05 Phil & Barb Claycomb | Celebrating 20 Years of Nexus Church Planting

Nexus: Phil & Barb (00:00)

my passion and my vision would be that the Antioch Church becomes who we are. That we become a church that's willing to break the rules to get churches started. That's Acts chapter 11.

I'd like to continue to be an organization or an entity, a network where misbehavior, appropriate kinds of misbehavior are highly tolerated, in fact valued and praised. the type of church that could welcome all kinds of people. And I like to think we're a type of church planning agency where our churches are not just getting people together and doing Sunday ⁓ morning or Sunday afternoon or whatever programs and events. I'd like to think that we're actually transforming lives and we're seeing leaders develop.

Andrew Estes (00:43)

Well, welcome everyone to the Nexus Church Planting Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Estes, and today's episode is a special one as Nexus Church Planting and LeaderCare celebrates 20 years of ministry this year. 20 years of starting disciple-making communities that start disciple-making communities. 20 years of planting churches and caring for leaders. From the very beginning, Nexus has been a shared work

shaped by partner churches, networks, and leaders who believe church planting and leader care belong together. Today, I'm joined by Phil and Barb Claycomb, who have been central to stewarding that vision for the past two decades. Phil has served as a director of Nexus since day one, and he's a deeply relational leader, a visionary, a trusted voice in advancing our movement, and someone who cares intentionally for the leaders that we serve. And Barb. ⁓

while Barb has been quietly holding the entire thing together, organizing quite literally everything as Phil's assistant and quite affectionately referred to as the Nexus mom to our planters. today we are excited as we are going to reflect on how Nexus began, what God has taught them over the last 20 years aiding the launch of over 80 churches

how church planting and discipleship have changed and what will always remain true as Nexus looks ahead to the future. Phil and Barb, I'm so grateful for you guys and welcome to the podcast.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (02:08)

Thank you. Thank you to be here. I'm a little scared. She's sitting right behind me and she can pinch me at any moment. Just you'll be fine. Yeah, just keeping your life just like always.

Andrew Estes (02:14)

That's for sure. Just keeping him in line. Still keeping him in line.

For sure. Well, for anyone who's listening, who's unfamiliar with who you guys are, I'd love to just start with just to get a quick snapshot of your stories, even leading up to how you guys met and just really quickly going to how Nexus actually started. Barb, let's actually start with you. from? How did you meet? How did we get to this point?

Nexus: Phil & Barb (02:41)

Okay, so I am from Cincinnati, Ohio. I was born and raised there. My entire family is there. Most of them still are. So Phil and I met, ⁓ briefly met when I was a freshman and he was a senior in undergrad, but really didn't connect until about four years later when I was working as the registrar of the grad school and he left his full-time ministry to come back to seminary full-time. ⁓ Seminaries are kind of dead places in the summer.

⁓ I was working full time. He was hanging around and. We thought we would just hang around for the summer. That was kind of the plan. I was working full time and going to school so I didn't have a of free time. So my thing is when August rolls around. That will probably be that and that was not how it worked out. We were engaged by that December and married by the next July. So.

Andrew Estes (03:29)

She just couldn't leave you alone, is that right Phil?

Nexus: Phil & Barb (03:31)

It just, he

just, that's not quite how I remember. He just swept me off my feet. What? Okay. I came back to school. left my ministry, but actually I was leaving ministry. I had decided I'm done trying ministry in an established church setting. So I was coming back to school cause it was free and she was working in the grad school office and she saw me walk by one day and then she took an interest in me and she broke laws and started to search my school records.

If she had a reason to search them, she had the right to do it. Otherwise, she's breaking the laws. And then I asked her out at one point to see if she wanted to go do something. Because yeah, like she said, there's nothing, nobody's here. And she turned me down twice. I really was busy. Yeah. Told you, I had a lot going on. Kept chasing her. He wore me down. He wore me down. We dated for the summer and the school started and some new girls came on campus and I was thinking, hey, and then I thought, I don't think I want to mess this up.

Andrew Estes (04:24)

That's good. So when you...

Nexus: Phil & Barb (04:24)

Phil dated

a lot in the Bible college scene, so my roommates were kind like, what? Anybody that dated three girls in four years, they consider to be promiscuous. Yeah, so it's a weird environment.

Andrew Estes (04:34)

for sure. For sure. For sure. ⁓

That's how Bible colleges work, man. It's trying to get that MRS degree for the ladies. And yeah, I get it. I get it. Do you walk us through, like from when you guys first got together, just kind of your pathway in ministry that led up to the starting of Nexus. So I know you guys have gone through some different local church stuff, different church plants over the years, and then leading up to your time in Texas. Give us a high-level overview of what that looked like.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (04:39)

That's right, especially in the 80s. Yeah.

Yeah.

We got married in July of 86 and I was in grad school, ready to finish up. And we decided to move to Chicago to start our first church. So we moved there in July of 87. So we actually arrived in Chicago and had our first anniversary in Chicago. We were starting a church for the unchurched using only the unchurched to reach it. So basically Barb and me in Chicago then starting a church from scratch with nobody coming from another church.

I think they called it a parachute launch, we joked that they forgot to give us the parachute. So it was crazy. It was crazy. But we so we were launched into our first church plant before we had our second anniversary. I was 27 years old. You were 23. 22. 22. And when we when we we moved 23 by the time we were near the time we launched. So we launched in the spring and we were at that church for nine years and we made it. I'm surprised we made it, but we made it.

Andrew Estes (05:34)

You

Wow.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (05:55)

And about seven years in, well, actually five years in, we had a daughter church sent off about 35 of our people. One of our associates gave them some money and the local network helped us do it. And then two years later, we decided to start another one ourselves. All three churches were within about seven miles of one another. And so we started another church then in 1997. I'm looking at her because she does dates better than I do. And then two years into that, we sent off our worship minister with about 50 people and started the fourth church.

just a little bit off of where the third church was. And ⁓ so we had four churches going and we thought we would stay in Lake County, Illinois and just keep doing that. But then God called us to California. I was offered an opportunity to coach and train church plotters. And that just sounded like a gas. And so we had to go do that. She wasn't exactly excited about it. I brought her along kicking and screaming and she was being very rude to people over the phone who were trying to reach me.

to talk about this, but we went to California. We were there for five years. It was a great experience. We were mentored and just really taught all kinds of things by key leaders in our lives. And ⁓ after we'd been there for five years, they went through a change. It was called Stadia at the time. And they let me go and hired me back as a consultant. So we moved to Texas and we started the Nexus in January of 2006.

So we spent the weekend at Golf Course Road, was our key partner, has been almost the entire 20 years in it. As we were driving out, I'm like, it was exactly 20 years ago this weekend that Phil and I and our son, Zach, made the drive from California to Texas, to Dallas. Our daughter stayed back to finish up some things because she was just in high school. I will say in the birth of Nexus and in our first church planning experience, I knew when I married Phil that he was going to plan a church.

Andrew Estes (07:31)

you

Nexus: Phil & Barb (07:40)

had no idea what that looked like in the mid 80s. Neither did I. And in the 80s, know, the information you could get the books on church planning would fit on half a shelf. We were like, how hard can it be? ⁓ And I told him for a long time that this was the one and done. I was going to help him plant one church. ⁓ We were going to plant other churches from it. And we really intended to spend our entire life in Lake County, Illinois. And we really, for many years, thought that that would be God's calling for us. And then

As Phil said, the organization from California approached him about doing the coaching and mentoring. And yes, I was not originally on board with that. ⁓ That was pretty far from my roots. I'm a Midwest girl and I affectionately called it the People's Republic of California, but loved. It was an amazing five years. We were both mentored professionally. I was teaching by then. It was a great, it was a beautiful experience. We were in our first church. Church ends were...

Done with cleanup, the trailer's being hauled off by somebody else that week. We get in the car and she looks at me and she goes, I hope you're having fun because this is the only shot you're ever going to get at doing this. And then we put on our second church and she says, OK, two kids, two churches, you're done. then California came calling and she would pick up the phone off the wall and just yell into it. She realized who it was and she go, that man from California has called you again. She's yelling right in the...

She's making it clear she's not interested. I was trying to be subtle, but it was in God's timing and the way that he works and moves. was exactly the place we needed to be. And really some of the roots in the seeds of Nexus, especially for Phil, were in those formative years, those five years of California. So it was a great, great time. And I loved it. was like living in Mayberry. I loved California.

Andrew Estes (09:04)

Trying to be subtle. Trying to be, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's good. I've you say, that the leader care aspect was not very common conversation in church planting networks when Nexus was first starting and it was really a huge value that you brought to the launch of what that was going to be. That has always been a foundation of our ministry, even within the Nexus logo itself, just having the imagery of bringing church planting and leader care together, intersecting

to advance the gospel by caring for leaders. do you think that the leader care at the time was not very common? hold that value to be central and not optional to the church planting process now?

Nexus: Phil & Barb (10:08)

just read Paul's letters and pay attention to the number of people he mentions and the dynamic that had to have been present for him to mention all these people by name. He knew them. He had ministered to them. He had poured his life into people and they into him. They were a team. And so this sense of you don't need leader care, I never understood.

And it grew up in us in the sense that, well, I asked for coaching and mentoring fairly early on because I realized I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I did find a 45-minute cassette tape by Rick Warren on how to plant a church. And I thought, how bad can this be? And then we got up there and found out how bad it could be. So I said something to my supervisor one day about, could I get some coaching and training? And he meant all the right things for me. I know he loved me. But he actually said, well, if you need coaching and training, we've hired the wrong guy.

So I never asked him for anything hardly again, but I started looking for coaching and training. And we had an associate who wanted to plant a church named Brian, and they wouldn't even take a look at him because he wasn't the personality type they were looking for. They were basically looking for somebody they could just, like Barb said, just drop in. They could parachute somebody into a community and he'd start a church from scratch. And that really wasn't Brian's gifting.

Andrew Estes (11:04)

you

Nexus: Phil & Barb (11:17)

And so they just wouldn't even look at him. at that point I'm like, okay, I didn't get this. And then they're not even looking at him. And then we planted our first church and I didn't provide him with leader care because I didn't know how and I didn't think about it. They didn't either. And there were some mistakes made that were unnecessary. And I remember thinking, why are we not helping him? And so by the time we were getting that far along into it, it was beginning to realize that

Andrew Estes (11:26)

Okay.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (11:40)

There's no reason why these guys should have to figure all these things out. Like for instance, one of our daughter churches, they signed up as a for-profit business when they filled out their legal paperwork.

Andrew Estes (11:41)

you

Nexus: Phil & Barb (11:50)

Now we had offered that we'll take care of this for you. We have lawyers in the church who'll do it. no, I got it. I'll tell you what, it's a whole lot harder to fix that after the fact than it was to have done it right the first time. And that's when it was starting to dawn on me. Okay, there's coaching issues that are just pragmatic. There's mentoring issues that are spiritual.

Andrew Estes (11:54)

you

Nexus: Phil & Barb (12:04)

There's training issues that are just, just have to learn certain things. There's community that you'll learn better from one another and we need accountability. So I started feeling that and that's where the group in California came calling and they asked if I'd be interested in building something like that. And I was like, absolutely. So that's really, it was birthed out of seeing myself struggle, seeing ⁓ daughter churches struggle, seeing other churches struggle. Why are we doing that? Why don't we help one?

And I would say I think the team in Northern California, that original Northern California Evangelistic Association, you know why they changed their name, ⁓ really I think had a bigger vision for it than we did. I think they had a deeper vision for it. They were implementing. They were implementing. For us, think we were at the very beginning just more on the practical side. Like I joke, if you want to plant a church, do it before the internet.

Like, how do you look up? How do you even do a 501c3? You just have to research. And thankfully, I worked for CPA, who is Jewish, but he helped us do our original 501c3. So we realized that so much foundational time and energy was just being spent on doing project management, though there wasn't anything called project management at the time. And I think we realized to just be more effective.

some of the initial things was just on the practical. And then we started looking at the emotional relational. I think for me in the second church, knowing what it was like to go with the launch team, I tell people it is a strange feeling to live in a town of 7 million people and no one. It is a strange feeling. And so how can we break some of those gaps? was a, I can't say that church planning was an easier process.

⁓ for the second church, but in many respects it was because we had processes, but we had people, we had support. We knew we weren't doing it totally alone. So I think some of it was built just by our experiences and seeing, okay, comparing the first to the second and what made that a little bit easier from our perspective. And to give credit to the people who deserve it, the group in California had done some visionizing, visionary before they hired me and then on retreat,

It had dawned on them, we say that we're planting churches, but actually we don't plant churches. Some of them had never planted a church and they were on the team. Those who had planted a church, they had planted a church a long time ago. So we're not here to plant churches. What are we really here to do? We're here to take care of the couples that are planting the church, which is why they hired me. That's what led them down the path of we've got a mentor here who does a great job with mentoring younger leaders, but he's not planted. We need somebody who has planted, who could serve as a coach and then do some training.

And they were the ones that led us into this. we arrived, I was 40 years old and my boss I think was 55 at the time. And the other three guys I worked with were at least 20 to 25 years older than me. And they just invested in us for five years. So that by the time I had an opportunity to start something, they pretty much showed me how to do everything.

Andrew Estes (14:55)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. I'd love to kind of hear, I you mentioned Golf Course Road Church of Christ or GCR a little bit earlier when you moved from the whole story about how you moved out of staff of Stadia to like being a contractor and then moving to Dallas, the relationship with GCR. How did Golf Course Road Church of Christ come into play? Can you just give us a brief backstory on who they are, why that was such a significant partnership?

Nexus: Phil & Barb (15:23)

Yeah.

I found myself in a meeting in Nashville, Tennessee that I didn't want to be at. Stadia was invited to come explain to some Church of Christ leaders how we do what we do. And I didn't want to go because I'd never really had any positive interaction with Church of Christ people, but I'm told to go. I'm there. They're having me explain. Here's our methods of doing things. Guy named Ruble Shelley, John Mark Hicks, John York, want to say, and Len Anderson. Len was the one that I really got to know well. They were in the room and some other leaders.

And at one point, Lynn said, can you work with us and teach us how to do this? And my boss, who's in the meeting with me, said, yeah, Phil's going to do this. And I'm thinking, I am not wanting to do this. I want nothing to do with these people because I just had not had a good experience with Church of Christ people. Every village has an idiot. And unfortunately, I had run into the idiots because I found out there was a lot of wonderful people in the Church of Christ, but I hadn't met them. Does that make sense?

Andrew Estes (16:21)

Hahaha

Nexus: Phil & Barb (16:22)

And so I have to humble

myself and say, I've met a lot of wonderful people since then, but up to that point, I'd only run into the Uncle Eddie that you didn't want to spend much time with. ⁓ so I get assigned to help the Churches of Christ. And so I'm starting the church with, I'm helping start a church out in Odessa, Texas with Golf Course Road Church of Christ. And they're the most gracious people ever. And so I was working with them and we had all this time together for about a year, a year and a half and developed relationships.

And then when I was let go by the ministry in California and started Nexus, I was trying to decide what to do. And one of the key leaders out at Golf Course Road called me up and said, I hear you're looking at deciding what to do. I said, yeah. He goes, come to Texas. I said, what? And he goes, whatever you decide to do, just do it from Texas. I said, in Midland? He goes, no, you don't want to live in Midland. Go to Dallas or someplace like that so you have good flights everywhere you want to go. So we made the move and they started working with me immediately. And they asked me to find a church planter.

Andrew Estes (17:06)

you

Nexus: Phil & Barb (17:15)

and they partnered with us on the very first project. And they were in from the very beginning. And we were just there this weekend. We've been going out there since 2006 and even a little bit before that while I was coaching with the church plant in Lodessa. So they're a key partner. They've helped us on every project. There's not a single thing really we've done that they haven't had their hands on helping me either figure it out or fund it. So they've been key and integral to who we are. But I don't think we can forget that.

partnership with Dallas Christian College because it even predated the golf course road a little bit. So when Phil was looking at where we were going to launch this from, we knew that there was always a gap, a hole somewhat in the central part of the country ⁓ for church planning networks. And so, I mean, I'll be honest, my preference at that point, I was teaching, I was well ingrained in our school in California. The kids were in seventh and ninth grade, so the idea of moving them wasn't

Andrew Estes (17:56)

you

Nexus: Phil & Barb (18:09)

highly attraction to me. So we looked at could we launch something ⁓ out of California and God made that pretty clear pretty early on that that wasn't the best venue. We looked at going closer to the mid rest back to my roots, but God opened up the door with Dallas Christian College and Dusty Rubak who we knew Dusty from a relationship with those mom and dad and. ⁓ Dusty was Dusty's an entrepreneur and he's like, I don't know how we're going to make this work. You don't know how we're make this work, but come to Dallas.

Andrew Estes (18:20)

Hi, you.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (18:38)

We'll do it out of Dallas Christian College. And Dusty and Phil were kindred spirits in that way. We'll figure out the details later. So then in Todd and ⁓ GCR's influence, figured, and Dallas is right smack in the middle of the country. So there's just some logistical ⁓ benefit to that. I started pitching the idea for Nexus to different colleges and seminaries. So I talked to several. Talked to my own alma mater and the president of the school looked at me after I explained what I wanted to do, which is Nexus.

And he basically said, Phil, it takes us a year to make decisions. And I'm thinking, I can't move that slow. And then I met Dusty. And her comment after I met with him was, if we go to any other school and you try to do this, you're going to quit within six months. And we're going to end up moving again, because you just can't put up with that. No. Because she knew what schools are like. she goes, Dusty's one of you guys. She goes, you can work with him. So we did. We worked together for five years until we reached a point where, as you said, the ministry grew.

We had 30 to 35 church plants and my board basically said we need adult supervision. So we hired her and we started building structures. We put a board together. But Dallas Christian College, they hosted us. They basically took care of me for the first five years. So the original logos of Nexus were designed from the graphic designer at the DCC. They did a lot. They did a lot for us in those foundational years.

Andrew Estes (19:49)

Yeah, yeah.

Very cool. Yeah,

yeah, that's awesome. One of the really unique traits about Nexus that I really appreciated that you kind of alluded to already when you were talking about partnering with GCR to plant in Odessa is that we've never planted a Nexus-only church that's always been in partnership with other churches, other networks, other regions that want to see this move happen. And even with the

Nexus: Phil & Barb (20:14)

that works.

Andrew Estes (20:23)

really unique relationship between Church of Christ and Christian Church and really to advance the restoration my father-in-law one of networks in Colorado that helped also assist in that Odessa church plant. And so it was just a really interesting kind of full circle thing for me to come on, you know, into the fold of Nexus around 2015 to kind of learn about some of that type of stuff.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (20:35)

That's right.

Andrew Estes (20:44)

But when you think about that value of never doing it just Nexus only, how did that kind of come about and why is that always sustained moving forward?

Nexus: Phil & Barb (20:54)

That came from the guys in California. Dean Pence, Roger Gibson, Dan Converse, Mark Bigelow, those guys I was working with and working alongside. They were collaborative to the core. They functioned together as a team, but they also built partnerships everywhere. And I compared that dynamic with what I had seen elsewhere in other ministries, and I just was so attracted to that, that why not do this together? We're better together. We can accomplish so much more if we're together.

And so we started from the very beginning. Let's be collaborative, let's be open-handed. Let's understand that Jesus' agenda will always be bigger than my agenda. And your agenda is not near as big as his. So if we're willing to put our agendas aside and do his, we're going to find ourselves working together. And so we just found it's very useful. And the other side is, we didn't want to just plant churches. We want to change the culture. And not just the culture around us in the community. I want to change church culture.

So we're messing around with the church culture and church culture, unfortunately, was not very collaborative, but it needed to be. So we're going to, in a sense, model that and give everyone an opportunity to be at the table. when we originally started, and I think we would still say it today, we are originally trying to recreate another original Northern California evangelistic association. And we do in no way mean that to be a slam at stadium, the amazing thing that they've done since it.

that interconnectedness, what we call the mom and pop, the personal touch, we learned the benefit, we reaped the benefit of it in California and we saw the benefit to church planners ⁓ and how those relational connectedness and ties just make us all better. And so really we're just kind of modeling what was and trying to carry forward what was modeled for us. And part of it was we knew what it was like to go to a

community and started church from scratch and known absolutely nobody and have nobody calling to ask how you're doing. I would get a phone call. My second church month that we did ourselves, I got three phone calls in three years from my boss. That was the accountability and the touch. No, I would call him, but he initiated a call three times. I wrote him in my day timer. And again, he's a good man. He was there anytime I needed help. was available.

Andrew Estes (22:46)

Yeah

Nexus: Phil & Barb (23:03)

But he didn't proactively come to me and say, young man, you need some help. And I could have used a little bit of that. And I will say we saw the other side of that when we were in California. so Phil tells the story. Do you want to tell about being with Roger and the mentoring? Roger's the mentor and we're driving down Interstate 5 and we get a phone call from one of our church punters. And he's like, I'm on my way to a house of a lady in the church and her son just committed suicide in his bedroom. And this is a young guy who this is his first ministry.

Andrew Estes (23:07)

No.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (23:31)

Roger pulled over to the side of the road and I'm listening in and Roger just walked in through, I want you to go to the house, write this down, I want you to do these three things and then call me. And Roger walked him through over the next several months how to take care of that. I'm like, where were you when I needed you? So once you see that kind of stuff happening, it's like, oh, that's what we want. it's a different value for Nexus.

just functionally because of where we are and how God has opened up opportunities for us to plant in across the country. But a core component to church planting originally was Vacaville where we lived was the center. And they only planted churches within a three and a half hour drive because at that point, of you have to understand it's before Zoom and some other ways to connect. there a key foundation for them was they wanted to be able to go if anything happened in a plant.

they could get there and they could get back in a day. Now, Zoom and other technologies have opened up avenues to be able to connect that we didn't have back in the Stone Ages.

Andrew Estes (24:28)

For sure. Yeah,

As you, I mean, as we kind of talk about this and explore and unpack Nexus even just a little bit more, give us just a high level overview of what does Nexus actually do? Like, I mean, we talk about caring for leaders, but some of just the nitty gritty nuts and bolts of, you know, the assessments and things of that nature, like what does Nexus do for church planters?

Nexus: Phil & Barb (24:51)

well, there's three things we do. Our three core deliverables, we start churches and I'll come back to that. We then take care of the church planting couples and I'll come back to that. And then we also do something that a lot of regions don't do and that is we're either trying to help start or come alongside and assist the regional networks. Because we believe we need the regional networks because they understand their regions, they understand the cultural varieties are surrounding us. So in terms of starting churches, we were...

recruit and pray for and network and look for church planners and we find them and we do pre-assessment with them of conversations that can last for years try to help leaders find an opportunity to plant a church and help them match up with the right opportunity to plant a church. So we're doing pre-assessment. We take them through assessment itself, which is a two and a half day extensive interview process and some time with a Christian counselor.

And it can be life changing. Nobody really comes into it wanting to be there, but we've had so many couples come in and come out of it saying, that's the best thing that's ever happened to us because it really brings clarity. So we assess, we do training. training begins online and then the training happens on site. Then the training is just ongoing and it's just continual and perpetual. And so there's ongoing training opportunities. We show up and have huddles in the region for the church ponders that are local.

Andrew Estes (25:51)

you

Nexus: Phil & Barb (26:02)

We're doing Zoom calls with the guys. We're coaching. We're mentoring. The coaching is going after the tactical and the strategic issues. The mentoring is going after the spiritual and the personal and the familial, the family issues. So we provide a hand along the way. We put a system together for accountability so that you've got, in a sense, a network working with you to provide you with oversight. Shepherds, we're not going to call them elders because we're not there to eld or to shepherd on a local basis, but we're going to provide oversight to this church until those shepherds emerge who are there.

and that the church planter helps train. And we also want to help train those shepherds because you can do a great job of planting a church if you pick bad shepherds. It's over and you can't fix it. So ⁓ we do all of those things all the way along the board, providing community opportunities. as one of our church planters said it a couple of years ago, Nexus makes it hard for us to do this alone. And of course, I'm thinking, why would you want to? But yeah, we're going to make it hard. It will be hard to do this on your own

Andrew Estes (26:58)

that's good. And I love the being able to partner and serve, you know, many other church networks, like because Nexus started as a Texas kind of central thing, even though you had, you know, just the DCC connection, obviously moving to Dallas so that you're centrally located throughout the country. But it was started as a Nexus focus. How can you walk us through how it went from just Nexus to that broader national influence?

Nexus: Phil & Barb (27:25)

Well, it started with a view toward the broader national. I wanted to provide insight and some counseling and some consulting and some assistance to other networks as they saw the need to do mentoring and coaching and training for their church planners. And a lot of them had not been doing that. My supervisor in Chicago who said you don't need coaching or mentoring, he wasn't alone. I've had other leaders of national networks or regional networks just look me in the eye and say, we would never pay somebody to do what you're doing. Our guys don't need it.

I'm like, I know your guys. You need to go talk to your guys. So we always had a vision and a dream of doing something beyond that. That's one reason I wanted to be in a college. I wanted to be at a school. I felt like the two primary ways to influence a region would be to get to young leaders coming out of Bible college and to get to the new churches that are in a region. Because a new church does have an inordinate amount of influence on all the other churches around it. As they're trying new ideas, the other churches are usually uncomfortable with those ideas until they see that guy doing it.

Andrew Estes (27:53)

Mm.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (28:21)

and suddenly they're interested. So there's a lot of influence that gets to be welded through doing this. And so it was always our vision to not just do Texas. In fact, in some ways, I was starting Nexus as a regional network, primarily because I wanted to give counsel and advice, and I knew I would not get a hearing unless I had my own. So I needed to show that I knew how to do this. And so I jumped into it, and we started the ministry with a view toward doing it elsewhere. Now, my original partners, they didn't want to necessarily start something beyond Texas.

The Texans basically said, we want you to focus on Texas. It's a big state. It is a big state. It's a big state. And they wanted me to focus full time on Texas. And I finally convinced them to let me work in the contiguous states. So, you know, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. And so they said, OK, but really they were uncomfortable. And after I'd done that about nine months, I grew up in Missouri and Kansas. I said, I got to mess with Missouri and Kansas, too, because that's home. And they said, that's good. Stop. Stop there.

Andrew Estes (28:54)

Yeah. ⁓

Nexus: Phil & Barb (29:19)

And then about four months after that, I found one of the original maps of Texas. I don't know if you've ever seen an original map of Texas, but the original map of Texas goes all the way to Canada. So I went to a meeting with my Texans out in Midland, Odessa, and I sat down and said, here's the map of Texas that I'm interested in using. Of course, they're Texans. They're looking at it, and they got this big grin on their face. like, we're taking it back. And they turned me loose. It took them a while. At this point, they'll let me play anywhere.

for a while, they just wanted to know we could scale and we could take care of the church planners. That was really their primary concern. But if I'm trying to do it on my own, no, it couldn't. If we're trying to do it on our own, no, we couldn't. But if we're planting a church in Nebraska with Nebraska partners there to help take care of the guy and we're training them how to take care of the guy, we can do it. And I would say there was strategy there and then a lot of it was just what opportunities did God bring? Yeah, we.

It wasn't that we weren't necessarily looking for those partnerships. We just kind of kept doing the next thing that God put in front. it's like, okay. I read some book on entrepreneurial behavior. I can't remember the title of the book now, but I just remember the image or the metaphor that stuck with me was, I'm like a butterfly on the field of life and I'm having this flower right now and I'm going look over there. There's another flower and then there's another flower. I'm just hopping from flower to flower. And people ask, what's the strategy? We don't have a strategy like that. We're just kind of following the next...

the next flower we find. At one point, we paid like nearly $7,500 for some demographic studies of a particular type of community we were doing well than other states. So we were doing them over here, and we were doing well in certain communities. Tell us where those communities are in other states. Paid $7,500 for it. Never looked at it. Never found it useful. We're just going to go where the butterfly would go. So we've been flitting around.

Andrew Estes (30:59)

Yeah, Yeah,

it's been really interesting, I think, from my perspective, the last six, seven, eight years, like since I've been on staff with Nexus to get in to know some of these other regional partners. And that was just kind of a whole world that kind of opened up for me when I was recognizing, ⁓ there's Waypoint Church planting going on in the Virginias and the Carolinas. There's Florida Church Partners. Arkansas has a network. Iowa, the Northern Plains, like in the Northeast, like there's all of these different little networks.

some of them larger than us, some of them smaller than us that we've been able to like come alongside with and you know offer either assessment for their planters or training for their planters or some of that relational connection or the even the financial partnership to be able to help launch even in partnership with some of their churches. It was just a really unique and different way of thinking about it. Obviously part of that is because

The restoration movement is fiercely independent and everybody has to have their own unique thing to some extent. But that was a really interesting thing that I've seen you cultivate those relationships over the years that has been pretty profound.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (31:55)

Okay.

Well, there is the autonomy. I mean, that is part of our nature. We're just all Americans. And plus, I'm in Texas now. I have to deal with the Texas culture and mystique. And so Oklahoma doesn't want Texas telling them what to do, especially during football season. So they need their own region. And so we're not just planting churches and partnering with other networks. We're starting some networks because there are leaders out there that God has given the ability to land in a community or a region.

and in a sense to start a church that can impact that town, that city, maybe that county. But if they've got the capacity to do that, they also maybe have the capacity under God's calling to actually influence the region or the state. And so we're starting networks as well as churches.

Andrew Estes (32:48)

Yeah,

Well, one of the areas that I know that we are continually growing in as a network is the intentional care for spouses and recognizing this is not just a lead planter kind of a opportunity or job or task that's taking place. ⁓

whole family going after this. And Barbara, I'd love to just kind of get from your perspective. What do wives and families experience in the church planting process that often goes even unseen?

Nexus: Phil & Barb (33:19)

It is a team sport. Church playing is a team sport. And so recognizing early on, mean, the person I was and the player to life I was at 23 was certainly not the one I was nine years later at 34 or even when we moved to California or to Texas in my mid

And so looking at, I would joke, when we talk about a secret sauce, leader care kind of being our secret sauce and what we learned from that in California, when you look at the guys, especially then, I think there's a little bit more diversity now in the personality types. But then there was a very specific personality type that most organizations were looking for in the lead pastor, planter. so- She means to say that they were wonderful guys. Yes. But they're all kind of cut from the same cloth. And so-

Andrew Estes (34:06)

you

Nexus: Phil & Barb (34:09)

we could put together programs and trainings that would help them, especially in the coaching. Now, the mentoring wasn't a stronger component earlier on. And so we really met a lot of the functional needs and helped make the process of planting a little bit easier. that doesn't shield you from the relational disconnects and those are going to come. One of the things we were told early, early on, and it's been almost 40 years.

that the group of people that God brings to launch the church are not the ones that become the core foundational five years later. Most church planners and church planning families, couples find that very painful and it is. And we saw that in our first, we thought it would be very different in our second because we, those people we knew, we had done life together for nine years. Those 35 people, they didn't have to move geographically.

But even in that church plant, we found that to be true. And so do you process some of that? mean, because people are people and losing relationships and people moving on for whatever reason can be difficult. So really try to find what can we do to just develop community safe places? You the question is always asked who pastors the pastors. ⁓ And a lot of times.

Andrew Estes (35:22)

Thank

you.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (35:25)

that's not done very well. And I think as we look at culture and we look at

some people who have been in ministry and have had very ⁓ profound impacts on the Christian community, there hasn't been somebody pastoring them. And so my heart has always been for the wife and for the kids.

And so early on in about 2013, some money was given to Nexus. Some of it was given to Phil and he had jurisdiction over where that went and some of it was given to me. And I had some insight into where that was given and some say into how we use them. That's where our first couples are. ⁓ Our couples family reunion came from and that involved the entire family. I love that experience because of COVID and not being able to do that. We went to a couples retreat.

Andrew Estes (35:54)

you

Nexus: Phil & Barb (36:08)

I'm a lot of our couples really like that venue as well. We're always looking at what is the best fit. It's kind of like a church. can't develop one program and stay with it because your people change their needs change. But foundationally people need they need a safe place. They need a safe place. So they.

last couple years through the work of ⁓ Hannah Lightfoot and Kathy Burns and others we've developed untangled speaks specifically to church planning wives and building some spiritual formation practices into that. So it's constantly growing and changing, but just figuring out what do we wish we'd had almost four years ago. I mean, just a phone call.

Andrew Estes (36:51)

Yeah.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (36:52)

When you live with seven million people and you don't know anybody sometimes a phone call, especially in those early or or I remember getting in the car at Northwest. We were maybe nine, 10 months in. And she looked at me as we got in the car after church and she said, are we the only couple we know that's not on the verge of divorce? And it was just because we draw wounded people. didn't attract church people. We just had a church full of unchurched people. I mean, you know, it was just that they were checking us out.

And just so having some stability around yourself, you so they call it untangled. I call it unhinged, you know, that they need to be untangled because at some point life becomes a little unhinged. And so this this ministry to the spouse. And I think sometimes the best way to take care of the church planter is to take care of the spouse. The best way to take care of the spouse is to take care of the church planter because it's a team sport. So when you lose one, you've lost the plant. So.

Andrew Estes (37:40)

Yeah. Yeah.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (37:44)

I mean, there's no way you have to be honest. There's no way you can't be church-bound and not become discouraged ⁓ at certain points of it. ⁓ It's when both are equally discouraged at the same time.

Andrew Estes (37:58)

Yeah,

yeah. you guys have, gosh, and I'm even thinking of, you know, more recent, some of these moral failings, some of these like, just guys that are falling from all ministries all over the place, and just the ones that we hear about, even though there's, you know, countless other ones. As you guys have, you know, just connected together in ministry, on mission, like as you look into the future of Nexus and how we care for leaders, like as you consider ministry as a couple,

Nexus: Phil & Barb (38:09)

Yeah.

Andrew Estes (38:25)

What are some things that you've personally kind of prioritized that have helped you lead well and kind of start to finish well as you're, you know, moving into the next 20 years or whatever of nexus What does that look like for you guys?

Nexus: Phil & Barb (38:37)

say as difficult as our first church plant was, it was so foundational in our relationship as a couple. I was a rooted person with all of my family being in one location, so I was used to being around aunts, uncles, cousins, all of that. ⁓ Moving to that area and it being just the two of us early on, we had to figure it out ⁓ and we really were

each other's support system. ⁓ And so I think that was really good for us in a painful way, in a way that you can only look back, you know, when you tell your kids you're going to so appreciate that we make you do this and they're like, yeah, we hate this. But the you know, only the passage of time and when you can see what it builds and you're like, ⁓ we are really, ⁓ really thankful for that. And I don't I personally don't think either one of us cannot include the role of our parents, even though our parents are.

Andrew Estes (39:18)

the

Nexus: Phil & Barb (39:35)

were very different relationally, ⁓ even in where they were in their spiritual journeys, the foundation that they gave us. That marriage isn't always easy, but it's what you do. We were on a plane. I joked, somebody asked how we've been married and for so long, and I just said, well, neither one of us died, ⁓ you know, because there is, I mean, it is till death do us part, but I was on a plane about five years ago and still got upgraded. didn't.

So I'm sitting in my seat. He's up in first class and the couple was cute. were talking. They found out how long we were married and we got to talk. I know I said, you know what? It's fine. And that's what the couple said. Hey, why didn't I said, you know, I said he he's the travel warrior. He flies all the time. Look at me. I'm stuffed for legs. He's fine. I'm all good with it. And then we got to talking and I said and they said, well, what makes it work? And I said.

Andrew Estes (40:06)

He didn't give you the first class seat. You had to sit in the back.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (40:24)

You know, marriage, think, is he makes me happy. That's part of it. But he fundamentally makes me a better person. And I think when you look at who God has paired you with, are as anybody who knows as well knows that we are as different as you can be. I mean, we are absolute opposites on a Myers-Briggs or just profile on everything. ⁓ But he makes me a better person. And the fact that I can sit here today and do this interview is a testament to that, because the 23 year old Barb would not.

have been able to sit ⁓ and do that. I always wanted to be, I know that's shocking to people, but I always just wanted to be in the background doing my stuff with kids. But I realized that some of what God calls you to do is stepping out where you're not comfortable. And that's been a good thing. So I think just living what we were taught, that this is a covenant.

Andrew Estes (40:55)

Yeah.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (41:20)

and we honor the covenant.

Andrew Estes (41:22)

Well, I'm actually going to edit Phil out of all of this conversation. So it's just me and you, Barb. So we're just going to elevate that uncomfortable.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (41:26)

I really don't blame you. I really don't blame you. So what do you think, Bill? I mean, you're married

to me, so how far can it be? I think one of the things that we've done and then it's taken many forms and it's going to take many forms in different people's lives, but we've been very intentional. We're very intentional about just about everything. So we hit the ground in January of 1988 and we're going to launch March 13th. So January 1.

She's working with a tax company, accountant doing taxes. She's going to be basically overtime working through April 15th. And the accountant is sleeping overnight in his office to keep up with his business. And so she's showing up and she's basically, it's all on. It's 9 to 9, Monday through Friday and 9 to 5. And we're launching into this total marketing campaign that's calling $23,500.

and then we're doing follow-up dial-ups and meeting with as many people as I can and getting ready to have church. And what I remember is we basically saw each other for maybe 35 minutes a day. We were just passing and we would see each other. And so on April 15th, I think it was tax day, two days later we had breakfast. We put it on our calendar, we're going to sit down and have breakfast, and we looked at each other because we knew what the question was going to be, is this working? And we both looked at each other and said, we can't keep this up. And so we made changes.

Andrew Estes (42:19)

Wow.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (42:47)

And we've always been that way. We just adapt. But we're very intentional about how we do it. And we're very intentional about spiritual disciplines. And yeah, we're very opposite, so we rely on each other. I've learned early, I just don't trust my own instincts. When you're married to somebody that's got good instincts, you pay attention to them. yeah, and she's a different leader, but so am I. I think I'm a much, as one of my elders put it after 13 years in Chicago,

Andrew Estes (43:04)

Hmm.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (43:14)

He knew me the whole time. said, Phil, you're a much kinder, gentler man. Of course, I'm thinking, what was I doing? But evidently, I mean, yeah, I am a different person than I used to be. And I think we just let the Lord grow us. And I think I joke I married Phil, I knew we going to plan a church. I had no idea what that looked like. I really didn't. I was really along for the ride in the early years.

Andrew Estes (43:24)

For sure, for sure. Yeah.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (43:39)

At our core church, it's not really church planning. We changed Nexus to say we make disciple making communities because in our estimation, church planning is still the best vehicle to bringing those who are disconnected and bringing them into the family of God. ⁓ If lost people matter to God, they should matter to us. And church planning in our estimation is still the best venue for bringing people into that initial relationship with Jesus.

and moving them along into a lifelong commitment with him. And I think the fact that I did not want to go to California. I had just started teaching. My role in my journey into finally becoming a classroom teacher was one I didn't think would ever happen. And when it did, I loved it. And then it just felt like God was ripping that away. And your dream house, we had just moved into a house I absolutely loved. ⁓ But all of those things.

Andrew Estes (44:22)

You

Nexus: Phil & Barb (44:36)

when you look at them, somebody asked me once and I said, well, I really didn't want to be like Jonah knowing what I was supposed to do. I really didn't want to be in the belly of a big fish and get vomited up. I thought that sounded worse than going to California. then realizing little by little how God is so faithful. If you just take the next step that he puts in front of you, he's faithful. It doesn't mean that the step is going to be easy and it doesn't mean that the step isn't going to be messy.

I think we have both had that perspective to know that we're taking that next step together. so whatever the mess is, and I think we're both a little bit like, okay, if it doesn't work, then we figure something out. We would always, we have always sat down on the verge of any major decision and ask, what's the worst possible thing that could happen? We are pretty close to having that happen. We were close a couple of times, but the worst possible scenario I could think of when I was young.

was I'm going to have to ask some sorry old lame ass church. you're going to have to that. I'm going to have to ask some You have to edit that, Andrew. I'm going to have... The worst possible scenario I could think of when I was younger was I'm going to have to ask an old established church for a job. And they're going say, what happened in Chicago? And I'm going to have to say, I guess I trusted Jesus too much. I figured that's the worst possible scenario. And it's never come to that. And so we've never had the worst possible scenario come up.

Andrew Estes (45:42)

Mm.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (45:59)

We have it in, you sometimes

Andrew Estes (46:00)

Yeah.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (46:00)

you're explaining why as well ask me as they're getting ready to watch because everybody has this fear. What if nobody comes? Said well, it's a possibility, but can tell you pretty darn close. We've got pretty darn close. I can't I said, I don't know. But unless Jesus comes up, I can tell you the sun's still going to rise the next day. And I can also tell you this. We determined early on because our first church plant was was pretty difficult.

Andrew Estes (46:11)

Thank

Yeah.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (46:25)

But if it was only that handful of people in the early years that found Jesus, you have to determine that that's not enough. Because our economy and our measurement is not God's measurement. You have to be okay if it's one because to the one it's everything, it's eternity. And so you have to you kind of have to set that mindset. And we always pray it's one multiplied by a number so big we can't calculate it. But at the end of the day, that's

That's how God does what he does and we just kind of have to be the vessel and and be okay.

Andrew Estes (46:57)

say even along those lines as you guys kind of consider ministry success or church planting success specifically, how? Because I know that we've launched churches over the years that no longer exist and there's ebbs and flows, there's different seasons, there's different purposes that some people go into it with, may not be right or just their passion shift or change or maybe it just feels too hard or overwhelmed.

In light of all of that and then the people that have just stayed and stuck it out, how has your definition of success in church planting changed over the last 20 years?

Nexus: Phil & Barb (47:34)

It's migrated down for me from crowd to have our lost people finding Christ. Truly, are they being reshaped? ⁓ the old self being taken off and the new self being caught and put on? Are they embracing that? And are they a different person like that elder that looked at me and said, Phil, you're a much kinder, gentler man than you used to be. Are they a person who's different than they used to be? Are leaders being ⁓ raised up and equipped? And are we seeing people being turned loose and are they

Are they finding their spiritual disciplines and their spiritual fruit? Are they discovering who they are in Christ? I think that's the key. ⁓ Large never really was that important to me. But part of that too is I think I was just geared and bent as a leader to lead a different kind of organization. In the training we use, the sociological terms from a Dr. Ralph Winter, he talks about modality groups and sodality groups. And modality groups are generally about keeping people happy and sodality groups are about getting something done.

I always wanted to lead a small, sodalic entity that was on fire and ready to take a hill. And I really didn't care for this. And so Barbara got upset with me. She's like, you're nice to people until they meet Jesus. And once they meet Jesus, you become mean. And I'm like, well, they're not being helpful. And if they're not going to be helpful, they can leave and go find another church that's happy for them. I don't really want them here because I don't want these people to be infected by that attitude. So I really, I really was innocent. It's not necessarily nice to Christian people who just wanted to show up and do church on the weekend.

Andrew Estes (48:43)

.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (49:03)

I wanted to lead something that was really full of energy. And so we actually measured our success not so much by our Sunday attendance, although I always knew what my Sunday attendance was. I was more interested in who's in groups and who's in ministry. And I knew we were flying well when we hit about 75 % generally of people who might show up once a month. They were doing both. So we didn't have a huge church, but we had a very powerful, active, committed church. That was our definition. And then the Bonhoeffer Project got a hold of me.

and changed my definition of discipleship and gospel. And, oh, that was hobbling, but it was good for me. And it gave me a new way to measure this. one of the things I tell the kids at school, and I see this becoming more more prevalent younger students. teach first grade, but you can't fear the mistake. You can't fear failure because you're going to learn something from it either way. And I think in church planning,

and stepping out and so maybe we're gonna try some new projects, we're gonna try some new methods. I think there's a lot of correlation between church plants and just like raising kids and just a human lifespan. Most organizations do have a lifespan. They're becoming shorter and shorter in the United States, ⁓ which is an interesting ⁓ side note and somebody can study that deeper than I have, but.

The other thing I say is not every life is a long life, but every life is a valuable life. And so I would say to those church plants that maybe had a shorter life, they lasted for five or 10 years, I still think there was good kingdom work done in them. Maybe even if it wasn't outside the sphere of the influence of the planter and their family, sometimes it has helped prepare them for what God has for them in their next assignment. question a little bit ago.

as to what are some things we did that helped us develop. And I would say another one was we have both been very open and willing to be open to coaching and mentoring. five years in California were huge for me. I was mentored before that. I had one of my seminary professors called me once a month for 25 years and just mentoring me. He never really asked about the attendance or tactics or strategy. He just wanted to know about me and wanted to know about Barb and the kids.

So I was very open to mentoring and coaching. And I think Barb also has been very, very open to that. And I just, think that's been a huge part that, man, what a blessing to have people who are in your life. I had a mentoring call with one of my mentors this morning before this call. And he's, and it got to the end of the call. says, I want you to know I love you. And I know that, you know, I went to him several years ago because my dad, my dad had passed and my other mentors had all passed away. And I remember calling him up and saying, all my mentors are dead and I had nothing to do with that.

But all my mentors are dead. Would you be willing to talk once a month? said, absolutely. And so it's just become a cherished relationship. And I know Barbara's people that she does that with, and she's had that done with her too. I think that's a key part of our growth.

Andrew Estes (51:55)

Yeah, yeah, that's good. I'm super grateful for your time as we kind of try and wrap some of this conversation. I'd love to just kind of get your take on

on what's next. That's always been a huge value of Nexus, of Think Next, and it's great to be able to pause and reflect on the last 20 years of incredible ministry for Nexus. And I know that things like Succession for you guys are in that conversation. Our team has shifted and changed over the years, over last 20 years, and gone through different iterations. Our training and methods are constantly evolving.

But as you guys just kind of sit here and just dream about finishing well and just leading into this next season of Nexus Ministry, do you feel like that you hope to always remain true about Nexus? And what do you hope to see kind of coming in the future?

Nexus: Phil & Barb (52:48)

I there's always a white-hot passion for our faith, that we stay true to the Bible. We don't negotiate on things that are just very clear. We don't need to fight over stupid little stuff, but we just need to be who we are, and unapologetically who we are. This is our Bible. This is who we are. I would hope that that, in a sense, simplicity wouldn't elude us down the road, because as we get sophisticated, we think we have to start nuancing things. No, this is who we are. This is what the Bible says.

⁓ That'd be one of mine. I hope we're always the intersection or the nexus where the church planners find leader care. And I hope we're able to do it in a sense on a national scale. We don't want to be in charge of the nation because Oklahoma, again, is not going to take advice from Texas. Kansas is not going to take advice from Oklahoma. mean, it's just the dominoes are just going to fall out that way. So every region needs to have its own autonomy and opportunity to do what it wants to do. But I'd like us to continue to be a place where they can come to get leader care brought to them.

Andrew Estes (53:39)

Thank

Nexus: Phil & Barb (53:45)

And then the final piece, and I won't be here at some point, so we'll see what the next leaders, what they envision, but my passion and my vision would be that the Antioch Church becomes who we are. That we become a church that's willing to break the rules to get churches started. That's Acts chapter 11. Some unnamed men, maybe they were unnamed because they didn't want to take the credit for it they didn't want to take the blame for it, but they started gospeling Gentiles. You don't do that, well why not?

So I'd like to continue to be an organization or an entity, a network where misbehavior, appropriate kinds of misbehavior are highly tolerated, in fact valued and praised. And ⁓ I'd also like to think that we'd be the type of church that could welcome all kinds of people. And I like to think we're a type of church planning agency where our churches are not just getting people together and doing Sunday ⁓ morning or Sunday afternoon or whatever programs and events. I'd like to think that we're actually transforming lives and we're seeing leaders develop.

And so we're actually solving our own problem of where do we find the next wave of church planners. We raise them up from within. so I see us leaning continually into bibo covo. Well, we'll continue to hire as many vocationally trained pastors as possible who can do this job. But at some point, we may run out of those. We will be ahead of the curve. We'll be raising up leaders.

I think it's kind of encapsulated in that leaders are the legacy. So if that stays the core of what Nexus is, bringing all those things together, think if we, the others are just strategies, I think there are ways to make those things happen. mean, our training has evolved a lot over the last 10 years, and I'm sure in 10 years, it's going to look a lot different. There's going to be programs and resources out there that we can't even imagine today. But I think if we keep

the core of those components stable, then the others are just means to an end. Leaders who understand leaders are the legacy. Leaders who understand you got to fail faster, recover faster. And salvation hangs in the balance. Salvation hangs in the balance. Yep. That's what I hope we're at. That's who I hope we continue to be.

Andrew Estes (55:52)

That's good. Well, I have been so grateful for just not only this conversation, but for just the last 10 years since I first got connected with Nexus back in 2015.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (56:00)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Andrew Estes (56:02)

Being

able to learn from you guys, to grow with you guys, and to also have been working with you guys for the last seven years and have been personally affected deeply by the care, the risks that you take, to be able to offer opportunities for myself and for so many other leaders and just have ⁓ just an eternal gratitude for who you guys are, for the ministry that you have that's just drastically shaped my own life.

our own church planting adventure and journey, and I'm sure for countless others that you guys will hear eternity of just the lives that have been affected through your ministry and just grateful for everything that you guys have done. As you guys wrap and think of whether it's church planters or anybody connected to our ministry,

Nexus: Phil & Barb (56:43)

Thank you.

Andrew Estes (56:51)

What final words of encouragement would you both have for them as a couple, for them as a church planter, going through hard times, just celebrating successes, anything that you would just kind of offer as a blessing to anybody listening to this?

Nexus: Phil & Barb (57:05)

would say ⁓ embrace the story that God's writing. You know, I tell people ⁓ there are chapters in our story that I would not have written, but there are no chapters in our story that I would take out. embrace the stories writing because it's a story only he can write in a beautiful way that only he can do it. ⁓ And sometimes it's going to take a little while. I mean, when we move.

from, we were not planning to leave But had we not, I don't know that we would have started Nexus. So embrace your story. Greg Garcia, one of our staff members, he talks about the day that he was just very frustrated and things were just not going well. He looked up on the wall and saw his ordination certificate and he realized it just said ordained into the ministry of Christ.

It didn't say ordain into this particular ministry or this particular success. I'm here to serve Christ. And I think that's a key attitude we've got to keep. I was listening to a teacher yesterday who basically talked about, say, yes, Lord, yes. Yes, yes, Lord. Yes, Lord, yes. So we've said yes to the Lord. the next question is, OK, now what is it we said yes to? And I think we have to have a willingness to say, we've said yes to whatever. And if he wants us to do the craziest thing you can imagine, go try it.

You never know, it might work. I think Dallas Willard, one of my professors said that the man who's unwilling to saw off the limb on which he's sitting is never going to discover that God has unaccountable ways that he keeps limbs from falling. And I think you have to be willing to just take risks. so Barb's always been willing to let me take risks. Thank God.

Andrew Estes (58:43)

Mm.

And keep you in line in the process.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (58:50)

⁓ As much as I can.

As much as I can.

Andrew Estes (58:53)

Well, guys, I'm so grateful for just our time together. Thank you so much for joining us for the first time on the Nexus Church Planting Podcast.

Nexus: Phil & Barb (59:00)

Yeah. Yeah. Woo. There you go.

Never ever did I dream there would be something like this 20 years ago. No, no, it's cool. All right. Thank you.

Andrew Estes (59:08)

Thanks guys.