Speaker: Ron White, Pastor, Big Rapids Free Methodist Church
Ron White: I'm Pastor Ron White. We received a contact through glue and found out that the Explorer lived in the same city that we do and we connected with her. She wanted to meet us. So we had breakfast together, found out that she was um looking for a church bible study group. My wife teaches this study, I study group right here in town and she was very excited to hear that. And two days later she uh came to my wife's study and has been part of the study now, um, for a couple of weeks. So that is a story of contact with an explorer that resulted very quickly in a connection and a new friendship right here in our small town.
Ron White: When I first heard about the He gets Us campaign, I was very excited to partner. We were looking for ways to reach out into our community. Um, to be honest, we, um, are a small church and we're struggling with ways to connect with people who were unchurched. And this sounded like an excellent way for us to do that.
Ron White: we have connected with two explorers personally. Um We've with both of them, they are living right here in our community. We offered to meet them and they both were eager to do so. The first one was um having difficulty caring for uh their mother or her mother. Um And I was just looking for support, was looking for fellowship in a bible study. And as it turns out, my wife was is teaching a bible study group here. She was very excited to hear about that and connected with the bible study group and is now part of that study. And um the second one was had just began going through a divorce, was very devastated. Um And we had breakfast with her uh and she has connected with my sister, who has gone through a divorce with very similar circumstances in some ways. And so she has now made a personal connection and is finding help and support through um responding to the he gets us ad and we were able to make that connection with her
Ron White: We have a weekly prayer group and we include the responses of explorers that connect with me. Every week, we pray for the explorers who connect contact, and we just share first names and the immediate need that they state of why they connected. And our people have become very excited about praying for these individuals that contact us, through that he gets us campaign.
Ron White: I would like to encourage other churches to be become involved. I get the sense that we have, we don't have enough churches, um, in our area involved. Sometimes the explorers are, um, in other communities that get referred to us, and it'd be great if we had more churches involved. So we just encourage, if you are watching this to contact glow and sign up, it's very easy to respond. They provide the platform, and we just would encourage you to get involved.
