God's Great Outdoors

Guest (Male): All too often in our churches, a pastor is put in a position where he can never just be one of the guys. The pressures, responsibilities, and expectations on a pastor make it so he can't let his hair down and be himself. On today's program, we'll meet a special pastor that is able to do that within and outside his church. But we'll learn about the difficulty of many other pastors that aren't able to.

Most pastors might go years without being able to relax and truly be one of the guys. The expectations on many pastors make it hard not only on him, but on his family as well. As we talk to today's guest, we'll hear of the importance of others from the church to come around him as a friend and the need to care for them and their families.

Statistically, only 10% of those that begin their careers as pastors end as pastors. It's a frightening fact that 90% leave the churches as pastors. There's a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest that we've found is because of the pressures put on clergy to be flawless and perfect. In the quest to be these things, there's never an opportunity to just be real. God's Great Outdoors is working to help build pastors up and give them a chance to just be one of the guys for a while. At the end of the program, we'll share more about that. But now, let's join our host, Dean Hulce, as he gets to know a pastor and about his life at the pulpit and outside the church.

Dean Hulce: Welcome to God's Great Outdoors, the trail to adventure. We are in Bryan, Ohio this morning. I'm with Pastor Mike Elkins at New Hope Community Church in Bryan, Ohio. We tried to do this, I think it was two years ago. I got a hold of you. Our friends Tom and Laura go to church here. We came one Sunday and they said, "I think Pastor Mike is a hunter." So we tried to do it then, and it just took us two years to get back here. Thanks for having us.

Mike Elkins: Whatever works. Thanks for being here.

Dean Hulce: You're originally from Michigan?

Mike Elkins: Southwest Michigan.

Dean Hulce: And you're a troll, but we're okay. Nobody that moves to the UP, doesn't matter how long you've lived there, if you're from Lower Michigan, you're never really a true Yooper.

Mike Elkins: I've got some fun UP stories. It's a different world up there.

Dean Hulce: Well, we'll get a chance to share some of those as we go through. But it's good to be here. We just visited, we literally met 10 minutes ago as I was setting up equipment. But why don't you give us a little bit of your background? You were raised in Three Rivers, which I knew the area. I actually have some friends there that I grew up with. Actually, the woman now, at the time, brought my wife and I together in junior high. So that's a lot of years ago now. I won't say how many for her sake. But were you raised in a Christian home there?

Mike Elkins: We moved around a lot when I was a kid. I was born in Detroit, then we moved to East Tennessee, then we moved to Georgia, and then about fifth grade landed back in Southwest Michigan. I love the state of Michigan. I know I live in Ohio, but Michigan's the better place for sure. You can almost throw a stone from here to Michigan. Even you just get across the border and it's just such a pretty state. From top to bottom, there's just so much to do, so much outdoor stuff to do.

I grew up squirrel and rabbit hunting. I probably started doing that when I was eight or nine. I loved fishing when I was a kid. My dad didn't love that, but he got into it because I wanted to. And then when I left, he kind of stopped fishing. But 12, I started bow hunting and got hooked on bow hunting and kind of been obsessed with bow hunting ever since.

Honestly, it was a big thing in our family. We ate venison. It was how we provided. We didn't have a ton of money growing up, and it was just a great way to do that. The same for us, my kids when they eat beef, they're like, "Why does this taste weird?" So if I can get two or three does and now my kids are hunting age and if they can shoot one, we can get three or four deer in a season. It's pretty great.

Dean Hulce: How many kids do you have?

Mike Elkins: I have four. All at home. My oldest, she's a senior this year. So she'll be graduating this year and heading to school. And then I have a ninth grader, a seventh grade daughter, and then my youngest is a boy, he's in third grade.

Dean Hulce: So you need a bunch of venison for a while. Our family was the same way. Occasionally my mother would buy a roast for a Sunday morning she'd put it in before church, a beef roast. Put it in the pressure cooker. Most of the time it was venison. At least all the hamburger for spaghettis.

Mike Elkins: I grew up in a great home. I was taught from a very young age scripture and just a heart for the church and for missionaries. It was a big thing in our church. It was a great home to grow up in for sure.

Dean Hulce: Our home was if there was a missionary visiting, they were at our house for dinner one time. And that was great to learn. I think a lot of churches anymore don't know their own missionaries that they support. It used to be a big deal. Everybody knew them.

Mike Elkins: In the church we grew up in, we supported a ton of missionaries. It was all $50 a month. Our model here is more like we're going to support a few in a bigger way, but also we want a relationship with them as much as possible. I remember sitting as a kid anytime we'd have a missionary come in or a gospel group, I was on the front row and I would just have dreams of leaving with them to Brazil or getting on the tour van and I was going to join the gospel group.

Dean Hulce: Could you sing well enough to do that?

Mike Elkins: I can sing, but not well enough to do that, that's for sure.

Dean Hulce: Obviously you play guitars because you've got those around. I see your Matthews archery hat on, which is cool. Matt McPherson has been probably our biggest donor for 30 years. I got a chance to go down to his office and do an interview with him. In his conference room, his office is separate from the rest of the building, one whole wall is McPherson guitars. I don't know how much money worth of guitars were on that wall. And the other wall was the whole history of Matthews bows. And it was a great time. He wants me to come back and do a show with him and some of his other guys. That'd be a lot of fun.

Mike Elkins: That was my first big boy bow. I had a Hoyt for a long time, just an old thing. And then my dad gave me his Matthews. He had one of the first ones, the Ultra Max SoloCam. I shot that until just recently and then I shot a new bow. It was like, "This is way different."

Dean Hulce: I was telling you I got a grandson and he's actually an intern right now at a church in St. George, Utah.

Mike Elkins: My wife grew up in Utah. Salt Lake City.

Dean Hulce: Not that far from over there. He was telling us they first moved down, him and his wife, to work at this church and he was going in and selling blood plasma every week a couple times and he would call us. He's sitting in there being drawn. My wife said, "I've been telling people you're doing this for rent." He said, "Heck no, I'm doing this for a new bow." He said there's no way I'd let them stick needles in me for rent, but for a new bow I will. And he just picked it up the other day. Got to have your priorities.

And you have gotten to do some hunting down here in Ohio. The mentality of Michigan compared to the rest of the Midwest is a lot of it up there is if it's legal, you shoot it. Down in Ohio and Indiana, Illinois, it's much more managed usually. Michigan's getting more that way.

Mike Elkins: Our rule of thumb when I was, I remember my first hunt, my dad said if it's brown, it's down. Everything has a green light. And I totally understand guys that own property and wanting to grow bigger deer. I get that, and I totally respect that. I do have a buddy, he lets me hunt too, and he lets me bring the kids and he's like they can shoot anything that's walking out here. So I got a little bit of the best of both worlds for sure.

Dean Hulce: Well, that's where our camp rule is. Kids, especially their first year, they shoot whatever's legal. It doesn't matter if it's a three-inch spike, it's okay with me. And after that then they play with the big boys and follow everybody else's rules. Once you shoot that first one, you got new rules to follow. You get it out of your blood.

Listen, before we move on, let's take a break and Adam, our producer, will share how people can come alongside us in ministry and also thank those that do. Like I said, Matthews Archery has been there for many, many years. Year in and year out, the best bow on the market.

Mike Elkins: I'm loyal to it, that's for sure.

Dean Hulce: It's hard not to be because Matt gives most of his money away to missions and ministry. It's hard not to want to support that. Absolutely. Well, we'll be right back with God's Great Outdoors after Adam can share this with you and then we'll move on with the story here in Ohio with Pastor Mike Elkins.

Adam: For the last 26 years, God's Great Outdoors' Trail to Adventure has been broadcast out to win men and women, boys and girls to Jesus Christ. This is only possible by the generosity of our listeners. Thank you to all who have supported us in the past. God has blessed us because of you and we pray that you feel his blessing as well.

Additional underwriting support has been provided by: Matthews Archery, the leader in the archery industry; Mission Archery with revolutionary crossbow technology; Three Rivers Archery supplying everything you need to make your own traditional archery equipment; Hunter Safety Systems, saving lives is what we do; and Conviction Game Calls. At Conviction, we don't separate work from our faith. We believe that our faith should be evident in every aspect of our lives and the outdoors is one of the best places to share that.

God's Great Outdoors has produced many ministry tools, including tracts, DVDs, and books to help you reach others for Jesus Christ. You can access these items, other God's Great Outdoors items, and so much more at our website, godsgr8outdoors.org. That's godsgr8outdoors.org.

Dean Hulce: Welcome back to God's Great Outdoors on the Trail to Adventure in Bryan, Ohio. And again, we're at New Hope Community Church. We're really close to Michigan actually here. Is there a battle here when it's football season?

Mike Elkins: Absolutely. And for the first several years, I took a beating because we didn't win a game for a long time. Then we had a four-year stretch that was pretty great. I didn't say anything, I just showed up in my Michigan colors without saying a word. It was pretty great. It's fun though. About half of my board is in the Dayton area. So I give them a really bad time when I get to.

Dean Hulce: I live eight hours from the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions, but I only live two hours from Green Bay. So I always tell people if you had a choice over all these years to pick Green Bay or Detroit, it's a no-brainer.

Mike Elkins: I'm a sucker. I'm a Detroit Lions, Tigers, Red Wings, Pistons fan. That's what I grew up in.

Dean Hulce: I grew up as a Cubs fan because my best friend had an aunt on Addison Avenue right by Wrigley Field. But there was something special and you still think about it, hearing Ernie Harwell in the evenings. Lots of times you'd be after a ballgame you'd stop for an ice cream cone as a little kid and somebody'd be playing Ernie Harwell on the radio.

Mike Elkins: I actually have an autographed book from Ernie Harwell. Great memories as a kid, that was special. Tigers were always special just because of childhood memories.

Dean Hulce: Give me a little bit more of your history. I know you went to school in Missouri, but tell us a little bit about that and then what God brought you through to where you're at now.

Mike Elkins: My wife and I met in college. We went to Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. It's Mission University now. We got married in between our sophomore and junior year. We were pretty young, I was 22. Before I went to Bible college, I did a couple years of pre-med. I was going to school to be a pharmacist.

It was one of those moments you don't always feel like you hear an audible voice from God, but it was one of those moments. I had a 1980 F-150 pickup. I was driving home from my girlfriend's house. She lived 20 minutes away. It was probably 11:30 or midnight. Only thing on the radio was, for some reason, an Atlanta Braves baseball game. And there's a preacher by the name of Alistair Begg. I just listened to him and I don't know what he said, I couldn't remember anything about the message, but I just felt like the Holy Spirit was going, "You're just walking the path I don't want you to walk. You need to make a shift." I had to pull the truck over. I was just bawling my eyes out on the side of a country road at midnight. From that point forward, it was kind of a no-look back kind of thing.

My girlfriend broke up with me. She didn't want to be a pastor's wife. I was like, that's okay. And then I met my wife and we finished school. Then we went to Florida, central Florida area. It just wasn't, I was a Midwesterner. I grew up in Michigan and grew up with that kind of outdoors. Midwesterners are just great people. Where we were, it was just, I lived in Tennessee too as a kid and that's kind of the southern hospitality I kind of expected in Florida, and it was not that at all. Not that at all.

So it just wasn't a fit. There was just a lot of things that happened. My wife and I kind of talk it up to a little bit of a desert experience for us for a few years. I never really lost hope in the church. I've always believed the church is the hope of the world and that didn't shift. But I didn't know if I wanted to play the same role I was playing in the church just based off of things that happened.

The older I've gotten, the more you reach scripture, you're like, God really moves in the desert. Like that's where he does all of his moving in people's lives. Like where the Israelites sat there for 40 years. And the prophets and Moses and it's like, no, you're going to be out in the wilderness and that's about the place where God meets you.

And so I see that now in hindsight. But it was tough. We had to eat some humble pie, move back in with my parents. I had a newborn baby. I was in the hospital with swine flu when I lost my job and it was just kind of a wild experience. So found a church that long story, but we ended up going to when I was 17 just through some family changes and I just felt like, you know what, that's a safe place to land back. And I immediately felt like God was going, "Hey, you're not done with this." Ended up going on staff there. I was a youth pastor there for a little over seven years. It was kind of one of those like you're the youth pastor but also I was the worship pastor and the small groups pastor. I did a little bit of everything, which was fun. I loved it. My pastor there, just what a blessing in my life, really encouraged me and poured back into me things I thought I had lost.

And then a little over 10 years ago, actually January 1st of this year was 10 years, we moved here. I had three kids at the time. My oldest was in second grade and here we are 10 years later and my oldest is graduating high school and I've added a fourth kid to the quiver. Time goes by fast. It does, but just seeing God's faithfulness and how he met me in some places that I didn't know I needed to be met in and just seeing what he's done in our family and even this church. We love it here. We love this place even though it's Ohio.

My dad was like, "Ohio? You're moving to Ohio?" He was so annoyed. But Ohio's need Jesus. It's a missions piece. We just love it. One time we went on vacation and we always like to still go to church when we go on vacation because I don't get to go to church with my family. You don't get to just sit. We were in Atlanta visiting a kid that was in our youth group and he was working at Northpoint Church, Andy Stanley's church. So we went and jokingly I told my kids like, "I'm here for an interview," and they were about to kill me. They were like, "We are not leaving Bryan. What are you doing?" I was just kidding. But we just love it. We love the people here. It's home. It's the longest I've ever lived in one location in my life.

Dean Hulce: We've got this at home and I'm in leadership at our church, but I'm not a pastor. I do work with the men at the church.

Mike Elkins: I'd say you're a pastor of sorts.

Dean Hulce: Absolutely, but I'm not a pastor of that church. I actually have guys that call me their pastor because I work with the men's group and lead that. It's funny because when we first moved there, and we only moved 25 miles, I had actually spoken at the church for some outreach men's outreaches before. And when we moved there, I thought, man, there was no real men's ministry there. So I told the pastor who was a good friend of mine and I asked the question, "Do you think we should have one?" He said, "Yeah." And he said, "Well, why don't you go ahead and start it?" I've kept my mouth open a little more.

But it really is, you know, one of the things as you talked about your church here, we've got an amazing family at our church. And it really is a family. There's people calling all the time saying how can we help you. It's funny, I left there to drive down yesterday morning. The night before one of the wives of the other elders that we've become good friends with, she called and said, "Dean, I don't want you to have to do dishes before you leave tomorrow morning, so why don't you swing by the house and I'll have egg sandwiches." So it was like a drive-through. Go to their house and pick up. To have that kind of family is pretty amazing.

And not having that kind of family at the church, you find yourself wanting to drift. It's not that important to be there. And we're in a little bit of a time in culture where you hear statements like, "Look, I can be a Christian and not go to church." I'm just like, "You're just missing the point." Scripture's clear. They'll know who you are by your love for one another. I tell people when they go, "I don't really need church." I'm like, "You're going to hate heaven." Because it's going to be full of people. Or maybe you ought to consider if you hate church whether or not you're going to be there.

Well, that's kind of the point. This is supposed to be this beautiful thing and yeah, it's messy because we're people. But God's grace is just so demonstrated through the church. I mean, it's what he left.

Mike Elkins: We need each other. When there's a disaster in a family, when there's things that are tough.

Dean Hulce: It's interesting because just a few weeks ago, I was down here in Indiana or heading to Indiana and we had an elder board meeting the night before and there was a gentleman from our church and I love this guy because we're a pretty conservative church, but he was a continual "amen" corner. Never disruptive, just very loving. Amen, an occasional hallelujah. And he was gone. He was in the hospital and I missed it. And we found out he was in Milwaukee. That's four hours for someone to drive to do a visit. And I said I'm going through Milwaukee tomorrow so I went in and I got to pray with him. And that's part of being a church. With him and his wife and he passed away that night or early the next morning. And his wife came to me at the funeral because as I was leaving he said "amen" as I was walking out and she said, "You got to share in his last amen." But that's part of being a family of a church.

Mike Elkins: The guy that lets me hunt on his property is one of my best friends. They had twins and their twins were teenagers and then they found out they were pregnant. They ended up losing the baby pretty late-term. I just remember showing up at their house and just crying with them and being able to do a funeral for their family and their daughter. A bunch of us in the church who were hunters, we all kind of chipped in. He'd been wanting a turkey gun, so we're like, "Let's get him a turkey gun and have his daughter's name engraved on it." You just don't get that in a lot of places. That's what a family is.

Dean Hulce: We're almost out of time on the radio portion. But you mentioned Alistair Begg earlier listening to him. I've heard it many times and I just heard it again. When Alistair Begg talks about the man on the cross and when he gets to heaven, the one that turned to Christ and said you truly are and I love that when he says he's asked, "Well, how did you get here?" He said, "I don't know." He said, "The man on the cross said that I could come." I just heard it again the other day and I've heard it many times and I've shared that with a lot of people that talk about what they have to do to get to heaven.

This Sunday we talked about repentance and it gets such a bad rap. But it's just an incredibly beautiful concept. It's an invitation to come back home. It's the thief on the cross going, "I don't know, I just got asked to come." And it's the prodigal son and it's like it's not a bad thing to get an invitation to come back to a place of love and meaning.

Dean Hulce: That's when we share Christ. When I share Christ, it's that kind of thing that you don't have to do anything other than just accept what Christ did. That amazes me how hard that is for some people. They can't lower themselves to accept a gift.

Mike Elkins: I mean, I'll be honest, I still struggle with, like I like to work hard. I like to achieve. I do dumb things. Like a few years ago I signed up for a 100-mile race. My wife's like, "Why are you doing this?" I'm like, "I don't know, I just." So I feel like if it's something that's that amazing, I should do something for it. And you just can't. You just can't.

Dean Hulce: Well listen, we're out of time on the radio. We are going to go onto the podcast for those of you that can get there. We're going to share a little bit more, maybe share some UP stories. The UP is a very special place and it's got a lot of snow. But it's a unique place. Thank you, Mike, for coming by. We've been trying to do it for two years. For our listeners, thank you for joining us. Join us every week on God's Great Outdoors as we head down the trail to adventure.

Guest (Male): There aren't a whole lot of pastors that can relax and spend time without feeling that there is pressure to be flawless. Pastor Mike Elkins, thankfully, has men around him that allow that to happen. We all need that opportunity to just be ourselves, and pastors need it more than most.

If you're a pastor or know a pastor that needs time to just be one of the guys, please reach out to God's Great Outdoors and let us see if we can help you or your pastor do that. Don't wait until it's too late and the opportunity passes. Head to godsgr8outdoors.org and drop us an email or give us a call and we'll help you make it happen.

If you've enjoyed today's program and would like to hear the extended podcast version, you can find it by looking for Dean Hulce or Trail to Adventure wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. This program is provided by and can be contacted at God's Great Outdoors, P.O. Box 414, Powers, Michigan, 49874, or on the website, godsgr8outdoors.org. Thank you for joining us here today. We hope we helped you see the need for caring for those in ministry. Please join us each week and head out with us on the trail to adventure in God's Great Outdoors.