121 Stories - Church Planting: Randle Bishop's Story
A Young Christian Gentleman Explains How He Came To Be A Church Planter
Feb 13, 2022 6m
What is church planting, and who are the people that plant new churches? A young Christian gentleman shares his testimony of how he came to be a church planter. He recognized it was a calling in his life, and he followed the calling and planted a new church. Video recorded at Grapevine, Texas.
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be a church planter sharing the gospel what does it mean to be a church planter calling from godTranscriptionmessageRegarding Grammar:
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
Randle Bishop: [00:00:02] My name is Randle Bishop, is was born here in Dallas, Texas, raised in the city of Lewisville, Texas. My mom was from the city, my mom was from Arlington Park, Texas, a little neighborhood here in Dallas. And so when I was born, we moved to Lewisville, which is where my dad was from. And so living in Lewisville, it was kind of like being torn from your place of being, so to speak, so all of my cousins, all of the rest of my family lived here in Dallas and Arlington Park and the Oak Cliff area.
Randle Bishop: [00:00:27] My life before Christ was one that started off as a beautiful narrative, right? I mean, I was obviously the newborn baby to a newlywed couple, but my father was addicted to heroin and due to that addiction, he passed away from an overdose. And so what started out as a beautiful narrative, kind of ended early on in brokenness. My mom did an outstanding job of trying to raise me on her own, because I was a young man without a father trying to find his way as a man, and she was trying to give me all that she could but couldn't fulfill the role of a father. Early on, you know, I would ask my mom questions like what happened to the dinosaurs? You know, who are Adam and Eve? Like asking these kinds of questions? Because early on, we were always in church, but I was an inquisitive kind of young guy, you know, I was always asking questions.
Randle Bishop: [00:01:24] My mom was the greatest influence, I believe, just shortly after my father passed, she had me memorize a verse of scripture from First Peter 5:7, I still remember it to this day. And I can remember her saying, hey, open that Bible right there, it was a big old Bible, open that Bible right there. And I opened it up to the passage that she showed me to look at.
Randle's Mom: [00:01:45] Don't forget your scripture, First Peter 5:7 says, "Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you."
Randle Bishop: [00:01:54] So, casting my cares upon the Lord, because he cares for me, has always been a kind of anchor verse for my life. And coming to Christ, she was the greatest influence. And then also, I would just say pastors that were in and out of my life, there was another man by the name of Bishop W.C. Green, who was basically a surrogate grandfather, if you will, who came into my life via some other relationships that my family had, and he was a pastor. And when I came to Christ, he was one of the first people that I remembered was a strong believer, and I would always call him and ask questions.
Randle Bishop: [00:02:34] So when I came to Christ, it was the summer of 2004. I remember being in my room that I was in at the time, and I had my Bible in one hand, and I had a blunt and the other hand, and I was just smoking weed. And I remember trying to figure my life out, and I was like, God, like, I need to hear from you. And as clear as day, as I'm smoking and reading my Bible at the same time, the Spirit of God begins to convict me and say, I will not have you read my word like that. And all those things that I had learned from my mom, from Papa Green, and from others, it just begin to weigh on me. And I was convicted, and I was convicted, and I knew that I was in danger of experiencing God's judgment. After becoming a believer, I wanted to just be trained to rightly handle God's word, learn what I needed to learn about ministry, and preparing to be a pastor.
Randle Bishop: [00:03:26] And while I was at Moody, they call it the Moody Bridal Institute, so I found my wife there. We got married in 2009, we have a large family, five kiddos, and we also have a heart for ministry. And so coming out of Moody, and also attending Southern Seminary, we always realized that we wanted to get back to ministry. And so when I learned about the Trinity, I was like man, this is a big God who loves his people, and his redemptive work in the world has different facets and different aspects to it, that the father is good, so he sends the Son into the world. And the Son is faithful and obedient to the will of the Father and dies in the place of sinners. And in that, the Spirit is willing to aid and give him so freely to accomplish the enabling and empowering work that the son set out to do through believers.
Randle Bishop: [00:04:22] And so when I was like, man, I'm going to start a church, like, I'm going to call it Trinity. Ironically, moving back to Dallas, you see that there is a river that runs through our city called the Trinity, so that was not something that I was trying to do. But it's like a good comparison, like the Trinity in the Bible, is full of life, He gives life. Even the Bible talks about. From this God, there's a river that flows from his throne that provides nourishment for the nations. And this God, who is the Trinity, calls us out to be his people through the Gospel, and so that's why you have the church. So that's why I've decided to call it Trinity Gospel Church, to pick up on those themes, those big parts and components of my own life, whereby I hope to help people understand something of what it means to be a Christian and to be a part of the family of God.
Randle Bishop: [00:05:16] I never set out as a little kid having lost my father, growing up in a single-parent home, running the streets, getting suspended from a historically black college, to going to Bible college, like in all of that, I never thought that I would be a pastor. But God was super gracious through that whole span of life, and when I came back to Dallas, I found that everything that I experienced early on, the brokenness and the loss of my father, the influences of church leaders, the influence of family members like my mom and others, and my story fits the context where we want to do ministry. That people can resonate with what we're trying to accomplish, people can see that the gospel of Jesus Christ has something specifically tailored for their experience, and that Jesus is not somebody who doesn't sympathize with our weaknesses, but he meets us wherever we are. Whether you grew up in an apartment, whether you grew up in a house, whether you grew up without parents, whether you grew up with one parent, like God is faithful to meet us where we are. To bring us into his story, so that we can experience what it truly means to be a family, and what it means to be a part of His church.
Recorded in Grapevine, Texas.
Randle Bishop: [00:00:27] My life before Christ was one that started off as a beautiful narrative, right? I mean, I was obviously the newborn baby to a newlywed couple, but my father was addicted to heroin and due to that addiction, he passed away from an overdose. And so what started out as a beautiful narrative, kind of ended early on in brokenness. My mom did an outstanding job of trying to raise me on her own, because I was a young man without a father trying to find his way as a man, and she was trying to give me all that she could but couldn't fulfill the role of a father. Early on, you know, I would ask my mom questions like what happened to the dinosaurs? You know, who are Adam and Eve? Like asking these kinds of questions? Because early on, we were always in church, but I was an inquisitive kind of young guy, you know, I was always asking questions.
Randle Bishop: [00:01:24] My mom was the greatest influence, I believe, just shortly after my father passed, she had me memorize a verse of scripture from First Peter 5:7, I still remember it to this day. And I can remember her saying, hey, open that Bible right there, it was a big old Bible, open that Bible right there. And I opened it up to the passage that she showed me to look at.
Randle's Mom: [00:01:45] Don't forget your scripture, First Peter 5:7 says, "Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you."
Randle Bishop: [00:01:54] So, casting my cares upon the Lord, because he cares for me, has always been a kind of anchor verse for my life. And coming to Christ, she was the greatest influence. And then also, I would just say pastors that were in and out of my life, there was another man by the name of Bishop W.C. Green, who was basically a surrogate grandfather, if you will, who came into my life via some other relationships that my family had, and he was a pastor. And when I came to Christ, he was one of the first people that I remembered was a strong believer, and I would always call him and ask questions.
Randle Bishop: [00:02:34] So when I came to Christ, it was the summer of 2004. I remember being in my room that I was in at the time, and I had my Bible in one hand, and I had a blunt and the other hand, and I was just smoking weed. And I remember trying to figure my life out, and I was like, God, like, I need to hear from you. And as clear as day, as I'm smoking and reading my Bible at the same time, the Spirit of God begins to convict me and say, I will not have you read my word like that. And all those things that I had learned from my mom, from Papa Green, and from others, it just begin to weigh on me. And I was convicted, and I was convicted, and I knew that I was in danger of experiencing God's judgment. After becoming a believer, I wanted to just be trained to rightly handle God's word, learn what I needed to learn about ministry, and preparing to be a pastor.
Randle Bishop: [00:03:26] And while I was at Moody, they call it the Moody Bridal Institute, so I found my wife there. We got married in 2009, we have a large family, five kiddos, and we also have a heart for ministry. And so coming out of Moody, and also attending Southern Seminary, we always realized that we wanted to get back to ministry. And so when I learned about the Trinity, I was like man, this is a big God who loves his people, and his redemptive work in the world has different facets and different aspects to it, that the father is good, so he sends the Son into the world. And the Son is faithful and obedient to the will of the Father and dies in the place of sinners. And in that, the Spirit is willing to aid and give him so freely to accomplish the enabling and empowering work that the son set out to do through believers.
Randle Bishop: [00:04:22] And so when I was like, man, I'm going to start a church, like, I'm going to call it Trinity. Ironically, moving back to Dallas, you see that there is a river that runs through our city called the Trinity, so that was not something that I was trying to do. But it's like a good comparison, like the Trinity in the Bible, is full of life, He gives life. Even the Bible talks about. From this God, there's a river that flows from his throne that provides nourishment for the nations. And this God, who is the Trinity, calls us out to be his people through the Gospel, and so that's why you have the church. So that's why I've decided to call it Trinity Gospel Church, to pick up on those themes, those big parts and components of my own life, whereby I hope to help people understand something of what it means to be a Christian and to be a part of the family of God.
Randle Bishop: [00:05:16] I never set out as a little kid having lost my father, growing up in a single-parent home, running the streets, getting suspended from a historically black college, to going to Bible college, like in all of that, I never thought that I would be a pastor. But God was super gracious through that whole span of life, and when I came back to Dallas, I found that everything that I experienced early on, the brokenness and the loss of my father, the influences of church leaders, the influence of family members like my mom and others, and my story fits the context where we want to do ministry. That people can resonate with what we're trying to accomplish, people can see that the gospel of Jesus Christ has something specifically tailored for their experience, and that Jesus is not somebody who doesn't sympathize with our weaknesses, but he meets us wherever we are. Whether you grew up in an apartment, whether you grew up in a house, whether you grew up without parents, whether you grew up with one parent, like God is faithful to meet us where we are. To bring us into his story, so that we can experience what it truly means to be a family, and what it means to be a part of His church.
Recorded in Grapevine, Texas.
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