment? I hope you have. I hope you've opened the door of your life and said, Lord Jesus, come into my heart and be my Lord and Savior, and I'll follow after you. And you know, when he, when you, when you do that, he rushes in the prodigal son's father ran through the town, ran and picked him up and said, my son has been restored. My son who was dead is now alive. That's for you today. Your son, you are God's son or daughter. Have you been dead to him? He wants to restore you. He wants to make you alive again. So do that today. Give that, that, that time, give that, take that time of prayer, that time of repentance and say, Lord, I'm yours today. Forgive me. Let me walk and follow after you and he will rush out to you. Amen. Well, and let's let our lives be an offering to him. Let's offer our like, like David's saying, here's my heart. And many are the plans in a man's heart, but the Lord will direct his steps. God, here's my life. Here's my little offering. I ask that you take it and that you break it and that you make it a beautiful gift to the world. So today give your life to Christ, give your whole heart, your spirit, soul and body to him and let him write your story. You know, just saying as you're saying, like you were just talking, I just really feel like God is saying just like, this is the season to follow after him because the world is waiting for your story. There are tribulations, there are trials, there are things that you've gone through and you've walked through and the world needs to hear your story because it testifies of his goodness. It testifies of his grace and it testifies of his love, not only for you, but of the whole world. So why don't you go out and share your God's story today. We'll see you tomorrow.