James Book: All right, everybody, welcome to Church on Mission. we're gonna change roles here. Dave's always, for those of you who love Sunday afternoon football, he is what I refer to as the Pat Summerall. I'm the crazy John Madden all over the studio. But we're gonna switch roles here. I'm gonna kind of be the the summer all, the play by play, and Dave and my guest are gonna be our color commentators. So, Dave Jones, good to have you back. As always, my friend. I I we We've been doing this for now a year plus. Dave: Yep. Yeah, into season two, I think episode eight at this point. And I like the changes we made this year. Church on mission. I know some people like, why'd you change the name? We're still trying to help churches thrive, but you know, we we wanted a very practical, just straightforward. This is what we're doing. We want James Book: Yeah. Dave: the church to be on mission. And I like the addition this year of our special guests, Bob Belt so far, John Mitchell. And ladies and gentlemen, for the first time on Church on Mission, CJ Epperson, and James Book: Dana. Dave: really glad for what we're doing this year. James Book: It is our second season, and I don't know if you know this, Dave. The ratings have come out and we're just a little bit higher than the view. So I'm I'm excited about what we're able to do, how we're reaching a whole different audience, bigger audience. And I think having guys like CJ on is just gonna improve our ratings. All right, so let me introduce y'all know Dave, Dave Millwood Church of Christ, a growing, vibrant congregation in Ohio. But we we've decided to bring a Kentucky on, a little a Kentuckian, CJ Epperson, Central Christian Church, Cynthia, Kentucky. CJ, it's great to have you. Now, CJ Epperson: Thank you guys. Thank you guys for having me. James Book: you're no stranger to our movement. You you're you're gonna be speaking in a couple of places. Tell us where you're gonna be in the next couple of months. CJ Epperson: Next one month winning at Winchester. then revivals wise I'll be East Point Church of Christ with Aaron Davis. I'll be up at West Unity, Ohio with Levi Davison and those guys. And then the National Prayer Clinic and I don't know. I don't know. You know what I do every week right now? I look at my calendar and say, I have to go here. I have to go there. I you guys are seasoned. James Book: Well CJ Epperson: You guys are used to that. I'm not as seasoned with that. Everywhere. James Book: Well, you're you're getting there, man. We're so excited. So, kind of what we want to do in this program, and as Dave said, our goal is to help churches be on mission, hyper focused, okay? Nobody wants to just exist, okay? Existing is biological, living is spiritual, churches that just exist are not making an impact for the kingdom. They're just not. So we created this podcast to assist, coach, pray with, cheer churches on to be on mission with. Jesus Christ, the founder of the church. The book of Acts is all about churches on mission. So I want to start our program off today with a passage. Okay. It's an Old Testament passage, and it's it's and it's found in 1 Samuel 14. The Bible says it happened one day that Jonathan, which was the son of Saul, said to a young man who was his armor bearer, he said, You know what? Let's go over to the Philistines garrison on the other side. but his dad, he didn't tell. Now, the Bible says Saul was actually sitting on the outskirts of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree, which is in Migron, and the people who are with them were about 600 men. So he's got his whole army or a bunch of his army, and they're just eating fruit. It's like a big church dinner, you know, big potlug dinner under the tree. And John is like, I can't I can't do it. I can't have another potlug dinner. I gotta, we gotta do something. So he takes his armor bearer and they go and they actually, if you just go down to verse 23, and the Lord Saved Israel that day and the battle shifted. Okay. He he won a battle, a great battle, but but he had to separate himself. Okay, listen, separate himself from the naysayers and the visionless. Okay. And so I'm so thrilled that we're luck blessed to have two guys with us. Again, Dave Dave's on here with me and every week, but CJ, but your stories parallel so much. So let's talk, Dave. about how great things were going at your congregation, but you felt like the enemy of great is good. We're a good church, but could be a great church. And you and the elders made a decision to uproot your congregation from an existing facility paid for and to take a massive leap of faith and to build a brand new structure. Can you walk us through that whole faith journey with your congregation? Dave: Yeah, the old building we were in was your typical nineteen sixties wood structure. You walk in the door, there's a set of stairs to the Auditorium, a set of stairs to the basement. And there's thousands of those kinds of churches in our brotherhood. And we had one of those built in early 1960s, and then over the years added four additions to it. And really, we became landlocked. We had a house real close on one side, a creek on the other, and a highway on the third. there was really nowhere for us to go from there. And we were tapped out when it came to space in our classrooms and our auditorium. And we looked at a lot of options on the land where we were. Only had two acres, and there was just really no options there. And just prayed about it and began to plan for the future, really not knowing what would happen. And Lord, Lord blessed and the people in the church gave. We were able to save a great amount of money. there was a family, a couple that passed away. No children, they left their estate to the church, a small amount there in the grand scheme of things. And then another family who farm in our area here and they've attended our church for a generation. Now they've got their fourth generation now in the church. the husband passed away. They wanted to reduce the the farming they were doing, so they donated thirty-six acres on a highway to us, and that's where we were able to build the building. And we had some folks that were a little, you know, we we like where we're at, we want to stay here, we you know, we we know where the fruit is, we like to just linger and we don't really want anything new, but by and large the church got behind the move And this building is used, I would say, easily five days out of seven a week, multiple events. And it's been a a great blessing to us and the community. We we use it for community events now. If they want to come and, you know, the election polls are here and those kinds of things. I try to stuff the the ballot box as often as I can when they're up here. yeah. James Book: Well, turnaround's fair play, baby. So okay. CJ Epperson: Yeah. Dave: But what it did, our old building was sort of hidden away in a little bit of a valley outside of a small community called Millwood. We moved up on top of the hill on the highway, exposures unbelievable. And so all of a sudden we had a whole lot of people coming that never came before, partly out of curiosity and others just because they didn't know we were here before. James Book: All right, so so that was a big move. I mean, we're talking you're debt-free, you're comfortable. Look, let's just put the punter in. We don't need to it's fourth down and it's it's don't take a chance, man. Let's just keep the punter in and and maybe let's what I hear you saying is you weren't playing to win, you just weren't playing to lose until you said to the congregation, let's step out on faith. I noticed a couple things happen donors and gifts, large gifts. Would you say that was an accident or do you think God was involved in all that? Dave: y what's that line, Jim, you use? I think Bob Russell said it. You know, make your plan so big that the only way it's gonna succeed is if God's in it, right? Or something like that. And and that was sort of James Book: Yeah. Yeah. Well I I said it, Bob Bob took it from me, but Dave: well, he has a tendency to plagiarize from you, I'm sure. Yeah. James Book: Well, he knows who to go to for his material. No, just kidding. It you know, he did in his book When God Builds a Church. I never Dave: There you go. James Book: forgot that quote and you guys practiced it and the fruits are just continuing to blossom. Dave: Yeah, and as we look back, certain events that were going on, only God could have been in the midst of it. James Book: Amen. Well, CJ, your story parallels in the fact that A, you're you've outgrown Central, your present property. You're ridiculously landlocked. All these are good problems to have. I've been blessed to do a revival of CJ. We just finished a conference a couple of weeks ago, and phenomenal turnout, great energy. but you have proposed and the elders something the congregation in regards to relocation, very similar to Dave's story. Talk about that. CJ Epperson: Yeah, it is. It's eerily similar actually. We just at the beginning of the year, praying through thinking through our vision for our church, we honestly put a three-phase plan out. Hey, here's what we think we need to do immediately, here's what we need to do by the end of 27, and here's what we need to do by the end of 2030, and then comes along mission 120 and I literally told our guys I said guys this is like phenomenal because it's not just a good slogan or header for what we're doing. It really is the meat behind what we're doing. So we put out to our congregation, hey, we have these programs and these things we need to do and honestly some things we need to clean up and straighten up. I I just was aware of a few things legally even some things like hey we just need to get these things above board totally And make sure we're there. I mean, bylaws are that's never anything you want to talk about, but like we just weren't protected as a church in a lot of ways and different things. So I said we need to do these things immediately, phase one, by the end of the year, to prepare for growth. And I was able to cast the vision for mission one twenty and in that to say, hey guys, if we baptize 120 people by 2030, where are we putting those people? And everybody's James Book: Hmm. CJ Epperson: kind of just started the the mind meld that the people needed for that. And in that, be honest with you, I was having a lot of conversations. Some of the original members of Central are here. There's a family. The dad did all the dirt work at this property and he put these walls up himself. And then later this building actually fell in. That's a crazy story. But our main auditorium where you preach, Jim, it fell in like James Book: Yeah, yeah. CJ Epperson: five years after they built it the first time. anyway, so we had those people in our church and I was just like, I'm not gonna walk up there and say, We're selling and moving until I let them know. Like just out of total respect for them. And I love them so much and I love their family. So I was doing all that work and the Sunday I walked up there to say, Hey, we are gonna sell and we are gonna move and the plan is to have a building that we can use three hundred and sixty five days a year, multipurpose, the mission of God can be fulfilled based on the building we have by twenty thirty. People weren't like, No, they let's let's do this. Like we're buying James Book: Yeah. CJ Epperson: into the vision. We've had two or three families who said, Hey, we're we're not into that. We're we're not on the ride for that. Okay. we've had two or three families who just say, We don't see it. We we don't see it. We don't know how it's gonna work, but we're behind you. We just want you to know early on, we don't know how it's gonna work. And I think it's just so if it doesn't work, they can say, Told you so. I think that's what that is. But we just loved them and kept going. But as a leadership, we're all in. Like this is what we're doing, this is where we're going. James Book: All right. So let me ask you this question, CJ. I'll ask you and then I'll ask Dave to answer it. Obviously, when you drop the bomb on a congregation, we're not talking about we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna modify the bathrooms, we're gonna put a different paper towels in the kitchen. We're talking about we're gonna move from where we are and all the memories and all the weddings and funeral, all that, and we're gonna relocate with a massive price tag. We you and you said it, CJ, and I thought it was you well said. You just can't discount the person that needs to meet with you and go, why are we leaving the homeland? Okay. Yeah, but you can't let the homeland and that marginalized thinking derail the church's vision. But how do you, you can answer this first, CJ, and then Dave, how did you converse with those people and not minimize their concern, but yet not derail the vision? CJ Epperson: Carefully and just prayerfully with each group that came in and each each conversation. I was able, I was able to leverage, to be honest with you, the fact that I I have a growing family. And so a lot of the conversation was, hey, look, I got three kids under four years old. And would it be wise if we moved from the house where we have this a three-bedroom house right now into a larger house? Yeah. I mean it would actually relieve some stresses. And some of the families, I'll be honest with you, I sat down and I just explained. If our church family is gonna grow, we have to grow into that. And a new home for that has to happen. And then other people, I I know the people at our church so well. other people are total vision. Like if you can get the vision, if you can get the vision. So look, hey, we want to do a really great celebrate recovery ministry. And to do that, they're gonna have to have their own space where they can do that. Our children's programming is in the basement. we call it the dungeon for a reason. I mean, it's a dungeon down there. I mean, it's not anything James Book: Right. CJ Epperson: And so to sell that vision to some people. So it was just, I'll be honest with you, it's prayerful knowing the people I was talking to and not trying to be a salesman, but just to say, hey, this is a valuable thing to your family. Let me explain how this new building's gonna help your family. And so that that's how I did it, to be honest. James Book: Excellent. And and and let me just stop before Dave answered. This you may be watching right now and going, man, we we don't need a new building. We got a great building, but you want to and you wanted to you want to empower your church to add a program or a new ministry or a new staff member. These same issues and concerns can all be placed in that equation too. And so the reason why CJ and Dave are walking us through how do you get a church. To grow past its fears. It may not have anything to do with the new building or new property, but I guarantee you, you have a ministry, you want to start, your elders want to start, and these same concerns will come up. These, this, this is why these two guys are here to kind of help you navigate through. Dave, how did you how did you guys navigate through leaving the homeland, man? And and I know you didn't leave the state, but you moved from a place we're very familiar, and now we're gonna pay a ton of money for this new building. How did you do it? Dave: Yeah, and we're we're about a mile and a half south of where we were before. I would say there had there was clear leadership. The decision the decision was made for what is best for the future of the church and the next generation that's coming behind us. And we we voiced that not in a hostile way, but very clearly this is a decision that. Not everybody's going to be on board with, but it is what is best for the future. We are limited in this space. The second thing was due diligence. You know, I mentioned all the stairs in the building. we had a a contractor come in and price out for us what would it cost to put a lift in this building? There were three, actually four different levels in this building, and we had handicapped accessibility issues. You could not be in the auditorium. And go to the restroom without going down front onto the stage, out the back door, around, and back into the building. And so we capitalized on the issues we were facing, not just with the space for the kids and the auditorium, but a lot of our older folks that were dealing with knee surgeries, for example, or hip surgeries, they couldn't come back to church for months because they couldn't negotiate the stairs. We had a James Book: Okay. Dave: ramp, but it was in a very inconvenient place. So we did our due diligence and discovered, hey, if we put a lift in this building, it's a quarter of a million dollars. James Book: Okay. Dave: if we put a new classroom where the fellowship hall is, which is what we ended up doing, you know, that's going to eliminate the ability to have large group meals. so it sort of we exhausted the space we were in and exhausted every option we could to stay in the building. And so we're like, listen, this is really our only option is to move or to just stop. CJ Epperson: Mm-hmm. James Book: So you highlighted the functionally obsolete crisis, the hurdles. Dave: Yeah. Yeah. James Book: And it's like, is this worth dumping more money into, or do we bite the bullet and create CJ Epperson: Mm-hmm. James Book: an environment, develop a facility that will not only meet the needs today, but literally the future of this church long after this crowd's gone. Dave: Yeah, that's right. And of course, I really appreciate what CJ said. You've got to cast a vision about opportunity and the things we want to do and we're limited in this space. But that doesn't necessarily speak to the emotions of the people that have been here for 50 years because they're thinking, I James Book: Right. Exactly. Dave: don't have a kid that's addicted to drugs. I don't care about celebrate recovery. Or I don't have a kid in the children's ministry. My James Book: Right. Dave: grandchildren are all gone now. Why do James Book: Right. Dave: I care about what the classrooms? And CJ Epperson: Mm-hmm. Dave: so we sort of tapped into the, well, what do you care about? You care about James Book: Yeah. Dave: the fact your husband can't come to church with you right now because he's at home. And that was helpful to us. And so we we really made it clear to the church, yeah, we have a vision and we know where we're going and we're set on that. But number two, we've exhausted every option, option that we have. And number three, we had to deal with the folks that that had concerns, like you mentioned earlier, Jim. You know, our church had never had a loan. James Book: Mm. Dave: Everything we had always done, we paid for, but we had to clarify for them, hey, the things we did were like a sixty thousand dollar addition to the auditorium. We can't manage a multi-million dollar build and and not get a loan. And James Book: Yeah. Dave: so we we had to deal with those concerns. We also said, hey, if if God's provided this prime real estate for us, how how wrong would it be for us to not James Book: Mm. Dave: capitalize and and use that space? We had a fella that actually became a little divisive along the way and talked to people about the move and why it wasn't a good decision and and just had some issues with him and and it was interesting I felt how the elders dealt with it. they didn't feel the need to address every concern that was brought up. And CJ Epperson: Mm. Dave: they had a conversation with him. They said, listen, we don't appreciate what you're doing. But you have a right to express your opinion, but this is the direction we're going. And it didn't cause any issues for us. We we, you know, can't say we lost a group of people because of it. But we were in the building the second week, and I was here early, and he showed up. And I thought, here I go. This is this is where I'm gonna I'm gonna get the last of his his drama. And then he's leaving the church for good. He walked in that morning and he says, Hey, would you just walk me around the building? James Book: Mm-hmm. Dave: So we walked around, came back to where we started in the lobby, and he said, You know, I don't know if you know this or not, but I was never a fan of us moving up here. I said, really? And he said, but it was the right move. And James Book: Wow. Wow. Dave: so it was patience with people like that too, letting them express their James Book: Yeah. Ate all. Dave: concerns without feeling we needed to control every emotion and every a conversation about what we were trying to do. And God James Book: Right. Dave: blessed in the end. James Book: So CJ, Dave mentioned, and and you may not want to divulge too much of this, so I you could just take this carrot and run down the road with it or CJ Epperson: Mm-hmm. James Book: not. Dave had mentioned that a couple of donors passed away and had left the church in their estate. And people, critics would say, well, you can't count on every church that's getting ready to do something big, have somebody die and leave money. No, but we'd count on God to provide. All right. You guys have already determined your leadership. You guys are relocated. We that much is known. you showed me actually three pieces of property, three different options, and they're all great compared to where you are. There's one really good option. CJ Epperson: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. James Book: two really nice ones. The third one's okay, but this but you also said that God is starting to open up some doors for you CJ Epperson: Mm-hmm. James Book: that almost make it, in my opinion, if if you don't believe those are God ordained opportunities, you haven't been serving God very long. Those are a huge CJ Epperson: Yeah. Yeah. James Book: talk a little bit about the direction. The momentum Central is having now. CJ Epperson: Yeah. So let me take the carrot where I can take the carrot. first James Book: All right. CJ Epperson: of all, buyer wise, like just just our checklist that people do know in the church. We cast the vision, we're doing our due diligence, that whole thing, and like we had appraisers come to this building just to say, Hey, what do we need to do before we sell this for sure? And then what's the appraisal price on this? And we had a number in mind and the number was beat by two hundred and ten thousand dollars. So then it's like Well about who's gonna buy this? Like you start to get that negative, like, well, w this is great, but nobody's gonna buy this. And we didn't even put it on the market and a buyer came just from James Book: Mm. CJ Epperson: the community. some people. And it's one of those things where, and I know both of you will understand where I'm coming from, and hopefully everybody's listening. We we had some concerns about who would buy a church building, and then we would have to make the decision whether we would sell for them or not. This is a home run. It's a James Book: Right. CJ Epperson: it's It's to get the community's preschool, free preschool, state funded preschool, all under one roof. We can't argue with Dave: Yeah. CJ Epperson: that. The neighborhood James Book: Right. CJ Epperson: we're in, so many of the kids here use that program already. We're not like we're totally great with that. But I will tell you. The Lord has opened doors because when they heard the price, they didn't say, No way. They said, that actually saves us money compared to what we were gonna do. James Book: Yeah. CJ Epperson: But it's just like the right people are starting to get in the room and connections are made, and you find out it's a small world of who knows who and who is involved with who. And it's just like Really, God is starting to do that. It's what's crazy when Dave starts talking about how God orchestrated all this or God moved in these different ways. I'm sitting back thinking, well, I better be patient because we're starting to see that stuff come together. But as a leader, you're like, we need this done today. We need this done today. We need this done today. Press this button, do this. You know, I mean, God's orchestrating something. And I can't wait James Book: Yeah. CJ Epperson: in two years to come back on the Church on Mission podcast and be like, you will never believe who got the right. Because Jim does know some of that. Yeah. James Book: Well, we will have a follow-up on this program. I promise you a follow-up program. But by the way, you know, I use that passage in 2 Samuel or 1st Samuel. Jonathan did his due diligence. He and his armor bearer were were were scouting the land out. They were they they didn't just invade, they did their due d and I appreciate so much hearing you guys talk about letting the Holy Spirit guide. You know, you you it's a systematic approach and And I and but watching God move and and not quenching the spirit. And we have a phrase here, CJ, Dave and I use a lot on this podcast. you can do nothing right or do nothing wrong and still do nothing right. A lot of churches, I would say, man, I don't think you're doing anything wrong. I mean, preacher preaches baptism, you serve the Lord's Supper every week. you know, there's love in the church. You're not doing anything wrong in this church. Congratulations. And then you think, let me see your budget, let me see your vision. Dave: Yeah. James Book: You guys ain't doing nothing right either. So it you know, you to me, it's quenching the spirit is not just, you know, using foul language and neglecting scripture. It's neglecting the prompting of the spirit when the scriptures are read. And like that's I'm pointing to you, preacher. Go and go, no, not gonna do it. Too much fear. CJ Epperson: Well well that's the that's what's incredible about the whole thing is and the story of Central is really awesome, but we cast this vision this year, but two years ago, myself and who used to preach here, Benny Northcutt, who's now one of our elders, he and I got our heads together on a vision of this church. And that's when we first had a meeting with the elders to say, hey, eventually we're gonna need a move. That meeting, as you guys know, how those can go. So that would have been like a four to one vote not happening, no way, because James Book: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. CJ Epperson: not everybody had the vision for how could James Book: Right. CJ Epperson: we or why would we. We spent two years making sure our leadership, staff, elders, deacons, high ministry leaders were on board before we ever said this to the church. So when it comes to due diligence. Like some people might say, well, this is totally out of left field when we brought this up. No, two years. We prayed, we fasted, James Book: Okay. CJ Epperson: and the land that Jim's talking about that is our grade A number one choice, three years before we unveiled it, Benny and I drove by it one day and I said, I wish that our church building was on top of that hill. So like it's been a long process on one hand, but on the other hand, it's been worth it. If we got that that land three years ago, it might have split the church. I think about this all the time. Three years ago it might have been that some people said, Well, we're staying here, go build your church on the hill. Today that wouldn't happen. So James Book: Right. CJ Epperson: it's one of those things where the Lord has really worked for the last three years.