What Would Jesus Do? | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign.

Here we are, Ron. Another episode. Ron and Hope. Unfiltered.

Testing.

Are you goofy? Testing, testing, y'.

All.

We have power, number one. We are filming an episode.

If they're not in the southeastern.

Yeah, they don't know because we have power. God is good. We have just come through the storm hurricane.

And we're beat.

Helen, Helena, Helene, Helenia, Helene, whatever her name is. But she was vicious now, she was not kind. It's been rough.

Yep. My folk on the west coast, they know earthquakes, but they don't know anything about hurricanes.

Nope.

Redemption, San Jose. We're here filming from Redemption, Greenville, and we're tired because we literally just came in from Serve our city event. We as a church. How many times a year do we do it, baby? Once a week?

At least once. Sometimes twice.

Sometimes twice. Where we try to mobilize the entire. Not just volunteer base, the entire Congregation, you know, 1000, 1200 people, if we can get that many involved. But to go into one of the most hurting areas of our community and refurbish it. We've rebuilt parks, we've done all kind of stuff like that. Oh, man, it's been amazing. Some of the things we've been able to accomplish. What we do is we flood an area with 10,000 man hours in a day, take it off the taxpayer's back. And sometimes we walked in and revolutionized the whole area before we leave. But this time because of the hurricane. And if you're not in the. If you aren't in the pathway of it, you can't really understand. I'm 56 years old, baby doll. I've lived in South Carolina, probably like you our whole life, with the exception of the four years I went to college. I've lived here my whole life. I've never seen this much damage. I've seen a lot of hurricanes, a lot of storms. I was in two hurricanes. Not up here. I mean, I was on the coast when they happened. I've been in one tornado that came right over top of my house. I've never seen it like this. And this region, Asheville, North Carolina, from which we draw a lot of people. You can't even get that. You have to fly in from Greenville because the roads are washed out and floodings everywhere. So they're having to fly in.

Supplies have fallen off the side of.

I think that might be north Asheville headed up toward Tennessee. But it's just land, mudslides and flooding and tremendous flooding. Yeah, it's. We went about four days without power. And I've Never seen so many telephone poles snap like toothpicks with power lines mangled. Power lines laying everywhere. Yeah. And so everybody's had damage. Houses, trees falling over, houses raining in their living room.

My brother had two massive trees just crush his house.

And so if you've never been in that or you haven't been around it. And I know a lot of our audience and our congregation on the west coast never been around any. I've seen what they think is hard rain in California. I'm like, this ain't rain. This is mist. But you have the torrential rains here on the east coast. And we just came through this one. And so we were supposed to this Saturday have a serve our city, and we were going to be helping out a dream center here in the area. And we decided to turn it into food. We have people that cannot get a meal. They cannot get a hot meal, who have no water. Yeah. Don't even have nothing to do with their economy. They don't have access to power. They don't have access to food. The roads are impassable. And so we said, let's just take all this money, take all these resources and refrigerators. We partnered with Costco and Walmart, and we just literally went and purchased pallets of water, diapers, wipes, hamburgers.

Hot dogs.

Yeah, hamburgers. Hot dogs. And we just had assembly lines with our volunteer base, and we are serving people. People in here crying. We went here praying with people. People in there lost everything. A guy just sitting in there right now said he was just told to get out because of the mold all over his house. He had water standing about 2ft in his house. And he didn't have any renters, insurance. He's lost everything. Yeah. And so we got a lot of hurting people, and they're right on the other side of the door. We broke away for a minute to come to you. So this is the shirt and grease all over me from standing out there cooking. If you cooked 500 hamburgers, me and Don and a couple other guys, we cooked 500 hamburgers and I think about 500 hot dogs. We got beef being smoked. We got chicken dinners being brought in tomorrow along with hamburgers and hot dogs. And we're just serving people and people coming in from all over and giving.

Them a place that has air conditioning.

To sit, to charge their phones, charge their computers. And some of them have just said, it feels so good to sit in the air conditioner. So we just took our church over, pulled all the tables and chairs out. We can just saying we care. That's what we want to talk about a minute. This one may not last as long as some of them, but I told Hope, I said let's just go right onto the podcast floor right out of this Hope. This is how we started this church.

It is. I was talking to several. Don't get me tore up out there today. And they were like, this is, this is the old days.

This is how we started the church.

We literally, y'. All, we literally went into the neighborhood. I dressed up like a clown. We were in that little purple.

I borrowed a truck. I borrowed a truck. Actually started out borrowing a truck.

Yes. And we would take a grill, put it in the back of the truck and go buy hot dogs and go into hurting neighborhoods. I mean like 10 of us, that's all we had was 10. And we would cook. I would get out there in a clown out, baby.

I remember a few times it was.

Me and you to get children to come up and eat and we would just tell them about Jesus and invite them to church. But we were in such hurting neighborhoods, they didn't have a way to get to church. I'd have to turn around and come back the next Sunday.

We would take our beat up cars and our cars turned into church buses on Sunday morning. We had to bring. They were to take them home.

Nothing like that. Great memories.

You know, I wonder today, you know, they have a very sophisticated model of starting churches today. Number one, I don't know anybody that was starting a church when we were going on 40 years ago. I kind of know we don't seem that old time ago, you know, when we didn't take over an existing church in a denomination but told everybody we wanted to start a church, they looked at us like we were aliens. Like start a church. Like who does that? And when you remove yourself from a denomination and you do something independently, here's what a lot of people don't know. You also remove yourself from their support. Right now we had some people that supported us, but the system, you remove yourself from the system. So not only, you know, there was no social media today. They, they're open in churches with 500 and 1000 people the first day because you can geo fence and you can get on there and you can create tremendous crowds before you even open up.

Well, there's great models through social media.

I'm not knocking the models, I'm just saying they didn't exist.

Yeah, we didn't have it.

Those mean the only people that were on TV were mega rich ministries. Because I Mean, we went on TV 20 years later, and when I saw those what the bills were, I'm like, blew my mind. I'm like, no wonder those guys spend half the show asking for money because of what it takes to pay to be on there. Yeah. But the long and short of it is, I think, for me, what I want to encourage people today, I'm not trying to tell people about our church's outreach on my podcast. What I'm trying to do is when you put yourself in the pathway of human need, it keeps you grounded.

It does. And it also makes you realize you really don't have it as bad as you think you do.

Yeah. Your complaining tends to go out the door. It's true. I just got through with one woman. I just sat there as she wept and told me how she's lost six family members and said she hadn't been back to church since we took over on the West Coast. She needed some food desperately here today. She came and got some for her family. Her sister died. She's now raising her kids. And she sat there and she said, you know what? I had so many losses. And she said, I felt like I lost my church. She said, and I questioned God and I lost my faith. She said, I hadn't been back. She started weeping, and I just grabbed her hand and sat down and I just started praying for her. She wept. Then the guy next to us was told, get out of your house. Because of the mold, his house is standing in several feet of water, and he had no renter's insurance. So while you're sitting there trying to make a small dent by giving them a meal, you know, there's some people in here, if God don't get involved, they're in bad shape.

Right.

And so I think what I want to say is it is easy. We used to be. We were that church that the city called on. Yeah, I'm very proud of that. In a good way, in a righteous way. When there was crisis, when there was a need, when there was something happening in the world. And they want to know, is this the end of times? Is this the Apocalypse? They wanted to come interview me. They wanted to come talk to our church. We were expected in this city to stand up and do something if there's something wrong. And I think over time, when something gets real big, it has to create systems. There's no way around it. You have to. You have to create structure. And we're just being honest here. You may not feel this way. I'm speaking for me and you can get to the day where you feel like you're no longer touching people, but you're running a machine because now you got hr, now you got org charts, now you got compliance issues, now you got IRS compliance, now you have full blown accounting departments, now you have a team of lawyers, now you have risk management offices, now you have third party contractors. You know, I told people, I said there were times where I had. Thank you. There were times where we had, you know, power bill was $600,000 a year, right? A power bill, you know, $12 million payroll. And so you sitting here and you build what you need to build to take care of and manage what you know, the people that you seek to serve. But it removes you from the people because the people touch the people and you run the machine, right?

I think that's very dangerous.

I do too.

I think it's very dangerous.

And I think there is a movement. I've talked to some of the pastors.

Why do you do what you do?

I've talked to some of the pastors that say, ron, we're not going to do what you did. That's too much administration. That's too much work. That's too much. So we know that we got the Red Cross and we know that we got so and so. And what we do is we just send money. We send them money because they're already doing it. And I'm like, okay, that's a good business model. You want to streamline your administration. You're over here talking about the machine part. But when you never let your people touch the need, right? What did Jesus do? He touched them.

Always.

He touched them.

He went always to the people in need.

And he touched physical need. And the physical need opened the door to the spiritual need. Jesus didn't woke up and said, I'm here to forgive you of your sins. No, he said one time, he said, so that you know, I have the power to forgive sins. Rise up and walk. Yeah, I'm going to heal your legs to prove to you I can forgive your sins. Because forgiveness of sins was not a felt need. But 5,000 on the hillside, hungry is a felt need. My legs won't work. That's a felt need. My daughter's dying. My servant is sick. Those are felt needs. So Jesus responded to felt needs and it opened doorways to spiritual needs. I don't know if that still to this day is not the greatest model.

I think it's a great model for ministry. It worked for us for many, many, many, many, many years.

God Built the largest, you know, it failed. The second largest, but the largest ministry that this state had seen for years. And it wasn't because of, you know, a great preacher. It wasn't because of a great leadership family. It was because we open pathways year round to reach in and touch people. And it changes you.

It does.

It changes you. I don't know, baby. It keeps you humble, it keeps you grounded, it keeps your emotions fresh. I wept with her.

I did too.

She was standing there telling me about six family members in a little span of time. And then she said, now I felt like I lost my church. And I looked at her and I said, I'm sorry. I said, I apologize to you, I'm sorry. And I said, I just grabbed her hand, I said, I want to pray for you. And she said, I need it bad. And I went around the room, you know, they were rolling in people crippled in wheelchairs and you know, people with special needs children. And they don't have no power, right? They can't take a bath, babies coming in.

Mama's bringing babies who don't have any milk, no formula.

People can't find formula. They hadn't had diapers. And here again, it's not just a ministry to the poverty stricken. It's not that people are in a situation. It don't matter if you're a billionaire, if you don't have power, you don't have power.

Right?

And we talked to some people last night that were very well to do people, they couldn't back their cars out of the garage, right. You know, because trees had fallen all in their house and all over their garage. They couldn't even get their cars out.

Well, you know the Bible, the Bible says him who knows to do right and doeth it not and do doesn't do it.

Sin.

It's sin.

Y.

So for us to know that there are hurting people and us not do anything, we're in sin. So I just really am so grateful.

Some people say, you know, a church that has y' all have the resources.

I mean, this cost a lot of money.

Yes. If people knew what we do to make things happen, they just, they don't know. They have a vision of you. You know, y' all were taken care of. So, you know, you need to go out and feed people. You know, to him who much is given, much is required. And when you have a lot, there's a big pool.

It is. And I get people even on my social media, right. On Facebook or Instagram. And I mean, every single day, at least I mean at least 10, 12 every single day asking me to help them pay a bill. I have no food. I'm hungry. I don't mean people in Africa and in India. I mean local people. Pastor, can you please help me? I'm out of a job. Pastor, I've got a job coming. But, you know, I don't have the down payment for my deposit. Yeah, deposit or what? I mean, just every asking me and it's, it's just so we do what.

We can, but we do what we can.

It's just overwhelming.

But you say, what are you trying to do on your podcast today? What I'm trying to do is let me back up. We live in a nice place. Through the years, we've tried to be faithful and we've done real estate, we've done stuff on the side. It ain't just a church paycheck by far. And we, we live at a nice place and we live around people who have not experienced a lot. They come up well and they've continued to do well. So they were raised well and now, now they do well. And you invited some of them to come here and serve today.

Yep. And they came.

What happened?

They loved it. Three of my friends in our neighborhood who, you know, I don't think they are, you know, have a church home, but they're, and they're great hearted and.

And they're not scared of us even though we're pastors.

No, they love us and they came today and they just were like, thank you so much for inviting us to come help serve this city.

They're passing out food in the food line and I'm watching them.

Yes. And they're just loving on people and serving people. And I was just so proud, number one, proud of our church for having something that we could invite people to come be a part of, to help.

And we've been here for 10 weeks.

Right. But just so proud of, you know, the godly, wonderful people in this community who band together to help people in need, who don't even know, who don't know these people. They don't know these people. But they came and gave their time and gave resources and served.

Some of them in our subdivision said, I can't come, but they wrote checks.

Yep.

They wrote checks and said, use this toward it. And I think for me, I do, I run a big machine. It's not as big as some, but it's a lot. It's a global ministry and I spend my days in offices and there is a danger there that while you're moving from meeting to meeting and planning meeting to planning meeting and business meeting and financial meeting and meeting and marketing meeting and that. And then you go in to meet. This is our media day. And we shoot TV and we do podcasts, we shoot glues and social media.

You're making me tired.

Well, that's our life. And there is sometimes where you have to be careful that the most basic people very close to you, life has not been good to them and that you don't feel it anymore. Not because you're a cold hearted Christian, but because you're not around humanity, you're around a machine and you get removed from what the real needs of the people are. And so when you get in a pulpit, your words fall to the ground because they say, he don't relate to me.

Yeah. So I think it's just so healthy. And I'm so grateful that God has given us the wits. You know, I just really believe it's the Holy Spirit who leads God's directs. I'm so thankful that we have been able to balance all of this and I think we've done a pretty good job. Balance.

I don't want to lose that.

Yes, I love those people. Those people who came in today hungry, hurting, stinky, hadn't had a bath. I love those people and I am so honored to get to serve the kingdom like this.

So I would say to you guys, you know, you're getting us fresh off the. I mean, we walked out of the sweat and came and sat down in here. We're talking about, we need to go take a bath right quick. And I said, nope. I said, let's go in there just like this, raw from the emotion of it, of seeing so many people displaced and so many people and just a mess. And some of them don't know how they're going. Some of them, this storm, some of them are going to have to rebuild their life. Some of them. That one guy that walked in that had to get out, he said, I've lost everything. His car was standing in water up to the windshield. Well, that car ain't ever going to run again. And I don't even know how he got here to get the meal for his family. I think somebody brought him and his clothes. He said, I got the clothes I got on. And so we put him over and had him talk to some people we think can help him. I know FEMA has declared some of the counties here a natural disaster area. And they're around, so we think we've got him. Some Help. But I would just exhort people, you know, when God elevates you and God blesses you, don't walk in the blessing to a place that you forget what it was like or how the old.

School is supposed to be one of the people where you came from.

Yeah, don't forget where you came from or get above your raise. It don't get above your raise. Don't ever walk in blessing to the point where you separate yourself from the hurts of your community. Don't let the sound of your church ring hollow in that city because you don't connect with what's really going on there.

And don't. And listen too. I think it's so important. Sometimes we can get so wrapped up in ourself and so close minded. I was so proud of our neighborhood, our community. You know, when the power went out and some of the people in the neighborhood had generators, some did not. So some were totally without power. But they opened their homes and we cooked breakfast for two families two days in a row because I had gas stove and just welcomed their babies in and gave them milk. And my refrigerator was working. We didn't have any ac, but you know, some things worked, some didn't. But other homes would open their homes. We were sharing milk, we were sharing. You got any extra toilet paper? I can't find this at the grocery store.

You know, crisis can create so many wonderful things.

It does.

Crisis can create friendships, create bonds, and many times crisis can bring the very best out of people.

It does.

And so I don't know, you're catching us the raw out of the situation. Much of our staff, I don't know about much. A significant portion of our staff still don't even have power stuff. And they're here working. Yep.

They came to work because they like.

The air conditioner, because there's water running in the sink and they got air.

Conditioning and they got to wipe off in the sinks in the bathroom. Right.

But anyway. But Jesus looked upon the multitude and he had compassion upon them. And then he said many times, what would you have me to do for you? And I asked that a thousand times a day, what can I do for you? I can't fix your world. I can't get the water out of your house. I can't rebuild your electrical lines. But I know how to grab your hand and touch God and ask for the comfort, the peace and the confidence of the Holy Spirit, that God is the rebuilder of lives and dreams. And when you go down to the potter's wheel and there was a clay marred in the hands of the potter, but he threw it up there again and made it a new vessel. Said no matter how much life gets marred and messed up, God just takes it, puts it back on the wheel and makes it something else. And so I want to encourage anybody in the pathway of the storm, I just want to encourage you to keep your head up. There aren't many people that can come in and fix your world, but there are people that really do care. And sometimes that just makes a difference, knowing somebody else out there cares about your situation. And number two, if you have a chance with GoFundMe, if you have a chance with the last disaster relief funds, some non profits that are helping out, I know through Georgia, I know parts of Florida and I know the Carolinas, there are some places that are straight up devastated.

And if you follow this ministry and you don't live in on the east coast, you're on the, you know, Midwest, you are on the west coast and you'd like to help what we're doing, just go to hopecarpenter.com give and you can give online. There is a local outreach tab and all of your giving is tax deductible. Hope Carpenter Ministries, instead of Redemption is the arm of all of our missions and outreach. So hope hope carpenter.com give and we really would appreciate it.

Okay, guys, until next time, don't ever quit touching the needs because when you touch the needs, it'll touch you. Don't ever forget that. And until next time, this is Running Hope Unfiltered. Real raw. Testing real raw. We love you guys and with our tired, greasy self. We'll see you soon.