Q and A with Sam Crosby

Have a seat, sir. All right. And you're Mike. I am Mike. All right. Very good. I wish you were calling me. All right, very good. Sam Crosby, tell us about your parents and about life as you grew up. Where are you from? What was life like? My parents are Bill and Judy Crosby. I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. My dad was an accountant and a professor growing up. He's now involved in administration in a private school called Jacksonville, Florida. I mean, Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, Florida. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, so she worked really hard raising us. She's now employed as a children's minister at her church in Jacksonville, Florida. Yeah, relatively normal childhood as far as childhoods can go. I have two younger sisters. Yeah, how much information do you want? Do you want more information? Any other questions about his growing up family? I grew up, and I wasn't born in the church, but I might as well have been. We were a church-going family, always involved in the life of the church, that kind of stuff. But that's coming. Your family now, when did you meet Lindsay? How long have you been married? What is your family life like now? We are high school sweethearts. We met, we were 17 when we met, dated some in high school, took a little bit of time off in college and then got back together, got married January the 8th, 2005. So almost eight years this January. Yeah, had Rebecca through, we adopted Rebecca through the foster care system in Kentucky, February 10th of 2011, right? 2011, yeah. So she's almost, she's three and a half now, and we're pregnant with our second child. And by dated, you mean courted? No, we dated. You dated, all right, all right. This is an inspection, so I want to be honest. Yeah, we dated. Where did you go to college and what did you study? I went to Florida State University and studied finance. Why? To which one? Why Florida State? I have deeply in my blood University of Georgia blood. Both of my parents are UGA grads, so I grew up a diehard Georgia fan. But my parents chose to raise me in the state of Florida, so there was a Bright Futures scholarship that covered tuition and books for tuition. So it was a financial decision that motivated me to go to Florida State. Let me ask the question, are you a Seminole fan? Uh, not really. Okay. Roy? That name does not sound familiar. What, when was she there? That doesn't sound familiar. Okay. She tried to bring the good news back. It all comes back from UVA, so very good. What is your work experience? Let's see. Other than cutting the grass growing up at home, that was my first real job, cutting the grass. I transitioned from there to working as a bagger at Publix supermarkets. You don't have Publix here, do you? Are there Publix in Virginia? Yeah, Publix supermarkets. So I was a bagger there until I graduated. Through college, I actually worked at a ranch. My roommate, his family owned a ranch about an hour away from the university, so we would spend a lot of time there building fences and doing unkind things to male calves and that sort of thing. That was what I did through college. And then in seminary, I had a few jobs working as a tutor, working at a classical school as a teacher, did logic and math there. So my finance degree was starting to come back to me a little bit. And when I graduated from seminary, I started looking for jobs in Louisville, was able to get involved with a company that audits healthcare, health insurance overpayments. And so that's what I've been doing for the last three and a half years of my life. Any questions about work? Anyone want to know what the unkind treatment was? Any questions about any of those locations? How long were you the pastoral assistant at Third Avenue? Pastoral assistant is one of my other jobs. Yeah, sorry, it's hard to remember. Seminary, I was actually working three different jobs at once. I was the pastoral assistant, I think for about two years. I'd have to check my resume to verify that, but yeah, around two years. So I worked, at one time when we had no pastor, I worked for the elders as a board, and then once we had a pastor, I worked for him for about eight months until I would look for a real job. That's the equivalent of what Asher did here. What are your hobbies? I like to be outside. So I love to go hiking. I love to hunt and fish and those kind of things. I spend a lot of time with my family. So we, what do we do? We take walks. What else do we do as a family? We don't kill fish. Yeah, so we spend a lot of time together as a family, and then we spend a lot of time with our church. That's friends from church. That takes up our time. So my hobbies, if I'm writing my hobbies, I like to be outside. The amount of time that I get to devote to those things is pretty small, because when you have little ones, you don't get a lot of time for hobbies. When and how did you become a Christian? Yeah, so I grew up... I, again, grew up in the church, so I don't remember a time when I didn't know the gospel, when I didn't understand who Jesus was, that he had come to die for sinners. Those kind of basic truths I always remember. And when I was nine, I remember some of my friends had made, you know, professions of faith, walked the aisle in a traditional Southern Baptist church and, you know, talked to the pastor and been baptized. And I can remember thinking about that and really wrestling in my own heart, kind of knowing that that was something that I ought to do, but kind of really wrestling with what am I doing? Is this peer pressure? Is this real? And I remember walking, it was a Christmas Eve service. I remember the pastor had preached the gospel and I remember responding to the invitation, sitting with one of the deacons who had been a Sunday school teacher, somebody that I knew well, and just kind of walking through a gospel in terms of a picture Here's man on one cliff, here's God on the other cliff, and the fires of hell stand between you. The only way to get from where you are to God is through the cross of Christ, and it's kind of becoming a bridge. I distinctly remember walking through that and believing that that was true, that Jesus was the only salvation to be had. Yeah, I wish I could say that from there, it's been an easy road. It hasn't been. When you're converted at age nine, most of your sin is post-conversion, which can be hard to deal with. But I think I've consistently seen both faith and repentance at work in my life. And so, yeah, it hasn't always been pretty. But since then, I think I can say honestly that there's been a consistent dependence upon Christ. Well, those are kind of the personal questions. Do you all have any get to know you personal questions before you get to more kind of calling and things of that nature? Yeah, Alicia. OK, yeah. Alicia wants to know, why did you go to seminary after finance? Yeah, so the church that I grew up in wasn't. a super healthy church. The pastor was a close friend of our family. As I was in high school, getting older and starting to think about what I wanted to do with my life, I think I was always kind of on the inside track in terms of youth group and things like that. I had always been involved in the church, but I was always a little bit more serious about the Bible and Sunday school and things like that than some of the other kids were. So I think, in the back of my mind, working was always, is the church somehow going to be a part of my life as a vocation? And so that was back there. And then when I was 18, right before going to college, I went to a summer camp as a chaperone, as a worker. I remember the speaker at the conference giving an address about the call to ministry, and I don't remember the content of it anymore, but I remember just feeling deeply impressed at the time that that was something that I needed to do. So I talked with my youth pastor at the time about it, who was a friend who had discipled me, and kind of received some affirmation. I talked to my pastor and he encouraged me. to go to business school to get a business degree and that I would be a really effective administrator in a church. And at the time, I kind of had that attitude of, I'll do anything but preach. I really didn't want to preach. I didn't want to stand in front of people and talk. So I was terrified of that. So I said, I'll do anything but that. So I talked to my pastor, went to Florida State to get a business degree with the intention of going to seminary. to get an MDiv and to look for a job as an associate pastor of administration. And then it was during college when I really became exposed to a lot more theologically. So I had been to the same church from age zero to age 18. The same church, same people, the same pastor wasn't there for the whole time, but a lot of that time. So just a lot of stability and a lot of, you know, not a lot of new ideas coming into the church and into my mind. So coming to college, I was introduced to a lot of stuff, met a lot of people, and just started really thinking and learning a lot about the Bible that I hadn't learned before. So it was around that time I really got a passion for the Bible, and for studying the Bible, and for helping other people to understand the Bible. a lot more, and so I went from I never want to preach, I never want to speak in front of people, to I know I definitely want to teach people the Bible. That's what I really want to do, really having a passion for that. And then since I've been in seminary, since being at Third Avenue, I really saw the Lord, I think, clarify that desire in my mind to understand that laboring for truth is not necessarily something that's only done from the pulpit. So I've had opportunities to teach at Third Avenue. I've been encouraged and affirmed in that, but I think that's My desire has been less in being a senior pastor as much as just being a faithful pastor, which is what I've tried to be for the last three years at Third Avenue. And then, yeah, so having a finance degree, I was able to get the job in Louisville in a finance-related field. Does that answer your question? Any other questions? Yeah. Chris. Yeah. Let me repeat the question. Sorry. What is your relationship with Keith and how do you think you would work together? Keith and I met, I mean, I'm sure we met just kind of after a service at Third Avenue. I started talking Our relationship grew as trustees of Third Avenue Baptist Church. We would meet on Sunday nights and talk about the life of the church and watch Sunday night football at my house because I had cable. So that really was the genesis of our relationship. But also at the time, my first year, our first year as a married couple, I was working at a Home Depot. Keith was working across the street at a Starbucks and a lot of times I would I would stop in either on a break or before and after work and we would just, we would talk about life and he was kind of covertly discipling me, like asking questions that I had never been asked before and probing and we were talking about life. And so really from there we started to grow as friends. We've worked together in different capacities. We were both teachers at Dorothy Sayers Hospital School at the same time. We were both elders at Third Avenue at the same time. And I think, apart from kind of a formal working relationship, I think Keith and I have had a lot of informal meeting times where we're sitting around a fire pit talking about the life of the church and kind of batting around a vision for what we'd like to see the church to be, and talking about not necessarily criticizing but just kind of talking about how could things be done better, how could things be done differently. And so I think our vision for the church has really been forged together in a lot of ways. I think we have sharpened each other in our ideas of the church. We're probably almost this polar opposite in terms of personality as we could be. I'm pretty laid back. I'm more quiet. Wait a second, you're polar opposite, you're laid back and quiet. What are the opposites of those? So anyway, I think we complement each other really well. I think Keith, as we've served as elders, as I've just observed our relationship with people, I think Keith's voice is often louder than mine, but he listens to me when I have something to say, particularly something to say in terms of a corrective or a disagreement with him. Yeah. Any other questions along that line? That's a helpful area to talk about. Any other follow-up questions? Can you expand upon a disagreement? Let's see. I think one particular example when we were, this was when before, as our church was hammering out a constitution, talking about who chooses elders. That was one of the issues in the constitution was, do we set it up in such a way as the church nominates elders from the floor and then they're voted on congregationally, or is choosing elders something that the church leadership does? And so we had some controversy about that. And Keith wanted to kind of assert that it was a congregational issue. And I at least contended that it didn't have to be a congregational issue because Paul tells Titus to appoint elders in every town, that it seemed like there was pastoral oversight going into who chooses, who recognizes leadership. And so that was one thing that we talked about, but he ultimately decided not to bring that as an issue to the church, I'm assuming, at least in part because of our conversation. You chose an example that you won. He did. All right. Any other questions about our relationship or Sam and Lindsay. Yes Alicia. How did you interact with the non-believers around you in the public university? I was involved in a few different churches during my time in Tallahassee and involved in Like my freshman year, I was involved in Crusade, and then I ended up settling in a ministry called Reformed University Fellowship. I'm not sure, is there? Does UVA have one of those? Yeah. So I was involved in that. There was some, to a small degree, outreach related stuff with that. Various conversations with people in my dorm and stuff like that. So I think, I had grown up in a Christian home. I had been in a public school setting my whole So I wasn't completely insulated from the world, but I mean, yeah, I think I still, even in college, I think lived a relatively sheltered life. Part of it was because I was working at a ranch, so a lot of the time we spent away on the weekends and stuff like that. But I didn't have the college go wild experience, being away from home for the first time. But I also didn't have the bold preaching the gospel on the corner of the green on on campus, so personality-wise, that's not who I am, so I think, yeah, I'm not sure if that's, either one of those is what you were looking for. Right, yeah, yeah, so I mean, we, so Third Avenue is really similar to UofL in terms of, I mean, Third Avenue is similar to Jefferson Park in terms of UofL's proximity to where the church is, and we've had, I mean, we've had a lot of, progress in terms of our church's relationship with college students. And that's one of the things that is exciting to me about being at a church with this kind of relationship to a campus, is that kind of access to disciple college students, to send them out on campus equipped, mature in Christ, ready to engage people around them with the gospel. That's really exciting. To follow up on that, how would you address it at the end? Yeah, I think every church has its own culture. So, forgive me if I'm answering, this is the way we do it. I'm not necessarily saying that prescriptively, that this is the way every church should do it, but I'm bringing my experience to the table. A lot of what we do is we as a church try to be very welcoming to college students. We've done a few things to get our pastor on campus, having lectures about the truth of the resurrection, scripture, different things like that, just kind of be provocative to hope to start building relationships. We haven't seen a lot of fruit from that in terms of somebody Typically, in a setting like that, you don't prove to somebody, oh, yeah, Jesus really is raised from the dead, and they bow their knees and repent. It doesn't happen that way. You have a lot of conversations, some snarky people, and that kind of thing. But we have done a few things like that just to get our name out on campus. The thing we've seen the most fruit from is just building relationships with the various campus ministries. So we've already got outreach going on on campus. How can we, as churches, partner with those organizations who are already doing that and let them funnel Christians to the church to be discipled and to grow and then for us to kind of help them to make progress as far as outreach on campus. So that's kind of what I would like to see. So we do things like have home meals where we invite college students into homes of various members. We have church-wide, where the church provides a meal and we invite college students to come and stay for lunch after the service. The pastor will ask them questions about the sermon. Let them ask him questions. Just different things like that to be friendly toward college students, but also to integrate them into the life of the church, to be discipled as church members. Yes, sir? What month is your birthday? What month is my birthday? It's in August. Is it today? No, it is not today. Is it tomorrow? It is tomorrow. Well, happy birthday. Thanks. Any I will be I will be old. Any any other questions? All right, so the Bible speaks about the love cooperation between brothers, people like oil running down with a beard. How do you plan on putting this Yes. I can't repeat that. I don't know how to repeat that question. Yeah. The Bible says that the love and cooperation between brothers is like oil running down a beard. And then I asked how they were planning on putting this into action. How are we going to be an oily beard? I will say, I mean, truthfully, Keith has been, is a dear friend and brother to me. I mean, I think when they left Third Avenue, one of the things I can remember thinking, and I don't remember if we talked about this or not. If not, I'm sorry, we shouldn't have talked about this, but just that I really felt like when Keith and Lisa left, as I reflected on our relationship, I really could say about Keith that I know God better because of him, because of our relationship. And so I think, just in terms of relationally, in terms of the unity, the way that we have walked together through various trials of life, the way that we've served together in the local church, I mean, I really have seen that kind of blessing, I think, from God in our relationship in particular, so I value him very much as a friend. Yeah. Repeat the question. Has there ever been a time where one of you have had to call one another back, say, whoa, bucko? Is that what you said? Whoa, bucko? I mean, I think one of the examples that I use earlier, I mean I think, I would say in some ways maybe that describes our relationship, me saying, hey calm down, whoa bucko, like is that fair to say like that's the effect that I have in Keith's life? I'm loud and you're laid back, yeah that would be about right. I mean maybe we're jumping the gun, like Keith, I feel like his gifting in leadership is that kind of tunnel vision, like laser focus, knows where he wants it to go, And I think the effect that I can have on his life is, is it possible that there is another way? Is it possible that, you know, maybe we need to slow this down a little bit? I think we have that kind of relationship. That would describe it well, from what I hear, yes. Cher? Just a little bit more along those lines, you know, how God has gifted you, and how do you see, you've been using the gift here at Jackson Park, and then as a result of that, Right. I mean, how has God gifted you and how will you use those gifts at Jefferson Park? And then what do you think would be some challenges here? It's hard to answer a question, how has God gifted me? I mean, I think the church Our church has affirmed teaching gifts. Our church has affirmed pastoral gifts. In my life, they've called me out to serve as an elder of the church. So, yeah, I think in terms of, if my church currently hadn't affirmed those things in my life, I wouldn't consider going to another church to do that same thing. So, I think that's, I mean, in terms of just generally reading 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, the qualifications of an elder, You know, am I perfect in those things? Absolutely not. But in terms of what we expect, what we look to in somebody who is a pastor, I think, and the Church has affirmed kind of in my life that they see those qualifications there. And so I think just in terms of generally that pastoral gifting that I'm able to bring that here. And just having lived, I mean, I don't know what all of your backgrounds are, I think just having lived and faithfully participated in the context of a healthy local church over a period of time really, it doesn't give you all the answers, but it gives you a framework of just what is the church about, what are we trying to do, those kind of things. It sets the context for that. Particularly, I think with my gifting and how I can come alongside Keith, being primarily responsible for preaching and teaching, but being able to complement those gifts as well, to be able to fill in at times when he's not able to do that, being able to do that, and then, yeah, just being able to come alongside and provide pastoral muscle to do pastoral work throughout the week that he doesn't have time to do, that he's not able to do. So that, I think, that's generally what I think I can bring. Specifically, I think a lot of it has to do with what we've talked about, just the way that I can come alongside of Keith as a complement, just as not somebody with the same personality and skill set. So I think that's kind of what I can bring to the table. As far as challenges, I mean, I think one of the things for me that I continue to push against in my own life is just I'm naturally relate very deeply and not as broadly. So I think just, we've been at our church for eight years, it feels very comfortable there, very much like home. Uprooting and going to a new place to start over this much farther in life is challenging. I mean, that idea is not, it's hard to think about leaving a place where we're deeply invested and just starting over relationally and getting to know people. I've told people at church, I've asked them, I've said, it almost feels like being betrothed. you get what you're going to get and then you're going to learn to love the person. It feels like that a little bit. So I think that's one of the things I feel like could be one of the challenges with us. Yeah, coming to a new place. Any other questions while I wrap it up? Do you see any potential problems with the split of the work that you are thinking about? Do I see problems in the split of the work? Well, I think anytime friends come to work together, I think there's always a question of, you know, how's that going to work out? I mean, that's something that we have really wrestled and prayed through is we really appreciate our relationship with the goats now, and we wouldn't want that to change. So I think there's that dynamic in general. I mean, as far as the division of labor, I definitely don't I don't see myself coming in and being really frustrated and thinking I should be the senior pastor instead of Keith. Keith is not doing this well. I want to do it. I mean, if that was in me, I think over the last eight years, there would have been a lot of opportunities for that to come out, for me to say, this isn't being done right. I really want to be the one kind of at the helm. So I don't think, I don't really see that being an issue. I mean, I think just that, In general, the relationship between a senior pastor and the other elders, I think there can be some tension there. If we're all equal in authority and responsibility, and yet there is a sense in which the senior pastor is looked to for leadership. I mean, I think there's a dynamic there that can cause tension. But I don't think that's unique to my relationship with Keith. I mean, that's something that we struggle with as an elder board now. I want to take us down, actually we're already kind of going down this line of questions, so I'm going to start. What is the church and why is the church important? The church is the bride of Christ. It's what he shed his blood to purchase. It's what he's working to purify and glorify and to present to himself, spotless, blameless, Yeah, it's the reason, in some ways it's the reason God created the world to glorify himself through redeeming of people. So, that's the church, you know, the local church then gets to be kind of a tiny picture expression of that foretaste of what's coming when we are united with God, where we live life together, united in the gospel, you know, working through sin and all those kind of things and just the grittiness of working toward our heavenly home. So, what is the church and why is it important? Yeah, so why is it important? It's the focal point of the universe. It's the way that God is working through history to bring glory to His name by redeeming the people through Jesus. So, the church is the institution that the gates of hell won't prevail against. It's what God is preserving for Himself. What is the role of the church in your own life? I mean, it's hard to even describe, it's hard to think about what life would be like apart from the church. I mean, I feel like the church is the governing thing. Our discipleship of Christ takes its expression in the context of our church. So we build our lives around Sundays, gathering to hear the Word preached, Sunday nights again, and then home groups, different things that we do throughout the week, meeting with people, our relationship, all of our first order priority comes from discipleship of Christ and his church. So things like, when I graduated from seminary, we're connected with Third Avenue, and I'm saying, we're going to trust the Lord to provide us a job here so we can continue to stay here and be a part of the church. There was never a sense of, well, we'll just put my resume out and get a job wherever I can and then find a church. Our decisions are based on church and then how does everything else kind of flow out of that. So yeah, in terms of the priorities of our relationships, I mean, there's ways I think we even show allegiance to church before family and other friends and relationships and work and different, you know, all the other things in life become subordinate to, you know, outside of our own little family unit, everything else is subordinate to the church in terms of what priorities, what we feel like God has called us to do. So, yeah. How have you processed your call to the ministry? We've asked a lot of questions about that, but can you walk through kind of your initial, you mentioned that with the call to the seminary. How have you walked through internally and externally your call to the ministry? Yeah. So, again, I said, you know, graduating from high school, I said, I want to go into ministry, but I don't want to teach, which I don't, you know, If I could go back in time and talk to myself, I could say a lot of things, but, you know, I don't want to teach. And then going from there to, I have to teach, and then kind of growing to say, okay, I can see how teaching doesn't necessarily take its expression from the pulpit, which is something I've been able to do since we've been at Third Avenue. So it's not necessarily just that, but just forming the word into people's lives is something that I'm very passionate about. So being able to do that, Internally, I'm thinking, okay, this is what I want to do. But I think as I've been in the context of a healthy church and seminary, just kind of observing different people, some people who are really sure of their own gifting, but nobody else in their life is. So you go to seminary, you meet people like that, who are just dead set on that they are going to be a pastor, and yet they don't seem to have They don't seem to want to be a pastor. They're not doing pastoral work. So there's an inconsistency there. And I think I've really come to appreciate the role of the church in affirming, like externally affirming a calling. So then the church that I grew up in, somebody felt like they were called to ministry. They walked the aisle like they were being converted or being recommitting to Christ or whatever. And there was sort of no, there was no input from the church. It was just, well, this is obviously something God has done in this person's life and so we'll, you know, we'll acknowledge it and then we'll go to lunch and laugh about it or whatever. But there was no, there was no sort of input from the church. And I've come to value so much that it's the church, I mean, the call comes from, I think I have this in my questionnaire, but the voice of God in calling somebody from the ministry is heard through the congregation. So I don't get to come to my church and say, this is what I'm called to do. The church kind of comes to me and affirms what I'm called to do. So I think, yeah, in terms of my own understanding of how that works, I think that that's, I think that the external component is something that I was definitely missing growing up. Now, I wouldn't say, you know, if it's something that is only external and there's no internal, if the church is saying, oh, you definitely should do this, and I'm thinking in my heart, there's no way I want to do that, that there's an issue there. I mean, largely in the culture that I grew up in, the external component of the call to ministry was just was just missing. So that's something I've really grown to appreciate. Now, you have preached. Why? Why are you not interested? I know you've already addressed this, but precisely why? What do you see in yourself or lacking yourself? Or why don't you want to be the preaching pastor? Why do you? Why are you applying for this associate pastor of discipleship and administration? Why not the senior pastor? Are y'all hiring a senior pastor? Not to my knowledge. Not to my knowledge. No, I think... I think as I've sort of been able to be a part of a healthy church, as I've sort of been able to examine my own heart and my own gifting and see different people. I mean, seminary is an interesting place to be because you get to see and hear a lot about ministry. You hear about guys who go out into ministry and six months into it, a year into it, two years into it, it wasn't at all what they expected and now they're working at Best Buy or something like that. So, you hear stories like that. You hear a lot of different things. And so, as we were coming up on graduation, I really felt like, okay, I can either put my resume out and hope for the best, or I can continue in a healthy church where we are, where we're doing ministry, where we have relationships and all that kind of stuff established, and then see what God would do. So, that was the place we were in. And during this time, I'm kind of thinking, what is it that I actually want to do? I have desires to teach. I'm talking with guys who are discipling me and kind of working through some of these things. And I really think that from a personality perspective and just from a whatever it is inside, I think the senior pastor, for most churches, this isn't necessarily true, but for most churches, the senior pastor is kind of the driving force of vision and leadership and just kind of has a laser focus understanding of kind of where he wants the church to go, where it's moving. And I think for me, I think I have that not to the same degree. So I can kind of have generally the vision. I'm not always as much applying that vision specifically to, okay, we know what the church generally should be doing, should be making disciples. specifically the kind of context, what kind of things, how is that taking shape? I think I have discovered in myself that I'm better on kind of coming alongside of somebody and executing a vision and kind of buying into something, not just whatever, but buying into a vision where I can kind of see and test and say, okay, I think this is right, and kind of executing that as opposed to kind of being the one at the helm, calling the shots. So, you know, I think If an analogy of a football team, you only have one quarterback, you have one person that's kind of there, and then you have the supporting cast of receivers and all the other elements that make it work. I think if I really examine myself, I don't have that quarterback personality drive, whatever that is. What position would you be playing? That's got to be tight end. Alright, well I'm going to ask Lindsay a question. Lindsay, what do you think about Sam being the pastor at, a pastor at Jefferson Park Baptist? This is a question I've actually gotten a lot from, can y'all see me? Sorry, okay. That I've gotten a lot from our church, from our friends with us leaving, just having Sam not been in the working full-time ministry. Honestly, I mean, that's what we're doing now. He is working full time, but he's been called to be an elder at our church. He's discipling people. He's been doing that for years. And so I think after seeing him care spiritually for the members of our church and caring for them one-on-one in discipleship relationships, hearing him preach and just seeing really in the last eight years I was at his first sermon, and it wasn't that good. And so... And it's on video. And it's on video. Seeing the Lord cultivate the giftings that he's given him has encouraged me to really trust what the Lord is doing in his life to see that he can do that. And I think do it well. That's his passion and he would much rather be doing that full time than having to look at a computer screen and crunch numbers. So I think being able to do that full time rather than secondary will be great. Three words to describe him? I love this question, three words. I'm not much for three, three words. He is somebody who is a man of integrity. He is somebody who is dedicated and is determined he's going to do something that he says he's going to do. He commits to it and does it. And he's somebody who He's already said this, but kind of level-headed in his thinking, which I can appreciate is very helpful in a marriage. It's very helpful in relationships, and it works well with raising a three-year-old. In all areas, I can see those mainly describing him and how I see it playing out. I'll go along with the words. It was interesting. The search committee can correct me, but I believe a word that came up in every reference was steady, steadiness from his employers to other folks. That's why the three words were helpful. Those are all the questions I have that I feel like I need to ask. I really wanted to get into the calling and what that looks like. Any other questions from you all? Yes, Alicia. Alicia's dad's a pastor, by the way. That's great. So, this church, before I came here, there was a transition that happened, and I don't know all the details of that, but I'm wondering if, personally, you've been under, if you've had the experience of being challenged in a certain direction, how you handled this? Ask the question again. OK, so I see. So have you how have you been challenged as a leader by others and how have you responded to that challenge? OK, I think our church didn't. It wasn't the same kind of thing. Our church was going through a constitution issue. I talked about that a little bit. When we joined, it was in the process of kind of reworking its constitution. And there was some real ugliness at those meetings. It was funny because I've grown up in a Southern Baptist church, been through some stuff. Lindsay had never seen anything like this, the kind of heat and just the conflict and that sort of thing. Because she grew up Presbyterian or why? She didn't grow up in a Christian home. So this was her first... So it wasn't that their non-denomination doesn't fight? No. I think what I saw in me is an ability, by God's grace, but just a stabilizing effect with people. So I think I can talk to the people that are on the the periphery and not be, like I'm not being swayed back and forth by, oh this side is right, oh this side is right, and kind of tossed to and fro. I think I'm able to kind of hear and weigh and hopefully speak truth and help to kind of mediate in a situation like that. Yes, and just I think surviving, I mean, listening to several of your testimonies about just kind of going through a challenging time in the life of a church and kind of when the boat's rocking and deciding to stick with it. I mean, there's a real temptation in those moments because we've been there just kind of like, where's this going? And that temptation to just kind of pull out. And I think we've been through that, decided that when things get hard we're going to We're going to either see this through or we're going to go down with the ship. Like that kind of resolve to be faithful till the end. Is that kind of what you're getting at? You go to a church with a lot of seminary students. So when in the last few years has a decision from the elders, whom you are one, been publicly challenged? And how did you respond? Has it happened recently? Does it not happen anymore? It used to happen a lot. It used to happen a lot, yeah. I think it was Keith. Yeah. We just experienced all this peace since he's gone. We have, I mean, we've had some issues that are, like, I feel like when, early on in our time at Third Avenue, it was real important issues. It was doctrinal kind of stuff and it was significant. The kind of things we've had lately haven't been as consequential. I mean, there have been, like, budget-related things. You know, different questions of the leadership. Yeah, I think some people, I hear, we hear kind of from a few people most consistently, and they kind of have their channel of communication that's not usually through me. So, yeah, we don't have that stuff as much. Yeah, I mean, I think that's pretty much what's clear. Yeah, yeah. And the church doubled in size. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Other other questions. Are you raising your hand? Yes, David. I'm sorry. What do you feel you're learning from those difficult changes? What have you learned from the difficult transitions? I think, one thing, this is going to sound like so trite, but how important communication is, and this is something that I learned in my marriage every day probably, that communication is important. So just the way that leadership, sometimes it's not the issue that's the issue, it's the way the issue is being handled that's the issue. I mean, I think that's definitely a lesson that I try to continue to hammer home. And it's just, you know, honestly, there's times at elders meetings when we leave and think, wow, this is great, we've kind of made all these decisions. Then we get it out there and we realize, oh, we just did what we used to complain about. We just kind of made a decision and told it without really helping people to walk through that sort of thing. So that's always a challenge. I think it's just, is communication, trying to be as upfront, as clear, as helpful as possible to walk walk alongside of people and not drag them from behind. But I think I also just have learned tremendous respect, too, for men that stand for the truth, that are willing to make hard decisions, that are willing to draw lines and say, we may compromise here, but we're not going to compromise here, and if that means you're leaving, you're not happy, then that's going to happen. There's a balance there where we want to stand for truth and we want to do it in love. Mr. Garland. I expect several others in the room have done the two vocations thing in the past, or perhaps more likely, or a better way to say it is a vocation and a way to pay the bill. When you come here, what are you going to do with the extra personal time? Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. He can try to answer the question as if. For example, what would you like to be able to do that you can't do now? I mean, everyone's dream is to get paid to do what you love, right? That's the dream. If you could do that, then that's excellent. I mean, in a lot of ways, I feel like pastoral ministry is that for me. So, you know, if I'm working right now 40 hours a week, and then on top of that trying to incorporate church life on top of that 10 to 15 to 20 hours a week or whatever, the idea of being able to say, you know, I can do church life, I can invest myself in others, you know, that 40 hour block of time, that sounds awesome to me. So yeah, I mean, I think, I don't, I mean, what would I do if I had extra time in my life now? Like, I would do all the house things that need to be done, I would do the yard things that need to be done. I mean, there's little things like that around the house, but I don't feel like I'm kind of living under a pin-up energy of really want to be doing this and that. The other thing that I try to do, and this maybe speaks more to your question, but I think one of the things that I try to do is, it's one of the reasons that I haven't done a lot of hunting and fishing and things like that since I've been in Louisville, is I haven't had the opportunity to do that and do life on life with people. So at one point there was a college student that was coming to our church, he was from you know, Podunk, Kentucky, and he had a place to hunt. So we would, you know, I would ride with him and we would hunt on a Saturday, you know, one or two a year, but we would be able to spend the whole way there, whole way back, talking about life and God and different things like that. So as much as those things can converge, I mean, that's great as far as hobbies and free time go, but I don't have any ambitions of the relief of kind of pushing one thing off of my plate to have a lot of free time to do anything specific. I thought you wanted to follow the NASCAR tour. No? No, that wasn't me. Other questions? Good question, Mr. Cronin. Do you have an update on Michael? He's going to be fine. You don't want to go into detail? No. Okay. Is he okay personally? Yeah, I think it's a spurring peripheral. Okay. It's high on his kneecap. Okay. It's open, so they'll probably do probably five to ten internal stitches. It might be ten to twelve, depending on the number they're thinking of. Probably done stitching it by now. Thanks, Jim. All right, I wanna wrap this up at 7.30, so this is close to time. Any last questions? Yeah, Roy. Are you a sports fan? I really, really like college football. Yes. Yeah, so that's... That's the one sport that I follow very closely, yeah. So if you don't sway easy, how about your sport? I am very passionate about University of Georgia football. I would be delighted to go to a UVA. I love college football, so I'm all for the experience. This is about Sam, folks. The guy who coordinates our music said to another brother one time, he wanted to participate in the worship leadership team, and he said, Brother, you have a great congregational voice, and so I think that's probably what I have. I have a great congregational voice. Glad to chip in. I don't remember that. That's good. To wrap up, one of the things that we kept having to ask in the interview was, what is the fruit? I don't know if you've picked up, but he continues to try to describe what he does, what others say about him, and that's really where we were just struck by his humility. He's refusing to really talk about himself a lot in what he's done, so I'm going to take the liberty here for a little bit. So what morning do you meet with folks at McDonald's? Friday. What is that? We call it our band of brothers. It's me and usually a group of like three to five other guys and we just met. It was actually, it was fruit of Keith. Like one of the things when Keith left, like I just realized a lot of my A lot of my time was spent directly discipling college students, people who were younger in the faith, people who were dealing with specific issues, very much pouring myself out. And I just realized I was lacking in fellowship, accountability, just mutual sharpening, life-on-life discipleship. So I asked some guys to meet with me on Friday morning. So we've been doing that for about a year and a half, just meeting together, talking about life. It's an hour of just life. Sometimes it's something specific, you know, spiritually, how we're encouraged, how we're struggling, those kind of things. Yeah. What are the different kinds of discipleship relationships you've had? So you mentioned you discipled college students and you, like, what kind of folks are in this band of brothers and what other kinds of discipleship relationships have you had? And even without naming any names, obviously, what kind of challenges have you had to walk through with people? So, different things. A lot of life, normal life kind of stuff. Husband, being a faithful husband, being a father, being patient, dealing with issues of purity in marriage and that sort of thing. Walking through... I spent about a year meeting with a guy who had a real gender identity issue. saw a lot of fruit in his life, just walking through, encouraging each other every week in the gospel, just pressing into that and seeing growth and progress, just very steady work in that. You know, walking with a guy, an older guy, single, who's having lost his job, and just kind of a different case. But anyway, just kind of seeing him go from very much a stranger to the church, professing Christian, stranger into the church, to very much, very feeling very deeply the importance of the church. Yeah. I think those kind of things. We will conclude. Last chance for questions. Joshua keeps acting like he wants to ask a question. Yes, Mr. Hayden. Let's let's let's go to the Lord in prayer. Let's let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you, Lord, for this time to get to know Sam as he has been nominated to be a pastor candidate. Lord, I pray that if it is your will, that we would call him if you desire him to continue to serve in the capacity serving at Third Avenue. I pray that You would make that clear. We pray that you would watch over us, that you would teach us, and we pray that you will bless the Crosleys and this trip. In your holy name we pray. Amen.