In the summer of 2020, with COVID-19 just beginning, Patrick was asked to lead an online Bible study on the book of Daniel. As he led the group, leaders and others at his church affirmed his calling to one day become a pastor. 

Ron Holton, Rockpointe’s lead pastor, was among them. He recommended Patrick seek further education for the purposes of becoming a church planter. Though he had already earned a doctorate to prepare him for his previous career, Patrick enrolled in a master’s program at Dallas Theological Seminary in 2020.

“Eric never blinked at any of it,” said Holton, noting Rockpointe has a vision to plant 10 churches by 2030. “He is well-read. He attended conferences, asked questions. They downsized and lived conservatively and intentionally. … [He is] among the hardest-working and most intellectually bright planters I have ever worked with.”

A call to plant … but where?

As his extended education continued, Patrick was advised to consider where to plant a church. Should they move to his native Tampa? Memphis also came to mind. “We didn’t know where we were going for a while,” Patrick admitted.

But with Patrick’s mother recently relocated to Dallas and other family living nearby, the pull of North Texas stayed strong.

The Patricks took a compass, centered it on the Metroplex, and drew a large circle encompassing outlying communities. They began visiting locations, driving through neighborhoods, and renting vacation homes for extended periods so they could experience living in the areas. Mesquite and Balch Springs seemed a possibility. They talked to realtors, attended public events … yet the answer seemed to be, “No, not yet.”

That changed when Patrick drove north between highways 121 and 380 to Little Elm. As he looked around, he knew he had found the place. He saw neighborhoods and businesses, but not many churches.

“We need each other,” said Kevin Costley, a Calvary Pampa member for 13 years. “We weren’t created to make this journey alone D3 prepares us through God’s

Word to be true Christians, the way Jesus was with His disciples and the same way He discipled. I think it’s one of the best things the church has ever done.”

Since 2021, 60 people from the church have participated in D3. When the study is complete, participants are encouraged to start a group of their own.

Jennifer Puryear, a member of Calvary Pampa for about 17 years, is among those who have graduated from D3 participant to group leader. She said she has been encouraged by the fact the program relies on participants becoming more skilled at handling the Word of God for themselves.

“It’s always good to read the Bible, of course, but D3 helps you read through the whole story,” Puryear said. “You look at the verses more, and depending on what we’re going through or our season in life, different verses appeal to us.”

After participating in a D3 group, David Land, a member of Calvary Pampa for eight years, now leads two other men in a group. Land said D3 has helped him continue to grow in many ways, including through his prayer life, his ability to share the gospel, in leading his family, and at church.

“For anybody who has reservations about doing a dis- cipleship program, it’s basically just studying the Word and doing life with your brothers,” Land said.

Costley agreed.

“When you get together with other Christians, you can see how they handle Scripture and how they’ve handled whatever they’ve gone through,” Costley said. “As we read Scripture, we talk about how we use that Scripture in our daily lives. We may apply it differently. As I hear about guys with the same struggles I have, I learn from them what they learned from Scripture.”

Beam is encouraged with the results he’s seen since Calvary Pampa started D3 and dreams about what it could mean for the community.

“We did the math,” Beam said. “Over 10 years we could reach the entire city of Pampa. I’m optimistic and yet realistic. Even though we might not reach everyone, if we are faithful, we’ll develop a large number of disciples for the kingdom.”

Somehow, though, it didn’t work out. “The Lord just made clear that another decision needed to be made,” the pastor said. 

A few months later, COVID shut down everything and church members saw that God had protected them. “We would have been saddled with paying off land,” McLean noted.

Instead, FBC New Braunfels took a significant step into the digital world, hiring a communications director and learning to make the most of the online space where people often go first to find a church.

“Through that, especially through COVID as we began to put sermons online, we had many people visit us and say it was their first time, but they’d been listening for months,” McLean said. “We had a family that moved from Minnesota who joined a small group here while they still lived in Minnesota. They were able to do that on Zoom.”

The enhanced digital focus “has helped us tremendously because it has allowed us to better communicate who we are as a church—what our convictions are, what our values are.

“As folks have engaged with us online, I believe that commitment is already further down the road by the time they step into the church facility because there’s a sense of already knowing us and knowing who we are. They’re just coming to engage in person,” he said.

As far as local ministry, FBC New Braunfels has a Restoring Hope Boutique where it provides clothing to people in need.

“We’ve helped many, many folks who’ve come out of the penal system and they need something to wear to an interview,” McLean said. “We’re trying to help people as they’re trying to get their lives back on track by simply giving them clothes to wear so they feel more confident. Within that is an expression of the gospel and the invitation to worship with us.”

The church has several retired teachers, and they periodically take lunch to teachers at a nearby elementary school. 

“We’ve been sending groups out into neighborhoods and apartment complexes prayer walking, leaving a door hanger, and then going back and trying to engage in conversations with folks,” McLean said. 

For about a decade before the pandemic, FBC New Braunfels sent teams to Southeast Asia to share the gospel with people who had not heard of Jesus. Recently, they sent a group to Cuba and another to Denmark and Germany.

“Those are exciting things where people get to go and see other parts of the world and care for people,” McLean said. 

In 2017, FBC New Braunfels was tragically thrown into the national spotlight when a bus crash killed 13 of their senior adults. Though the church is not defined by that event, McLean said, they remember it as a time when God was glorified. 

“We could say with great confidence, ‘Lord, thank you for preparing for eternity every one of those who lost their lives because they knew your Son as Savior,’” he said. “We had to give great praise to God because they were saints, and they were prepared for that moment.

“In the aftermath of that, in celebrating those lives, we got to worship our God together as a church, and I believe the Lord healed so much and strengthened our faith so much through that time.”

‘God is moving in our country’

“I don’t think the salvations we are seeing are anything unusual,” Hill said. “One, God is moving in our country. And it’s not just in one place: you see pockets everywhere. … I think God’s doing it [this way] because He doesn’t want any one person to get the glory for it.” 

Next, Hill said he has noticed a hunger for Scripture. “If you present the gospel, people will get saved. That’s what we are doing. We do it in our church every single service. We do it in our small group,” he said.

Relationships are important—but simple, clear explanations of the gospel are key.

“The reason why we have people saved in our small group is because … they’re bringing lost people every single week, and they know lost people. And so I’m presenting the gospel every time. I’m not waiting, I’m not letting them think about it. We’re doing it right then and there on the spot,” Hill told a friend. Baptism follows soon after.

“You hear revivals are dying,” Hill said. “We don’t see that. We see lost people saved.”

Hill’s own faith journey is remarkable. The product of a rape, he thanks his mother for choosing to give birth to him rather than seeking an abortion. Saved at age 8, he started preaching at 14 and served as a youth minister at 18. Mentored by widely known evangelist and professor Roy Fish, Hill earned a doctorate of ministry in evangelism from Southwestern Seminary. In 1997, he embarked on a new adventure when he founded his evangelistic ministry. 

As Hill’s small groups will attest, it’s been quite a ride.