God's Great Outdoors

Narrator: For many years, there's been a saying that has gone around in the business world that says "think outside the box." While that same saying has been getting more and more use in the ministry world as well, with our world changing and people being drawn in more directions than ever before, we should be looking for new ways to reach men and women with the Gospel message.

On today's program, we'll visit with an old friend of our host that he met up with in Northern Texas at an outdoor hunting and fishing event. Following COVID, he had a calling to do something that would get men and women together to experience something with others.

With everyone being locked in and chances of getting together with others very limited, he felt the call to do something to not only get connected but to do it in a way to introduce the good news of Jesus to outdoors people outside of the church walls. Let's join Dean now and his guest as they talk about doing ministry outside the box in God's great outdoors.

Dean Hulce: Welcome back to God's Great Outdoors on the Trail to Adventure. We are in Tyler, Texas, and we are at the Oil Palace for the God and the Great Outdoors Hunting and Fishing Expo. We've got the man that put it together, or at least the one that heads it up and whom God used to make this happen. Tom, it's good to have you with me again.

Tom Williams: It's good to be with you, Dean. This has been a success. Lynn and I have got a chance to talk to literally a couple hundred people at least about what we're doing for ministry. It seems like most of your exhibitors seem to be pretty happy.

Dean Hulce: I think so. We have been very pleased today, and I've talked to a lot of vendors who are selling a lot of goods. We've got a lot of volunteers that just show a lot of hospitality, and I think they've been very impressed with that. Just people going around grabbing waters or manning a booth if they needed to go somewhere and do something. We've had a lot of compliments on our people.

Tom Williams: I've never been at a show quite like this. Of course, I've never been at a show like this that's Christ-based, so it does make a big difference. Your wife has been by several times, and you've stopped by and said, "Hey, the today tacos." You guys are the only people that feed me meals for three meals a day here, so that's kind of cool too.

Dean Hulce: Well, I've had some of my vendors that do a lot of large shows say, "Man, you're just spending a lot of money you don't need to spend. No other show does that." And I say, "Well, I don't want to be any other show." We're not a profit center for us. If we break even, that's great. Last year, we didn't break even, but it's about just being intentional with sharing Christ's love with others, either through just a ministry of hospitality or speakers, and we present that. We're not going to beat you over the head. We just want to plant seeds, Dean.

Tom Williams: Well, you presented the Gospel how many times this weekend? How many speakers are sharing the Gospel?

Dean Hulce: Oh my goodness. We had three last night. We'll probably have it seven times today and then another four times tomorrow.

Tom Williams: So 14 times the Gospel is clear. And that's not including an exhibitors' meeting beforehand where you lead it out with not only with prayer but then a Gospel presentation because a lot of the exhibitors don't know Christ.

Dean Hulce: Anytime you get a group of people of probably 200 people in there, maybe more than that, you know in a group that size, there's somebody who doesn't know the Lord. I didn't get up there with any intent to do any of that, but I think sometimes the Lord's leading just sends you that direction, and you've got to follow the Spirit and just go with that.

Tom Williams: No doubt. And I think that was felt. The guys make the custom knives over here, the Forge.

Dean Hulce: That's Yates Unicorn Ranch.

Tom Williams: I stood up, introduced myself, and he told me what he does. I said we need to do a program, so we're going to interview him because I love the idea of a forge. It is really exactly what Christ does to us in our lives at sanctification.

Dean Hulce: Corey's a great guy. He sends out a prayer and a verse of scripture once a week, and I'm on that list. He's just a great guy.

Tom Williams: This has really been exciting. You know what? Before we go any further, let's take a quick break and Adam can share with people how they can come alongside us. I just want people to know that we are listener-supported. We do have a couple of great companies that help us, but we are listener-supported and without our listeners, we can't afford to be here. So please consider coming alongside. Adam will share that with you, and then we'll be right back with God's Great Outdoors on the Trail to Adventure.

Adam: For the last 26 years, God's Great Outdoors Trail to Adventure has been broadcast 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 blessings as well.

Additional underwriting support has been provided by Mathews 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, godsgratedoutdoors.org. That's godsgratedoutdoors.org.

Dean Hulce: Welcome back to God's Great Outdoors on the Trail to Adventure. Again, we are in Tyler, Texas, at the Oil Palace. I should mention it's Tom Williams that we're with today. Tom, this was really a God-given vision of something to be done. This started during COVID originally, correct?

Tom Williams: Coming out of COVID, I'm a member in the leadership at a fairly large Baptist church, and we were so active with events and things of that nature, men's events and beast feasts. We just went through that year, and coming out of it, everybody was just so scattered. Nobody was really attending. Some states wouldn't let you go to church. In Texas, we were lucky because we weren't that way, but a lot of people were afraid to come.

I have a ranch and we do the Texas Trophy Hunter shows, and I like them. I'm a show junkie, I guess. I like to go to the shows and I like to walk around. I may not buy anything, I just like to walk around, look, and talk to people. I was just frustrated with what was going on with the church. About 2:00 one morning, I'm going, "God, somebody needs to do something." And you know how that is, Dean. When you say, "God, somebody needs to do something," it's like, "Hey, you need to do something." And I'm like, "Wait a minute, I'm a drywall contractor, I'm not a promoter."

But I had had a little bit of a vision from God. I want people to understand what I'm saying. I don't see visions, but I mean about an event where you had hunting ranches and boat manufacturers based on like a Texas Trophy Hunter extravaganza. In the midst of that, you have ministries and nonprofits. I'm trying to reach people that may not grace the doors of a church, but they'll come look at lures and look at a hunting ranch and stuff like that. During that time, we hand out flyers with QR codes that give the plan of salvation and stuff like that. They can take it home with them.

We have speakers like we talked about. We don't expect a huge amount of salvations at this show. We did last year. David Blanton came in and we had a big response. We felt like the impact might be better to do it throughout the three days versus one time trying to get people back, because they don't come back. So we were intentional this year of doing it throughout the day, and I think it's worked well.

Tom Williams: I've only stopped in once, and it was when Justin Martin from Duck Dynasty was in there and the message was great. I'm not sure who's up on the stage in there with them at the end.

Dean Hulce: That's Nathan Lorick. He is the executive director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. He's a good friend of mine. I get to serve on the executive board there at SBTC, and I asked him if he'd come in and do it because he loves to hunt and fish.

Tom Williams: He did a great job with it yesterday as he brought it to the end. Justin had talked about salvation, and then he did a great job of finishing that out. Nobody had an excuse by the time they left there. And that's all we can do.

Dean Hulce: I've talked to Nathan today and this is his first time to see it. He said, "Man, this is great." But I sometimes, as I drive over here in the morning, I'm like, "Lord, what am I doing? Are we doing it right?" And he helped me today. He's like, "Tom, man, you're just planting seeds. That's all you're responsible for doing. You plant those seeds. Somebody else may water them, somebody else may reap the harvest."

But don't expect this huge movement right here. My deal, what I want, is to change the attitude of people towards the church and people that go to church. Maybe six months down the road or three months, the wheels come off in their life. They look back and think, "Well, you know, that was probably one of the nicest group of people at Green Acres and at Rock Hill. I'm going to go." That's all you can do.

Tom Williams: I talked to the guys at Green Acres today and talked more because my passion is men's ministry. I talked to them about what they're doing, and you guys have a pretty good men's ministry at your church as well. A lot of churches are missing that. I mean, what a shame. I'm actually working with three churches this year, two of them here in Texas and one in Florida, that are needing to build a men's ministry because God is calling young men and old men out to serve. I'm amazed at how many are coming, and you're probably seeing that.

But we need to find a way to gather them together and direct them. I think without the church doing that, we're missing something terrible. In reality, you go to a lot of churches, the moms are bringing the kids, and that's backwards. The husband, the man, should be leading his family to the church. You bring a man to Christ, the chances of his family coming are like over 90%. Getting men and being an outdoors thing, not that there's not a lot, my wife's an avid hunter and we've got a lot of women that are hunting and fishing that we're talking to.

But this is really, for the most part, it's been a men's world, and I love it that it's changing. But if we can have an influence on men and they can walk around here and see real men living a Christian walk, I mean, you've got guys like Skipper Betis with his big Fu Manchu mustache and 6'8" or whatever he is. He's just a loving person. Martin and Goodwin from Duck Dynasty, real men that are living a Christian walk. Guys out here are seeing that, and young boys are watching everybody. This is exactly what God calls us to do.

Dean Hulce: I pray so. Going back to Nathan again, he's been in the ministry for a long time, and you need confirmation sometimes in what you're doing. You feel like you know what God has told you to do, but let's face it, Dean, this is out of the box. Sometimes you're going, "Man, is this right?"

It's out of the box because when I went to the church with it, I said, "Not all of these vendors are going to be believers. You're going to go to a hunting ranch and there may be a full bar." One of the ministers said, "Well, then they're going to be our mission field too." I didn't want to support something that wasn't, but hey, man, I don't know. My heart's been good today.

Tom Williams: God used Nebuchadnezzar. If he can take someone that had no interest in God and use them, yeah, this is honestly, I didn't know exactly what to expect, but it's above what I expected. It's just the people we're getting a chance to talk to.

Dean Hulce: I want to talk a little bit because last time we talked, we really didn't talk about your ranch. Tell me a little more about your ranch.

Tom Williams: We've got a ranch in Central Texas on the northern edge of the hill country. It's around Goldthwaite, Texas. Not a lot of people know that. Brownwood's kind of close to it, kind of between Brownwood and San Saba on a line. We've got about 1,000 acres, and we bought it about 12 or 13 years ago. It's a family ranch.

Then about six years ago, I hired a young man by the name of Sam Graham, whose background was quail hunting, and my background was quail hunting. I loved wild bird hunting and stuff, but it had kind of dried up and it's hard keeping dogs. He worked for a place called Rough Creek Lodge that we'd gone to a lot. It's a five-star type facility. When he came to me, he's like, "Man, we can do this." I said, "Well, I want to have some good dogs for the family."

Well, it's grown. Now we do 75 or 80 hunts a year. I bow hunt, I'm a bow hunter, so we reserve the ranch for me for the month of October. In November, we start selling bird hunts and stuff. We reserve the last week of every month for our family to do, and it usually works out for Thanksgiving and Christmas and all those things like that. That's what we do and we love it out there.

Dean Hulce: If any of our Texas listeners want to find you, how do they find you on that?

Tom Williams: Well, it's Pompey Creek Ranch. It's www.pompeycreekranch.com. That's P-O-M-P-E-Y. It's live oak rolling country, open pastures. We've got the Pompey through there and a three or four-acre lake, and we fish in it and stuff like that. We spend our holidays like Memorial Day with Sandy's family, and then Thanksgiving is my family, and then 4th of July is my son-in-law's family. We're really very family-oriented and spend a lot of time together out there.

Dean Hulce: Sometime when I'm down, if you have some guys there that you think would make a program if I'm down in Texas, I'd love to stop and record some programs.

Tom Williams: I'd love for you to come by. We've got place for you to stay and we can look around.

Dean Hulce: I love Texas, especially in the winter. July, not so much, I'm learning. But I love Texas. I came hunting here originally in about 1999. I hunted the Ozona area. One of your other exhibitors came by and I hunted right near their place actually. Some people that are selling some stands and some cottonseed feeders and stuff in the back.

Tom Williams: Yeah, that's the Blind out of San Antonio.

Dean Hulce: They said they got a place out there they do something out there by Ozona. That was the first place and I just fell in love with it. I hadn't come back for a lot of years, and to be honest, I don't know that I've ever deer hunted out there twice. But I love Texas. There's a different feel here compared to anywhere else in the country.

Tom Williams: Well, I love Texas. Of course, I've been up to Michigan hunting with Skipper a time or two. We spent a week at Mackinac and then flew down to where they dropped me off and I hunted, but it was absolutely beautiful. I'd never been up in that area. I got the privilege of hunting the King Ranch this last year with one of our material suppliers, and it was a cull buck, but their cull bucks are a little different than you'd expect. It was amazing, that South Texas stuff is just crazy.

Dean Hulce: I did some turkey guiding the last two years not very far from Falfurrias, not very far from the King Ranch actually. I've been through the King Ranch going over to have dinner at an old restaurant over on the ocean shore over there in Kingsville. There's a ton of history over there. My wife's father had a stallion that came out of the King Ranch. We had some really good connections there, that's years and years ago, but there's so much history in Texas if you go around.

Of course, it's a big state, but there's so much history here. Anyhow, I just I wanted to get you back on because your show just played that we talked about the program and the show. I just like to encourage people, as we're talking, you said this is out of the box, but people aren't breaking the doors down to the church anymore. When we were kids, almost everybody had a connection to a church. In the South, it's still more that way than the North.

Down here, it's almost a social thing as much as anything. But the problem is often times people associate salvation with the church. There's a difference between going to church and having salvation. In the South, I think it's really more than any time being connected to church as something you go to on Sunday, but it's not a connection back to salvation unless you get a chance to be out somewhere else and experiencing this.

I just like to encourage our listeners to get out and go out and if you're a follower of Christ, get out and share that somewhere outside the church doors. Get your men's group from your church and go put on an event. Have a cookout, have a barbecue and invite just guys just to come and let them see that Christians aren't scary.

Nobody has more fun than I do, and I don't have to have a drink to have a good time. I tell people I'm pretty stupid sober, I don't really need to drink. I just want to encourage people to look for something outside of the box to share Christ because there's lots of opportunities. I think of Blast and Cast Ministries.

Dean Hulce: They'd be a great place for this.

Tom Williams: Well, I will make sure I reach out to them and make sure I get the connection.

Dean Hulce: They're friends of mine. I've spoken for them before. They put boats in tournaments and they put guys in with some pros and stuff, pro-am type stuff. Then a lot of times, they'll have a service on Sunday. There's so many opportunities. I just want to encourage my listeners, the people that you work with and others, to find something, find a way to share Jesus Christ because through the outdoors, there's not a better place than the outdoors to share him.

Tom Williams: And I just want to introduce more. This is a dying thing if we don't keep getting our kids involved. My son-in-law didn't have a dad, was raised without a dad. He didn't know anything, but now he loves to bird hunt since we got him introduced, and my daughter too. We have what's called Orange Friday at our ranch. We have Thanksgiving out there, and then on Friday, we are in blaze orange for the bird hunt. Me and my daughter and my son-in-law, we do a quail hunt together. My daughter called it Orange Friday. She usually posts something on Facebook, "Hey, it's Orange Friday."

The more we do that, my granddaughter's going to be raised in it, and we just need to keep that heritage going. I look at the statistics working in outdoor ministry of what are the numbers going for fishing and hunting. The last couple of years, they've actually started to creep back up a little bit again. I think that if we can introduce people to Christ and outdoors both, a lot of people love creation but they don't know the Creator. And I think this is a great way to connect that.

People are looking for something to depend on. They're looking in all the wrong places, as the old song says. If we can give them that something rock solid, some of my favorite memories in my life are playing football games on Friday night and my dad driving us all the way to Fredericksburg all night. Me and my brother would sleep, we'd get up and hunt next morning, he'd sleep in the cabin until the next morning.

The older I get, I'm 62 now, my dad died 15 years ago, I think about those times more now than I ever did. I remember playing football on Friday night, my dad would leave a truck for me at the school. So when I got back on the bus or I got out of the locker room, I'd jump in the truck and I'd drive the camp and meet him. We had a hunting camp just 20 miles from home, and that was our weekends in the fall.

Dean Hulce: We were four and a half hours, and he would watch us play football and drive us all the way because he just loved us and wanted to do that. The deer camp with my dad and my brother and friends was some of the best times of my life. I've guided for 38 years and our camp is really ministry. We bring people in to join us, but we said we want them to feel like first of all it's their camp. So they have their one week out of the year where they come to camp and then they all hear the Gospel.

The last few years, we've had five or six now that have come to Christ, some of them have been there 20 years. But it's like this. They're hearing it like coming to this show and hearing the Gospel, they don't expect that, but it's connected to the outdoors so they'll listen to it. Same thing at my camp at home. Well, I'm going to let you get back to work.

Tom Williams: I'm kind of enjoying my quiet time sitting down for a little bit.

Dean Hulce: You know, it's been great. I really appreciated the invite. I guess we could probably mention that for nonprofits, you help them out with a free booth here. It's great because a lot of nonprofits don't have the funding to do this. They can come here. We haven't asked for donations. We have a little thing out there for donations and people are signing up. We're giving away $30,000 in prizes and we have a little thing there for donations, and we've had actually a fair amount of donations given too.

Tom Williams: You know, Dean, we've got an ATV, about an $8,500 machine we're giving away for free. G2 donated a Nilgai and Axis hunt, $10,000, giving it away for free. Big Daddy Deer Feeders, $1,000. We've got hunting trips, fishing trips. Our heart is, we're not trying to make any money. It's crazy, we could be trying to raffle this stuff and we may be in the hole again this year. But hey, you know what? Ministry costs money.

Dean Hulce: That's right. Well, thanks again.

Tom Williams: Thank you. Hopefully you do it again and again in the future, we'll be here. If I survive this one, we'll do another one probably.

Dean Hulce: Well, thank you to our listeners for joining us and if you're in the Texas area, especially Tyler, we're not too far from Dallas, Fort Worth, and other places. Come over here in the future and join us. Every year, it's about this same weekend, correct? Thank you again, and thank you to our listeners. Join us each week on God's Great Outdoors as we head out into the Trail to Adventure.

Narrator: There are few ways better to bring outdoors men and women together than a hunting and fishing expo. Getting people to sit down and listen to a message that contains any mention of God is getting harder and harder. Psalms 145:4 gives us some direction on what God is calling us to do. That verse says, "One generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts."

If people aren't storming the doors of the church to learn about the good news of Jesus Christ, then as Christians, we need to bring the message to the people. Sometimes it takes a little outside the box thinking to get the message out. We don't change the perfect message, sometimes we just need to change how it's delivered. Find the people and places of passion, and the people will come to hear the message.

We challenge our listeners this week to think outside the box when it comes to getting the message out. It won't always be easy, but the eternal rewards are worth the effort. If you've enjoyed today's program and would like to hear other programs, you can find them by looking for Dean Hulce or Trail to Adventure wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

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 godsgreatoutdoors.org. Thank you so much for joining us this week. We hope that you've been challenged to bring the good news to the world around you. Please join us here each week as we head out into God's Great Outdoors and travel down the Trail to Adventure.