Michael: 00:08

Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church in counseling and discipleship. Hello. Hello. Hello.

Shauna: 00:20

Yo. Yo. Yo.

Michael: 00:21

Oh, who is this foreign voice on the microphone?

Jeremy: 00:24

Whatever. Uh-huh. Yo.

Shauna: 00:26

I've only missed one with Elise, which was sad.

Michael: 00:29

Haven't uploaded all the podcasts that we did at the Made to Minister conference that you weren't a part of. However, you were busy. You had over a hundred women in your breakout session?

Shauna: 00:39

Yep. So Michael and I just got back from Salem, Oregon, the made to minister conference that they do there, which is a regional conference. And it was really awesome. There was about 350 people there, 50 churches represented, and that team just does an excellent job of, organizing everything and just, you know, being able to just provide biblical truth to that area. And it's awesome.

Shauna: 00:59

It's it's always a great time. They're like a second church family to us at this point. Right?

Michael: 01:03

Yeah. I think you know, it was funny. I was telling Pete and Justin and Emily that we started the podcast in 2019, which was also the first year that we went to the May to Minister Conference.

Shauna: 01:15

Oh, really?

Michael: 01:15

We've been involved in that conference, you know.

Shauna: 01:18

For that long.

Michael: 01:18

Yeah. Yeah. That's a That's cool. Yeah.

Shauna: 01:20

Jeremy, you'll you'll need to come. They have an another conference in November. So if you're listening and you're in the Pacific Northwest, go to May to Minister. There's a conference in November.

Michael: 01:28

Yeah. Put them in the show notes.

Shauna: 01:30

Yeah. So So maybe you can come to that one, Jeremy. Hang out with us.

Jeremy: 01:33

Yeah. I I think I was at the first one. Yeah.

Shauna: 01:34

You were. Yeah.

Michael: 01:35

It was you were?

Shauna: 01:36

You and John. Yep.

Jeremy: 01:36

Amazing. Yeah.

Michael: 01:37

I remember. That was good. Awesome. Guys, listen. We are excited about this miniseries.

Michael: 01:42

We are gonna be focusing on the history of ABC, the heart of ABC, and the hope of ABC. This will be the miniseries that we have. In this first part, the history of ABC, we wanna focus on the inception of ABC, how it started, the early days. And so, obviously, we've got Jeremy with us who's gonna be able to kinda share with us. And so a lot of, you know, people out there who may be fifth, I guess, were arguably getting into the sixth generation of biblical counselors.

Jeremy: 02:07

That's a great

Michael: 02:08

question. Does that sound about right?

Jeremy: 02:09

No. Don't try to make me feel old.

Shauna: 02:13

Yeah. I did get it started there.

Michael: 02:14

Yeah. But, again, we we get a lot of these questions, you know, ABC and then the distinction of ABC versus other organizations out there. And so that's why we wanted to do this podcast. And with that, Jeremy, let's let's kick off with the history of ABC. And how did ABC come into existence?

Michael: 02:30

So you guys are asking me to

Jeremy: 02:33

clear the cobwebs of my mind.

Shauna: 02:34

I'm I know this is probably gonna

Jeremy: 02:36

be hard.

Michael: 02:36

Just, you

Shauna: 02:37

know, just share with us what you do remember. I'm sure there's gonna be missing missing pieces of the story. Right?

Jeremy: 02:42

Yes.

Shauna: 02:43

Yeah.

Jeremy: 02:43

But I do think it's important to just talk about the history. You know, in 02/2002, '2 thousand '3, I was working at a Christian counseling center where the director and the founder had just decided that he was going to embrace the biblical counseling approach. And so I got on staff with him and worked under him for several years. I I probably 1999 to 02/2003 was working for him, and he became a mentor. And I just learned a lot about biblical counseling from him.

Jeremy: 03:16

He's the one that introduced me to Palesen and Tripp and the Journal of Biblical Counseling. And in 02/2002, he just gathered myself and a couple of other guys. Ronnie was one of those. And he said, hey, I think it's time to start an association of biblical counselors. There's an organization, American Association of Christian Counselors, but we really don't have that for the biblical counseling world.

Jeremy: 03:38

We have different ministries, but not under an umbrella where we can all come together. And so, for about a year, every single Friday, he and this group of guys, we would all sit in his office all day and just develop this idea of the Association of Biblical Counselors. Early on, he was able to glean some great endorsements like David Paleson, Paul Tripp, John MacArthur. So there was some very good momentum going into this. We actually did our first conference in February, I believe it was, and we had Ed Welch come in.

Jeremy: 04:14

And we did it in Plano and probably had about 350 people show up, and we planned the conference for three months. So we were stunned that many people actually attended. Yeah. It's a pretty good turnout. Very good turnout.

Jeremy: 04:26

Lots of energy, lots of excitement. He was a very he was a go getter. Just let me say that. Very gifted man. And so we entered into the summer excited planning for the fall where we would all go out on the same weekend and go to different conferences, set up booths, and talk and, you know, promote ABC for the first time.

Jeremy: 04:46

And I think between us all, we went to five different conferences. I went to Liberty University where I had graduated. They had a big conference called Super Conference. Had a lot of interest there. It was very exciting.

Jeremy: 04:58

We all came back just energized, and we were at lunch on Monday, all of us except for this founding person. We're at lunch. We get a phone call. He says, get back to the office immediately. You gotta quit.

Jeremy: 05:12

You just break your lunch up and come on. So we go back kinda confused as to what was going on because it was like the greatest weekend, and then here we are in Monday, and he confessed to us a moral failure. My heart sank. This was a guy that I looked up to and he really had taught me everything I knew in biblical counseling. And so, it was a major crisis for me.

Jeremy: 05:35

It was a hit to the ministry, obviously. And he turned to me basically and said, I'm going to hand the baton off to you if you want to do this. And it took me several months to decide whether or not I wanted to do it because you know, when a ministry faces something like that and we were brand new, to come back from that, I just wasn't sure that was even possible. Many in the biblical counseling world moved away from us at that point and understandably so. We we were kind of the newcomers, new faces in the biblical counseling world.

Jeremy: 06:07

And so, most moved away, but people like David Palison, Ed Welch, Paul Tripp, they moved towards me. They pressed in. Doctor Palison actually flew to the metroplex a couple of times to sit and have private meetings with me just in considering whether or not I should even press forward.

Michael: 06:28

Yeah.

Jeremy: 06:29

And it was actually his idea that we were a for profit organization. At that point, if doctor Palison recommended we make it a nonprofit and get a board together, and that's exactly what we did. I remember Brad Hambrick, who I think he was living in Georgia at the time. He flew in and spoke to our counseling staff and just sought to really encourage us. Bob Kellerman was a guy that leaned in and was just a great support.

Jeremy: 06:56

So at that time, gosh, that was twenty years ago, so I was probably, I guess, in my thirties, early thirties. And to have folks like that rally around you just was a great encouragement to me. And, doctor Pallis and Welch and Tripp, that's how our friendship developed was through that crisis. And they really helped guide a lot of our early vision, And that was our start. It was a tough start.

Jeremy: 07:24

And, I remember I decided to go ahead and we had a conference scheduled, and I decided to to go ahead with the conference. It was at Irving Bible Church, which is a massive church. Tommy Nelson was our keynote speaker, and I remember and we had about 30 people come to the conference. So that was a rough weekend, you know, getting up and trying to stay positive and not feel completely deflated. But I did feel like the Lord wanted me to just keep this going.

Jeremy: 07:56

It was a beautiful idea, and, you know, we had to get through some rough months and rough years, actually. I would say 02/2009 was a turning point for us. That was when David Palison and I together for about six months, we organized what we call the biblical counseling symposium. And what we and we were gonna let this be the first night of our so I didn't do a conference. 02/2003 was a disaster, and so we did not do another conference until 02/2009 because I did not wanna experience that again.

Jeremy: 08:32

So we relaunched the ABC conference in 02/2009, and the first night of that conference was gonna be this biblical counseling symposium that, David Palasin and I had together organized. And what that was is we invited Eric Johnson, who at that time was representing Christian psychology. We had Steve Vires come in who was representing new thetic counseling.

Shauna: 08:56

Mhmm.

Jeremy: 08:56

Bob Kellerman was there. And at that time, he was over the biblical counseling ministry at the American Association of Christian Counselors

Shauna: 09:03

Oh, okay.

Jeremy: 09:03

And then doctor Palison. And then John Henderson and I were the moderators. And what we wanted to do was just have a conversation on stage about the differences in the biblical counseling world, the concerns, the momentum. It was a phenomenal evening. The church at Christ Chapel was packed downstairs and in the balcony.

Jeremy: 09:23

I mean, it was standing room only. And so I remember after that event, literally, as I was walking down the steps, David Palson came over to me, and he said, Jeremy, I guess the Lord has decided to raise the Titanic. And so that was just a great shot in the arm. It was that year. I Paul was our plenary speaker, and that's when he and I began to develop a relationship.

Jeremy: 09:45

He was working somewhat in conjunction with our ministry in a a seminary that was trying to build in the Dallas area. But that was probably a big turning point for us. And, you know, initially, what we were designed to do as a ministry, we were just gonna be a website with resources that you could download and use as in counseling. Mhmm. We had made an agreement with NANC and CCF that we would not offer certification because they were already certifying bodies.

Jeremy: 10:13

Mhmm. And so we held up to that all through until 02/2011 when I got a phone call from Steve Vires, very kind phone call. And he said, Jeremy, we've been, talking, and I think we're gonna we are gonna move forward with a ministry called the Biblical Counseling Coalition, which was really the same vision that we originally had for the Association of Biblical Counselors. It was it was almost identical. But they had some, you know, they had some very big names involved.

Jeremy: 10:43

We were just this new ministry. Nobody really knew me or anyone around. The The more prominent leaders of that time in 2011 all convened and decided to start that ministry. And at that point, I said, guys, that's kind of what ABC was supposed to be. Would you guys give us a green light and be okay with us to start, offering certification?

Jeremy: 11:04

And we got a yes across the board. Mhmm. And that's when we begin to offer certification. Probably was around 02/2011. Mhmm.

Shauna: 11:13

That's great. So when did John come in the picture and the elected council? Yeah. Because that's a cool story too when y'all met.

Jeremy: 11:19

Yeah. So John and I, we were we crossed paths many times. I didn't know him. He didn't really know me. He worked for a gentleman in Flower Mound who was very good friends with the guy that I was working for.

Jeremy: 11:32

And so through those two, he and I met, and his friend, Jerry Mead was his name, invited John and I to lunch one day. He said, Jeremy, I have a guy. You gotta meet him. He's so solid. And I just want to introduce the two of you guys because I think that would be a good thing.

Jeremy: 11:48

So we had lunch. John brought with him a printed copy of Equip to Counsel, and he wasn't pushing it on me, but he just said, hey. If you think you could use this in the ministry, I'd love to have a conversation. And I remember walking away thinking, that's probably I mean, there's already so much out there. I don't know if this is really gonna be something we we're gonna need to do.

Jeremy: 12:10

Mhmm. I didn't tell him that at the time, but I remember driving away thinking probably not because there's already so much out there. Get home, start reading this equipped to counsel, and it blew my mind because a lot of the stuff that was out there was very heady. It was hard to bring down to the street level and say, here's how you actually practically apply scripture, and equipped to counsel totally filled in that gap in the literature, in my opinion. I was probably missing something.

Jeremy: 12:40

I know there were other things out there that were practical also. But at that point, when I started reading through it, I called John and I said, we I think this is something we've got to publish, and let's start brainstorming. So that's how John and I met, and that's how Equip to Counsel became the curriculum that drives our certification.

Shauna: 12:58

Yeah. That's so cool.

Michael: 13:00

Yeah. That wow.

Shauna: 13:02

So he wasn't a pastor yet at Denton Bible at the time?

Jeremy: 13:05

He was at Denton Bible. I don't know if he was a pastor on staff. Okay. I think he was already, teaching this material, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe he's not.

Jeremy: 13:13

Been a pastor.

Shauna: 13:14

Okay.

Jeremy: 13:14

But he was at Denton Bible at the time.

Shauna: 13:16

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Cool. Here in Texas.

Michael: 13:18

I am just sitting here thinking about those early days and just kinda where it is today. But before we get into the heart and the hope, I don't wanna get ahead of ourselves here, but just some of those initiatives, those changes that, you know, that took place, ABC now beginning to offer certification. How did you guys begin to pursue the local church with that certification training?

Jeremy: 13:40

You know, early on, it was a little clunky because we we just didn't have the the bandwidth in terms of staff. But we did early on build a relationship with Emily Dempster and Salem Heights Church Mhmm. Who really became a pilot church, and they exercised profound patience and kindness, through a process where, you know, we needed to tighten some things up. But it was there that we just started developing what is our certification gonna look like, what is a training center gonna look like, who's gonna be the authority in terms of oversight of different counselors or certified counselors and things like that? But that was our first main church.

Jeremy: 14:25

And from there, we've just kind of replicated a lot of what was developed early on, but have really, in recent years, refined it beautifully.

Shauna: 14:35

Mhmm.

Michael: 14:36

So how would you say then with that when some of these things begin to formalize and a process started to really inform what you guys were doing and how you were engaging with the local church, What it what was going on in the landscape of biblical counseling? You mentioned sort of in the, you know, founding days of ABC and what brought all that together, but AACC. So for some of our listeners who, you know, are obviously familiar with ABC, but, you know, there's AACC, there's ACBC. What was going on?

Shauna: 15:07

At the time, ACBC was NAC. Right?

Michael: 15:09

Right. It was yeah. Right.

Jeremy: 15:10

So yeah. When we started, the certifying organization, which probably still is the largest, I don't know, but was the National Association of Nuthetic Counselors. And if my memory serves me correctly, I think doctor Jay Adams was the initial founder of that. It was a break off of Christian Counseling Education Foundation. So they didn't want the certifying body and then the CCF to be under the same umbrella.

Jeremy: 15:38

So they I think they separated those two ministries out for strategic purposes. And John Betler was the executive director at CCF, and then doctor Adams, was over the certifying programs. And I I got to meet Jay Adams early on. He was he liked what we were thinking through as an association, but they were the main certifying body. And then at CCF, you know, they work very closely with Westminster Theological Seminary and offer college courses and and different programs there.

Jeremy: 16:08

And then there was the International Association of Biblical Counselors, and their founder, I can't remember his name, but he was out of Denver, Colorado. Denominationally, he was in a little bit different category than, the the NANC world and the CCF world.

Michael: 16:25

No. That's really good. And so with that, what were some key principles that have guided ABC's development over time?

Jeremy: 16:32

Yeah. That's a great question. You know, for me personally, what we try to do as a team, no matter what we're doing, whether it's, certifying people, creating resources, interacting with other ministries, interacting with each other as a team, two very important guiding principles that are fundamental is God's glory. If it's not going to glorify God, we don't want to participate in it. If it's not going to glorify God, we don't want to create it and push it.

Jeremy: 17:01

And then, obviously, loving the Lord and loving others. That's a major principle that we abide by to the best of our ability. We're not perfect at that. But even in those spaces in the biblical counseling world where there's disagreement, we wanna navigate those disagreements to the glory of the Lord and with a kind and gentle love towards our brothers and sisters that may not always see eye to eye with us. Another guiding principle of ABC, which is, very much in the airwaves these days is the sufficiency of scripture.

Jeremy: 17:31

Mhmm. We have always embraced that idea. I personally embrace that idea with all of my being. You know, when I first came into biblical counseling, I was a graduate of Liberty University, and, there was not a big push for biblical counseling at Liberty University. It was a great experience educationally, but that just wasn't a big thing.

Jeremy: 17:52

And so I was very suspicious of biblical counseling. But once I got hired on with the gentleman that I mentioned earlier in the podcast, and he literally said, put all of your theories to the side, handed me three Jay Adams books, and I started reading through Jay Adams books, and I had never read a Jay Adams book. And it was very confusing to me because Jay Adams was talking about sanctification and counseling and justification and counseling. Those were two worlds I just didn't even know could coexist, counseling and theology, because I had not been trained in that. But the more I engage in training, I began to realize that the big questions of psychology, who are we?

Jeremy: 18:32

How do we change? What's the purpose of change? That the Bible completely answers every single one of those questions. And so, from our inception, we have completely embraced this idea of the sufficiency of scripture. And I believe right now in this moment that if there was nothing else to utilize for counseling, that I because I've done it.

Jeremy: 18:56

We can use the scriptures and the scriptures alone, and the scriptures alone are really what bring transformation through the Holy Spirit, obviously. It's not the Bible. It's the spirit using the scriptures. And just from a personal standpoint, I've seen amazing things happen for people that are diagnosed with very severe mental illness diagnoses, and the scriptures are very sufficient in navigating OCD, navigating borderline personality, navigating bipolar. You know, the Bible is not written for that purpose specifically, but the truths that are contained in the scriptures effectively help guide and counsel a person and transform the heart.

Jeremy: 19:39

You know, Hebrews four twelve that the bible understands the thoughts and intentions of the heart, and that's where we wanna focus. So sufficiency has always been a a bedrock and and will never change our our thoughts on that. And so I would say those three things, God's glory, loving God, loving others, and the sufficiency of scripture. You know, one thing that scripture does provide us that nothing else out there really does from a secular standpoint, it it really gives us a powerful existential reason for change. It's not symptom alleviation.

Jeremy: 20:12

It's about sanctification. And one of the beauties of sanctification is that the more we become like Christ, then the more as creatures we are empowered to do what we were created to do, which is live for the glory of the Lord.

Michael: 20:26

Yeah. It's really good.

Shauna: 20:27

I think that we'll probably get more into this too with the heart of ABC, you know, podcast of the next one. But I think you also do a really good job in your book, Biblical Counseling Basics, that you did or that you wrote. Was that with New Growth Press?

Jeremy: 20:40

It was.

Shauna: 20:40

And so you can get that the book on there. But, you know, you give a lot of, like, church history and just a lot of that background. And it's a book that I continually go back to and just pull quotes from as far as, like, lessons I teach. And I think that's really good. When Michael and I kinda came up and, you know, really biblical counseling for us, it was a personal need that we needed, which is then seeing the need in the for our own life and then obviously seeing the gap in the church.

Shauna: 21:04

When we started leading out in it, when Truth Renewed, you know, came into existence in 2014 and we started leading out, the conversations that we would have with pastors and churches really surprised us. Like, the term biblical counseling that we thought people would already understand and know, they just it was, like, foreign to them. So do you feel like when you started out, you had the same do you feel like churches were more welcoming at that point of the conversation of biblical counseling, or was that still kind of a a tension point or challenge to have?

Jeremy: 21:32

You know, as I recall, early on, I would not say that many churches were familiar with biblical counseling, and if they were, many of them pushed back. Mhmm. When I first started, we're talking 1999, '2 thousand, Somewhere around there. Biblical counseling was not wasn't very well known. Mhmm.

Jeremy: 21:53

But, again, for those that did know, when I would go out and market because I was trying to build a practice, many pastors did not wanna hear about biblical counseling. But I don't know what year this would have been, but somewhere in in the history, you had Matt Chandler come to the forefront. You had Mark Driscoll come to the forefront. You had all of these young reformed guys coming to the forefront who at that time

Michael: 22:18

That's why there are people at Young Restless and Reformed that just Yeah.

Jeremy: 22:21

And then they were guided and kind of mentored by guys like Piper and MacArthur, Sproul, and there was just a wave in the church where those guys began to make a a huge splash, and that just changed the atmosphere within the church from at least my experience here in in the DFW area, where pastors who might not have been very keen on inviting biblical counseling suddenly became very much endorsers of biblical counseling. Mhmm. So I credit the those pastors who really have a high view of scripture and them embracing the biblical counseling approach, embracing really guys like David Palson and Paul Tripp and Ed Welch. It just created a a a whole new chapter for the biblical counseling movement, which was very exciting at the time. Mhmm.

Jeremy: 23:08

So ABC got to kinda ride ride in on that wave in the very beginning. Mhmm.

Michael: 23:14

That's really good. So how has the need for biblical counseling evolved then? So from that and kind of that momentum that it was building, how do you think it's evolved, and how ABC has adapted with that?

Jeremy: 23:25

Yeah. I think what's happening because more churches have become embracing, what's evolved is that churches are becoming they're stepping up to the plate in the realm of soul care. When I started, soul care in the church was not the way to go. If you were in a church, you would hire a licensed mental health professional on your staff, and that was your counselor. But what we're seeing today, just as an organization, as far as our training centers that are emerging all over the place, all over the world, The evolution is that Christians are beginning to step up to their call.

Jeremy: 24:01

Our conference is called Call to Council, and that comes out of John's curriculum, where he basically uses the Great Commission as our call, that we're all called to make disciples. And it's exciting to see that churches around the country and around the world are really embracing that. They're not being intimidated by the secular community, and they're really adopting their identity as Christ followers that they are called to help make disciples.

Michael: 24:29

Mhmm. Yeah. It's really good. So in wrapping up this episode, looking back, you know, you shared a lot and we're thankful for that. What are some of those defining moments in ABC's history that sort of kinda set us up for where we are today?

Jeremy: 24:42

Some things I've mentioned already, obviously, to have such wonderful men like Paleson and the others come in and support me. Support this guy that they didn't know, but just shared the love of Jesus, and we got to know each other. I don't I think I would have just said, I'm not doing this. This is a disaster, had those men not come in and nurtured my soul in a very personal and powerful way. I think the two thousand nine Symposium that, Doctor.

Jeremy: 25:12

Balson and I put together was a pivotal moment because, you know, in 02/2003 with 30 people at the conference, that was really discouraging. So to see the church packed was just like a confirmation in my heart that we just need to keep going. Meeting John Henderson was a pivotal moment. Without that meeting, at least as far as I could see, I don't think we would have equipped to counsel, and we would not have certification, and we would not be the ministry that we are today because of that. I think some other pivotal moments, you know, when we brought on Shauna, I think that was a game changer for this ministry.

Jeremy: 25:52

I think people that are going to listen to this podcast would be like, absolutely. That was a game changer. She came in and saw all of the holes that we had in our systems, and certification was it was just not a good experience for the student. And so that was always a drag on our ministry, but she came in and cleaned that up and just radically changed our ministry in a structural way. And that opened the door, for us to be able to hire other staff.

Jeremy: 26:21

So, now we just have this team of people. We all love each other, and we're all working in very specific roles, and it's like clockwork. You know, we everybody's doing what they're doing, and they're doing it beautifully. And so I just think the team we have now is also a pivotal moment because it's just it's helping us do our ministry with high integrity and efficiency, and so that we're a blessing to the peep students sign up, and they have a phenomenal experience through our certification process because of the team of people. And then all of our training leaders that are doing what they're doing.

Jeremy: 26:55

God has just blessed us in the last few years in ways that blows my mind. It's humbling. Mhmm.

Michael: 27:01

Yeah. It's really good. And we're actually that's a good point to end on because we're gonna pick up that part of the conversation in the heart of ABC here in the next episode.

Shauna: 27:09

I do wanna mention the symposium, though, that you've mentioned. It's actually if you're an ABC member, we have that on our membership page.

Jeremy: 27:15

Oh, that's right.

Shauna: 27:16

The conference going back to 02/2009. So they might wanna see that. It's a good you know, just a good panel discussion and

Jeremy: 27:23

It's great discussion. I think it was a game changer in the biblical counseling world.

Shauna: 27:26

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's good.

Michael: 27:28

Yeah. It's awesome. So yeah.

Shauna: 27:29

Thank you. Can I just say thank you? I mean, I'm sure everybody on that's listening wants to say thank you for just leading out. I mean, in reality, one of the things I heard is as you're stepping stepping into this and these people are caring for your soul and just kinda helping you push forward, like, they're stepping into what you're leading out on, you're also learning. Right?

Shauna: 27:45

You went to the Christian counseling to the biblical counseling, and there's probably a lot of growth that you had to step into. I'm leading this ministry, but I'm also learning so much.

Jeremy: 27:53

Yes.

Shauna: 27:53

And we don't know why God does that or calls us to those positions, but here he did.

Jeremy: 27:57

Yeah. My And

Shauna: 27:58

so I wouldn't have been able to step in had you not continued to move forward in that. Right? And so I know how much of a blessing it's been for us and our family and our ministry and our churches and being able just to have those relationships with the churches and see, you know, it's not just certifying someone for biblical counseling. It's it's providing the care for their church. And every person has a story and how God's using them specifically and then how that's a blessing for others in their church.

Shauna: 28:24

And that's what fires me up. Right? And I wouldn't have been able to kinda come in and use my gifting to be able to help the ministry had you not invited me into that. And can we say, he he you hired a woman executive director. That was communicating something really big at that time, and we had to kinda communicate what that really meant in that role that I'm not an authority over the church and those types of things.

Shauna: 28:45

And so you've really you've really took a chance with me, and so thank you for that. Absolutely,

Michael: 28:50

Sean. Yeah. That's really good. And so thank you guys for listening. I hope this was an encouragement.

Michael: 28:55

Just understanding the history of ABC. I know I think a lot of times we're so focused on what's ahead of us that we kinda lose sight of where we came from, how things came to where they are. That's encouraging. It's just and really, it's a it's an attribute to to God's faithfulness

Jeremy: 29:10

Yes.

Michael: 29:10

Which I think was threaded throughout this history of ABC. And so thank you guys for listening. We'll catch you guys on the next episode.