Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
It is the time now for our community connection right here on K one,
the one you trust. And today we're going to be talking about the
Friday Men's Bible Study. We have gwinn Schipper in studio. We have another
guest coming as soon as he can disengage from a telephone. How you doing
good? Is a beautiful morning out there, Tom, little on the sticky
side. But you know what, for all the folks who are grousing about
thirty two and I don't want to hear it, because I'll take this any
day over freezing. Thank God for that. We've got quite a neat little
weekly event that's been going on for a little bit. But this one is
something that I wasn't aware of. And no, this is really kind of
cool. Can you kind of fill us in a little bit about the Men's
Bible Study. Yeah, I'd love to do that, Tom, thank you
so much. So. The Bible Study is in his twenty third year.
That's a good start. It's a good start. We've been going twenty three
years. It's time that you and others know about it. Yeah, And
it's been meeting like clockwork on Fridays noon to one pm. Now Christmas lands
on a Friday, maybe we won't meet then, but otherwise nearly one and
we meet every Friday at Sterling's Grill. So our host is Jim Kurr,
who owns Sterling's Grill. He's been very active in the Bible study as well
for years. And even though Sterling's isn't open during the lunch hour, he
brings in staff and he serves us a beautiful plated meal, iced tea water,
coffee, cookie salad to go with it, and it's a real crisp
one hour. We have a great time together. That is great, and
it's fellas just getting together study in the Bible, studying the Word and trying
to make ourselves better, better husband's, better, brothers, better community members,
just better all around well. One of the features of the Bible study
Tom's interdnominational. We have guys from all different churches in the community. We
have guys of all different ages and seasons of life. And when you arrive
there, you get your food, your salad and your drink, sit down
and then Julie comes and serves you know, the plated meal. So people
have a chance to converse make connections. So one of the little secrets,
if you will, is because it's closed, you got to go out to
the backside and step in the back door there and it leads you into the
large dining room where we meet every week. Wow, that's great. Yeah,
it's it's kind of a neat little client club, you know. But
all you really need is you bring yourself in ted bucks, in a Bible
and a friend and a friend and a friend if you want to bring a
friend along. So we welcome newcomers open and we have a lot of people
connected to the group time or some that like never miss Like I lead the
Bible study. I've been doing it for a couple of years, actually study
portion. And if there's certain people not there, they might get a little
bit worried, but then some come as they're able to sonight. Everybody can
be there every single week and that's okay. So we have prayer up on
the front end of the hour and we call it our weekly Concert of Prayer.
And what we do is we take group prayer requests or praises answers to
prayer. We have a prayer list that goes out at the end of each
in that afternoon so people can continue praying. We have answers to prayer,
we address those, and then we break into what we call our trios and
quartets, just little groups of three or four, no more than four,
and we pray together for the needs brought to the group or those things are
important to the small group of those around you. So it's a great way
to meet new people, great way to fellowship, study, apply God's word.
Now, do we need to call ahead so that the polks on what's
going on? No, if you show up at if you show up at
noon, you can just sneak in the back door there. It's ten dollars
buys you a beautiful play to lunch. And yeah, we're just talking about
the study. Yeah, so if you want to get some history, and
if we have time, I'll share a little bit of what we're wrapping up
and what we're going to do next. Well, I can't even remember the
year, but there was a there was a gentleman here in town. He
actually the same with David Castleberry and h Well, we'll go back to Donnie's
story. Came to Bartlesville. Back to Bartlesville, he was president of Harvest
by West at the time they changed and Donnie and I became good friends,
and so it was maybe in the spring of that year. He said,
hey, how would you like to have a Bible study for men on Fridays.
I go, I think it'd be great. He said, he didn't
say on Friday. He's just a man's Bible study. And so I said
that'd be great, and he goes, well, if we can kind of
get some people together, and he said I'd lead it and different things like
that. I said, okay, he said, but I'm busy right now.
He had things going, and so we talked about it. But you
know how things are, You talk about things and just never get off dead
center, and so that's the way this was going. Well, that was
maybe spring or summer, and we'd talk about it when we going to get
that. Well, I'm busy right now, but we'll get it going.
And we didn't know where to do it or anything. So anyway, you
fast forward. There was a gentleman, David Castlebury. He worked for Phillips
and of course the headquarters was here and everything, but David he was basically
they credited him for saving the company back when they were having some financial issues
and stuff. When the two takeovers went on, and then they had the
big explosion or fire down at Sweeney Well. David Castleberry who was in finance
or treasure or something way up the food chain though anyway, he made sure
certain things were still in place when they were trying to cut things. But
they had the explosion and it basically saved the company. So anyway, he
got cancered. Well, he passed away that fall, and I'm saying September
October of that year is about twenty two years ago now. And so they
had the funeral at Oklahoma Orreslian and so Jim Mulva was there. Caroline his
wife. We were acquaintances with them, but not close, but acquaintances.
And so the funeral is that Oklahoma, Wesleyan and at the chapel there,
and so she had asked if Dorry and I would pass out. She had
these I believe it was I think it was a Beth Moore or some precept
bottle study just a six week It was only a six week study, just
a small book six weeks. And so I had these stacts of them and
we said, yeah, we'll help pass those out. So we were passing
these out at David's funeral for Caroline, and since Andy and Carolina become very
close friends, and in fact they pray together and walk to different things.
Anyway, so I got these books and I was during the funeral, I
said, paying attention. I was going through the book looking at it,
and they're just said, man, this is we can start that study now,
and this will get us to the end of the year. So I
had that and I marched into Donnie's office downtown there at the bank, and
I said, hey, we're going to start that study and this is it.
He goes, why don't I have to say if you can do I
said, no, I'll leave. This is something I can do. I
mean, you don't have to be I'm not a teacher, by the way,
not like you Quinn or like Donny Wood, I said, but I
can facilitate. So we started it and oh gush, we started with I
don't know, there was probably thirty or forty came and we said, no,
this is for men only and all that. And I still remember going
through this and Jim at the time as storings we did in the back room
where we meet now, he would set up a little buffet for us,
so we just come in and it was ten dollars. Then it's still ten
dollars. We need to think about raising this because Jim Hole. We need
to make Jim hole a little bit. I think he's subsidizing these guys' meals.
Now it's not a buffet ane, but we had this, and so
there was this waitress and I still remember this that would help back there.
And so the funny thing is that this is God's sense of humor, that
he does have a sense of humor. I think I believe he does anyway,
this is his sense here. Yeah, this is a men's Bible say,
but the first person that changed her heart and turned it over to Jesus
was a lady, a man's Bible state anyway. So that's kind of how
it got started. We did that for six weeks and that got us through
the Christmas time, and then Donnie took over from there until he moved back
to Arkansas with the bank. They moved him to another place there, and
then there's other people that Roger Skelly led it for a long long time after
that. We didn't think. We just thought, well, it'll go away.
It didn't go away. Roger led it and then Roger got tired or
I don't know, and then Jason Hopkins has led it for a while,
but then Jason wasn't gonna do it anymore. And I've met Quinn. Didn't
really know we met well, but I'd met him because he'd moved to town.
And Dorry was doing a Bible study with Becky, Quinn's wife, and
he says, well, I think Quinn, you don't have him come and
fill in or something. Okay, So I called Quinn or email I can't
remember, said hey, what I said, yeah, And so he came
and the first one he said, we were meeting with fifteen fourteen to fifteen
people, and of course we went through COVID, the whole nine yards like
this, and he kind of after COVID, he kind of what. But
anyway, Quinn said, he came and he said, you know, I
was going to do something else. I had something else planned, but God
put on my heart to do something different. So I put this other one
in my hip pocket. And I've got that. He still has that first
one in his hip pocket, so he can't ever he's permanent now, because
that's what it is. It is, And Tom, I gotta tell you
it has grown in numbers, but I think not only in numbers. I
think spiritually it's grown too. And people has changed because I see people coming
you would never even think would come to a Bible study. Of course that's
me prejudging people, and that's wrong, but I'm just I was. You
can only say God's great, I know. So anyway, that's kind of
the history of it. Sorry about that. But since ant Quinn and Gosh,
we're meeting with three. We're average, right, bummer up thirty pretty
average, yeah, pretty average every week and like today, I don't know.
And Jim still even though he's not open at noon anymore, he still
opens up still ten dollars. We've got to talk about that, Quinn anyway,
to make Jim hole anyway, And Julie, who's normally there, takes
care of us. And so anyway, it's it's good time, good lesson
and both physical and spiritual food. Yeah, thank you. I've heard this
story before. I always loved hearing this. So here's the thing. When
my dad died, I was upset, and their pastor played football for my
dad, and he came up to me and I still and I remember this.
So when he says Kevin, You just need to know something. The
way God works, it's like waves on the beach. Waves come in and
waves go out. That's that's the life cycle of the way God works.
And so I really believe, you know, that's what's happened with this Bible
study too. You know what. The waves have gone in, the waves
have gone out, but he brings people in that need to be there.
And I'm really so it's not goes to tell you it's not it's not us.
Yeah, God is definitely doing it. I stepped in one day.
I only knew Kevin and Jim the day I stepped in. And now we
have, like I said, averaging thirty We have way more than in days.
Not only me. Quinn took that over now to any city counselor.
He's all, man, just look what God's done. Thank you, Kevin.
Well, we're wrapping up a study in a couple of weeks that we've
been doing connecting the Abrahamic Covenant to the Great Commission. So we're wrapping that
up and then we're going to move into kind of a deep dive on the
Sermon on the Mount and have an emphasis also on prayer. We do an
annual emphasis on prayer, and personally, I love the group every part of
it. My favorite part is the prayer. We talked about the concert of
prayer and so that's a real important part. And our theme word for the
year is grow. We have second Peter through eighteen growing the grace and knowledge
of our Lord and savor Jesus Christ. So it has been, it's been
spiritual, has been relational, and numerical just comes with that. So it's
been a lot of fun, a lot of learning. And here's the other
thing. It doesn't matter where you are in your spiritual life, spiritual,
whatever you want to call it, spiritual journey, whatever it is, whether
you have zero and you're just curious or you're very mature. We need all
of them. Yeah, and we need people just walk in by somebody.
It's great, and and there is probably half the hour is spent fellowship time,
and then there's a few minutes I mean, then we have prayer and
then we have the study and we quit as guys where we're praying for specific
things and specific people because I think God wants he wants to hear specifics.
I do believe that I do so very good, So that's Friday today today
noon noon high day. Right behind, take the back door into Stirlings Park
on the south side. You'll be there for the men's Bible study. Bring
a friend. We will meet on July fifth and then the fourth of July
so I can skip a beat. Like you said, the only time you
go to missage of Christmas Lands on Friday. Thank you both, gentlemen for
being with us year on Community Connection.