for me to come and talk to you about missions in the Presbytery for a long time. I stay busy in our mission works, preaching every Lord's Day, just about, in one or the other and sometimes in three. And I'll tell you about that here and a little bit. But we've tried and finally Vernon was able to work it and got a substitute in Bluffton where I was supposed to be today so I could come here and be with you and it's my joy to be with you. I want to turn to a passage of scripture in Matthew chapter 28 and you may think, Well, of course he's going to turn to the Great Commission. He's the regional missionary within our Presbytery. But really what made me think about this is one of the other Men who has come through this church, the influence of this church is profound in the Presbytery of the Southeast and the influence of your pastor in particular in mentoring men is extraordinary. There are probably things behind the scenes that you don't see that we see. But one of those men, I was in a meeting with him last week And he was reflecting upon the regional church, which is the Presbytery of the Southeast. And it seems like in our meetings, we get taken up with matters that are important, like judicial cases and appeals and complaints and study committees for this, that, or the other. And he reminded us in this Home Missions Committee that the focus of the regional church needs to be the same as the focus of the whole church, which is the same as the focus of the local church, and that is the Great Commission. And I'm talking about Pastor Zecchi. Zacarias Laudier who serves on the Home Missions Committee of the Presbytery. And he reminded us of that. And I wanted to remind you of that by reading where Jesus says in Matthew 28, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. That's the commission of the church. Of course, the purpose and goal and end of the church is to glorify God, and we see that most pronounced on the Lord's day. but we gather together in his presence. We worship and we praise his name. Worship is not under evangelism, but evangelism is unto worship. We evangelize, why? So that more will come to the Lord Jesus Christ and will come and assemble together and glorify his name on the Lord's day. And I couldn't help but reflect upon our dear sister. She's at church now too, church triumphant. She's worshiping in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And where would she want us to be? Here, now, in this place. I want to talk about a little bit about the history of the Presbytery of the Southeast. There are many faces that I recognize. There are many faces that I don't recognize. And so I don't know who knows what. But in the year 2000, the Presbytery of the Southeast of the OPC came into existence. We have a large geography. South Carolina, of course, we'll mention South Carolina first. North Carolina, the northern half of Georgia, eastern Tennessee from Nashville to the east, southeastern Kentucky, and about two-thirds of Virginia are all within our regional church, the Presbytery of the Southeast. In the year 2000, when the Presbytery came into existence, we were a very fledgling presbytery. We had 11 congregations at that time. One of those congregations, if I recall correctly, had over 100 members. The others were smaller than that. Now, one, the Resurrection Church, as we call it now, in Matthews, was growing rapidly, and soon it became a flagship church within the New Presbytery, along with the Redeemer Church in Atlanta. But if I recall correctly, the church in Atlanta was the only church at that time that had over 100 members. We inherited, however, seven mission works. So we had 11 churches, many of them small and struggling and new. to oversee and to care for seven different mission works at that time. And a mover and shaker in getting this all started was Dr. George Knight. Behind the scenes, it was Dr. Knight. He didn't want to be out front with this. He would whisper in people's ears. He whispered in my ears, you know, we need to start another presbytery, the Presbytery of the Southeast. And his zeal was to see churches planted within this region. Today, April of 2022, there are 25 organized congregations, three of which have over 200 members, and I think five others that have 100 members or more. Now, looking at broad evangelicalism, all of these are considered by many to be little churches, but not in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And our other churches that are under 100 are typically quite healthy and vibrant congregations. So we've gone from 11 organized congregations to 25 organized congregations. I think it's 15 of those have come into existence or come into the OPC since the Presbyterian of the Southeast came into existence. So now there are 25 organized congregations. We have four active mission works. Is it five? Let me see. I got to look at my list and see what's on my list here. We have five active mission works. And then there are four other locations where we're in the beginning stages of church planting now, which means we're in 34 communities now. when we were in 18 communities when the Presbyterian Southeast came into existence. And when you recognize that we've had seven churches that have, or six churches that have dissolved in this time, one church that left the OPC and now is dissolved, and then there are seven locations where we've had meaningful work, whether a mission work or a preaching point or a Bible study, that had a period of time of witness that no longer exists, we've actually been... 47 different communities since the Presbytery of the Southeast has come into existence. We started out in 1847 since our Presbytery came into existence. Now if you're doing the math in your head, which I know nobody is unless there's just some math genius that's here, and you added all of that up you would have come to the number 48. that we've been in 48 communities, but we haven't. There's one really unique place where something extraordinary happened. And I'll tell you about that briefly, then we're gonna get to our mission works that we have now. And that's in a place called Taylor's, South Carolina. Anybody know where that is? At a particular Presbyterian meeting at that time, there was a very small and struggling congregation that met in this building. that met here. The elders were weary, good men, godly men, but were weary and said, we're done. And the presbytery dissolved that congregation at a presbytery meeting. At that very same presbytery meeting, one of the presbyters brought a motion that we establish a mission work in this building, in this place. At that very same presbytery meeting, and that presbyter's name was Dr. Tony Curta. And Tony says, I don't care if I have to do all the preaching myself. There's going to be an OPC church in the Greenville area. And that's how this work started as a mission work. Very small and struggling. George Scipione was called as pastor for a season, and then Peter Van Deuterward was called as pastor, and you know the history. Many of you have lived it, and many of you are a part of that history even now. So we've only been in 47 communities because we've been in this one twice with the church that was dissolved, but then with goodwill, all of this was with goodwill, the establishing of Covenant Community Church as a mission work And of course now it's one of our thriving congregations with a big footprint within the Presbytery of the Southeast. What I want to do now though is to talk about the works we have at this time, the mission works. I want to approach this from the perspective, what time am I supposed to end Vernon? Okay, 1030, okay, I got a little bit of time here then. Of course, I can fill the time no matter how much time you give me talking about home missions. But from the perspective of mother church, daughter church, This is an emphasis that is in our Presbytery now in a really pronounced way. I'm going to be dropping a lot of names that you know, that you intimately know. I've already mentioned Zeki, I've already mentioned Peter, I've already mentioned Dr. Curto. Another one, a former intern here named Lowell Ivey. Anybody remember Lowell Ivey? And when Lowell was called to Virginia Beach to work here, we have members here that at one time were members of the church, Reformation Church in Virginia Beach. I'll never forget a conversation that Steve Doe and I had with Lowell. because this was a unique work in Virginia Beach where two Presbyteries labored together to plant one church. Steve Doe had just become the regional home missionary in the Presbytery of the Mid-Atlantic, but he lived two hours from Virginia Beach. It was within the Presbytery of the Southeast, Virginia Beach was, but it's seven hour drive from me. And Steve didn't have a lot on his plate at that time in Mid-Atlantic, he was just coming on. And his Presbytery's committee allowed him to come across the line to assist us. And so we tag-teamed the planting of the work in Virginia Beach. And our vision from the very beginning was to plant a church-planting church. because Virginia Beach is in the Tidewater region, 1.5 million people, 60% have no religious affiliation whatsoever. And when we talked about that with Lowell as he was coming on, he embraced that vision of the Virginia Beach work being a church planting church. And before we even organized Reformation as a congregation, they already had a daughter work in Yorktown, Virginia. In this case, there were families in Yorktown that wanted to see a conservative, means-of-grace-oriented, regulative, principle-oriented church on the peninsula. And they drove to Virginia Beach in order to establish that relationship with the hope and desire of eventually planting a church in Yorktown. You need to be praying for Peninsula Reform Presbyterian Church this weekend in Yorktown. Because as I'm teaching this lesson, or giving this report, we have a candidate that's teaching Sunday school in Yorktown, and we're praying to see if this man is the man that the Presbytery will, or that Reformation Church will issue a call to to come as organizing pastor. He and his wife and children are there this weekend. It's a work that they're unified, they're of one heart, they're of one mind, they're zealous. It's a wonderful work in Yorktown. So we had a baby church giving birth to a mission work in Yorktown. But it wasn't long before there was stirrings because Reformation Church is growing rapidly. It was growing rapidly, but a good number of the people were driving 45 minutes to an hour from the direction of Salford, Virginia to Virginia Beach every Sunday. And so discussions began of how do we serve these people best? Well, by planting a church where they're driving from. And so they had an informational meeting and they were shot when 27 people showed up for the meeting, mostly members of Reformation, but some their friends who lived in the Sulfic area. And they began to meet periodically for fellowship. and for prayer, and in November, we started a Bible study there that I teach on the first Sunday and the third Sunday of each month. I go to Yorktown, preach in their morning service, grab a bag of lunch that's prepared for me, jump in the car, drive an hour over to Salfik. We have a quick, late lunch together in Salfik. I teach a Bible study, and next Sunday, then I'll jump in the car and drive an hour and 40 minutes, to West Richmond, and I'll tell you about that one in a minute, another mother-daughter situation, to teach a Bible study there on Sunday evenings. But the number in Suffolk now is typically in the 50s. We have over 50 people that are gathering in a home, children everywhere, sitting on the floor in front of me, at my feet, while I'm trying to teach the Bible. And when you compare the Yorktown work with the work in Salford, they have very different makeups and personalities. The Yorktown folks are really steeped in the reform faith, steeped in Presbyterianism. Most of the men in the families have served mostly in the PCA as ruling elders or as one's a retired minister, who's a retired minister in the OPC now, as deacons. They know exactly what they're looking for in terms of planting a conservative Presbyterian church. But when you go to Salfik, it's entirely different. Then we have two elders in the group, one a seasoned man who's just moved to the area, another who was just ordained about two months ago as an elder that are in the group there. But most of those people, they don't come from Presbyterian backgrounds. They come from every imaginable broad evangelical background you can imagine, but they're hungry for the Word of God. They love the Word of God and the substantive teaching and they sit on the ends of their chairs. It's a glorious thing to experience. And one Sunday, I was telling Peter about this last night because he was telling me about your prayer meeting on Wednesday nights and how vital it is to the life of the Church. And it reminded me missionary in the Mid-Atlantic, Charles Biggs, he came to spend an extended weekend with me as we did this circuit to these three different places. So, he was there for the Bible study. I taught the Bible study and he was observing. He wanted to learn from me. I said, I don't have anything to teach you. He's a very gifted man. But we came to the prayer time, and I said, I said, let's just spend time in prayer and pray that God would bless this work and establish this church. And I asked Charles, regional missionary from Mid-Atlantic, to open the prayer. I asked one of the elders to close the prayer. I said, anyone can pray. And the adults didn't get an opportunity to pray hardly. You know what that's like, don't you? Because the children started praying. and they're all already seated in the floor in front of me. Children on their knees pleading with God. I'm talking about six, seven, eight-year-old children pleading with God to establish a church in Sulfic. When the elder says amen, I look up at Charles and tears are running down his face. The Lord is working and He's stirring the waters. And just recently Lowell said to me, there's an interest, I don't know exactly where it is, it's actually in Mid-Atlantic Presbytery, of some people that are driving some distance in another Bible study that wouldn't even be in our Presbytery. Now, part of this is our brother, your brother, someone that's dear to you, he bought the vision of being a church-planting church, even though it hurt. It hurts terribly. The first Sunday we had the Bible study in Suffolk, there were about 50 people that weren't at Sunday evening worship, and they missed them. They could see the empty seats. But this is kingdom building. And we'll see what the Lord's gonna do as we continue to talk about this mother-daughter approach at church planting. Two others of our current mission works are mother-daughters. Winston-Salem, North Carolina is a daughter church of our church in Mount Airy. Same scenario, a number of years ago, people driving down from Winston-Salem to Mount Airy to church said, can we try to plant a church in Winston-Salem? And I'll never forget, the sessions, because they came in like May, said, now we're not gonna even think about this. Maybe we'll think about it in the fall. Let's pray about it. And the number of families, they realized they were gonna lose, they gained that number of families that summer and said, I guess we've got our answer. And so a daughter church was born in Winston-Salem. Calvin Keller's the pastor there. He's our oldest church planter. He's the most energetic I've ever seen. When I get his reports every month, the sheer number of contacts is mind boggling, because he's knocking on doors everywhere he can find a door to talk about Christ and invite people to church. And that mission work has outgrown its building. We're at a Boy Scout building. We've been there for a number of years. We desperately need more room, and they're looking for more room. And secondly, we need the Lord to raise up officers in this mission work, so it can be organized. But we don't quite have the men to do it yet. This is in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a daughter work of our church in Mount Airy, North Carolina. And then our newest work in West Richmond, it's actually in a community called Short Pump. That's the name of the community. It's Short Pump. I don't know why it's Short Pump, but it's Short Pump. But in Short Pomp, Virginia, which is on the western end, as Richmond has extended in that direction, we had some contacts. One was a longtime elder at All Saints Church, a very solid PCA church in Richmond, who just had a burden to see a church planted there. His session was on board, but then the question, do we seek the PCA to plant or do we seek to see if the OPC will? And after prayer and with the blessing of All Saints Church, they approached the OPC. As we were getting ready and looking for a place to meet as we were gathering these contacts in the Short Pump area, COVID hit. And when COVID hit, it made it very difficult to start up something from the ground. So they said, well, let's go join this new church that's coming to the OPC called Knox Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia. So they're driving 30 to 45 minutes to Mechanicsville, where there's somebody else this congregation knows, Jeff Downs. Some of you remember Jeff. Jeff is the pastor of that church. And when Jeff went to the church in Mechanicsville, it was a small church and struggling churches, still small in some ways. But when these families came in, it was like a shot in the arm. So what do you do? It's strengthening this church and that's what they said we want to do. And yet there's the need for another church. And those are the tough decisions to make. And it's tough for our brother, Jeff, when he has these people that have come into his church and bringing leadership to the church, to see them go. And yet, Mechanicsville Session is overseeing this mission work, short pump, even though they're a small congregation themselves, they're overseeing, they're financially supporting the work. And they're enthusiastic about what the Lord's doing. And guess what? The Lord's blessing the Mechanicsville Church. He does this all the time. And so that Bible study meets on Sunday night. It's another one of these things where two presbyteries are working together because it's just, it's in the northernmost county there of our presbytery. Mid-Atlantic's right across the line. Charles Biggs is closer to it than I am. He still doesn't have a lot on his plate yet. And so the two Presbyteries are saying, we met together with the group and we said, all hands on deck. Let's just see the church planted and wherever the Lord puts it, it'll be in that Presbytery. It happens to be in our Presbytery right now. And the meeting where we made these decisions was a pretty extraordinary meeting. I was there as RHM of Presbytery of Southeast. Charles was there as the brand new regional missionary of the Presbytery of Mid-Atlantic. Andrew Miller, the chairman of the Home Missions Committee of Mid-Atlantic was in the meeting, and Lowell Ivey. Lowell again, the chairman of the Home Missions Committee of our presbytery now was in that meeting and the clerk of Session of Mechanicsville Church was there with representatives of those who were interested in seeing a church planted. And they wondered, well, we don't know, will we have any help at all? And suddenly everybody is there to help. And Charles is doing the Bible study two Sunday nights a week. I'm doing it one Sunday night a week. And then Andrew Miller and Steve Doe, who is retired, but he is not retired. He is gonna spend himself for Jesus. Andrew and Steve are alternating taking that other Sunday to come down and build the Bible study that's there. And we're praying that the Lord's gonna establish a church in the short pump area as well. That makes for a busy day for me on first Sundays. Because I go to Yorktown, preach, jump the car, drive to Salford, teach a Bible study. Although they say, look, we need to get Lacey on the road. We're not going to eat lunch till after the Bible study. So they're snacking when I get there. so that they won't starve to death during the Bible study. I do the Bible study, then I say, I'm out the door, and then they eat lunch, and you say, well, what do I have to eat? Well, Shirley Whitlow. We know people here that know Shirley. She makes me a bag of lunch every Sunday that I'm there, and I trade out one of the things that she puts the bag of lunch in, I bring it when I remember it, and then I get the other one, so I'm eating on my way from the mission work in Yorktown to teach the Bible study in Sulphic. We get done with the Bible study. We have a closing prayer. They shoo me out the door and then drive an hour and 40 minutes to do the Bible study in short pump. And I'm getting too old for some of these things sometimes. It was actually last Sunday. When I got through with the Bible study, it went well through the Bible study, and then all of a sudden, I hit a brick wall. You know, that kind of thing happens. But I stayed with one of the families there, had a fresh start to get home on Monday. But here's situations where we have mother-daughter works, and it's an exciting thing to see. Our other works that aren't mother-daughter works Neon Reformed, of course I could talk to you about Neon all day long. We've been there over 20 years now. It's an economically depressed area. The church is stronger than it's ever been. At our last session meeting, we interviewed four people for membership. Two covenant children, Jay Bennett is the pastor or the organizing pastor there. Jay's two children, we interviewed them to make their professions of faith. Another man who came out of a ministry to an addiction ministry where Jay's doing a Bible study to 35 to 40 men every week at the church itself. 35 to 40 men, one of those came, but he had made a profession of faith by reaffirmation of faith. Another one of those came to make a profession of faith and was received by making a profession of faith and by adult baptism in the neon work. This small struggling work, we see people converted. we see people coming to the Lord. And the work after being highly subsidized for years and years and years because the people there just don't have any money. The last two years we've reduced the amount we've had to subsidize it from the presbytery. Our intent is to reduce what General Assembly is doing next year. Here's another interesting thing that happened. we meet in a renovated department store in downtown Neon. It's beautiful on the inside, if any of you have ever seen it, because the people in the congregation are carpenters and they know what they're doing. It's gorgeous. The outside looks like a dilapidated old department store building. And so we finally had funds we're going to redo the front of the building. I don't know that you saw this on the OPC website or not, but somebody comes driving through, goes to sleep and drives through the window of the church. And thankfully nobody was in there at the time and, and tears it all up. And then we settled with the insurance. We have over half of it paid for by the insurance to, to, to, to fix the outside. So it finally may look something like a church, from the outside there. Jay Bennett has been there now for a number of years, I think nine years, and he loves it. He's a very gifted man. He was our moderator of Presbyterian for a number of years. But that's where his heart is, and he's an evangelist. They do walk-up evangelism on college campuses around there. Walk-up apologetics, where they ask questions to engage people in conversation. He's discipled people that are coming to the Lord or coming to the Reformed faith or the ministry there on these campuses. They're getting married. They're coming into the church. Remember Corey and Andy Page? who were here, Corinne, Andy, Paige, are members of that work and were discipled by Jay Bennett in the work in Leon, Kentucky. It's a remarkable thing that the Lord's done through the years there. And then the final one of our current mission works is Landis in Marion, North Carolina. And this is another extraordinary story. This is a little church that at one times was a pretty vibrant congregation. I'm sure some of you know Philip Seeley, who's with the Lord, who went to Greenville Seminary in the PCA, very godly man. The church flourished under his ministry there. They went through some difficult times. Philip took another call. They had a long period of time where they didn't have a minister. They had another minister that was there for a period of time. And it just went downhill, downhill, downhill, downhill, until they didn't have a minister at all. They were down to four members. And the presbytery wanted to close the work because it just wasn't viable. And those four members said, we're not ready. We're not done. The Lord's not done. And they approached us, and to be frank, we were very skeptical. Do we take on a dying church that's dying in the PCA? Do we take it on and just have it die under our watch? But when you saw the look in the eyes of these four individuals, you knew, now, they're determined. What's the Lord gonna do? Two of them were Johnny and Carolyn Bird. and Carolyn were in their 80's. There were two of the four. Very, very godly couple. He was the lone elder who had been emeritus but became an elder because everybody else served. He was willing to serve. Johnny and Carolyn if they hadn't been there we probably would not have said yes. There was another couple that was visiting the church that were OP and said if you come into the OPC we'll join the church. So he did it. We took them in as a mission work. Six months later, the Lord took Johnny home. Johnny was gone. Carolyn then was in an assisted living place after that, in a nursing home, and had dementia. COVID hit, we couldn't even visit her. We could go, some of the ladies would go and stand at the window and wave at Carolyn in there, and she always recognized them when they were there. She, the Lord took her home about four or five months ago now. They just gave nearly $200,000 to the church out of their estate. We got the check last week. And then what can we do with these dollars? Plus the church has grown. We're into the 20s in membership now. There's not a church growing that fast per capita probably anywhere in the OPC. Started with four, now we're in the 20s and two families are in membership classes and Corey Page is leading those membership classes. Someone you know, another one that's come under the influence of this church. And the Lord's blessing this work. They have a heart for the Lord. Corey is not going to be called his organizing pastor. He's actually going to be beginning another internship in South Austin, probably the middle of the summer, which I believe this is going to be really good for Corey for a year-long internship. But we're going to begin the process of searching for an organizing pastor in Marion, North Carolina. So please, please keep that in mind. Other ministries. Of course, you know about Clarkston, Georgia. It's just a remarkable story to me. There was interest when Zecky was here before his family came in doing something in Clarkston. One square mile, over 100 different ethnic groups, mostly refugees, living in that one square mile. About five, six miles south of Redeemer Church in Atlanta. And I was excited about it. I said, we've got a refugee minister, an extremely gifted one, and a godly one, one with a burden. Let's plant there. And I'm going to tell this on your pastor. Your pastor said to me, no. He said, When his family gets here, they've been separate. They've got to be cared for. They have got to go to a place where they can get their feet on the ground as a family and be shepherded where his gifts can be used until they're ready to step into the ministry. I remember when Peter told me that. We're sitting in the car together. And I said, brother, you're right. So we backed off of that. And of course, you know the rest of the story. Jackie was called as a pastor here, right when you needed him, here. And then he was called to Redeemer. Not to the refugee ministry, but we called a refugee to a 95% Caucasian middle class OPC congregation. And then we called somebody else. I can drop names all day of people who have been impacted by an impact of this church when Chris Cashen, who's 100% Anglo-Saxon, white middle class, English speaking, to go as the evangelist to the refugees. Now, you make sense out of any of that. The refugee is at the church, the evangelist is the non-refugee, is a refugee to the refugees. Chris had the gifts and the abilities, the administrative abilities to get the work up and going and get a foundation under that work. But we needed someone who understood what a refugee ministry is to be the evangelist long-term. And what happens, Chris steps down, Chris takes another call up in Maryland, where he is currently pastoring, serves on the Diaconal Committee of the Denomination, and is still giving input into the Clarkston work, and the Lord sent Malakou, another refugee. exactly when we needed him. And Malachu was able to work alongside of Chris as the ministry was handed off. And now Malachu is the evangelist there. There are two Bible studies that he's doing there. People are coming to the Lord. People are coming to a firm grasp of the Reformed faith as Malachu's teaching them. People are joining Redeemer Church In Atlanta, a number of refugee families have become members of the church in Atlanta, where Zeki is the pastor. But that's not the goal. The goal is to plant an international church that transcends culture in Clarkston itself. And we've never backed from that goal, though everybody says you can't do it, it can't be done. We don't know whether the Lord's gonna do it or not, but that's the goal, that's the plan, that's what we're working towards, establishing a mission work and a congregation, because the nations have all come to one square mile. But what transcends every culture and ethnicity that's out there, it's the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If God can take the two men, that is, Israel and the Gentiles, And by destroying that dividing wall of hostility through the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, bring the two men together to make one new man in Christ Jesus, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why can't he do it where he has gathered the nations from various ethnicities to one place? The church of the Lord Jesus Christ that transcends those cultures. Many of those people are Muslims. And I have visited with Chris and with Zachy and some of the Muslim homes there. They're very hospitable, very warm. I know the first one we went to, Zachy said before we left, can we pray with you? And they said, yes. He said, can we pray in Jesus' name? And they said, yes, probably because they're accommodating. They're hospitable. They're not going to say no. And Zecki prayed the whole plan of salvation in his prayer. I mean, the whole thing was there from sin to Christ to the cross. So we go to the next family's house and I get to do the closing prayer. And I asked, can I pray in Jesus' name? They say yes too. I said, well, if Zecki can do it, I can do it too. And so I prayed the whole. plan of salvation to these people. And the children are translating into the Arabic language of the parents as we're talking to them, as we're praying with them there. It's an extraordinary thing that God has done. And I'll say this about Neon and about Clarkston, the OPC needs these works more than they need the OPC. It's really not that difficult for us to plant among those that are college, college graduates, post-college folks in the suburbs, people that are interested in theology and interested in the Bible, interested in something substantive. These are broken, very broken places. It's the same gospel. It's the same gospel and we don't dial it back. We don't dumb it down. You don't have to do that. You do it and you'll fail. It's the whole counsel of God that's proclaimed and boldly. And I've said on many occasions, because sometimes we've had ups and downs in Neon and people say, you know, we're putting a lot of money in there. I said, I don't care. We need Neon. We need Clarkston. And God has given these two works to our Presbytery, to our Presbytery, the Presbytery of the Southeast. I've already mentioned the Sulfic Bible Study, the Short Pump Bible Study that are going on now, and then the final thing, and then if I have time, I'll give just a few minutes for any questions that you may have, a new approach in East Tennessee. I wanna see how this goes and see if the Lord will duplicate this in other places within our presbytery. Our regional boundaries are very large. And so I'm in South Carolina one Sunday, I'm on the other end of Virginia another Sunday. That's what it's like. And overseeing all of these different works, we have a young man named A.J. Millsap. A.J. is very gifted with a thick East Tennessee accent. He bleeds orange, if you know anything about the Southeast. He wears Tennessee University of Tennessee sweatshirts when he's out and about. He came out of sort of a typical Baptistic church where there wasn't a lot of substance. The gospel was there, but not a lot of substance. He's embraced the Reformed faith. He loves the substance of it. He loves Presbyterianism. He believes it's what the Bible teaches. He went to seminary up at Westminster Seminary. The people that met him there said, this guy's got gifts. We need to keep him here. And he said, no. He has a burden for where he grew up. And so he did an internship. He's doing an internship. It ends at the end of next month at Sandy Springs Church, which is not a large church in Maryville, Tennessee, a church planting internship. And what happened over the time is we saw AJ's gifts blossoming and his burden What can we do in East Tennessee? We don't have a church or a mission work, but we don't want AJ going somewhere else. What can we do? And three churches have come together. Church in Cookville, Tennessee. Anybody remember Matt Figueroa? Some of you, that's a going back a ways, but you remember Matt Figueroa? He was on the millennial plan, I think, at Greenville Seminary before he finally graduated. Matt Figueroa's the pastor of that church, over 100 members, flourishing congregation now. Faith there, Chattanooga where Nick Thompson is who preached maybe the best sermon I've ever heard at Presbytery when he was licensed. I was sitting there on the front row, near the front row weeping through his sermon. Nick Thompson in Chattanooga, and then James Gansevoort, Chairman of our Candidates Credentials Committee at Sandy Springs. AJ's been to all three churches they've bought in. They're supporting financially the three churches for him to labor in that One hour, I mean 100 mile radius. It's 100 miles from Merrillville to Cookville. It's 100 miles from Cookville to Chattanooga. It's 100 miles from Chattanooga to Merrillville. Roughly within that triangle to see if he can gather groups in different cities and communities. and then see what happens in terms of those developing into mission works in churches. There's a Bible study in Athens already. They're in the mid-20s in attendance. I talked to AJ this week. Their one concern is they're meeting at the library and the library says we'll consider if we're going to let you extend the contract we have with you to rent the facility there. So within two weeks we might be looking for another location. Pray for that for it to occur. in Athens, Tennessee. I think that that's where the next mission work's gonna be. And if he gets called there as organizing pastor, that's all well and good. If other groups and contacts he's able to make with people that are driving distances to Cookville or driving distances to Sandy Springs or driving distances to Chattanooga, we can coordinate those, those contacts, and we can follow up with those in a more conventional way and targeting the area of East Tennessee. And we want to see how this works and see if, what does the Lord raise up? Another man that's the right man in this place. And another cluster of churches that can come together to provide that foundational financial support so that Presbyterian General Assembly can come in with subsidies in order for the man to be called. Because typically, we take a group and we nurture the group until it gets to viability where it can support the mission, the call of a minister with the help of Presbyterian General Assembly. But what if we don't have the group, but we have the man and we have churches that are burdened for their own region and are willing to pony up and provide that support? That's exactly what's taking place in the Eastern Sea right now. And he'll begin his labors in June. He's already begun as an intern, but he'll continue them as an ordained minister of the gospel and as an evangelist of the Sandy Springs Church in Maryville, Tennessee. It's exciting to see what the Lord is doing within our regional church. One last thing to be praying for. The Lord's blessed our church, regional church, to such an extent that there are serious conversations about When and where and how do we divide the lines of presbytery? How do we bring another presbytery into existence? And your Home Missions Committee is studying that issue right now to see where we're gonna be going in the future to shrink the territory of each presbytery without at the same time taking the foot off the gas in terms of the regional mission of the church. How do we accomplish that. So pray for the Home Missions Committee as we're wrestling through that process. We have Mike Cloy that's leading all this statistical stuff and everything. I don't know, Vernon knows Mike. And so we're excited about that. I've got four minutes, is that right? Okay. Huh? Six, okay, for any questions that anyone may have. Yes, Jeremiah. Thank you for your presentation. For the benefit of the church, can you just talk briefly about that distinction between the two ways that churches are planted in our Presbyterian, the mother-daughter and the naturalization of the Presbyterian? Okay, so the two ways, the mother-daughter, and then the other way that we've typically done it with a corporate. You want me to speak to that briefly? Okay. Yeah, typically in the OPC, we have begun with groups rather than with a minister, just because the resources it takes in finding the right man in the right location. And what's happened in some areas of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, there are a lot of people that are interested in what the Orthodox Presbyterian Church is. And so they approach us, can you come and help us? Sometimes we'll have contacts, we'll put the contacts together and the group will start that way. But oftentimes there will be a group of people that will approach us. And then what we do is we go and meet with that group. We look at the other Napark churches that are in that area. We look to see, is there need and opportunity there? We weigh and assess the group. before making the decision whether or not to begin a work. And sometimes we'll begin a Bible study and see how that goes before we become, we take them in, they petition and we take them in as a mission work. And usually we begin worship services in connection with that. Sometimes we'll begin the services before that. But that's how we have typically done it. Although if you read our book of church order, the assumption is it's gonna be mother daughter in our book of church order. But the OPC is so spread out, it's very difficult. There are needs in places where you can't have a mother-daughter situation. And frankly, there are some churches that might be in the vicinity that really aren't equipped to oversee a mission work. It's a different dynamic. You know what? I didn't talk about Bluffton, did I? How did I miss Bluffton? Very quickly, I know. Three minutes. Well, I can say everything about Bluffton in three minutes, Vernon. That's an inside joke. But Andy Juan, here's another one that you guys know, of course, has been called to Bluffton. Be in prayer there. They have signed a contract for a house already. They're getting their house where they are ready to sell. We got a new location in Bluffton. We have room to grow that's there. Pray for the unity of that congregation as we move forward, behind Andy's ministry as he begins. I think Andy is our man in Bluffton. Sorry, Vernon's sitting right here and Jeremiah's preached there several times and Peter's visited there. One more minute or something like that for a question? Yes. Yes. Yeah, it was two Presbyteries. This was in the Presbytery of the South. And so you had Mid-Atlantic, which took in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. That was mid-Atlantic, and then the southern states below that were in the Presbytery of the South. And we carved out that area, the northernmost area of the Presbytery of the South, the southernmost area of the Presbytery of the Mid-Atlantic, and then added eastern Kentucky from Ohio Presbytery into the mix in 2000. And I became RHM in 2002, which was crazy. But the Lord made that provision in 2002. We had to do something. We had so many mission works. Okay. Hello. Once again, I'd like to thank Pastor Lacey Andrews for coming to visit us today. Hopefully it's been very informative to you. but in the work of the Presbyterian Southeast and the influence of that sending church throughout our Presbyterian. So never overlook that piece of power. You are instrumental in either a public or private way of serving to advance the kingdom through your faithfulness, one in the example of coming to worship, pattern of life, hospitality, prayer meeting, things of that nature. That ethos then leaves and it starts somewhere else. I'd like to ask Pastor Peter, if you would, please close us in prayer. Lord our God, we bless your name that you are the one who found us in our sins with the word of the gospel proclaimed. Lord Jesus, since you were building your church in the gates of hell, we've not failed you. We think of our day, our age, all of so much brokenness, sadness, hopelessness, and overt rebellion. We think that the gospel you've given to us, you entrusted it to us as a jar of clay, earth of essence. We know that it's so that all the glory would belong to you. We know that it's also in trust and in stewardship that we would proclaim Christ and crucify him to our neighbors and to the nations of the world. We are humbly grateful for, in many ways, having a front row seat to the many that we have known and loved here and have gone on to preach Christ to the nations. What do you think of the work of our Presbyterian? And we ask that you bless us in church planting, Lord, multiply our numbers and send laborers for the harvest. For you have told us that the harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few. We are the last few, and so we ask again. Lord, we pray for our brother Lacey. We thank you for his 20 years of service, for his zeal, His interest, his energy given to preaching Christ and being crucified, to lifting up in prayer and example and personal ministry to the many who are gathered in little groups throughout our region. We thank him for his ministry to the many church planters, often who are young and beginning in ministry. We ask that he would continue to sustain in his travels, give them joy in his labors, Lord, that we would remember his wife, Debbie, who he is so often away from, especially on weekends. Lord, we lift him up to you and pray that you would crown his life with your blessing. Lord, we thank you for what he has communicated to us here today. I guess, men and women, a prayer for these things especially. We also ask that you bless our brother's ministry to us tonight, in evening worship, as he opens your word of all heirs to us. Christ who is preached across this region of the South. We pray now, prepare our hearts for worship. We are thankful for the rest that we have in Christ, the refuge. Lord Jesus, you are for us in the storms and sorrows of life. We pray in your name, Lord Jesus, to the Father. Amen. Amen.