Mail Call Podcast Episode #6: How Do I Actually Grow in My Faith?

Hello, Pando friends, Stephen Hathaway here. Welcome to another episode of Mail Call, as we get a chance to go over your letters that you're sending in, and we read over them, we pray over them, and we get a chance to respond to your questions as well. I have my good friend here, Rod. Rod, how you doing? I'm doing amazing. So Rod's been here at Victory for how long? Consistently since 2018, yes, and it's been an amazing journey. We had a chance to serve together in a lot of different departments. Many areas. Most recently, we traveled together for the first time, went all the way out to Texas, and hung out with God behind bars. We were able to tour a facility, meet some people that had been blessed through that ministry, and Pando, got some great conversations with a lot of people to be able to hear what we, as a church, can continue to do to support people that are in the prison systems, on their faith journey, when they step out as well. We're excited about what I feel like God's gonna continue to do here at Victory. Yeah, good stuff. Crenshaw, in particular, he gave us a lot of insight

on what's working, what's not working, and just gave us some positive feedback that we're gonna try to implement to make their experience a lot better. Yeah, agreed. Plus, I got a chance to play some ping pong with some dudes. That was a blast. That was great. It was fun stuff. Everything was wonderful. We love seeing how God is moving right where people are, and even these letters, I think, help to speak to that as well. We wanna respond, let's see. We have David, who wrote a really, really special letter to us that I felt like was very encouraging about how you really feel like God has been taking this time in your life and helping you draw closer to him, connect with him, that you're seeing some real life change happen in your heart right now. But your question got me excited to want to respond to, because I think it's one that a lot of people feel, which is, I need more resources. I want to grow. I love what I'm seeing in Pando. I'd love to have something tangible in my hand, Bible studies, that I could read over and write with and mark on.

Could you guys get some of those resources our way? Absolutely, we want you to know that you're not the only one who've asked that. A lot of people have said, please send us some stuff. And we, as a church, are kinda still fresh in the Pandoverse. We're still kinda getting really into what it looks like to be able to serve you guys as best we can. And it's been, the need has been so overwhelming that we've realized there's no way we can do this on our own. We've been able to connect with other churches that have been doing it longer. They've been giving us some advice. There's another ministry that we're partnering with, and I think you're gonna really appreciate this, David, where they actually send you things in the mail. They help connect you with someone that writes back and forth with you on a more consistent basis. They're gonna send Bible studies your way about topics of things that you would really love to dive into, into the word of God. So these are steps that we're taking, and I would say maybe within the next month or two, this calendar year, definitely, probably in this next season, we're gonna have this available. So stay tuned on how to be able to get access to all these resources that we're wanting to send,

not just to you, David, but for everybody that's wanting to grow in their spiritual development. I love when I see people who say, I'll do anything that I can to continue to grow in my relationship. That's amazing. Thanks for sending that letter. And we have another one that we wanna jump into as well. The second letter we have today is from our friend Eric, and he's just talking about he's getting out here shortly, within the year, and him and his family are moving to Georgia, and just trying to plan on having victory as a church home. We welcome you, we welcome you. So if that's the case, and things follow through that way, come find us, come look us up, come hang out with us, and we'll embrace you and welcome you. However, if things do change for you, and you don't come here, one of the things that I did in my personal testimony is that I streamed victory from where I was at, and it still encouraged me, it still taught me, it made me a better father, a better husband. It also reminded me, just from watching the episodes that I watched online, it gave me the opportunity to understand why I need to be a son first. So as you're watching these things,

you're thinking about things on the outside, but right now, start considering that transformation process that you've been doing on the inside. It doesn't have to wait till you be physically, tangibly in person, but just go ahead and shine where you're at. Take that time, and don't just read the word as checks in a box, but go ahead and spend some time in the Word where you can meditate in the Word, and then you're gonna be even more equipped and empowered when you come on the outside, wherever you may be. So I just wanna encourage them to, don't put all your plans on Georgia, but if you do show up here, we're here to welcome you. That's great. I love that, knowing that wherever you're gonna be, God's gonna be able to do great things right where you're at. And I do think there's people who watch with us and go, man, I want to be on site there. We've had people who have taken Greyhound buses from other states just because they wanted to be on site, got a chance to meet our senior pastor, Pastor Johnson. We were able to say hello to them as well. So that makes our heart so happy to be able to connect with you guys as you get a chance to visit us in person. But maybe that's not possible.

Maybe you're all the way on the exact other end of the nation, all the way like maybe in Washington State, and it would be way too hard for you to come and visit us. Still stay connected with us online. We stream live every single Sunday. We can help you be a part of an online small group as well. You can stay in community. But also just know that there might be a great church right where you're at as well. Don't just stay connected online. We'd love it if you did. But if you are able to find and visit some other churches in the area, I encourage you to do that as well. We have people who watch from all over who stream with us, but also maybe find a home church that they're a part of. You even talked about how when you moved into Atlanta, when you were retiring from the Marines, you guys were like, I'm not sure I want to go to another state just because of how much you love this home church. It made a big impact on you and your family being here. Right. Fortunately for us, we had the experience to be in Atlanta before we left and we had to go do another five years of active service. So we were familiar with the DNA of Victory and how they were teaching church and all of the great things about it. But it wasn't solidified because at that time

I was still in the world one foot in, one foot out. But just as I continued to watch it online and just hear the messages. And one of the things that the senior pastor told me was, hey, you need to find a local church home. So me and my wife took that to heart. We got there, we grew there. And it just worked out for us that we were able to come back here. But in that season, man, we were flying our kids in for youth retreats and bringing them in. Those were great times. And I grew so much. I grew so much just by being plugged in and just was blessed that I was able to land here in our retirement. So it worked out. Yeah. We're really glad that you're here as well. This guy has been involved in men's ministry for forever. You have a heart really to invest in the guys that are connected here in community. Also guys that are connecting with us through Pando, which is why he's hanging out with us today. So maybe you were in the service as well and you have a question specifically for Rod. Send a letter in. We would love to be able to respond to any kind of questions

that you guys are able to send our way. This is one of the ways we wanna really share that when we ask you to send a letter, it's not just for fun season. We're actually reading over them. We're actually, there are some of you who send a letter with a prayer request. We're gonna pray over your prayer request even if you don't hear it over the air or not. So every single one gets responded to and prayed over. Or everyone gets prayed over. We'll try to respond to all of them through our videos that we're putting together and pay attention for this new ministry that we're partnering with in just a couple months. That's gonna be a huge, huge blessing to you as well. And thanks again, Rod, for hanging out with us. I love your heart. I love your story, what God's doing. And I love that you were able to hang out with us as we were out in Texas. Before we go, could you kind of speak to what you feel like it's important for people who are connecting with God behind bars right now, connecting with Pando? What kind of stories did you hear while we were walking around that prison system? I just heard that through the Pando app, it's giving them hope. It's giving them hope because you feel unseen,

you feel unheard. And just the ministry of Jesus coming through an app, it's just giving them a sense of peace in unideal situations. And it's just giving them something to look forward to on the outside is the stories that I had. But that's the biggest thing is, they say iron sharpens iron, but what I pick up in there is only iron sharpens iron if it comes into contact. So if you're incarcerated now and you're doing this by yourself, I would encourage you to find another brother or someone maybe a little bit further along in a walk with you to help you along on this journey because it's not meant for you to do it alone. So inside where we were back in Texas, it was a group of guys just pursuing Jesus together. And I think that makes a great difference. I'm all about connections. I'm all about relationships and all about at least going out in pairs at the minimum because this journey can be challenging. You're going to have days where you don't want to, but if you have that brother that you've given permission to speak into you, then he can encourage you. You know what I'm saying? Instead of you trying to do this thing by yourself because there will be days. that you're going to make decisions based on how you feel and you just need someone to remind you

that it's not about how you feel, it's about knowing Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior and he is with you at all times. Someone can remind you that if you're not doing this by yourself. That's good. I feel like before we had a chance to hit record, we were reading through and praying through how to respond. You actually had something specific for David and he's wanting to grow but you're like, man, David might need to consider this. It's not just about feeding but it's about doing. Could you just like share that with him? I'd love for him to hear that from you. Yes. So David, when I read your letter, you were talking about growing even more and my experience with men, I have so many men that I come in contact with, it's sometimes that they only feed and feed and feed and my question to them, so what's next? What are you doing with that? And you're in an ideal position where you have so many men around you that you're probably in a position now where you can start sharing your experience, sharing the growth that you have in Christ because if not, we just become, we risk becoming too religious because we know it all but we're not sharing it. So it's meant for you, it's meant for us as believers to share our testimonies, to share our experiences, to share our growth because we're again not meant to do this by ourselves and you may be the only form of Jesus that some people see but if you keep it to yourself, it's just for you but you can pour it out and be infectious among those men that you come encounter with every day. Don't be weird about it, just be yourself and just share Jesus with them. It's really that simple. That is some great wisdom that we're able to be able to share because you guys are drawing it out with these really great questions. Please keep sending them our way and keep sharing with us your experiences. It helps us know how we can curate content that is actually like blessing you and able to resource and equip you and we can only do that through you connecting with us. So please keep the letters coming our way. Have a great, great time friends putting this into practice. We'll make some more content coming your way soon.