Speaker at this year’s Harvest summer camps Ryan Myhre sat down with Pastor Walton to discuss coming to know Christ, being discipled, and becoming a discipler.
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Episode Transtript
Chris Harper: Welcome to Harvest Time. My name is Chris Harper, and our host on this program is Pastor Gary Walton, the lead pastor of Harvest Baptist Church. Every week, we spend these twenty five minutes together telling you the stories of our church by interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. In the summer months, just one service at Harvest Baptist Church every week. Join us at 10AM on Sunday.
We have Japanese and Korean translation during that service, and we also live stream at hbcguam.org. Hbcguam.org. This week, we’re back in our series, Words Matter, part three from Proverbs 18:21. Let’s begin today’s harvest time by welcoming pastor Gary Walton. Hi, pastor.
Gary Walton: Hey. Hafa adai, Chris. It’s good to be back on island. My wife and I were gone for a couple of weeks and, just got back into last week, and right into all kinds of things going on at Harvest Ministries, and we’re excited to be in the middle of it. We are gonna come back to our series.
So we’re in a six week summer series just talking about communication, talking about our tongues and our words. Title is Words Matter. I was telling Chris before we started recording that we’re going to preach this Sunday from the whole book of Proverbs. We’re going to study the whole thing. Don’t get too worried about it, but specifically Proverbs eighteen twenty one is kind of the key verse, key theme verse for the whole series, that death and life are in the power of the tongue, which is a weighty realization of the power that we have in our words.
In fact, the book of Proverbs is filled with 150 references to the mouth, lips, tongue, words, gossip, speech. It really reads in some ways like a handbook on communication. And we can’t spend all six weeks here, so we’re going try to do it in one week, but we’re going to pull out some key teaching from one of the wisest men who ever lived as he talks about what our words mean and how important they are. So I hope that you’ll come right in the middle of this series. If you missed the first couple of weeks, you can get them online.
If not, plug in this Sunday, and we’ve four weeks to go here as we finish out just talking about and evaluating our communication and what God has to say about that. Well, I’m really privileged to be able to introduce or reintroduce to you a good friend of mine for many years now, Ryan Myhre, Pastor Ryan Myhre. Ryan is the pastor of discipleship, maybe a couple other responsibilities at Avon Park Lakes Baptist Church in Central Florida. So first of all, Ryan, welcome back to Harvest.
Ryan Myhre: Hafa adai. It’s amazing to be back on the island of Guam and being here with you, my friend, and being part of the Harvest family. Does kind of feel like home.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Ryan was here three summers ago. In fact, right following Typhoon Mawar, he had the privilege of being here with us for that summer speaking at our camps. So right in the middle of the summer, we have two weeks of camp, teen week, and then a junior week, and he’s our keynote speaker. Asked him to come back this year and just praying that God would powerfully use him in the life of our teens and in our junior campers.
Ryan and I have known each other for twenty years. We just figured that out. 2006 is when God connected us. It’s really a cool story. And I’m thankful for long term friendship and now watching him thrive in discipleship ministry and shepherding ministry really.
It’s kind of a cool, full picture moment, you know, for me to be able to have these relationships with you. But yeah, Ryan, we met twenty years ago. You were a teaching professional at a tennis academy in the area that I pastored. You and your wife, God just reached down into your lives connect you. Us that story.
Ryan Myhre: Yeah. You know, it’s one of those things where as I look back, my wife and I grew up going to church but never really having a personal relationship with Jesus. And, while we were very connected, we were faithful, churchgoers, life gets in the way of kind of, your spiritual walk and we didn’t, at least for me, I didn’t even realize it. I’ve thanked the Lord a number of different times. I’ve had two different passions in my life.
One has been, just sport and being able to play and then be able to coach at a very high level. That was just a great passion of mine. Very shortly, after both of our daughters were born, my wife said there’s just got to be more to life. And I heard her, but I didn’t hear her. And as the Lord would have it, he just brought around a number of ladies that were faithful disciples of Jesus.
And they started a Bible study for her and it was just on the worldview and world religions and she had a whole bunch of questions and it was just, I mean I can look back on it now and go, okay, can see the Holy Spirit just at work in her life during that moment. And then one Peter three just says that she actually won me without a word. Her life literally changed, and it was very evident and I didn’t understand what was going on. And, the story goes where, she had just a number of just really deep biblical questions that she believed through her Bible study and reading her Bible, that churches should possess. Like, hey, you should be preaching from the Bible and, these types of things.
What do you believe in believer’s baptism? This is coming from a Catholic. And so it was only the spirit that gave her some of these questions and, we tease each other now because she went to the yellow pages. At day two, right? Yeah, I guess that dates me.
That’s where you used to have to go to look up numbers, to find numbers of different places. But, she went to the back of the church section and, she started at the letter Z and, would call all the churches, in our area asking them these very specific, very theological rich questions that she believed the Bible answered very clearly. I told her now, she should have started at you know, the other side of the alphabet and it would have made it easier. She literally worked her way back from Z all the way to B, Brookdale Baptist Church. And, man, faithful, Pastor Tim, answered the phone that day and answered the questions.
And so my wife went there the very next Sunday. And, well, I don’t she she didn’t she didn’t ever not go back to Brookdale Baptist Church. And so she went without me for a couple weeks and, invited me as a faithful wife and I was faithfully going to our other church with our daughters and bringing her there and bringing them there. And, so I went and, you know, left the stained glass windows of the Lutheran Church and some of the traditions that are there, and I heard, I heard from the Bible that day, and it was you, Pastor Walton. And, it was Matthew seven.
I love telling that story because, if you know Matthew seven, it I don’t believe God makes mistakes. Yeah. And that was the message that I needed to hear that day. And and as the Lord’s providence allowed, it was the message that I did hear. And the message is is a probably one of the most challenging parts of of scripture.
Gary Walton: Yeah. For sure.
Ryan Myhre: It’s scary. Mhmm. But it it it talks about the there’s there’s this, wide path that that leads to destruction, and many are on it. And then it goes on to say, and and, there’s a narrow gate in a narrow way, that leads to everlasting life and there are very few that find that road. And I I remember, I share this story often, but I remember sitting there that but just thinking to myself, there’s no way that that’s in the bible.
And, and then you made it worse. Well, you didn’t make it worse. You you revealed what was even worse, but there’s this conversation that Jesus has with, some some people, and and they’re saying, well, Lord, Lord, they they even call him Lord. But they say, didn’t we prophesy in your name? Didn’t we do all these things in your name?
And Jesus says to them, depart from me. I never knew you. Now at that point, I also thought again, there’s definitely no way that that’s in the Bible. But my wife had her Bible open and I was looking over, you know, her shoulder and and and and looking at it and it was there. And really that just started this long path of faith for me.
And I would love to have said that the message that day, I accepted Christ in that moment, but I was a faithful Lutheran and so give me seven things I needed to do and give me the checkboxes and I could do that. But it was really the process of discipleship that ensued, that began to, help me hear the Gospel, in the way that God needed me to hear the Gospel in order to, put him first in my life. And I mean I love to tell this story. There was a faithful couple at Brookdale that just loved on people, and they invited me over for lunch and said Steve Melquist was his name. And he’s with Jesus now, but a faithful disciple of Jesus.
And I remember him just saying, Hey Ryan, we’re going out to the porch before we eat. And if you knew Steve, you just said yes to Steve. He used that kind of personality. He said, Sit down. So I said, Okay.
And he said, looked me in the eyes, and he said, Are you saved yet? Now by that time, Pastor Walton, you had met with me a number of different times and shared the Gospel with me, and so I knew exactly what he was saying. And Pastor, you had encouraged me, Well, read the book of John. It’s all about who Jesus is. And so, it’s just interesting as you look back how God, well, wove all these different people, all these different touches with the gospel to lead me to that point on that front porch.
And, so I knew the question he was asking me, are you saved? I mean, have you put your faith and trust in Christ and in Christ alone? And I remember saying, well, no. I hadn’t yet. And then he said, and I I teach this now in in any evangelism, teaching that I do, this very point.
He asked this question and he said, what are you waiting for? Amen. Yeah. And there I was in a just a nondescript front porch in Moorhead, Minnesota. And the only answer I had was the truth and says, I I don’t know what I’m waiting for.
And so he just walked me through the gospel again and said, do you believe these things? Yes, I I I really do. Yeah. He said, well we can take care of that right now. And that’s when I gave my life to Jesus and it’s been a sweet a sweet path, wrought with just the things of life and the things of ministry.
But I can man, just looking back, and my wife and I, we we talk about this often. God’s grace is just so amazing. Mhmm. The book of Ephesians has been rich for me personally, and, it just continually says, when you are in Christ and when you are in him, circumstances are gonna change. We have difficult things that come our way.
And yet when we’re in Christ, can be rooted, in knowing that no matter what, we have the savior of the world that is on our side, and he his promise is to never leave us and to never forsake us. And I love the picture in Ephesians that talks about that that God, he lavishes Yeah. His grace Yeah. Upon us. And so, praise the Lord, for just faithful ministry, faithful disciples that are wanting to see people take that next step in their spiritual walk and that that was us.
And so here here I was, I was I was lost following the world and and as Christ just radically changed everything in my wife’s and and my life and our daughter’s lives, I was I was faithfully discipled, and I didn’t even know that’s what was happening. I just funny story. I I think about this and, it’s kind of an inside thing, but, Steve Melquist was the the guy that that led me to the Lord and and Steve was a great discipler of people. And so I’m like, I know pastor You had said, well, hey, I’d like to get you kinda connected with somebody. And, oh man, praise the Lord.
I thought it was gonna be Steve. Right? I just figured. Yeah. And, you you introduced me to a wheat pathologist, Dr. Tim Friesen.
And, you know, I just remember thinking like, man, a wheat pathologist, have nothing in common with this guy. But man, Tim just became just a sweet dear friend and we would my schedule, his schedule were very often incompatible, but we decided Thursday nights were were the night that that we would get together. And so, his wife, Kathy, and family were always a blessing. They they had great food, and we’d get there.
I’d get there late and we’d sit in their comfy 09:00 late, 09:00, 09:30, 10:00. And they had a great room, great couch right in front of a fireplace. And I think most often than not, Tim and I woke up probably about 12:30 because I think we both we both fell asleep. But, man, it was just a sweet time of of just, man, just walking in the faith. And, and this is just sweet memories of of really building the foundation of of my faith.
And I I remember the books that we went through. I remember the discussions that we had. And so, yeah, man, just just sweet, sweet memories. And, it was funny. Nicole and I were talking.
I know I’m just kinda rambling on, but all these memories are just Yeah. Are just kinda flooding back. But you did a discovery class, Sunday school. Mhmm. And, just basic tenets, of the faith.
I think it was a year long, it was a year long kind of endeavor, commitment that that you just said, hey, you need to make this. And so, I mean, when the doors were open, everything changed and my wife and I, we dropped anything to to be there. And, we walked through that first year, the discovery class, and I I just remember thinking every week, was so hungry to go back. So I was like, man, I didn’t know that’s what the Bible said. I mean, once again, I had the Bible, but I never I never read it.
It didn’t mean anything. I I I didn’t understand it. But man, just walking through that time, it was just such a special time because I realized that that I began to realize that the Bible has answers for everything in our life. Yeah. And then I remember we had made it through the year, so I thought we graduated.
You know, I mean, alright, we’re on to the next class. And, I I to remember this just in my my own walk, in my own leadership, but you you did something very interesting. You said, no, no, no, you guys need to stay another year and now you guys are gonna be the impetus to kind of drive some of the conversation this next year. And I remember, wow, like, oh, yeah, we I don’t think we could do that, but then we did.
Yeah. And so that was that was just the process of of beginning that discipleship process. And, as as you are faithful, the Lord is faithful back. And I just remember sitting in with, the Halberts in junior high Sunday school and Mhmm. Just learning from them as as they were teaching Sunday school after that.
And then all of a sudden, they were gone one week, and Nicole and I were sitting there going, wait a minute. We gotta lead this thing. I mean, they I think they told us in advance, but it it felt it felt like that. And so we were leading Sunday school and then, senior high Sunday school, and then I was asked to lead Wednesday nights. And I mean, there’s just this process.
And and so here I have this world of tennis and I’m traveling the world. I’m and I’m thinking I’m the, you know, the the king of the hill of all coaches and, we’re winning national championships and one of our students won the Nike Junior Championships. And so, I mean, I think I’m kind of a big deal and and, man, it was just sweet in that time. I’m literally at the peak of, I think, my career as a as a tennis professional and man I get saved and everything started to change, priorities, timing, and, as the Lord would take something away in the tennis world, and he would fill it with something Amen. In in the church.
And that that, you know, I’ve I’ve I’ve won a lot of tennis matches. I’ve probably lost a lot of tennis matches. But, man, there’s nothing, like just being all in for Jesus. And and so, so there I was. You know, I I I was lost.
I I got the Lord just, came in and and, changed my life through salvation. And, starting on this process of of, just just being a disciple who I think was called to make disciples. And, later on, I was I was called as as one of the pastors at Brookdale Baptist Church. And so here I was now, the very place that that I I got saved. I was I was helping, be a be a shepherd there, and so, made the full full time switch into full time ministry, and, man, it’s If you would’ve asked me that, twenty years ago, I probably would’ve laughed.
Gary Walton: I might have too.
Ryan Myhre: Yeah. That time.
Gary Walton: No, no. Actually, know, Ryan, you just told the whole story because you took my second question, which is perfect. Mhmm. It’s it’s kind of a shared DNA. I wanted to ask you how you got from a tennis pro to a pastor in Florida and that was the journey, really.
And it really is as simple as that. You just took the next step of discipleship, of being discipled, finding out what it looks like, and God just kept growing your faith, right?
Ryan Myhre: Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, it was one of these things where, my wife and I, we had to tell this to our ninth grade daughter at the time and fifth grade daughter at the time, when we kind of felt the Lord’s pull, away from Brookdale and and into a different ministry. And we met with a with a faithful pastor, I think it was actually Lee, and he just said, Hey, pray about where the Lord would would lead you in ministry next, to both Nicole and I. And, so he said, we’re we’ll we’ll meet again in like a week, but you guys don’t need to talk about it, just just just pray. And so as as we prayed, we came back and I remember him asking, he’s like, well, Nicole, like, where do you think the Lord’s leading you?
And she said, Florida. She did. She did. And I we had traveled there just, I was down there a lot with, obviously, my tennis career, but, we’d vacation there and of all places in the world, she said Florida. And, I laughed and he looked at me and he said, what what about you, Ryan?
I said, no one’s gonna believe this, but I said Florida. And so we’re like, okay, well, alright Lord.
So you know, we just started praying that way. It was within the next two or three days, that a Jack Clem, who knew, about a church in a little nondescript place in Central Florida called Sebring, which is right next to Avon Park where I’m at now. And so he said, Hey, you gotta give the pastor down there a call. And, so I’m like, Yeah, okay, well we’ll see.
And, two days later my adviser, where I was trying to I was getting my MDiv at the time and, I needed to have an internship part of my, last year of my MDiv. And, so I told my advisor that I think the Lord is calling to somewhere else and he said, alright, well let me what are you thinking? I said, well I don’t know, we prayed about Florida. And so two days later he calls me and he says, well hey, I have this church in in Central Florida. So here are two people after we’re praying about this.
They don’t know each other, but they’re both talking about the very same church Interesting. In Sebring, Florida. Yeah. And, so, we were preaching this to our daughters, like, look, there is no better place to be than in God’s will. Yeah.
And there’s no worse place to be than out of it. And when God kinda opens, you know, we say, well, God opened this door for us. And literally, wasn’t a door, it was the whole wall kinda falling down like, alright. Lord, really? So it was, well, while it difficult because we were moving away from our families, it it was just very evident that the Lord was was his handwriting was just all over this move to to
Gary Walton: Well, it’s pretty amazing just to see, you know, I’ve had the opportunity to watch God, you know, you, moving you, directing your lives, and to see just that stream of God’s leading so clear, you know, at each step along the way. Through some questions along the times and some, you know, life, you know, comes at us in different ways and God just kept his his faithful leading.
Ryan Myhre: Amen.
Gary Walton: Ryan, you’re here as our camp speaker. We’ve got 150 teens that God’s given us the opportunity to minister to and for you to be able to share the Word with. Maybe Just and I know that you spent a number of years now working with teens, you’re disciplining all kinds of different ages, but tell us a little bit about some of the challenges of teens and what you’re burdened for this week.
Ryan Myhre: Yeah, no, thank you for the opportunity. You know, think one of the biggest burdens that we’ve seen and I’ve been able to continue to work with teens back in our church at Avon Park and what I’ve seen a lot is, I’ve seen some desire to actually learn more, about the Bible and and hear about Jesus. What what what I seem to be encountering more and more is is that there’s there’s a very, real sense of any lack of of authority in these kids’ lives, and a very false sense of any type of consequences in their lives. And so I think when you mix these two things where, they don’t respect authority and then even when something happens, there’s mom or dad usually to get them out of it. Yeah.
It’s this false sense of security that they can really just kind of do whatever they want. And I think that’s been the biggest battle because, you know, as we’re trying to give them the gospel, if, there’s no consequences, you can get out of anything. If you take that to the spiritual realm, well that one, it’s just not gonna work. That’s not the Gospel. And so I think as we’re walking into this week and as we’ve been praying about it, and I have just a blessing to have one of my coworkers with me along this year, and been able to pour into him as he’s pouring into me.
But as we were praying about it, Deuteronomy six just kind of came up as a theme for us that that we are called to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our strength. And then Jesus comes back in the New Testament and he says, the the scribe comes to him and says, you know, of of all the commandments, like what is what is the like, gotta break it down for me, Jesus. Give me the give me the give me the cliff notes, like, which ones do we really need to follow? And Jesus calls back to this ancient call back to the Israelites and he he says, well, you’re called to love the the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul. He adds with all your mind and then with all your strength.
And within the context of that day, with Greek philosophy and everything, the mind became much more important, with, in the culture. And so Jesus adds this extra little element and so that’s this week. I mean, we’re talking about being renewed and being transformed. In what? In our soul, in our mind, in our and and also then in our strength.
Like, we we’re called to understand it, and not just understand it, but but internalize it, and then that should drive us into action. So that’s what we’ve been praying about, and I think it hits exactly where the teens are.
Gary Walton: We gave to our church family, or we offered to our church family some wristbands. I see that you have one on, I do, with the names of, you know, one or more of our campers, and we’re just trying to reminders to us to pray during the week. We’re praying for that, Ryan. Praying for renewal, that God would do a great work, that some that don’t know Jesus, their hearts would be turned to him, that others would be strengthened in their faith, there’d just be a powerful work of God that’s There’s going a lot of people praying for you, but really praying for God’s Word through and in the hearts of these kids. Time goes fast.
One minute.
Ryan Myhre: Yeah.
Gary Walton: Looking across at you, you got a shirt that says make disciples. Yeah. This would be, you know, this is a core theme of our relationship, Yeah. Tell me about make disciples, what’s God’s call, and that really is a theme through what you’ve just told us already.
Ryan Myhre: Yeah. I mean, that’s, man, it’s interesting. I’ve had the great privilege of being discipled, and so I get it. The more I travel, the more I talk with other pastors, even pastors, you know, even on our staff, many people have not been discipled. They have no idea what it means.
And it’s not going to Bible study, it’s not going to Sunday school or whatever you would call that. It it really is an intentional time. And, I I just think of I think I’ve read something recently and I I really like it. It’s called the the two twenty two principle. It’s just second Timothy two two.
And, it just talks about, you know, by by the grace we have been strengthened in and through Christ Jesus in order to do what? And Paul is saying like, as you have heard from me, you need to you need to receive that, Timothy, and then you need to teach it to faithful men so that they can teach others. And really that’s four generations of of discipleship happening in that passage. And, you know, so if if we are not making disciples, really we’re we’re disobeying the great commandment. Jesus says go and make disciples.
And so we’re supposed to be disciple making disciple makers, and, that that has it’s a challenge because, it takes time, it takes investment, it takes hurt, and it takes walking with somebody, and that’s it’s costly discipleship. Yeah.
Gary Walton: Well, that’s our burden. I love the story of God’s work in your life. It’s our our burden, and we’re we’re thrilled to see the way that God’s doing this across Guam. We pray that that would continue, that, we would go and make disciples. I mean, that’s what we’re called to do.
Hey. Thanks for coming back out, this summer. Ryan, appreciate your friendship, your brother in Christ. And, yeah, thanks for coming. We’re praying for you this week.
Ryan Myhre: Amen. Thank you.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to Harvest Time. Of course, at this point in the program, we always wanna invite you again to Harvest Baptist Church. Just one service in the summer, 10AM on Sunday. We offer Japanese and Korean translation during that service, and we also bring it to you live on 88.1 FM and khmg.org. We hope to see you this Sunday. Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.