God Honors the Extra Mile | Faith That Goes Beyond What’s Expected
FULL TRANSCRIPT
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He's just a regular guy with a cool job that God loves for some reason. Welcome to The Steve Marston Show, a daily journey in learning how to live more like Jesus, conversations with those that God is working through and dad jokes. It's the most unique show you'll hear today. Now here's Steve. Yep, yep. Yahoo. Welcome in. One and all to The Steve Marston Show. We have a couple of different segments of audience.
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We've got those of you that are listening as radio listeners, AM 630, the word in San Antonio. And then those of you that are listening on 99.5 in central Arkansas, little Rock and surrounding areas. We're grateful that you guys are here. Same goes for those that are listening online on your own time. Thank you for being a part of the program. Let me get started with a little housekeeping business.
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gotten some notes here lately about our free PDF. We've been talking about that a lot and the website in general, how it's been updated. And I still want you to go and visit it, but a lot of people are saying, Hey, Steve, what gives something's wrong with the PDF? We can't get it downloaded. So I went and checked it out and sure enough, there was a little bit of an issue, but it has been corrected now. So you can go and get it and get it downloaded for free and
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be able to have these five tips for Bible study. Now, if you're not familiar with what we've been talking about, I have come up with these five tips that will help you when you try to open your Bible to get the most out of it without, you know, benefit of a workbook or a devotional, just strategies that you can use yourself opening God's Word and being able to rightly divide it, to be able to handle it correctly, to be able to interpret it well.
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And these are certainly not things that I came up with on my own, but I have kind of taken some of my favorite strategies and I've kind of tweaked them to what I feel like is good. And I feel like if it works for me, it will work for you. So if you are so inclined and you've been frustrated because you try to click on it and it's not helping and nothing's working, that has been fixed. So go to the website, SteveMarsdenShow.com click the five.
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tips for Bible study, PDF, and boom, it will come to you as a direct download, working links now. So grateful for all the hard work of the computer geeks and we've got that squared away. So it is back up and running for you guys. Now let's get started with something that I came across just minding my own business as I normally do on social media.
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scrolling through the Facebook page this weekend, I came across a little clip from Adrian Rogers. Now, I don't know if you know that name or not, but Adrian Rogers was pastor in Memphis for a long time. He had a ministry called Love Worth Finding that's on a lot of radio stations still, not on our two great radio stations, but sometimes around others have it. And I was listening to a little clip from him and it said,
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God honors the second mile. And I listened to this clip and I was just immediately convicted because I thought it was so powerful and so good that it really spoke to me. So I thought I would bring it to you here today. Now, let's set some background first. Going the second mile, that's something that we hear a lot from people. You may not know where that phrase comes from. Well,
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Back in the day when the Roman Empire literally ruled the known world, they had a thing that they did in order to keep people subjugated to make sure that everyone knew that the Romans were still in charge and everybody else was going to follow whatever Rome said. Whenever a Roman soldier would encounter someone and decide that for whatever reason,
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they didn't want to carry their backpack, their whatever they were hauling, they could force someone of that population who they were living as guardians over to carry their burden for a mile. And it didn't matter whether the person was going that way or not. The Roman soldier could stop and get any able-bodied person that he chose.
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and say, okay, look, you grab my stuff and let's go this way. And again, the guy could have been going completely the opposite direction, but it didn't matter. They were forced to go the full mile carrying the burden for the Roman soldier. And Jesus came along and Jesus said, I say to you, go the extra mile, you know, and that's where we get that phrase from. And Adrian Rogers
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said that God honors the extra mile. And I got to really thinking about it and I thought, you know, that's really powerful because think about how we do things. Sometimes when we are asked to do things that are not in our job description, things that we're not comfortable doing, and yet the boss or maybe someone kind of puts it on us to do, we do it.
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But we do it grumblingly. We do it with clenched jaw and hating every step of it. Because that's exactly what the Jewish people did when the Roman soldier would force them to walk a mile. They would do it, but they would hate every step of it and would not go a single millimeter further than that one mile. But Jesus had a different view of it. Jesus encouraged his followers
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that when you're forced to go a mile, go the extra mile. And when we kind of extrapolate that into our lives and what we have here in the Western society in 2026, still doesn't make us any happier to do that because we don't like doing anything extra, especially when it's forced upon us or when we feel guilt tripped into doing it. We'll grumble the entire way.
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And yet Jesus said, not only are we not to grumble and not to have it be something that causes us bitterness or anger, but we're to do it joyfully and do it for an additional mile. Now what are the benefits of that? Why does God honor the second mile? Well, I think a lot of the reason is because
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We see people and we see situations not in our vision, in our lives, but we see them the way God sees them. Because see, God realizes that they're trying to flout their authority, they're trying to make our life miserable, and yet when we don't view them that way and view them the way God sees them, and we do it with joy and we do it with an
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honor and we do it with a no big deal kind of attitude. God honors that. God sees that we are put upon. And make no mistake that God is a God of justice. God has promised that he would repay everything that has been done to us injustly our entire lives. Even the most minute things, God says,
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He will rectify. Vengeance is His, says the Lord, right? That goes for the big things, small things as well. So I think it's a part of our faith in God and trust in God that when we are put upon like that to go and do something that we just didn't want to do and something that was put upon us maybe at five o'clock on a Friday afternoon when we're ready to go home for the weekend,
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and the boss comes in and says, project's got to be due Monday morning at 8 o'clock. Yeah, I mean, you get frustrated, you get angry, but lashing out, how is that going to help? Feeling sorry for yourself, how is that going to help? I think when we give it to God, it turns it completely around. And we say, God, I hate this. This is making me so angry and
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I know it's going to make me bitter if I continue to hang on to this anger. I'm going to give this to you. I'm going to ask you to work through this and take this and turn it into a positive. If we can do that, if we can be disciplined enough in our lives to do that, that's where God is honored. Going that extra mile, going to the place where it's uncomfortable, but yet we...
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give it to him. I think that's what he wants and he has promised in his word that he will reward that. It's not something we're going to do in vain. It's not going to be something that's going to be overlooked. He will reward. That's his promise.
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Steve Marston Show continues to where faith and fun are both taken seriously. Welcome back. And just to kind of close the loop on the rewards that we were talking about in the first segment when you're going the extra mile and how God rewards the extra mile and honors the extra mile, those aren't necessarily tangible things. Now, they will be on the other side of eternity, but here and now, maybe it is tangible, but again, it could not be.
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It could be just an extra blessing of him working in a myriad of ways that we hopefully will see and pay attention to. So don't just get hung up on being physical rewards on that. Steve Marston Show has got a brand new website. We've talked about this a lot and I hope you've had a chance to go check it out. The numbers are growing on it and what's cool is the computer nerds have worked really hard.
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on making it not just a website for a podcast slash radio show, but really turning it into a library. It is linked all throughout it, and it is available on the big search engines so that people, when they type in different Christian things, our show's gonna pop up. Conversations that we've had with some of these pastors and ministry leaders are going to pop up, and they're gonna be exposed to it.
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so that the show will, number one, grow. But more than that, the show will have an impact on people's lives. It will be bigger than us. And that was always the prayer when we started putting that website together, is that it's more than just, oh, hey, here's the Steve show, and here's the archives, and here's the current show, blah, blah, thanks for joining us. No, no, no. We wanted it to be something much bigger, and God is answering that prayer. We're so thankful for it. So again,
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please go look at it for yourself, stevemarschdonshow.com. On Mondays, we like to do Sunday Morning Takeaways. This is where we go back to look at the sermons that you heard yesterday and get your take. What was the sermon about? What moved you about it? What is something that you can draw from it to bring into this new week? And I always like to start the Sunday Morning Takeaways. Mine was...
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that Jesus is all about the gospel. We, a lot of times, love to see the social aspects of what ministry can do, know, helping people, feeding the hungry and clothing those that are naked, know, sheltering those that don't have shelter. But when it comes down to it all, the bottom line is the gospel and getting that into people's hands, making sure
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that those we are helping and reaching in Jesus' name actually hear that He came to earth, lived a perfect life, died for their sins, and rose again and is soon coming back. That's the gospel. And you hear a lot of times people have the friction, well, why don't you do more helping the poor? Why don't you do more in that area?
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When you look at John chapter 6, we see an incredible example of Jesus kind of putting His foot down. Because at beginning of the chapter, you see Him feeding the 5,000 because they've been with Him for a while, they haven't eaten anything, and then He turns the miraculous bread and fish to save and feed everybody. Then what happens after that? He goes across the water, walking across the water with His disciples.
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But then, after those two amazing back-to-back miracles, Jesus is there by the sea in Capernaum, and all of sudden the crowd finds him, and they want more bread. They are there for their need to be met from hunger. Well, Jesus kind of puts his foot down and says, you're coming for the wrong reason. Now, is Jesus not compassionate? Is Jesus just...
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mean-spirited? No, but he makes sure everybody understands that he is the bread of life, and when you partake of him, it meets the greatest need that you have. And I know that rubs some people the wrong way, but when you look at the Gospels really in depth, every time Jesus had an opportunity to set up a feeding ministry, he didn't do it. To set up a healing ministry where he just
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healed the sick, he didn't do it. Every time he had a chance to do all of those things, he didn't, but instead he chose to leave those areas and to go and continue to preach the gospel. And that's got to be our main takeaway too. All of the other social aspects, helping people is good, but we don't want to create dependency, we want to create disciples. So that's my takeaway.
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from the bread of life in John chapter 6. Others thought it had some really good answers too for Sunday morning takeaways. I threw it out on social media like I always do and we got these responses from our listeners. Brian checked in and said that the sermon he heard about was the cycle of sin and judges. Sin, judgment, confession, judge rescues. He said three parts to the sin problem in judges number one,
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When we don't know the Lord, we won't know or do what is right. When we don't know what is right, we'll do what is right in our own eyes. And then number three, when we know the King, we'll surrender or obey. It's really good stuff. Thank you, Brian. Kim checked in. Her Sunday morning takeaway was from 1 Samuel chapter 1. She said, we all have obstacles. God doesn't remove.
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Instead, he makes his way around them, but we must strive to get past looking at our outward circumstances and look at the heart. Looks are deceiving, but a person's heart is not." Oh, that's good stuff. Especially that case when we realize that life's not always going to be sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. If we'll realize that, yeah, bad things are going to happen and just prepare for it and just know that that's an expectation that...
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at some point is going to come around in our lives, it's going to help us out so much. Terrell said, talking about changing our mindset to what God expects and controlling our inputs. Like that. Kelly checked in and said, Ephesians chapter 1, she said the Holy Spirit is our helper series, is what her pastor was going through. Said this morning was that he was the one who seals. He seals
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He seals and identifies us as God's people, us as God's possession, and guarantees God's promise. We hear, we must believe, and we are sealed. Oh, that's... yeah, that'll preach. That's really powerful stuff. Let's get one more in here. So many more checked in, but we've got time for one more. Roger said his pastor preached on the mighty... mighty prayers have consequences. Acts chapter 4. Really good stuff. Thank you, guys.
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for checking in with your Sunday morning takeaways. We'll have more next week for you here on the Steve Marston show, back in a minute.
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Okay, I wanted to bring back a conversation, and gosh, this goes back to, I guess, March or April of this year. It was with Mark Evans. Mark is the longtime pastor. In fact, he founded the church at Rock Creek, and he has just been a light in our community for decades sharing Jesus, but doing it in a way that reaches out to people who are not necessarily the church. He really has a heart for those that are
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not churched. And he has a way of being able to communicate the gospel and the scriptures and do it in a very relational way to be able to reach your co-workers or your family members or anyone else who doesn't believe and will maybe never come to church. That kind of marks hearts. And he used to have a program here on 99.5 The Word and we're hoping that that will return maybe in some form really soon.
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But he's a guy that always is inspiring and he always, like I said, brings a great message. And the conversation we had touched on a lot of things, but specifically it talked about earning trust with others. And we have to give trust before we expect to get it in return. And it's kind of backwards the way our society says to do it and the way we kind of feel wired.
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in our own kind of selfish nature of how to do it. But Mark brought up some really good points in this and I thought, you know, this was something that needs to be heard more often. So we wanted to bring this conversation back with him and let you hear it because I think it will really help you and really inspire you as you move throughout your day and move throughout your week. So I started the conversation by asking Mark about what's been going on lately.
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at the church at Rock Creek. Now we're looking ahead for really for the remainder of the year. Just was talking about Christmas with one of our staff people. you know, it's moving fast and furious. And I'm excited about what we've got lying ahead. we're wrapping up things that some of the simple things of ministry like evangelism, reaching people for Christ and how we do that on a more personal, practical.
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Yeah, let's get into that a little bit, because you and I were kind of chatting before we went on the air here about that's kind of been a focus. I've noticed kind of it seems like you look around social media and it seems like a lot of people have been that same kind of focus about reaching out to those that are around them and just sharing the good news, sharing the hope that we have. Yeah, yeah, you know, and I think that even before we start telling people this is how you.
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how you begin a relationship with Jesus and how a person needs to accept Christ and what all of that means. I think we've got to show it first. We've got to show it into how we relate to people and how we respond to people. We've got to make sure that we're doing things as Christians that reflect Jesus to people. Be kind to someone before they earn your kindness.
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Don't just think, okay, I'll be nice to you when you're nice to me. you smile first, speak first, help first, like Ephesians 4 says, to be kind and compassionate. That's a directive from Scripture. Those are the kinds of steps that we need to take as Christians so that people will be open to hearing about.
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How do I become a Christian? Yeah, and you know, my pastor always says that no matter what's going on, no matter what the person does or has done or said or has thought about doing, we don't have as Christians the right to be unkind in any situation. You know, and that's so hard to actually live out because, hey, look, we might be on the quote unquote moral right side of an issue, but if we're not kind about it, man, it just kind of, it can make things worse.
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Sure can. And it definitely can make things worse. But if we would take the step of forgiving quickly, you know? refuse to keep score, drop the grudge, choose the opportunity to show them, right, I'm going to forgive you, just as the Lord's forgiven me.
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doesn't mean that I'm a weak person. It means I'm trying to resemble Jesus. Yeah, and sometimes obviously we can, there's degrees I think people would say, oh well, you know, I can forgive up to a certain point, but just because you forgive someone doesn't automatically mean it's a get out of jail free card. It means that you're not holding that grudge. You've got to be able to let that go for your own wellbeing. Yeah, yeah, it does. And, um,
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And it also means that the Lord is working on you as He's working through you, you know, and that's a big deal. Absolutely. Mark Evans is our guest here on the Steve Marston show. He's an author, a pastor, a speaker. He's someone who is very inspirational in his messages and has a great way of being able to take the scriptural and turn it into these practical ways to live out our faith. So, you know, we talk about forgiveness and we talk about being kind.
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That goes such a long way in this world where people are really, I think, for answers, even though they may not always verbalize it that way. I think you and I both have been around long enough to know that people really do seek after some kind of peace and some kind of tranquility, something to make life make sense. Yeah, and what you're doing on a daily basis, that's a
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as a follower of Jesus is you're trying to earn that right to be heard in somebody's life. And that's why these things that I'm talking about are so important. You're earning that right to be heard. That's why you gotta start with speaking life, not just truth. You start by encouraging them more than you correct. You start by building them up more than you call them out.
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And you're earning, as you do that kind of stuff, as you build them up, as you encourage them, you're earning the right to be heard because you're saying what people need, you know? Not just what is accurate or what is true. You're making sure, what Colossians says, to always let your conversation be full of grace. And as you're doing that, you're building up that...
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trying to look for. What's the word I'm trying to look for? You're building up the credibility for them to trust you. Yeah. Yeah. The ability to be trusted. Yeah. And that goes such a long way too, because I mean, even in this day and age, you see so many people that have, and some of it obviously is more noticeable than others, but it seems like a lot of people do have trust issues, you know, whether it's because of a bad childhood growing up or maybe something going wrong in a relationship, trust issues are,
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there and and we just have to be I think what just patient wouldn't you say to try to continue to to not give up on a relationship just because the other person makes it a little difficult yeah yeah you know and they're like you said see there are so many different reasons why people today I think it is more difficult today than it was 20 years ago for sure have trust issues and and those come in all directions in people's lives and so
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you've got to decide as a Christian, I'm going to love people who are hard to love. Because most of us are hard to love. That's true. So I'm going to love.
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Yeah.
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That's where Christlikeness becomes unmistakable. No question about it. I am going to show you love. You know, you're very different than I am. You know, you and I are not at all in the same wavelength, much in life, other than we're humans and we breathe air and we eat food. But I'm gonna love you. And again, I'm just earning the right to be heard at some point.
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I have a buddy of mine who is one of our big listeners here to the the radio station and has been for a long time. And the way he always ends a lot of his social media posts is I love you and there's nothing you can do about it. And I just think that is I think that is so good, you know, because because he he had and he's he's somebody that I do. look up to a lot because he has those characteristics that we're talking about that where people are kind of drawn to him because
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He's kind because he's quick to forgive and he's there to love people no matter what they have done or what maybe they look like or etc. You know? Good stuff. That is so important. just want to be received like that, accepted like that, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And the two, you know, I think as Christians,
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If we listen to people more than we talked, it would be a great gift. Well, you know, it's that old saying mom said, right? You got two ears in one mouth for a reason, right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you, if you listen to people like they really matter and it will, it will open up all kinds of doors because to them, you know, we're all used to everybody talking, everybody being heard, but listening.
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really feels like oxygen in lot of ways to people. know, it just it's life giving because somebody is actually going to listen to me. They're not interrupting me. They're not trying to to to to fix me immediately. Just being present and listening to what somebody has to say is a gift from God. Oh, absolutely. And here's what I think, too, when you're when you're doing that again, that's so kind of counterculture to everybody else, because most people are just looking at you, maybe making eye contact.
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but they're thinking about the next thing they're going to say. They're not engaged in what you're really saying. And if we can do that with people, we can really listen and really engage them on what I've heard said, and I think this is a great way to say it. The one thing people are expert in is themselves. And if we can, if we can do that, engage with them on their level, asking them about themselves and finding out about them, that goes to building that trust that you were talking about. Yeah, you know, that's so true. And a good
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A good barometer on that is to look at scripture and see how many times Jesus asked someone a question. He didn't arrive with a sermon in hand. I'm not saying he didn't know it, but he didn't arrive like, okay, this is what he built relationship by asking questions. Yeah, he sure did. And letting people listen to people about their lives and what they thought and what they believed. And then he went from there and told them truth.
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Absolutely. see, I think that's the next step. A lot of times, I think sometimes we think we're doing good where we just kind of leave it there. We're building that trust, but we never take that next step. And that's the scary, scariest step, but we do have to let people know about Christ. And if we've earned that trust, we need to take that next step. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that is earning the right, earning the trust allows you the opportunity to tell
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them about Jesus, but you can't, you've got to get to that point. Don't stop before you get to the point of sharing the gospel with them and telling them how the gospel changed your life, how the truth of Jesus changed your life. don't think you have to know all the answers to, Steve. I think that's another thing Christians really miss is I think if I start telling somebody about Jesus, they're going to ask me a question that I don't know the answer to. Do what I do. Tell them, I don't know, but I'll find out. There you go.
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that work.
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That works. And I think another to just kind of dovetail what you're saying is once we've earned that trust, and because I think the biggest fear we have of sharing our faith is it's going to ruin the relationship, they're going to be upset with me, blah, blah, blah. But if you have earned that trust and you present it with the grace and the kindness, they're going to listen. They may not agree. They may not accept Christ as their Savior, but at least they'll know you're the genuine article. Yeah, that's right. They're going to listen.
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and what you start today. You may not see them except Christ right then, but it's a start. You're getting there. Absolutely. Mark Evans, it is always a pleasure to run you down, my friend, to be able to get some of this truth and just things we know to do, but just that reminder to keep doing them. You're always the best. We appreciate you. Ben, Steve, thank you so much, man. Have a great rest of the day and a great show.
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That's a part of a conversation we had with Mark Evans, the pastor of the Church at Rock Creek, back just after Easter this year. Mark, just a tremendous guy and a guy who has a really good handle on being able to relationally give the gospel and has so many good tips of how to do that and how we can make a difference and earn that trust to be heard in different situations. Just really...
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Top shelf stuff really appreciate Mark anytime he can join us here on the Steve Marston show. Okay, stay with us. We've got more coming up including our dad joke of the day before too much longer. It's a Steve Marston show and we're back in a flash. Don't move.
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It's the Steve Marsden Show. Thank you for your company. are thrilled and delighted to be with you as always.
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It's time to welcome in our special guest, and this guy is a first-timer here on the show. He's the pastor of Heights Community Church. His name is Ken Hicks. Ken, welcome in, brother. Good to have you. Thank you so much. Glad to be here. Well, it is a pleasure for us to have you on the program. So let's talk a little bit about how you came to know Christ and how your foundation of faith led you to a calling.
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of being a pastor and what that all looked like.
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Yeah, you know, I had a blessing of really growing up in a home where my mom and dad were for sure chasing after Jesus. I like to I had a drug problem as a kid though. I got drugged church every time the doors were open. Sure. But ultimately, you know, for me, I knew a lot about the Bible, but it was I was 15 and at camp for the first time. Actually, August 2nd, 1985, we're out at Mo Ranch here in Texas in the hill country.
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And that relationship for me went from knowing all about Jesus to starting to know him on a real and personal level. And so that night I exchanged my life with Christ and decided I wanted to have a personal relationship with him. I remember going back to the cabin at night, I was pumped and told our guys, said, man, I want you to pray for me, man. I accepted Jesus tonight. And they all just kind of looked at me like, we thought you'd already done that. I didn't drink, smoke, cuss, or chew, or date the girls that do.
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I was at church all the time, but for me it wasn't a relationship. It was just a thing we did and it was information and education. It just wasn't transformation. And so that journey started for me at 15 in a personal way, but I certainly had a strong foundation for that. My dad was gracious enough, not knowingly, it wasn't even on purpose, but I really kind of learned how to read the Bible and study the Bible by watching my dad do it, you know, and why he sat down with different colors of markers and...
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what those things meant for him in the word of God. And I kind of picked up small pieces of that through my life along the way. And then went to college, came back, playing basketball in college and started coaching college basketball. And I had a season where I kind of walked away from the Lord. And the beauty of God is he didn't walk away from me. And about 21, I decided to come back to him. And I said, I don't know what this looks like. But I was coaching.
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college basketball at time and I said, I'll give you one year. And then I'm to go back to college coaching college basketball because I thought that's what I was supposed to be doing. And I loved it and I was good at it. It was awesome. And so I spent one year at the church that I was going to when I exchanged my life with Jesus here at Trinity Baptist in San Antonio, pastor named Buckner Feining at the time. And one year led to two years, about the middle of that third year, I started going, man, I'm
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I really enjoy this too. I'm not sure maybe this is what God's called me to do. And so I started seminary about halfway through that third year and switched from student ministry into a season of sports ministry. And that was kind of a great fit of both places where I use my love for sports and my love for Jesus and combine those two things to go reach people for the gospel. So I finished seminary.
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Finished working there at Trinity Baptist in that space, went to Mountain Home, Arkansas for five and a half years and served up there, built the Christian Life Center that's up there now and still going strong in that community. We spent about five and a half years up there and then came back to San Antonio in 2004 for me to start a sports ministry at a church here in town. We got that thing off the ground and then in 2009 decided to leave.
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that big experience and go start a church for my living room. So we've burnt Heights Community Church together with the Lord of 2009. That is amazing. I want to go back to something that you brought up at the very first part of your story, and that is the church camp experience. I know for my own itself and the lives of my kids how important church camps usually are because you're right. So often kids that grow up in church know all the right answers and can.
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spout out everything, you know, the Sunday School way. But when they have an opportunity to just kind of get away from everything, especially this day and age with all the cell phones and all the tech, and just be able to focus on Jesus for a week out in the middle of nowhere with cabbage with a bunch of other believers, it's a very special thing, isn't it? Oh, no doubt. And I mean, again, you know, sometimes what happens is we know all the right answers and be living differently.
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And in my case, was really, I knew all the right answers and my life looked like it too. It just wasn't a relationship. It was just kind of like going to school. I'd go to school and make all A's too, right? I can go to school, I show up, I do it, I do my part, I do my homework, I come back, I can produce the information. But it's just different and when you get away from all of those things,
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The Lord has a way of kind of allowing you to see him because we're not quite as distracted. You know, and that's for sure one of Satan's greatest tools in our culture. think overall still today is just I don't. I don't have to win. I just need to keep you distracted from him and I still win. And and so so I yeah we do camp at our church. We do family camp for our families. And then we do take our students to a student camp, but it is for sure a great place for the Lord to have some.
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some opportunity to connect in new ways. Absolutely. We're visiting here with Ken Hicks. He is the pastor and and lead pastor, I guess is the best way to say it at Heights Community Church. And he joins us here on the Steve Marston show. And we kind of went through your bio kind of quickly. But I also want to go back and talk about your college experience and that kind of decision path you were on after, you know, caught.
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playing college basketball and then coaching college basketball. mean, a lot of times people would say that that's it. And then when you felt that tug to kind of go back to church, walk us through those days. How tough was it for you to make that decision to drop college basketball and to give ministry, full-time ministry a chance for a year?
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Yeah, you know, I mean, that's interesting. You know, once I decided to come back to Jesus, and again, it wasn't him that moved. I just started chasing another God, right? The whole goal was putting the ball in a basket and enjoying everything that came with that. And unfortunately, I missed an incredible opportunity on our college campus to use it for the glory of God, which stinks. But His grace was...
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was sufficient in that space. And so once I decided to come back, you whether it was coaching college basketball or doing ministry or whatever, I think I was going to start steering in that direction of, of at least being in communion with him. Um, and if I'm just being honest, it wasn't a crazy difficult decision to set it down for a year. I mean, I just had, I had the lowest coaching job on the totem pole. They don't, they don't pay anything. Hardly. I mean, you can't even hardly live on it.
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Nobody wants the job and based off of relationships and things I had experienced, I could go get that job somewhere in the country anytime. So the thought process was, I'll just set this low job on the totem pole. But again, I'm 21, so no big deal. Everybody's supposed to have the low job on the totem pole at 21. And so I'll set it down for a year and then I'll just pick it back up, go somewhere else.
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go back to the same university or somewhere else, those jobs are a dime a dozen. So it didn't feel like I was laying my whole career aside. I just thought it was going to be for one year and not, you know, we're on year 32 now. Isn't it crazy how that happens, right? You you just, figure, okay, because I have a similar story in a different kind of way. Like my wife really said, you know, once we got married and started having kids, she would like to stay home and be a stay at home mom. That was
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her biggest dream and biggest desire much more than anything else she would want to accomplish, you know, career wise. And I said, OK, we can we can try it for a year and see what happens. And then guess what? That turned into 25 years, you know, right? Yep. And so I didn't have this Paul on the road to Damascus experience in that for sure. But but God's been good and he's been faithful and I still gotten to coach. I coached my kid. You know, I was a sports pastor, so I got to use all of that for.
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You know, so many years I got to coach my own kids. We we did upward, but we did a you stuff. My daughter had every opportunity she wanted to play in college as well, and nine of our 10 AAU girls all played in college and wow. So I kind of got to scratch that itch still within the within the confines of my first church, which was really cool too, right? To to still get the coach but get to do it with my own kids and then got to do it at a Christian High School here in San Antonio. Once she went to college.
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And I did that for a few years as well. So it's always been a piece of my story, but it's not been the piece of my story. Right, right. Ken Hicks is our guest here on the Steve Marston show. He's the pastor of Heights Community Church here in San Antonio. And I wanted to also bring up this I found pretty interesting 360 enrichment that you are started because it's all about marriage and family. Talk a little bit about.
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why this was created and what you've seen the Lord work through in and around the area with this. You know it's interesting we as a church have a different model than many by design not by need per se but that is like nobody is full time at our church.
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Old-school phrase that we used to use when I was in seminary is is somebody would be considered by vocational, right? And and in that day and age and I don't know if it's still the same I graduated from seminary right after Moses I think so it's a long time ago, In that day and age. I remember the feeling was if you were by vocational It's because you weren't good enough to get a full-time job. Yeah, basically right and that was just kind of the
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Nobody would say it out loud, but that was really what everybody felt. You know, if you had to have another job, you just weren't good enough to get one that that was your only job. And so we kind of coined the phrase with another buddy, and both of us have planted churches in the same lane, but co-vocational. We both left, you know, the 15th largest church in the US at the time. We had jobs in the corner offices. It was great. And we each went and planted churches.
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And it's certainly not because we couldn't get a full-time job. But instead, we're choosing to have another occupation. You you looked at Paul, he had a different career. Jesus had a different career. And so I'm not sure where this lane came from, that this would be our only source of life and income and influence and all those sorts of things. And so we chose from the ground up to go, hey, listen, we're not going to be...
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My only source of income is not going to come from the church anymore. It had done that for a long time. And so we started going, I need to own my own business. need to be in charge of the hours. I need to control the schedule. And I need it to be another place that I can leak the story of Jesus around me. And that way I could still make hospital visits. I can still go do funerals. I can still do the things the church needs.
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Whereas if I'm an employee at a bank, eight to five, you know, you don't get, can't just go, Hey, our, somebody's having surgery. got to go. Right. You know, that kind of thing. So, so we, we have done it in such a way that we all, you know, started companies, owned businesses and do that. And for me, you know, one of the things I love doing, enjoy doing is, is speaking into the life of building healthy marriages and families. And I think, I still think it's still believe if we could.
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solve the crisis in the family in America, a lot of things would change to be quite honest. And so I started was already doing some marriage counseling, pre marital counseling, all those sorts of things. And just started taking that to the business world and said, hey, you do you realize what the cost of unhealthy families is costing your company? And it's my bottom, right? I mean, you know, one employee leaves, you know, $20 an hour employee leaves, it costs you 12 grand for the year.
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Right. That's the estimated reboot cost. And that's just at a $20 an hour employee. Not to mention, hey, what happens when that person's your top salesperson or when that's your VIP or your VP or... And so, you we started wrestling with how does this process work? How do we help build healthy families? So in our final few seconds here together, tell us a little bit about your church services and how people can connect with you guys.
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there at Heights Community Church and with enrichment 360. Yeah, so we're we're in the central part of our city right near the airport 281 and bitters. We currently have one service probably looking to change that pretty soon. That's in our conversations as we speak, but our current service is at 930 on Sunday mornings and then community groups happen all throughout the week all throughout the city. So we were 13 years old before we had a first campus. So everything about our culture was.
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hey, we had to figure out how to do life in the city. And so once we got a campus, we didn't want to change that. We didn't want people coming to the church all the time and us having to open it and closing it and watching their kids. And I mean, we figured out how to do that without it. So we just left that culture built that way. So we call them community groups and kind of say that's where the secret sauce is in our life. so, so we do community groups and then we really, really.
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try hard, which is kind our connection with your friend, Steve Thiel, as well to go, hey, how do we make a difference in the city? And so if God had chosen to close our church, the question we're always asking is, would anybody notice that doesn't go to church here? Are we making a difference in the city and ministry partnerships? And again, because so many of our resources are not allocated to staffing, like they are in many cases.
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then it frees us up to spend so many of God's resources as we worship together in generosity into places that make direct Kingdom impacted. So we focus a lot in places like snack packs for kids, peanut butter bowl with Steve, all that kind of stuff, feeding hungry kids, praying through schools, making sure you know 600 children a weekend. Our church does. We're hanging those bags every weekend, every week, Thursday and Friday, praying over every one of those kids names, making sure they eat.
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You know, we do a ton with the South Texas Alliance for the Orphans and Foster Ministry and don't go alone taking kids that age out of the foster system and building them into networks of relationship and family in our church. So they have somebody to call and be and do. And so, you know, we're just constantly seeking these ministry places. We build beds for families that need beds in order to keep CPS from taking their kids.
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You know, just with sleep in heavenly peace. You know, we just do a ton to go out and be his hands and feet. And we spend less on us, quote unquote, as a result. And for us at our campus, we're OK with that. So that's kind of the DNA of who we are. That is amazing. What is your guys website for more information? Heightscc.com. H-E-I-G-H-T-S-CC.com. Well, Ken Hicks, you are obviously a very busy man.
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And I'm thankful for the way you're allowing God to use you in all these different areas and the way He's opening up doors for you. And it's just a pleasure to be able to talk to you. God bless you, my friend. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Steve. Have a blessed day.
51:53
Welcome back. It's the Steve Marston show. Discipleship has never sounded or been more fun. It's a thrill and a delight to be with you. And if you're digging what we're doing, you're a church leader, ministry leader, maybe a business owner. We would love to partner with you here on the Steve Marston show. We've got all kinds of availabilities to get your message out to our audience. One of the thrills of my life is to be able to introduce
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you to our audience and have you guys become friends and customers of your business or service or ministry. So if that so moves you and you want to reach a growing audience that is all about discipleship, that is concerned greatly with their walk with Christ, but also making sure that the gospel is heard on different kinds of venues and platforms like what we're doing.
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Boy, you could do a whole lot worse than us. So check us out, stevemarsdonshow.com, but we would love for you to join us in this venture. So shoot me an email, steve at Salemmedia.com, steve at Salemmedia.com, and I'll get you hooked up, whether you're in San Antonio listening on the radio or in Little Rock listening on the radio, or you're at all points in between and you want to get both digital and radio messaging out, man, we can help you.
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and we can do it for the most cost effective bang for your bucks. I'm telling you, let me know. Steve at Salemmedia.com, will be pleasantly, pleasantly surprised. Okay, let's get to some stories that you may have missed. This one comes to us from Nashville at the Grand Ole Opry. And I'm a country music fan. I grew up working a lot of my career in country music.
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And I gotta say that the Grand Ole Opry was never something that I really, you know, was big on because especially when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s and stuff, it was all of the older kind of hillbilly-sounding people and not my favorites, let's just put it that way. But now it seems like over the last several decades, it's really opened up for a lot of different kinds of styles and genres.
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And Big Daddy Weave, the CCM band, made their debut at the Grand Ole Opry last Saturday night. said, Mike Weaver, who's the lead singer and main songwriter for the group, said it was an absolute dream to play at the Grand Ole Opry last night, getting to worship and sing about the strong love of Jesus from that circle on that famous stage, getting to share that stage with the likes of the Isaacs, Carrie Underwood, and so many amazing people was such a privilege.
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Getting to do it twice in the same night was even better. And he says, thanks to all who came out and sang with us, we will never forget it. That's a cool memory. And I'm just telling you, it wasn't too long ago. They wouldn't have really been open to somebody like Big Daddy Weave. But I'm so thankful that they are now. Let's see. There's a new website. Here's another story that you may have missed called Protestant Accountability. Shelly Taylor is the president of this organization and she's a survivor.
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of clergy sexual abuse. She said the organization was created roughly by a dozen survivors to spread awareness, to inform the public and protect potential victims and help heal those who have already been wounded. Now she emphasized that the organization does not conduct its own investigations or determine guilt. Instead, it gathers existing public information, including news reports, police reports and court records.
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and places that information in one searchable location so that users can review the material for themselves. Among those that are currently listed on the website called Protestant Accountability is people like Willie Rice, who's the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president, Dr. Albert Mohler, former SBC president and former executive committee president, Dr. Ronnie Floyd,
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and former SBC presidents, Paige Patterson and Johnny Hunt. The protestantaccountability.org does not accuse guilt of any persons on their site. They only provide public information on not just the alleged abusers, but also those who have enabled, minimized, or failed to report covered up or mishandled abuse. I have such mixed feelings about this because my heart goes out to those victims and
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Those monsters that really hurt those people need to be brought to account and we need to shine the light on this. But also to start naming names of people who are quote unquote associated with it or help cover it up. Look, if they really did it, then yes, let's make sure they get named as well. But if it's just kind of hearsay and it's just kind of, well, they obviously had to be drawing dots or trying to connect dots, then I'm not for that.
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It's just a sad situation that we're having to go through it anyway, but I like the idea on the surface of it. And one more story you may have missed comes from Grace Community Church in Southern California. These folks are Dr. MacArthur's people. This is Grace To You where it was headquartered. Dr. MacArthur and Grace To You has been a part of Salem Media for literally decades. They've been wonderful partners with us, especially AM 630 The Word in San Antonio.
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and 99.5 The Word in Little Rock and have been a part of the lineup really since day one of both radio stations. And they had an announcement of who was going to take over as pastor officially for Dr. MacArthur. And it didn't come as any surprise to anyone there, but Nate Buzinitz has been named official lead pastor of Grace Community Church. The announcement came on
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the one-year anniversary of Dr. MacArthur's memorial service. Nate had been pastor as an interim after Dr. MacArthur's death, but also filled in for him a lot when he was ill as well. And the statement from the church's website says this, Dr. MacArthur served as pastor of Grace Community Church for 56 years. Pastor John's ministry was marked by an uncompromising commitment to the lordship of Christ and the authority of his word.
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It says, elders remain steadfast in holding to those same priorities. Having grown up at Grace, Nathan is already known and beloved by our church family. While studying at the Masters University and seminary, he served as Bible studies shepherd in Crossroads, which is their college ministry. And later as a co-pastor in Cornerstone Fellowship Group, they say Nathan's giftedness for preaching and shepherding became evident in these ministries.
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through clear and teaching and his humble leadership. And then it goes on to say, as Nathan steps into his new role and transitions from leading the seminary, the elders ask the congregation to faithfully lift him up and his family in prayer. We enter this new season of ministry with gratitude to God for his faithfulness and for his, in the past, and joyful confidence in his future plan. To God be the glory.
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the elders of Grace Community Church. That's such a nice thing and a good way for a good man to be introduced as the new pastor of Grace Community Church there in Southern California. A quick break and we're back after this.
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Here at the Steve Marston Show, we're serious about faith, but we love a good dad joke too. The dad joke of the day is from the home office in Seguin, Texas. It says, I told my suitcase there would be no vacations this year. Now I'm dealing with emotional baggage.
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see it's all those unintended consequences, right? Welcome back to Steve Marston Show Continues. It's always a thrill and a delight to be with you. And again, we'd love for you to check out SteveMarstonShow.com. It's the home of this show, yes, with all the different episodes that we have and all the conversations, but it's also more than that, much more in fact. It's becoming a library for Christians to turn to, to find
01:00:48
peace and to find comfort and to find encouragement, but it's also that way for those that are not in the church. That's what the prayer of our website has been to be bigger than the show, and God is really answering that prayer and opening that door. Because when people are typing in those kind of keywords, they're bringing up the Steve Marston show as an answer on these major search engines, and it is just a blessing, and it's really just now getting underway, but we could...
01:01:17
Use your help. Just go to the website, click around, let us know what you think, but also you can find encouragement there too. again, please and thank you. SteveMarsdenShow.com. Every week on Monday, we come up with a brand new Bible verse for us to learn throughout the week. We call it Faith Between Your Ears because I am just convinced that the way we grow in our faith, the way that we're going to come
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closer to God and go deeper with God is by knowing His Word. I think that's what Jesus taught and I think that's what will really help us. But we've got to put in the work. We've got to be able to kind of discipline ourselves to learn it. And this week's Bible verse is going to be fairly easy to learn. And it's one of those kind of compare and contrasts. And it comes from the book of
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Proverbs. It's chapter 15 verse 4. Gentle words are a tree of life and a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit. I love the word picture and imagery there because it shows the power of our speech, both good and bad. And this is a verse that is definitely applicable for our lives every single day in every single situation.
01:02:41
So let's memorize it. And I know the first thing you're going to say is, I can't memorize, I'm too old, I just can't do it anymore. Oh, yes you can. That's just a lie. You can do it. It just may take you a little more time and effort than it used to, but you can absolutely do it. So here's what my challenge is for you. Learn this verse, whether it means writing it out several times, whether it means, you know,
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taking it and writing it on a Post-it note and putting it where you'll see it on the regular, or saying it out loud over and over. Whatever it takes, let's make sure we learn this verse. And of course, we'll break it down and go over it again tomorrow here on the Steve Marston Show, Proverbs chapter 15 verse 4. As we leave you today, your next step is to learn to go the second mile and learn to love it. That's part of being a disciple, like we talked about in the very first segment.
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Back on the radio at three o'clock tomorrow. Hope you'll join us then or online everywhere else. Adios.
