We would love to hear from you! Send us a text message.
This episode takes you through Sam Bolen’s inspiring journey in his role as the Executive Director of the Jackson Leadership Foundation (JLF). Our enriching conversation delves into the critical work of JLF, which stands not just as an organization but as a beacon, empowering leaders and ministries to uplift and change the fabric of communities in Jackson through dedicated support systems, leadership training, and volunteer mobilization.
Have you ever considered how serving your community can break down barriers and create connections? Our dialogue with Sam reveals just that, painting a picture of how JLF is leading the charge in creating friendships that reflect our collective love for Jesus.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Nissan, St. Dominic's Hospital, Atmos Energy, Regions Foundation, Brown Missionary Baptist Church, Christian Life Church, Ms. Doris Powell, Mr. Robert Ward, and Ms. Ann Winters
We would love to hear from you! Send us a text message.
This episode takes you through Sam Bolen’s inspiring journey in his role as the Executive Director of the Jackson Leadership Foundation (JLF). Our enriching conversation delves into the critical work of JLF, which stands not just as an organization but as a beacon, empowering leaders and ministries to uplift and change the fabric of communities in Jackson through dedicated support systems, leadership training, and volunteer mobilization.
Have you ever considered how serving your community can break down barriers and create connections? Our dialogue with Sam reveals just that, painting a picture of how JLF is leading the charge in creating friendships that reflect our collective love for Jesus.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Nissan, St. Dominic's Hospital, Atmos Energy, Regions Foundation, Brown Missionary Baptist Church, Christian Life Church, Ms. Doris Powell, Mr. Robert Ward, and Ms. Ann Winters
This is Living Reconciled, a podcast dedicated to giving our communities practical evidence of the gospel message by helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured for us by living with grace across racial lines. Hey, thanks so much for joining us on this episode of Living Reconciled, episode 46. I am your host, brian Crawford, and my good friends and co-hosts are not available. They're out of pocket Netty Winters, austin Hoyle I think Austin will be joining us in a second but the good news is that, even though I don't have my good friends and host with me, I have an incredible guest with me, and that is Mr Samuel Boland, executive Director for Jackson Leadership Foundation.
Speaker 1:I had a chance to talk to Sam in just a minute, but want to give a quick shout out to our sponsors Nissan, st Dominic's Hospital, atmos Energy Regions Foundation, brown Missionary Baptist Church, christian Life Foundation, ms Doris Powell, mr Robert Ward and Ms Ann Winters. Thanks so much for everything that you do for Mission Mississippi. It's because of what you do we're able to do what we do, and today what we're doing is having a conversation with none other than Executive Director of Jackson Leadership Foundation, sam Boland. Samuel Boland, how are you doing today, sir?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Excellent, glad to have you, man, and I want to start by just asking you a quick question about your own journey of faith, your story in terms of how you came to Jesus. Why don't you tell us a little bit about it?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah. I grew up just outside of Jackson in Madison, raised in Southern Baptist Church, always considered myself a believer, more or less, and went to college. I'll skip to just the college part for a minute, because that was really when I because I began to be pricked, so to speak, by the Lord in terms of a ministry calling. I always, to some degree or another, was understanding of my faith in Christ and followed Christ. But in college I attended University of Mississippi with the intent of going to med school and wanting to become a psychiatrist. I got involved in ministry through Psychiatrist yes, really.
Speaker 2:I love people. I'm sitting across from people that we're doing today, just hearing what makes people tick, and I'm just fascinated by it. So I did not end up obviously doing that because I got involved in ministry in Oxford while I was in college through young life and fell in love with ministry, fell in love with serving the community, fell in love with getting to know people from a ministerial perspective. I knew very specifically and really that I was called to do this full time and just committed myself to ministry and so very much my faith journey was enlivened to a greater degree at that point and so that's a good starting point for me when it comes to just my own faith in Christ and really the springboard from which I'm here today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's interesting because your journey is a move from kind of ministry pop proper, I guess, in the sense of more pastoral preaching, teaching and kind of church base, and then you shift from ministry quote unquote ministry proper, where people think about typically when they think about ministry, into more of the other vein of ministry through an organization like JLF. And so talk to me about how you made that shift from kind of like church defined ministry into more of the urban urban ministry space and more of the neighborhood space of ministry.
Speaker 2:Sure Well, I like to think I never really got out of it. I remember graduating college and my first ministry job was while I was in seminary and I was a youth pastor of a small church. At the same time I helped open a community center out of that church building. It was actually we were located in the seminary building at Wesley Biblical Seminary, northside Drive, and I remember when people started referencing me as a pastor and I was like, hold up now, like I'm not a pastor, you know that's not really my plan here. And so, ironically or unexpectedly, I was a youth pastor for three years and then spent five years after that at a suburban larger Southern Baptist church as a pastor.
Speaker 2:But in very many ways I'm a little bit more practical and community facing.
Speaker 2:I do believe there's a call of pastors or shepherd souls that the Lord's given them within their congregation and membership, but I've always been a guy that is a little bit more evangelistic in my approach and helping lead the church to go OK, let's get outside the four walls.
Speaker 2:And anytime that I'm in a ministry position it's really because I think that this gives me an opportunity to do that. And so Jackson Leadership Foundation is definitely outside of the four walls. We are not located in the church building, we are not committed to one church, but I do think we are an arm in the church in that we support ministry leaders in the city and we also help mobilize and inform churches in our metro as to how to get engaged, to partner with ministries who are serving the vulnerable, serving low income communities, serving those who are in material poverty and spiritual poverty and things of that nature. And so we like to think of ourselves an arm in the church, but also a creative way for churches to to get a shot in the arms of the speed to get out of their community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talk to me a little bit about as you think about JLF. Talk to me a little bit about just how, for someone on the outside who doesn't know anything about this organization, what would you tell them is basically the nuts and the bolts of Jackson Leadership Foundation?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah. And I would say our paraphrase is we're a ministry to ministries. We support ministry leaders in various ways. What we want to see is our communities transformed, particularly our under resources, under resource communities. So we believe that we aren't necessarily the ones that need to go in and do it ourselves. Instead, we take a city reaching approach by identifying leaders who are doing good work, who are meeting the needs of our low income communities, and then we come around them, primarily through leadership training, volunteer networking, and then we also provide some shared staffing and back office support so we can provide a boost to those leaders who may be a one or two man show but need some additional support.
Speaker 2:So we have what we call a ministry accelerator, where leaders operate under our 501C3. And we provide executive leadership, governance, legal compliance, all everything you can think of. That's back office, payroll benefits, administration, insurance and the works. So that's really what we do as an organization, and I'll drag this out, answer out a little bit longer by saying the reason that we're so concerned with what we call low income or under resource communities is because we do feel this compelling drive that we get from biblical teaching and the movement of the Holy Spirit within us to be about God's heart and that is the care for those who find themselves in positions of vulnerability. So that's generally referred to, based on what biblical teaching tells us is widow, the orphan, the foreigner and the poor, so the materially poor. So that's what we want to do is really target and tackle these communities, because that's where we see our vulnerable, oftentimes in our community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you guys have a big heart for serving the underserved, under resourced Like you mentioned, low income. You you're very defined in terms of your your heart for Jackson right and ministering to the communities within Jackson. What would you say is JLF's big dream, big hope, big prayer for Jackson? Just in general.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember doing the board retreat and one of our top five things we wanted to see happen by the end of 2023 was, I think it was unity in the church or something like that.
Speaker 2:And I remember thinking, ok, we'll write it on there, but that's way too ambiguous, but one of our board members wanted us to do it, or a couple of members did and and but when you think of big dreams if I could be continued to be ambiguous that that would be the case how can we create some synergy within churches so that there is unity of approach into how we serve others, unity of how we maximize resources, maximize manpower?
Speaker 2:And that really, to me, is what JLF does by providing the programs we provide.
Speaker 2:We are the behind the scenes group, that sort of the glue, so to speak, that's working with so many different churches and ministries that's able to sort of coordinate a strategic effort by empowering the leaders in our network and knowing what each one is doing and helping them communicate back and forth to others, so that if, for example, someone said I wanted to get involved in mentoring, they don't have to do it by themselves.
Speaker 2:We work with leaders who do a mentoring and who we've supported to become what I call the gold standard of mentoring, and so there's high level of equipping, high level organization. It's all best practice and and notebooks and stuff are already there curriculum, and so by being connected with so many leaders, we're able to say, hey, there's synergy here because we can get you into this pipeline, so you're doing it better together and you're doing it from the start Well, and getting connected with those who fund the other mentoring programs and things like that. So I do think for us that's the type of unity I'm talking about when I think about unity in the church, and that's what we want to see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really cool. That's really cool. Our dear friend Austin has joined us. Yes, I had.
Speaker 3:Just on the phone with you know large corporations that want to take money and stuff from me. So but, but no, that was a delightful conversation. But I'm excited to be in here in the room with you, I'm excited to hear about what JLF does because I just I just you know, I've been from afar, kind of looking in or looking from the outside, and for the most part been to a couple of things y'all have done. But it's just, it's such an interesting organization and you're just your capacity to provide that business needs Right For for so many different organizations and so many different people that just have passions and the God has just welled up in their hearts.
Speaker 3:Because just in my ministry I've been in ministry 12, 13 years I've seen from the bottom up numerous different ministries and and outreaches from from churches and paratroops, organizations and denominational initiatives and different stuff like that, and one of the most important and significant health that that can come is exactly what you're doing. And I've seen that in just places across the state, from from Hattiesburg to the coast to Jackson, and just just my heart says that I would love to see the work that y'all do expanded, not maybe not the work you do, but more organizations that do the type of work that you do, because that is one of the most significant hurdles that we have and that a lot of people that have passion in their hearts have to see a lot of the stuff and I know you see it in Memphis.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's kind of some of the, some of the. I guess maybe some shared, shared ideas and shared thoughts can you bounce? You bounce things off from those folks. Do you see some of this similar work throughout the state of Mississippi besides the JLF?
Speaker 2:Well, I think of Shonda Roby with real Christian foundation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, please, that's yeah absolutely, I'm sure, guests on this show many times, but I've actually encouraged Shonda to become a part of our network because we are part of a network of leadership foundations.
Speaker 2:There are 50 over 50 of us across the whole globe who operate off the same model, and so it's close to us.
Speaker 2:It's Memphis. I can go up there and meet with Memphis leadership foundation and they've been going for 30 years. They are, they are top notch and it's sweet because the president and founder can take me to all of these nonprofit ministries across the city who are large and scale, well equipped, well networked, well resourced. And they all have a similar story, which was we had a vision for our community. We were a mom and pop shop and then we partner with Memphis leadership foundation and they gave us the leadership, training and networking and resourcing we needed to grow as leaders and grow to the scale of our vision, and so that was that was the model we saw, and so this is what we want to see here in Jackson, and I got to give credit always to Dr John Perkins, because Dr Perkins was the one who said, hey, this is what we need for the city of Jackson, and he was the one who set up the meeting in Memphis back in 2016 to get things started.
Speaker 3:That's, that's amazing to hear about the, the network that you have, that you're attached to across the across the country. I just I would love and this may not be something you can answer, but I would love to see how, just just the overall impact maybe that a 10 year period that organizations like JLF from across the country had been able to have on a, on a demographic and in a region to your knowledge, has there been in much, much research or very many reports that you can draw from that kind of says how the type of work you're doing has made an impact in other places?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can thankfully say there is. We have to submit our numbers every year to them, to our global office. We have an office based out of Tacoma, washington, and we have another office in DC. But they keep both the numbers and of course it's in the millions because we've got leadership foundations all across this country, but also in India, africa, latin America.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And they're running initiatives, counting ours as well, that are impacting so many people. And you're talking about leadership foundations in these cities, like the city of Philadelphia, pennsylvania, their leadership foundation was founded by the mayor, who the former mayor, and so a lot of these leadership foundation, these cities, they are well ingrained in their city and they're they're at the root of the pulse of the city and so they are really shaking things up in ways that make me inspired and want to sort of copy their work and hopeful to as good will.
Speaker 3:Mimicry is the highest form of flattery. So, just copy, copying the work. I'm a big believer in instilling ideas from from good, smart, competent people, which is the reason I hang out with Brian all the time, exactly, but I still every idea I've ever had it comes from I. Wouldn't do that to Brian, no, but, but I think that's that's. That's significant, though, that you have that type of a network. Yes, that has that type of proven track record.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and we oftentimes don't even think about when we think. Well, at least when I think about locally here JLF, oftentimes don't think about it as this, this one of many, so to speak, in terms of this larger global network, and so it's really interesting that you Unpack that force and help us kind of process that.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you another question. Our theme this year is living reconciled by loving all our neighbors. Living reconciled by loving all neighbors. Well, when you think about JLF's role in the the call to not, not not just love Jesus, but to love Jesus through Loving our neighbors Well what do you see J? How do you see JLF Fulfilling that call in command?
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I answer questions like this, I go back to that book divided by faith.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which mission.
Speaker 2:Mississippi is, I believe, mentioned in the book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Emerson, Emerson yeah and so Emerson and Christian Smith, I believe, but yeah, they referenced they do a study, of course, on I'm gonna just Butcher the idea of it, but I'm gonna say race relation in the church, and so One of the suggestions they make is what they saw a breakdown when it came to black and white Christians. When Relationships were formed. There was nothing that really came out of it up substance. And so what ended up happening is these relationships would would begin and there would be Conversation and there would be coffee and there would be understanding and knowing people's names, but when it came to I, now that we're in relationship one other, we have to bury each other's burdens, and they weren't. Emerson Smith realized white, black Christians weren't ready to do that, and so they ended up pulling away from the table and what? What JLF does?
Speaker 2:We were kind of a bait and switch in that regard, and I say that, of course, jokingly, sure, but we bring unity by Bringing people to the table with the understanding that if you're at the table, you're already made the choice that you're here to give yourself away.
Speaker 2:You're here because you want to give away your time, talent and treasure to serve low-income communities by serving a leader in that community by volunteering, by partnering with volunteers and donors who are maybe from outside of your community coming in, but you're on mission together, you're on the same team trying to win the game. You, you're fighting for the same goal, and so there's less of a chance of this group saying we're not fighting for the same community objective, we're not fighting for the needs of our neighbor. The Good Samaritan story we're not passing by, but we're engaging the needy. And so what we're trying to do is bring people together in unity in that way, because we believe when we love their, love our neighbor in that way is beyond just knowing each other's names, but really beginning to bury each other's burden. And so that's why we we want to remain reasons. We do what we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I want one of the things, sam. Just even hearing you talk about this, that's one of the things that's been burdened in me for for a while now. You know, king, in 62 at Cornell University, in a speech, he said that. You know he was convinced that people hate each other, that men hate each other because they fear each other and they fear each other because Because they don't talk to each other, or they don't know each other and they don't know each other because they don't talk to each other and they don't talk to each other because they're separated from each other.
Speaker 1:And when? For me, when you flesh that out and sort of a kind of framework or paradigm, it's shared space, which is in the room and then talking to each other, which leads to shared experience and knowledge, and that knowledge breed, breeds courage, which leads to burden, courage and love, right and and and. So what you're talking about is getting people in a space so that they can begin to actually communicate, talk across the aisle, learn the commonalities, learn the things that they have in common with one another, which also will breed actual courage and actual knowledge and deeper intimacy, which leads to more love, more empathy, more care and concern for one another. Do you, as you think about these experiences that you've had with JLF, do you see a lot of people that think they don't have a whole lot in common when they're away from each other? As they're being called more and more towards each other to work together, and as JLF serves as that integrator, do you see more and more people realize, huh, we're not as different as I thought, as I thought we were.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, and I see it in our own organization too. We have a suite, diversity, so to speak, of staff and a board and of support and of volunteers. And and to me I tell people we oftentimes one of the big things we do is volunteer mobilization. And we do that because of course we want to see ministry leaders supported in the city, but equally so we want just to see more people coming to the city serving in neighborhoods that they normally wouldn't go into, finding easy on-ramps for them to do that, so that their hearts can be pricked, so they can be in relationships, so they can be introduced to new people and realize that stereotypes and generalizations that they might have had about people or communities don't don't exactly hold up. And now it's a lot easier to say I'm coming back, or I'm going to stay in relationship or I'm going to grab coffee with this person I just met. And that's what we see all the time.
Speaker 2:I got a call yesterday from someone who volunteered with the ministry that we operate and she's helping someone in a job's ministry and so it's been sweet just to hear her.
Speaker 2:It was sweet to hear her testimony about interacting with someone she's helping with soft skills and employment, and how the Lord's working in her heart and how the Lord's starting to form a relationship between her and the person she's helping.
Speaker 2:But it's not a one-way street and of course it's two-way, and so she's being helped as well. But these relationships are forming, but they're forming under the context of we're here to serve, and so the continuum that you mentioned, brian, that starts with relationship and ends and shared experiences. To me, we sort of start from the other end and go from let's start with shared experiences and make that be the filter that gets us down to the formation of a deep relationship over time, and so that's why I call it my bait and switch model. But that's really what we see is so many communities coming together and celebrating that it's possible, it's possible to know your neighbor, and it's not necessarily too scary to go five miles down the road and all these things that culture tells us not to consider. I think we get to be an advocate against that, which is sweet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've talked about several episodes how there's a Abating switch, so to speak, even in just in Christian life in general, that when we go and we serve, let our light shine. According to Matthew 5, ephesians 2, he talks about that we are God's workmanship, created for good works before the foundation of the world, that we might walk in them. Then, when we actually obey the Lord, in that regarding we go and serve is not just formative and transformative for the people that we serve. There's a bait and switch in which we are being reformed and reshaped and transformed as well, and so there's a necessity, so to speak, in our own discipleship and ongoing Sanctification, that we serve. Not just simply that in order that we might be merciful, but in order that we might receive that mercy and receive the grace that God is trying to give us through that service. And so it's interesting.
Speaker 1:What you're describing, sam, is you can. You can stay on the sidelines, you know, and tweet and Facebook and potshot everybody across the political or racial, you know Fences, so to speak. But there is something formative that happens when you, you know, put the phone down, put the TV down, go outside, cross the street and engage your neighborhood and serve in a real and authentic way with people who don't look like you, who aren't from the same Background. There's something transformative that the Lord does. Would you say that?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, and and it's a, it's a means of grace or it's a form of sanctification used to use church speak it's, it's becoming made more Into the image of God, to be more in line with our purpose of why we were created.
Speaker 2:And I think about the book when helping hurts, that discusses obviously not only someone from the outside coming in to serve, but obviously in doing so, they are being served themselves. Because Whether you are from a community that looks To be a difficult community in which to live or you're in a nicer, materialistic, more materially nice community, you still face we still face, as humans, the same Ills, no matter if we have the money to cover it up or not. And so I've always thought that this concept of of engaging and loving our neighbor is the healing, one of the primary healing solutions For for humanity when it comes to people who are trying to follow Christ and be made more in his image. Because, practically speaking and and spiritually speaking, when I'm Faced with loving my neighbor who's not like me, the mirror is shown on my own life.
Speaker 2:Right and I begin to see wait a minute the thing that I assume was just everyday life. It's actually not, and maybe I need to be considering if this is biblical living or not.
Speaker 2:Right and so I've seen that happen in a lot of different people's lives who started as volunteers, thinking they were here to help and them coming back going while my life is upside down and, as a result, they've repented and been able to trans, had their life transformed in a significant way right, talk to me about as we turn around, the turn here and close this, close this episode out.
Speaker 1:There's two questions that I have. If I'm on the outside of Jackson and I'm in a you know, meridian, vicksburg, gulf Coast, and I say to myself, huh, I would love to see an organization like this in my own neck of the woods, how it, what would be the first steps that someone would take in order to see some expression, expression similar to this happening in there, in, there, in their place, where they live, work, play and worship? That's the first question. Second question if I'm in Jackson and I say, man, this is a sounds like a great organization, I'm convinced, sign me up. Where do I serve? How would you get those people mobilized? So two questions.
Speaker 2:Yes, good questions. I'll answer the second first. You can go to our website it's just an easy answer Jackson leadership foundationorg, where you can call our office or click volunteer and see volunteer opportunities. And, of course, we have a new office building downtown at two thirty six east capital street. Come to the office building and meet with one of our staff and talk about what time, talent and treasure you have and we can share with you the partners that we can connect you with. And so we had an event with about sixty people yesterday and got a lot of response and working on connecting them with places to serve. And so that's and that's, my quick answer to question number two. And then question number one. Of course, if you're really serious about doing this and you're just looking for a model and there are many out there feel free to give us a call, and our number is actually still my cell phone number, which is 601-421-4445.
Speaker 3:I don't know we have to edit that out. That is amazing, that is amazing.
Speaker 1:It is still your phone number. It is your phone number.
Speaker 2:I actually met with staff today. I was like we've got to get a different number?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's fine with me, you know it's fine.
Speaker 2:What's the significant of the number?
Speaker 1:What's the now? Is that the original or?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, yeah, it's my cell phone.
Speaker 2:It's a cell phone number, okay. Jlf's number and it's still cell phone number.
Speaker 3:It's never changed it so, so you just receive all the regular calls. I do so, you don't? You don't? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. My mind is blown. So you, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So you navigate all that you're talking about. You navigate, and and you, you have just prematurely routed all calls straight to your pocket.
Speaker 1:That's great, yeah, you're. You're Jackson leadership founder man. I mean receptionists when we first started.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. I mean, I that's that blows my mind. I mean, having having ran a church before, I'm just thinking, man, I couldn't do that, I couldn't do that.
Speaker 2:It's, it's. It's not a very reasonable way of thinking about saving money Right. Right, right, but anyway, so yeah so it's funny you can. You can text our office number to someone will answer Someone, someone.
Speaker 3:someone means Samuel.
Speaker 2:So yeah, but definitely reach out to us. And the second thing and I tell all ministries some some variation of this, which is the first thing to do well, other than checking to make sure that this is a call or a real passion on your life is really to say let's do some market research and ask the question is there really a need? Not just assuming there is, but really begin to call people up, call leaders, and say do you have a need for this? And then then ask the question is somebody else already doing this? Because sometimes, especially if you're entrepreneurial in spirit, you can skip those two steps.
Speaker 2:But if somebody else is already doing this, can you, based on what you know you're specifically called to do, go ahead and partner with them and work within their confines? And if not, or expand their confines or spans their confines? And if not, I mean, are you willing to to get something started up, which I'm, don't get me wrong, I think. I think there are moments, and I'm I'm kind of one of those where, even though there might be something similar, it doesn't exactly fit where you really want to go, and so I definitely am an advocate, for if you're called to do something, do it, but make sure you're asking the right questions, and then I think the stuff like funding and what you're exactly going to do will come as you grow and you just begin to work with people, and so that's just my two cents when it comes to that stuff.
Speaker 1:That's incredible, incredible wisdom. Incredible wisdom to not skip those first two steps. I mean, we you know, of course I'm I'm big, passionate church planning guy and we talk about a lot those first two steps making sure that you're called and making sure that you are actually feeling a real need and not just regurgitating or repeating something that's already happening.
Speaker 3:That is.
Speaker 1:That is the exact thing that you're looking to see happen. Yeah, that it just doesn't have enough exposure, doesn't have enough, as Austin said, capacity, capital, whatever, whatever, whatever they might be hindering it, that you can partner alongside and bring that kind of fuel.
Speaker 3:Or if, or if you're looking for something in a geographic area and somebody else is doing the same exact thing, but just a different part of the city, also create good partnerships from there as well and just kind of duplicate that, but different geographical or districts. I guess, I guess we call it segment cities and districts right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, to a degree, yeah, so yeah, yeah, samuel, it's been so good and so fruitful to have you on our podcast, and so thank you so much. Besides dialing JLF's phone number and contacting your cell phone, is there any other ways that people can keep up with Jackson Leadership Foundation?
Speaker 2:Sure, I think we do a great job our team does with our social media, so Facebook, instagram, jackson Leadership Foundation. We have an email newsletter you can sign up for on our website, so there are various ways to get in touch with us. But we, our team, does a great job, I think, of keeping people current who follow in those ways, so I encourage you to do so. Excellent, yeah, excellent.
Speaker 3:Well, I kind of asked just one final question. One final question, won't try to be too long, but just because I just want to hear of one story and you may have told it before I was able to walk in just just one story of just like real, authentic, just reconciliation through the work that JLF has been able to do. Like where have you been able to see God's work and reconciliation? Just like, with one concrete story, just to end out our time together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, goodness, the first thing that honestly comes to mind and it may not be, you know, movie worthy, so to speak but I think about our founding board president, david Henderson.
Speaker 2:David was able to retire fairly early and found out about what we were doing and agreed to be on our startup team and agreed to be the board president and did a great job for three years in that role and at the time and still currently very much invested in his community, which was in is the flow would area and his church, which is pond lake church and the reservoir, but didn't have much of an investment at all in Jackson, and so his life and his circle of friends and relationships was flow would and so, by getting involved in Jackson leadership foundation and the fact those serving the ministries that we were committed to serve, I've seen Davids and his wife Angela's relationships expand tremendously.
Speaker 2:We're now his circle. His path is not from one place in flow would or Brandon to the next. He drives every day from from Brandon to the city of Jackson. His daily life looks very different in terms of those he's interacting with, where not only is he still plugged into his home environment, but he's also very significantly plugged in to his neighbor's environment in the city of Jackson and and he could brag and brag about how his life's been transformed. But I think about where he is in life and I think if I was his age I would be tempted to be on a beach somewhere and use my retirement fund for that, and I know plenty of people who do so. But he not only served three years as board president. He set his second three year term on our board and then recently roll off a board and came on staff with us as our building manager.
Speaker 2:I love it and like he literally and I think about some others that are that literally exact same age of him, who been on vacation for 10 years.
Speaker 3:You know, it was just do that. That temptation is real. I'm tempted to go on vacation for 10 years. Oh, me too I dream about it. Oh, I know.
Speaker 2:But you know it's that's just what I would say is it's not necessarily movie worthy, but it's those types of changes that make all the difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sam is. It's been incredible, man. We know you're a busy guy and got plenty of places to go, but we thank you for carving out a few minutes to spend with us, man. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is so much fun. Thank you all for doing this and being consistent with it and giving people an outlet to contemplate something deeper than what they see in the world every day and the options that they have. This is, this is another option, this is another way, and so this means a lot. Thank you all.
Speaker 1:Amen, bless us to you, man. I am Brian Crawford, with my incredible friend, dr Hoyle, austin Hoyle, and we are, with Samuel Bowling, signing off saying God bless, god bless, thanks for joining, living Reconciled. If you would like more information on how you can be a part of the ongoing work of helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured, please visit us online at missionmississippiorg or call us at 601-353-6477. Thanks again for listening.