Your Covenant Pathway to a Preferred Future with Terry Hoggard (Ep 363)
Stop drifting and discover your covenant pathway to a preferred future. Veteran missionary Terry Hoggard reveals a transformative three-movement practice: foundation, strategic insight, and covenant with God. This isn't goal-setting—it's positioning yourself in the center of what God is doing. This calibration time gives God opportunity to download fresh vision for your next season.
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See the full episode transcript below.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Your Covenant Pathway to a Preferred Future with Terry Hoggard
Brian: Welcome to the podcast today, friends. I have a great family member and friend and a co-laborer. We work together on some projects, some kingdom projects. Terry Hoggard is with us, and we are discussing something today. We're at the outset of the new year. I think these dynamics could be applied anytime. I don't think we have to do a reboot just in January, right, Terry?
Terry: It's a great moment to capture in my heart, so I love it. I'm cleaning up everything I know to do with the old year going out, and I want to be there hands wide open saying, "Here I am, Lord. I've got some things to talk to You about, and I'm sure You have some things to say to me."
Brian: Amen. Yes, absolutely. And sometimes people will listen to an episode like six months later. I put out something recently encouraging people to think about 90-day years—the winter season, the spring season, summer, fall. You can continually start afresh, start anew. But definitely at the beginning of our year is a great time. People are of this mindset, aren't they, in January? It's just a natural tendency, it seems.
Meet Terry Hoggard
Terry Hoggard has served for 30 years as a missionary leader across Europe with the Assemblies of God. He's provided pastoral leadership in Rome, Brussels, Copenhagen, and Malmö, Sweden. He has also equipped international teams and built cross-cultural networks around the world, including Asia, throughout his ministry. And Terry and his wife Ruthanne, my cousin on my dad's side, continue to invest in leaders globally. Thank you for being here. And what else could you say about the Lord's workings in your life currently?
Terry: Well, at this moment I'm still highly engaged with the network of churches, so I still have intimate connection to the four churches that you mentioned. But in early 2004, I think, we built out what we called FEIC—Fellowship of European International Churches. It's an incredible network still going strong.
And then in 2011 we met for a summit. Every year we'd gather, and in 2011 we were praying on our way to say goodbye. A friend of mine, his name is Al Perna, was praying, and he just felt like the Lord was saying, "Now's the time to extend the tent. We've been here together for almost a decade, but there's all these other churches and the movement of the nations and the diaspora." Three times God spoke to us. We have to do something.
Well, at this moment, our leader of the Assemblies of God World Missions was brand new. His name was Greg Mundus. I said, "Greg, you know we have FEIC. How would you feel about us bringing all the regions—Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Eurasia, Latin America, Northern Asia—and begin to create a network that would allow each one of these regions to be intimately connected internally, but by expansion they have the whole world?" And Greg said, "That's a good idea."
Brian: So that came out of prayer both in your own life and in partnership with others. Pattern recognition—what the Lord is continuously saying and doing. How important is it for all of us to be people of prayer, to be connected with others in prayer, to live our best calling before God?
Terry: Absolutely. In fact, all those things—it's all about the capacity of the community. These guys were lined up behind me or around me, and I didn't even know that this was something that anyone was percolating. I think God spoke sovereignly in that moment. And from that initiative, God birthed something that was just so amazing.
Brian: Percolating. I like that. Percolating in the Holy Spirit. I had a friend who said, "Kingdom currency runs on kingdom connections." That's vital, isn't it, for all of us to have quality, authenticity, kingdom connectivity so that the Holy Spirit can run on that?
Terry: Absolutely.
Three Words: Clarity, Closure, Catalytic
Brian: This is a time, Terry. I was actually thinking this morning about three words that begin with C: clarity, closure, and catalytic. What could you say about just the need to get clarity from the Lord, to maybe bring closure looking back to some things that need to close, and turn to the future and be catalytic with new things that need to open up? What do you think about that? Clarity, closure, catalytic.
Terry: Well, I guess I would say this. I think in every situation, but specifically in these kinds of things that are strategic and they're emerging, I think it's the posture of your heart. If you have something you want to take to the Father and you want to talk about it, it's a wonderful thing. But if you just go saying, "Lord, I'm not sure what it is. Let clarity come. Let there be catalytic realities that would confirm that this is what You want me to do." I know there's a lot of things we can do—we can read books and we can hear other things—but I think the seed is born out of the heart. And the posture and the positioning of the heart would be absolutely critical.
Brian: Yeah. And the partnership with the Creator in the prayer and the positioning ourselves to receive new initiatives and to really begin to pray them into being, right?
Terry: Yeah.
The Three Movements Toward Your Preferred Future
Brian: Now, you recently shared something with me, at my request, something that you and your wife Ruthanne go through every holiday season approaching the new year. You pursue—you're really going after a pathway that leads to a preferred future. I appreciate you being willing to share this personal practice that you do with your wife, but I think it can apply to all of us. What is that approach? What are those three movements? I'd just love to hear about that again.
Terry: Here's what it really is. My first expression is that I want to openly open my heart and openly confess. I'm here at the end of 2025, and I have some notes here that I carried out of this same moment a year ago. And, Lord, I know there are things here that I was so eager to engage, and somehow along the way, as much as God did glorious things, I think I left this one not unattended, but I didn't bring it into fulfillment.
So I began something knowing that. And then I began to realize this time—there's always a way it works. The first thing that struck my heart was foundation. And what I knew was I needed a foundation that was solid and sure. Because to live out the mandate of God is something that really needs to be built around the most powerful platform that anyone could stand on. I don't want to have one foot up on a ledge. I don't want to be right to the center or right to the left. I want to be right in the center of what God is doing. So that was really important to me.
The second thing that I found would be important to me is not just foundation, but that I wanted to have the opportunity to have strategic insight. Because I know there are things here that I need to see to get beyond where I am. And I want that to be a reality.
And then the other thing was that I wanted to come to this place where I would sort of make it a covenant with God—that these things that I've written and spoken with my wife about, and one of my daughters came with us (she loves to do this thing as well), I want it to be not just a matter of words and not even commitment as much as—I do love commitment—but I said, "Lord, before I leave this time of prayer, we spent the whole hour, two hours actually, doing our work and writing and praying at the end. But I want this to be a locked-in covenant so that I am being provoked every single day when I just stop and pray." I've been doing it now. I'm doing a lot of Bible reading and looking into the whole foundation thing because I think that's important. I think if we don't get a foundation right, we can somehow be swept away unintentionally, but it can be very traumatic.
Brian: So the basics, the basic foundational elements—the Word of God, prayer, consecration. And so you prioritize that and build off of that. And you're tapping the power of covenant. Correct me if I'm wrong, Terry—I'm learning, trying to learn all the time—but I'm not sure that many modern-day Christ followers fully understand or understand as much as they should about covenant, how God is a covenant God.
→ See the show notes page at jesussmart.com/363
Commitment vs. Covenant
Terry: Oh yeah. I came to Christ in 1970. I was 16 years old. I was from a Christian family, but it was commitment that captured me. I'm there listening to this speaker, and he said, "I want to just tell you something. The bottom line is this: Jesus did not die 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 95%, 99.5%. Jesus laid everything down. He committed His life for this possibility for us to be reconciled to Him."
And he says, "Here's the struggle that I have. Most of you here obviously have some sort of draw, but the bottom line is your threshold is this: 'I want to be able to make sure my life makes my mama happy and my pastor proud.'"
And then he went back. "So if you're going to walk with Jesus, you've got to lay everything down." He was a football player, and he said, "You know what really aggravates the heck out of me? You come into a game that you've lost, the guys get in, they start laughing and goofing around and snapping each other with their towels. And our coach or someone would say, 'Hey, if you had that much energy in you, why didn't you leave it on the field?'"
Brian: Yeah, yeah.
Terry: So commitment is the thing that fires us. Covenant is the thing that saves us.
Brian: And draws on that partnership with God to execute, right?
Terry: So you live close. You live in the threshold of His presence because that's where I promised to be.
Brian: The capacities of Christ via the Holy Spirit flowing through us. Sometimes I think we probably have a tendency—we don't want to do a spiritual inventory or do an audit on how our year was because we're afraid of what we might surface. We may feel bad about it, but we have to overcome that, don't we?
Terry: We sure do. And I remember back in the days, in the '70s, it was in our church and maybe many others—it was this watch night, and the pastor was actually calling us out. "There are some things that you need to leave behind in this year." I need to leave a lot of stuff behind in 1970, I can tell you that. But he just gets us to the altar. It was just this moment—just left refreshed. My heart has been unburdened. I just feel as if He's a God who loves me so much. I know He's ready to help me walk in a different way. And if I make my covenant out of this commitment, the bottom line is I believe God can craft things into our hearts in such a timely manner that had we not made that pivot, it might have gotten right over us.
The Power of First Fruits and Spiritual Inventory
Brian: There's a power in using the first fruits principle, isn't there, Terry? Like taking that first period of time in the new year or in a week or even on a daily basis, consecrating it to God, and it draws the rest of it under an increased blessing and influence. Do you look then for significant things that you feel God is speaking to you, revealing or fulfilling in your lives at that point in time?
Terry: Oh yeah. I was a pastor for many years, and about a decade ago, Convoy of Hope invited me to come and be their vice president. At the time, I was leading the international program. Now I'm leading global network support. But when I was a pastor, I would let people know. I'd say, "If you want to know what the theme is going to be for the next year, you need to be at the watch night service." When we finished, I'd say, "Here's where we're headed. Here's what God is saying." I would probably have half the year already mapped out in my head because I was trying to take the things that the Lord was telling me and not making them just my call—but I wanted to say these are priorities, these are principles, these are things. And I had so much fun being a pastor because I'm preaching all the stuff that's just been lit up inside me. And of course, when you're pretty enthusiastic and people are tracking with you, it's like, "Man, we are just in a good space"—not just me, the community.
Brian: So we have to be willing to engage this and look in the mirror and look at God and allow the Word and the Lord, the Spirit, to reflect back to us a real-time, realistic appraisal of where we're at. Let them judge us in that sense of a positive appraisal. And then the pivots that we need to make, the changes, the new things we need to lean into can come out of that. Can somebody do this? What if they missed the first of the year? Can they do it anytime?
Terry: Anytime, man. Anytime that your heart or your spirit is being pricked, or you feel this sense in your own spirit that maybe you're struggling with some things at this particular moment—and it may be March or it might be October—the bottom line is I'm going to step inside here and I'm going to be brave enough to do a personal spiritual inventory. And the more you call yourself out, the more you weaken whatever it is that's trying to invade space that has been consecrated to God.
Brian: Yes. Amen. You talk about embracing the spiritual position that the Lord is requiring of you to make these changes so that they can be actualized or evident, realized. What could you say about that? Just an honest appraisal of embracing the spiritual position required.
Terry: Well, I think for me most often when I make that covenant, when I say I'm going to do that, I change something. So there have been seasons when I would get up very early and I would pray in the morning and read my Bible. And that was good, and it worked for a while. And then I came to understand I don't need these 45 minutes at 6 in the morning that's going to last the whole day. So then I would go to doing things kind of in measure. I'm a coffee drinker, so most folks would pray at their meals, but I'm good enough to pray for my coffee. And every time I'm doing this with someone in front of me, I want to tell you what the Lord was kind of talking to me about this morning. And so I just want to integrate it into my personhood. And at the same time, I want to model it so consistently that if I'm mentoring or discipling someone, I can put something in their hands that may be where they would want to start.
→ See the show notes page at jesussmart.com/363
The Power of Community and Partnership
Brian: Yes. And be exhortational and motivating in that sense. And not everyone is married, but a lot of people are married. Could you talk about what it means to be a couple in this together, in mission together? But also for those who aren't married, maybe with their quality friends or their boyfriend or girlfriend or their fiancé.
Terry: You know, I married your cousin. I have a Del Turco, so I'm very blessed to do that. But the thing about Ruthanne is she had no idea as to what I was going to do because I didn't know. I went to Bible school simply because I could not get into the police academy and I did not want to stay in Wichita. We meet at CBC, Central Bible College in Springfield, and she said, "So what are you going to do?" I said, "Yeah, I really don't know. I wanted to be a cop or a coach, but I don't know." "You're not going to be a pastor?" "No, no. Me, a pastor? Come on."
And then in 1980—we got married in '74—I felt God literally just speaking. This was the day of Keith Green, so that could be a big influence. And I just felt the Lord speaking to me so profoundly in that moment. It was 1980. I was pastoring this new church. And then in 1984, our daughters were maybe 4 and 6, and Ruth and I had been married for a decade. In that moment, we were chosen to be commissioned as missionaries. So I am at this point in my 42nd year of being a commissioned missionary, living in those four cities you talked about and doing a whole lot of other things. When I came to Convoy of Hope, I went everywhere. That's just how it landed for me. When I felt the prompting of the Lord, I was out of the chute and ready to go.
Brian: So from just the passion to get out of Wichita, the iteration of your calling, the promptings, steerings along the way—we never really can foresee the whole plan at once, can we? It might be overwhelming, frankly. But the Lord, the grace comes. And if you're married or if you have quality relationships with others in the body of Christ, this is important. We don't want to be in a silo. We want to be able in partnership with others to hear God. It affects us, doesn't it? Relationships.
Terry: Yeah. Well, and the fact is it was Ruthanne—who knows even how much that brought to our marriage? She brings a great heritage of godly people. Her grandparents, her siblings, my father-in-law. There's just—like you, you're in that same tribe. Could well be that I needed to marry a Del Turco to make my way to be a missionary.
Brian: Well, I mean, it's not good for the man to be alone, and "he who finds a wife finds a good thing, obtains favor," right? And the wife completes a lot of what's missing. But if you're not married or if your marriage has broken up, there is still this capacity within relationships within the body of Christ—being connected to great spiritual leaders, great quality fellow believers in the Lord, prayer partners and friendships. That is a dynamic that we need. I think the Apostle Paul said, "I have a great desire to come to you and to complete what is lacking in your faith." We...
Transcript
Hey there friend.
Speaker A:Welcome to the podcast today.
Speaker A:This is the Jesus martx Podcast.
Speaker A:I'm Brian Del Turco and thanks for connecting with me today.
Speaker A:My special guest today is Terry Hoggard, a family member and a veteran missionary leader who has served 30 years across Europe, Rome, Brussels, Copenhagen, Malmo and has equipped international teams around the world.
Speaker A:Terry and his wife, my cousin Ruthanne have a personal practice that they do every year that I think is transformative.
Speaker A:It's really a pathway to a preferred future that's built on three movements according to Terry Foundation.
Speaker A:Secondly, strategic insight and then covenant with God.
Speaker A:Now today we're exploring clarity, closure and catalytic action and why you don't have to wait for January to do this.
Speaker A:You can do this anytime during the year.
Speaker A:We know that episodes are listened to through throughout the year and this is really a calibration time.
Speaker A:It's getting a read on where we're at, giving God an opportunity to download Fresh Vision for the next season.
Speaker A:There are full show notes and a transcript of our conversation@jesussmart.com 363 and can I encourage you not to miss the Smart Edit newsletter?
Speaker A:I don't want you to miss out.
Speaker A:I'd love to have you on the list.
Speaker A:Elevate your faith.
Speaker A:Live smart.
Speaker A:Make an impact.
Speaker A:It's free, it's weekly, five minutes to grow.
Speaker A:You can simply subscribe jesussmart.com now let's dive into today's Jesus dynamic.
Speaker A:Dynamics are how things work.
Speaker A:And when I say a Jesus dynamic, it's the teaching and modeling of Jesus that He has left for us, that he actually brings to us in the now via His Holy Spirit.
Speaker A:And it's how his kingdom works.
Speaker A:Snow does not ask permission from the ground.
Speaker A:It arrives with authority.
Speaker A:Snow falls quietly, it steadily.
Speaker A:It covers everything.
Speaker A:God's voice is in nature.
Speaker A:It's a good parable if we have eyes to see.
Speaker A:In Isaiah 55, verses 10 and 11, God says, For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there, without watering the earth and making it to bear and sprout, furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so will my Word be, which goes forth from my mouth.
Speaker A:And I love this.
Speaker A:It will not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I did desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.
Speaker A:My friend, God does everything via the agency of His Word, creation itself, his covenant to us, our born again experience, redemption, regeneration, and renewal.
Speaker A:He speaks and reality responds.
Speaker A:And that includes your personal world too, as well as the macro World issues that we're witnessing today, like snow.
Speaker A:His word may seem slow, quiet, even at times, even perhaps inconvenient.
Speaker A:We can be assured of this.
Speaker A:His word is active and it's working.
Speaker A:It penetrates, it soaks in, it prepares the earth, the earth of our personal world as well as the globe itself.
Speaker A:It guarantees a future harvest.
Speaker A:If God has spoken, the outcome is already in motion.
Speaker A:Let the snowstorm remind you what comes down from heaven always accomplishes heaven's intent.
Speaker A:Let's jump into this powerful conversation with Terry Hoggard about pursuing your preferred future with intentionality and covenant.
Speaker B:Welcome to the podcast today, friends.
Speaker B:I have a great, really family member and friend and a co laborer.
Speaker B:We work together on some projects, some kingdom projects.
Speaker B:Terry Hoggard is with us and we are discussing something today.
Speaker B:We're at the outset of the new year.
Speaker B:I think these dynamics could be applied anytime.
Speaker B:I don't think we have to do a reboot every just in January, right, Terry?
Speaker C:It's a great moment to capture in my heart.
Speaker C:So I love it.
Speaker C:I'm, I'm cleaning up everything I know to do with the year old year going out and I want to, I want to be their hands wide open saying, here I am, Lord, I've got some things to talk to you about and I'm sure you have some things to say to me.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker C:Here I am.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker B:And, and sometimes people will listen to an episode like six months later and I would like to, I put out something recently encouraging people to think about 90 day years, you know, like the winter season, the spring season, summer, fall.
Speaker B:Yeah, you can continually start afresh, start anew.
Speaker B:But definitely at the beginning of our year is a great time.
Speaker B:People are of this mindset, aren't they, in January?
Speaker C:Oh yeah.
Speaker B:It's just a natural tendency, it seems.
Speaker A:Terry Hoggard has served for 30 years.
Speaker B:As a missionary leader across Europe with the Assemblies of God.
Speaker B:He's provided pastoral leadership in Rome, Brussels, Copenhagen and Malmo, Sweden.
Speaker B:He has also equipped international teams and built these cross cultural networks around the world, including Asia, throughout his ministry.
Speaker B:And Terry and his wife Ruthanne, my cousin on my dad's side, continue to invest in leaders globally.
Speaker B:Thank you for being here.
Speaker B:And what else could you say about the Lord's workings in your life currently?
Speaker C:Well, at this moment I'm still highly engaged with the network of churches, so still have intimate connection to the four churches that you mentioned.
Speaker C: , I think: Speaker C: And then in: Speaker C: Every year,: Speaker C:We were able to.
Speaker C:We could actually rent it every year at the same time.
Speaker C:It just became a dynamic moment.
Speaker C:And people would come and visit and say, you know, there's something here.
Speaker C:Terry, this is.
Speaker C:I don't.
Speaker C:We don't.
Speaker C:We go to conferences and summits.
Speaker C:We don't see these kinds of things in a moment of prayer.
Speaker C:A friend of mine, his name is Al Perna and his dad was a missionary of great note.
Speaker C:And Al and his wife were also second generation missionaries in the same place practically.
Speaker C:But anyway, he's praying and he just felt like, well, I think the Lord just spoke to me and I said, that's great.
Speaker C:I just feel like the Lord is saying, now's the time to extend the tent.
Speaker C:We've been here together for almost a decade, but there's all these other churches and the movement of the nations and the, the spira things of people moving back and forth.
Speaker C:The diaspora was big.
Speaker C:And so we wanted to just say.
Speaker C:He was just saying that out to us.
Speaker C:So I said, well, I'm kind of with you, Al.
Speaker C:And then we prayed again.
Speaker C:Well, anyway, he said, terry, I think someone had some kind of prophetic word they wanted to speak.
Speaker C:And he said, terry, here's the thing.
Speaker C:Three times God has spoken to us.
Speaker C:We have to do something.
Speaker C:Well, at this moment, our leader of the Assemblies of God World Missions was brand new.
Speaker C:His name was Greg Mundus.
Speaker C:And I said, Greg's barely been in office.
Speaker C:I don't want to go anything right now.
Speaker C:But as it turns out, I said, greg, you know we have feic.
Speaker C:How would you feel about us bringing all the regions which would be Africa, Asia, Pacific, Europe, Eurasia, Latin America, Northern Asia.
Speaker C:How about if we were to begin to create a network that would allow each one of these regions to be intimately connected internally, but by expansion they have the whole world.
Speaker C:The six regions we can, we can interact together.
Speaker C:And Greg says that's a good idea.
Speaker C:So if you go to feic.org you'll still see our website there.
Speaker C:Yeah, new leadership.
Speaker C:But you'll also see the about us and the history.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:And then global ICN is globalICN.com and again, a great, a great thing to look into to know just exactly what we put together back in the day.
Speaker B:So that came out of prayer, both in your own life and in partnership with others and you know, like pattern recognition, what the Lord is continuously saying and doing.
Speaker B:And I mean, just on that, Terry, how.
Speaker B:How important is it for all of us to be people of prayer, to be connected with others in prayer, to live, to live our best calling before God?
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:In fact, all those things, it's.
Speaker C:It's all about the.
Speaker C:The capacity of the.
Speaker C:Of the.
Speaker C:Of community.
Speaker C:These guys were as they were.
Speaker C:They.
Speaker C:They were lined up behind me or around me, and I didn't even know that this was something that they were.
Speaker C:Even anyone was percolating.
Speaker C:I think God spoke sovereignly on that moment.
Speaker C:And from that initiative, God birthed something that just was still so amazing.
Speaker B:Absolutely percolating.
Speaker B:I like that.
Speaker B:Percolating in the Holy Spirit.
Speaker B:And I had a. I had a friend who said, you know, kingdom currency runs on kingdom connections.
Speaker B:That's vital, isn't it, for all of us to have quality authent.
Speaker B:Kingdom connectivity.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker B:So that the Holy Spirit can run on that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:There's things I tell you.
Speaker B:This is a time, Terry, I was actually thinking this morning about three words with the begin with C. Clarity, closure, and catalytic.
Speaker B:And what could you say, Terry, about just the need to.
Speaker B:To get clarity from the Lord to maybe bring closure.
Speaker B:Looking back to some things that need to bring, you know, need to close and turn to the future and be catalytic with new things that need to open up.
Speaker B:What do you think about that?
Speaker B:Clarity, closure, catalytic?
Speaker C:Well, I guess I would say this, I think in every situation, but specifically in these kinds of things that are strategic and they're emerging.
Speaker C:I think it's the posture of your heart.
Speaker C:If you have something you want to take to the Father and you want to talk about it, it's a wonderful thing.
Speaker C:But if you just go saying, lord, I'm not sure sure what it is.
Speaker C:So make it.
Speaker C:Make, make.
Speaker C:Let clarity come.
Speaker C:Let.
Speaker C:Let there be catalytic realities that would confirm that this is what you want me to do.
Speaker C:So I. I know there's a lot of things we can do.
Speaker C:We can read books and we can hear other things, but I think the seed is born out of the heart.
Speaker C:And the.
Speaker C:The posture and the positioning of the heart would be absolutely critical.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker B:And the partnership with the Creator.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And the prayer and the positioning ourselves and to receive new initiatives and to.
Speaker B:And to really begin to pray them into being.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Now, you recently shared something with me at my request, something that you and your wife Ruthanne go through every.
Speaker B:Every holiday season, approaching the new year.
Speaker B:You pursue, you know, you're really going after a pathway.
Speaker B:I think you've communicated it that way.
Speaker B:A pathway that leads to a preferred future.
Speaker B:I appreciate you being willing to share this personal, you know, practice that you do with your wife, but I think it appl.
Speaker B:Can apply to all of us.
Speaker B:What is that approach?
Speaker B:What are those three movements?
Speaker B:And I would just love to hear about that again.
Speaker C:But here's what it really is really down to this.
Speaker C:It really is the movement for me that I want to.
Speaker C:My first expression is that I want to openly open my heart and openly confess in the.
Speaker C:In.
Speaker C:In the.
Speaker C:In the certain moment that I. I'm here.
Speaker C: It's the end of: Speaker C:And I have some notes here that I carried it.
Speaker C:Carried out of the.
Speaker C:Out of this same moment a year ago.
Speaker C:And I. Lord, I know there are things here that I was so rabid to engage.
Speaker C:And somehow along the way, as much as God did glorious things.
Speaker C:I think I'd left this one not unattended, but I didn't bring it into fulfillment.
Speaker C:So I began something knowing like that.
Speaker C:And then I began to realize this time there's always a way it works.
Speaker C:The first thing that struck my heart was foundation.
Speaker C:And what I knew was I needed a foundation that was solid and sure.
Speaker C:Because to live out the mandate of God is something that really needs to be built around the most powerful platform that anyone could spend on.
Speaker C:I don't want to have my one foot up on a ledge.
Speaker C:I don't want to be right to the center or right to the left.
Speaker C:I want to be right in the center of what God is doing.
Speaker C:So that was really important to me.
Speaker C:The second thing that I found that would be important to me is not just foundation, but that I wanted to have the opportunity to have strategic insight.
Speaker C:Because I know there are things here that I need to see to get beyond where I am.
Speaker C:And I want that to.
Speaker C:I want that to be a reality.
Speaker C:And then the other thing was, is that I wanted to come to this.
Speaker C:This place where I would sort of make it a covenant with God that these things that we.
Speaker C:That I've written with and spoken with my wife about.
Speaker C:And one of my daughters came with us.
Speaker C:She loves to do this thing as well.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker C:And I said, I want it to be not just a matter of words and not even commitment as much as I. I do love commitment.
Speaker B:All right?
Speaker C:I said, lord, before I leave this.
Speaker C:This time of.
Speaker C:This prayer of.
Speaker C:We spent the whole hour, two hours, actually.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:Doing our.
Speaker C:Doing our work and our writing and praying at the end.
Speaker C:But I want this to be a locked in covenant so that I am, I am, I'm, I am being prop provoked every single day when I just stop and pray just for one thing or another.
Speaker C:I've been doing it kind of right now I'm doing a lot of Bible reading and looking into the whole foundation thing because I think that's important.
Speaker C:I think if we don't get a foundation right, we can somehow be swept away in a way, unintentionally, but it can be very traumatic.
Speaker B:So the basics, the basic foundational elements, the word of God.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Prayer, consecration.
Speaker B:And so you, you, you prioritize that and build off of that.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:And, and you're tapping the power of covenant.
Speaker B:Correct me if I'm wrong, Terry.
Speaker B:I, I'm learning, trying to learn all the time.
Speaker B:But I'm not sure that many modern day Christ followers fully understand or understand as much as they should about covenant.
Speaker C:Oh yeah.
Speaker B:How God is a covenant God.
Speaker C: I came to Christ in: Speaker C:I was 16 years old.
Speaker C:My, I was from a Christian family.
Speaker C:But it was commitment that captured me because I'm there listening to an athlete.
Speaker C:It was not time yet for fellowship Christian athletes, but there was someone in our high school who had daughters who were gymnasts.
Speaker C:And the father wanted to put Christian speakers in front of us.
Speaker C:So he had a barn.
Speaker C:And we'd go, so this guy's speaking and he said, I want to just tell you something.
Speaker C:The bottom line is this.
Speaker C:Jesus did not die.
Speaker C:50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90, 95, 99.5.
Speaker C:Jesus laid everything down.
Speaker C:He committed his life for this possibility for us to be reconciled to him.
Speaker C:And he says, and here's, here's the struggle that I have.
Speaker C:Most of you here obviously have some sort of draw, but the bottom line is your, your threshold is this.
Speaker C:I want to be able to make sure my life makes my mama happy and my pastor proud.
Speaker C:And then he went back.
Speaker C:So if you're going to walk with Jesus, you got to lay everything down.
Speaker C:And he was a football player.
Speaker C:He said, you want to think just really aggravates the heck out of me is you come into a game that you've lost, the guys get in, they start laughing and goofing around and snapping each other with their back with their towels.
Speaker C:And our coach or someone say, hey, if you had that much energy in you, why didn't you leave it on the field?
Speaker C:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:You should be.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:So commitment is the thing that fires us.
Speaker C:Covenant is the thing that saves us.
Speaker B:And draws on that partnership with God.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:To execute.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:So you live close.
Speaker C:You live in the threshold of his presence.
Speaker C:Sure, because that's where I promised to be.
Speaker B:The capacities of Christ via the Holy Spirit flowing through us.
Speaker B:You know, there's sometimes I think we probably have a tendency.
Speaker B:We don't want to do a spiritual inventory or do an audit on how our year was because we're afraid of what we might surface.
Speaker B:We may feel bad, you know, about it, but yeah, we have to overcome that, don't we?
Speaker C:We sure do.
Speaker C:And I remember back in the days in the 70s, it was in our church and maybe many others.
Speaker C:It was, it was that kind of thing.
Speaker C:It was this watch night and we were there at the very, I mean, pastor was actually calling us out.
Speaker C:There are some things that you need to leave behind in this year.
Speaker C: leave a lot of step behind in: Speaker C:But he just got me, gets us to the altar.
Speaker C:It was just this moment she just left refreshed.
Speaker C:My heart has been unburdened.
Speaker C:I just feel as if he's a.
Speaker C:He's a God who loves me so much.
Speaker C:I've just.
Speaker C:I know he's ready to help me walk in a different way.
Speaker C:And if I make my decision, my, my covenant out of this commitment, if I make that covenant, the bottom line is I believe God can craft things into our hearts at, in such a timely manner that had we not made that pivot, it might have gotten right over us.
Speaker B:There's a power in using the first fruits principle, isn't there, Terry?
Speaker B:Like taking that first period of time in, in the new year or in a week or even in a daily basis, consecrating it to God and it draws the rest of it under an increased blessing and influence.
Speaker B:Do you look then for significant things that God.
Speaker B:You feel God is speaking to you?
Speaker B:Revealing?
Speaker C:Oh yeah.
Speaker B:Or fulfilling in your, in your lives at that point in time?
Speaker C:I was a pastor for many years and of late, about a decade ago, Convoy of Hope invited me to come and be their vice president.
Speaker C:At the time, I was leading the international program.
Speaker C:Now I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm leading the globe.
Speaker C:I'm, I'm in my, my role changed to global network support.
Speaker C:But when I was a pastor, I would let people know.
Speaker C:I'd say, if you want to know what the theme is going to be for the next year, you need to be at the watch night service.
Speaker C:You need to be there and we'll talk.
Speaker C:So when I We finished, and I haven't said a word.
Speaker C:I. I just say, here's where we're headed.
Speaker C:Here's what God is saying.
Speaker C:I would probably have half the year already mapped out in my head because I was trying to take.
Speaker C:Say the things that the Lord was, Was telling me and saying to me and taking them out and not making them, you know, the level of covenant or commitment, I'm.
Speaker C:That's, that's comes from a call that doesn't emanate out of my voice.
Speaker C:But I wanted to say these are, these are priorities, these are principles, these are things.
Speaker C:And I mean, it was.
Speaker C:I had so much fun being a pastor because, I mean, I'm.
Speaker C:I'm preaching all the stuff that's just been lit up inside me.
Speaker C:And of course, when you're pretty enthusiastic and people are tracking with you, it's like, man, we are just in a good space.
Speaker C:Not just me, the community.
Speaker B:So we have to be willing to engage this and look in the mirror and look at God, right?
Speaker B:And allow the Word and the Lord, the Spirit to reflect back to us a real, A real time, realistic appraisal of where we're at.
Speaker B:You know, let them judge us in that sense of a positive appraisal.
Speaker B:And then the pivots that we need to make the changes, the new things we need to lean into can come out of that.
Speaker B:Can somebody do this?
Speaker B:What if they missed the first of the year?
Speaker B:Can they do it?
Speaker B:I think I know the answer.
Speaker B:Can they do it anytime, Anytime.
Speaker C:And anytime that your, your heart or your spirit is being pricked or, or you feel this, this sort of the sense in your, Your own spirit that maybe there.
Speaker C:I'm.
Speaker C:I'm kind of struggling with some things at this particular moment.
Speaker C:And it may be March or it might be October.
Speaker C:The bottom line is I'm gonna.
Speaker C:I'm just gonna step inside here and I'm gonna make.
Speaker C:I'm gonna be brave enough to do a personal spiritual inventory.
Speaker C:And the more you, the more you call yourself out, the more you weaken whatever it is that's trying to, to invade space that has been consecrated to God.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:You talk about embracing the spiritual position that the Lord is requiring of you to make these changes so that they can be, you know, actualized or evident, you know, realized.
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:What could you say about that?
Speaker B:Just.
Speaker B:Just an honest appraisal of, Of.
Speaker B:Of embracing the spiritual position required.
Speaker C:Well, I, I think it for me most often when I make that covenant, when I say I'm going to do that, I change something.
Speaker C:So there have been seasons when I would get up very early and I would pray in the morning and, and read my Bible.
Speaker C:And that was good.
Speaker C:And it was, it worked for a while.
Speaker C:And then I, I came to understand I don't need this, these, you know, 45 minutes in the, in at 6 in the morning and, and that's going to last the whole day.
Speaker C:So then I would go to doing things kind of in measure.
Speaker C:So, you know, I'm, I'm a coffee drinker.
Speaker C:So most folks would pray at their meals, but I'm, I'm pretty much, I'm, I'm good enough for.
Speaker C:Pray about with, pray for my coffee.
Speaker C:And I say to the guys, you know, I'm a coffee drinker.
Speaker C:And every time I'm doing this with someone in front of me, I want to tell you what the Lord was kind of talking to me about this morning.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And so I just, I want to integrate it in my, into my personhood.
Speaker C:And at the same time I want to model it so consistent consistently that if I'm entering or discipling someone, I can put something in their hands that may be where they would want to start.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:And be exhortational and motivating in that sense.
Speaker B:And not everyone is married, but a lot of people are married.
Speaker B:But could you talk about what it means to be a couple in this together, in mission together, but also for those who aren't married, maybe with their quality friends or their boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever.
Speaker C:Their fiance, of course, you know, I married your cousin.
Speaker C:I have a Del Turco, so I'm very blessed to do that.
Speaker C:But the thing about Ruthanne is she had no idea as to what I was going to do because I didn't know.
Speaker C:I went to Bible school simply because I could not get into the police academy.
Speaker C:And I did not want to stay in Wichita and go to Wichita State University.
Speaker C:I got to get out of wichita.
Speaker C:I'm just 17, but I'm going to be 18 in a couple of weeks.
Speaker C:And I'm thinking I got to get out of here.
Speaker C:So we meet at CBC Central Bible College in Springfield.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And she said, so what are you going to do to her?
Speaker C:I said, no, I really don't know.
Speaker C:I wanted to be a cop or a coach, but I don't know.
Speaker C:So you're not gonna be a pastor?
Speaker C:No, no.
Speaker C:Me, a pastor?
Speaker C:Come on, you've seen me on campus for four weeks.
Speaker C:You know that can't be true.
Speaker C:And so I, she had no idea this was coming.
Speaker C:And then When I told her what we did youth pastor thing and, and, and then I would pastor.
Speaker C: And then it was a moment in: Speaker C: In: Speaker C:I felt God literally just, just speaking, man.
Speaker C:This was the day of Keith Green.
Speaker C:So hold on to that.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:That could be a big influence.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:It's gonna be, it's gonna be pretty strong, right?
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:And I just, I just felt the Lord saying it to me.
Speaker C:I mean, profound.
Speaker C:And I just wanted to keep walking.
Speaker C:I would actually, with that will tell you.
Speaker C:I'd put out a pamphlet or I dial up on one of those cassettes and make it be the right song.
Speaker C:Like, you know, Jesus said, just said to go, don't.
Speaker C:You don't have to think about this.
Speaker C:We're good to go.
Speaker C:But the point was, I felt God speaking so profoundly in that moment.
Speaker C: It was: Speaker C:I was pastoring this new church.
Speaker C:It was something I really wanted to do.
Speaker C: And then in: Speaker C:I think Carrie was.
Speaker C:Maybe they were 4 and 6.
Speaker C:And I think maybe Ruth and I had been married for a decade.
Speaker C:And in that moment, we were chosen to be commissioned as missionaries.
Speaker C:So I am at this point, this is my 42nd year of being a commissioned missionary.
Speaker C:Being in all the places that you.
Speaker C:I lived in those four cities you talked about and did a whole lot of other things.
Speaker C:When I came to Convoy of Hope, I went everywhere.
Speaker C:I don't even know how many.
Speaker C:I gotta count up the nations, but I was everywhere.
Speaker C:So that was, that's, that's just how it landed for me.
Speaker C:It just landed that I, I, I didn't, I didn't wait for it.
Speaker C:I didn't linger for it.
Speaker C:When I felt the prompting of the Lord, I was out, out of the chute and ready to go.
Speaker B:So from just the passion to get out of Wichita.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:The iteration of your calling, Right.
Speaker B:The promptings.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Steerings along the way.
Speaker B:We never really can foresee the whole plan, can we, at once?
Speaker B:It might be overwhelming, frankly, but, but, but the Lord, the grace comes.
Speaker B:And so if you're married or if you have quality relationships with others in the body of Christ, this is important.
Speaker B:Is it?
Speaker B:We don't want to be in a silo or we want to be able in partnership with others to hear God to, to.
Speaker B:It affects us, doesn't it?
Speaker B:Relationships?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Well.
Speaker C:And the fact is it was Ruth.
Speaker C:And who knows even how much, how much of that brought, brought to, to our marriage.
Speaker C:I mean, I, I had no thought.
Speaker C:I didn't I was even going to go to.
Speaker C:I wanted to, I didn't want to go to Bible school, you know, but I didn't want to stay.
Speaker C:I didn't want to stay in Wichita.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:So there must have been.
Speaker C:I mean she brings a great heritage of godly.
Speaker C:I mean just her grandparents, her sibling, my, my, my father in law and Mary's siblings.
Speaker C:There's just a.
Speaker C:Like you, you're in that same tribe.
Speaker C:I have no idea.
Speaker C:Could well be that I needed to marry Del Turco to make my way to be a missionary.
Speaker B:Well, I mean it's not good for the man to be alone and the wives.
Speaker B:He who finds a way, finds a good thing, obtains favor.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And you know, the wife completes a lot of what's missing and is suitable corresponding to the husband.
Speaker B:But if you're not married or if your marriage has broken up, there is still this capacity, isn't there?
Speaker B:Just within relationships, within the body of Christ, being connected to great spiritual leaders, great quality, fellow believers in the Lord, prayer partners and friendships.
Speaker B:And we, that is a dynamic that we, we, we need.
Speaker B:I think the Apostle Paul said, I, I have a great desire to come to you and to complete what is lacking in your faith.
Speaker B:You know.
Speaker B:Yeah, we, we need others.
Speaker B:And so I love this.
Speaker B:So this is really just a time of calibration, right.
Speaker B:Of a.
Speaker B:Getting a read on where you're at, giving a quality opportunity for God to, to download and update you with some new software for your next season.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:And there's a depth to the thing that you're focusing on those things about foundations and all those three things.
Speaker C:I'm still kind of going to parse out through the whole year here.
Speaker C:So I'm just kind of going at it very slow.
Speaker C:Just.
Speaker C:I'll have a great.
Speaker C:I won't be a book, but I'm gonna have a greater bit of information when we get to the end of how this has over the, over the year now what was percolating and is now germinating.
Speaker C:It's just, it's making its way into my soul and my spirit.
Speaker C:It'll be.
Speaker C:And I, I'll take out my paper next, you know, 11 months and look it back and think, well, there you are.
Speaker C:Yeah, but I landed it.
Speaker B:But, but, but, but you landed it and you sure got, I mean even if you hit 80% of it, it's sure better than 20% or zero.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And there's probably power in writing things down and pulling that out again and revisiting and yeah, just anchoring that by writing it and praying it then and moving in it.
Speaker B:Prayerborn activity, right?
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:And I think it's.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:It's important for me that in these days, you know, I. I know people are really wondering about, you know, what's going on.
Speaker C:And, you know, we're.
Speaker C:We're very.
Speaker C: Just new in: Speaker C:And for the longest time now, I've kind of understood.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker C:When I look forward, I don't look by what's going on in the political world or the financial world, or I just say this all the time.
Speaker C:I can tell you two things I believe will be profoundly true.
Speaker C:One is this world will become broken yet again in ways that we've not been able to see, thankfully.
Speaker C:So the world will be broken, and yet the fire of revival will cover the earth.
Speaker C:In the midst of God watching the world just becoming devoured, I just feel all the time there is true things are going to be very challenging.
Speaker C:And yet in the midst of that, the spirit of revival will cover the land.
Speaker B:I mean, it's as if we just look at the news in the sense of natural news.
Speaker B:I was looking at the news just the other day.
Speaker B:I was talking to my wife about it, and I had about 30 seconds of looking at headlines, and I actually literally felt low.
Speaker B:I felt, you know, affected by it negatively.
Speaker B:But then the thought came to me that, that our real news for.
Speaker B:For us as sons and daughters of God is from our Father.
Speaker B:And we.
Speaker B:We better be focusing on those headlines.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:That he's bringing to us.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And not.
Speaker B:And not kind of, kind of minor on the.
Speaker B:The world's headlines and major on heaven's headlines for us.
Speaker B:I appreciate this, Terry.
Speaker B:Would.
Speaker B:Would you be willing to pray a prayer of consecration on these edges for us?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Father, I want to thank you for the commitment that Brian has made to do these podcasts.
Speaker C:I thank you, Lord, for every single person who finds favor and who feel.
Speaker C:Who find that they find they.
Speaker C:They sense something being spoken to them in a way that they've not perhaps been so impacted before.
Speaker C:Lord, I just pray that what you're doing in the.
Speaker C:In our hearts together as we share this podcast, I pray that and the audience who will be coming in, I ask, oh, God, that you'll reveal to them the things that their hearts long for.
Speaker C:I pray that they would believe that there's every reason why they should hope not just for the best, but for the absolute perfect will of God.
Speaker C:I pray that people will feel energy and release and that they'll be brave in their spirits to do things that they've wanted to do for so long.
Speaker C:Lord, I pray for release.
Speaker C:I pray for favor.
Speaker C:And I pray, Lord God, that you will see stable, you'll stabilize your sons and daughters and may every foundation that needs to be made strong.
Speaker C:Lord, we pray that you'll build up inside the hearts and, and in the, the lifestyles of those who are really desiring to posture themselves and to position themselves near to the heart of God the Father.
Speaker C:In Jesus name.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Amen.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:One of the things I love about you, Terry, is you're strong and intentionality and in marking the moment, I remember you.
Speaker B:That phrase may not be original with you, but it was the first time I heard it some years ago.
Speaker B:We have to mark these moments.
Speaker B:You know, it might, it might be snapping photographs of a special event or however that would, you know, however that would be.
Speaker B:But marking the moment and strong intentionality and.
Speaker B:Oh yeah, otherwise we drift, right?
Speaker B:We drift and we, we, we don't really get where we could be.
Speaker C:I appreciate it and I just really do believe that in this season I think God is going to be releasing not just new things, but I mean, even things that are in, I mean, almost unspeakable for us to even think what it's going to be like.
Speaker C:I think God is going to raise up things and release things so that all these things that we believe have been blocked down and there's no, no reason to stay here any longer.
Speaker C:We've tried, we've knocked on the door, nothing's happened.
Speaker C:And God's going to say, but there's going to be a fresh release.
Speaker C:And believe me, that door and others behind them will all be down.
Speaker B:Good word.
Speaker B:I appreciate that.
Speaker B:Thank you, Terry.
Speaker B:Thanks.
Speaker B:Thanks for spending time today.
Speaker C:Okay, take care, Brian.
Speaker A:I appreciate Terry sharing his personal practice with us today.
Speaker A:He encourages me that three movement, pathway of foundation, strategic insight, and third covenant with God.
Speaker A:This isn't just about goal setting.
Speaker A:It's about positioning ourselves in the center of what God is doing and making covenant that locks in our commitment.
Speaker A:Now remember, you don't have to wait until January.
Speaker A:January is a great time.
Speaker A:As I mentioned in the conversation, I'm an advocate of 90 day years.
Speaker A:I think we need to think of four 90 day years.
Speaker A:Anytime we're feeling that sense in our spirit that we're struggling with something or there's an opportunity before us, that's the moment to go internal and be brave enough to do a personal spiritual inventory.
Speaker A:Full show notes and the complete transcript are available@jesussmart.com 365 Would you share this episode with one or two friends who need to hear this message?
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