Welcome to the defender podcast, a resource to help mobilize and equip the body of Christ to manifest the gospel to orphans and vulnerable children. This podcast is a ministry of Lifeline Children Services, and I'm your host, Herbie Newell. It's Wednesday, November 13, 2024, and doctor Rick and I are coming to you from Birmingham, Alabama. And today, we are more than thrilled to have our good friend, but also our ministry partner, Andy Cook, with us on the defender podcast. And Andy is the president and the CEO of Promise 686, a place that he began and started in 2013 after starting as one of the founding board members for the previous 5 years.

Andy and his wife are are parents to, several children, 10 children, many who they've adopted both domestically and internationally. And Promise 686 actually grew out of Perimeter Church in Atlanta, but now it truly has become a worldwide, North American church ministry. Even last week, I was in Columbus, Georgia with an organization. I started talking about FAMs and Promise 686. And so I love what the Lord has done through Andy's leadership to truly take the work of equipping the church to have families that are activated in ministry around the world.

So we're thrilled to have Andy here and and just thrilled about our opportunity to partner Lifeline's opportunity to partner with Promise 686. We have partnered with Promise 686 to equip churches for ministry to vulnerable children. Caring for at risk kids and families takes faith, time, resources, and a lot of heart, and we're so grateful when the church steps forward to make this investment. Through our partnership, Promise 686 offers churches a step by step model called Family Advocacy Ministries or FAMS, which guide churches on how to launch and sustain impactful ministries for vulnerable children. Fans train church volunteers to support foster families, adopted families, and biological families in crisis, ensuring every child has a safe and loving home.

If your church wants to get involved, visit lifelinechild.org / fam. Again, that's lifelinechild.org/fam, or see our show notes for the link, and we'll get you and your church introduced to and in partnership with Promise 686 so that we can advocate for children and families to be equipped in the gospel to care for vulnerable children. Well, it's that time of the podcast where I get to bring on the infamous doctor Rick, the the celebrity at Lifeline, the one that everyone lines up for his autograph, as we like to call him, the silver haired, silver tongued one. Doctor Rick, we're grateful to have this friend, partner, someone we've wanted to partner with for a long time, and the Lord finally allowed us to figure it out in the last several months. We're so grateful to have Andy on here.

Yeah. You know, Herbie, you know, they're just people you just like enjoy hanging out with. And Andy Cook is one of those people. I have to say, and I'll say this to set him up, I probably enjoy his sense of humor as much as anybody that I get to hang out with in the orphan care space. He cracks me up.

And so this may get off the rails in a hurry here just because his dry wit is just kind of puts me under the table a lot when we're together. But I love Andy, love his heart, love what the Lord has done through him, through promise 686. And we've truly seen that God has God's really created a movement among churches to to engage at risk kids and at risk families and and to do that well. And so we've you know, we've kind of existed in parallel paths for a long time. The it's been really cool over the last year, year and a half to see God bring those parallel paths to intersection and and for us to really begin to intentionally work together.

And, and we'll all honestly tell you we're still figuring that out. And and, like, we're still in process of of trying to figure out how to do that well. But but the thing I can say is, you know, as I welcome Andy on to the to the show is just say that we're, we're having a ball doing this. We're really committed to it and really see promises as a as a key partner for us and and what the Lord's called us to do, but also what the Lord's called them to do. And and that we're really you know, we're able to be, you know, yoked up together to do this well.

And so, Andy, welcome, man. We're glad to have you.

Doctor Rick, Herbie, thank you. It's an absolute pleasure to sit with you guys in any conversation. And if we're gonna record it, then, gosh, maybe that makes it even better. Who knows? A throwback to what you said.

Doctor Rick, you said that amongst the funny or witty people in the orphan care space, I'm one of the more witty ones. I don't know if that's a compliment or not. I'm not sure what to make of that. I think the the bar for comparison and and the space where we serve is I'm not sure it's real high, but I'm gonna take that, and I appreciate it.

So you figured it out that I just told you that you were the tallest jockey. So that that's pretty awesome, man.

I'm just that quick. That's all.

No. Seriously, you are, you're one of the one of the funniest and, and and just a just a fun guy to be around. And so we always love when we get a chance to to do something with you. Maybe, Andy, where to start, I think is is for the folks that are, listen to the podcast, they just don't have a frame of reference for promise. We'd love for you to just introduce your ministry and and a little bit about just kinda give a context for who you guys are and the piece of this space that the Lord has has kinda given you, as a as a mission.

Thanks for asking. I'm gonna throw back to just a couple years ago. Herbie and I were at a a conference amongst, many leaders trying trying our best to give god glory and to do the work that gives children the families they really need. And, he and I decided we'd go for a walk rather than have a meeting. And so we did laps around the church, and it was so biblical.

It was so old testament. We were just doing laps, not so the walls of the church would fall down, But in a way, it was so that we could develop the the barriers, the obstacles of our partnership, that those things that had, kept us from doing more together, we could identify those and that they would fall down. And they really did. So even, us sitting here today and talking is a piece of that puzzle. And and that's a that's a an important picture, my my walk with Hervey for what promise has always tried to do.

We've always just said, hey. If we're gonna be in this space, we gotta do it with other people. We gotta partner rather than pioneer. And if we're if we're just another voice in a room, that's making a lot of noise, if we're a noisy symbol, and have not love, I think in in nonprofit speak, love sometimes is is collaborating really well, sacrificially, even stopping doing some things because you see someone else will do them. If if we are just another noisy voice, that's not stewarding our donors' dollars.

It's not stewarding God's dollars really well. So that's that's kinda how we started years years ago is we're like, what what is needed in this space? And, what we decided and to answer your question, you know, who are we? We decided, there needed to be an organization that was entirely focused on developing churches to serve in a transformative way in in the space of US foster care. And bit by bit, we built a model.

Herbie, in his introduction, shared the name of that. That's the family advocacy ministry. We didn't name it promise 686. We said instead, let's let's hand off something. It's a plug and play model that churches can be onboarded into.

They can be coached through. They can have corresponding technology with. They could take all that, and they can deliver what their community and especially what kids really, really need. So our name, promise 60 686, Psalm 686, God sets the lonely in families. And I was part of a meeting a number of years ago in in 2,008, in the basement of Premier Church where we started discussing what will we name this thing that we feel God's put on our hearts.

But I didn't like the name. I didn't like the name. Promise 686, actually. The whole, like, word name combo, nobody knows. Is there a space in between promise and 686?

Is it 686? Is it 686? I deal with these things every day. Right? This is just tough.

I didn't love the name, but I do love and have loved and will love that our name is rooted in scripture. God sets the lonely families. If we're not about that, then we're not about anything at all. So our our work is really to to bring to provide resilient families, committed volunteers, and practical needs. And the way we do that is we invest deeply in churches so that they can bring about resilient families, committed volunteers, and practical needs, for vulnerable children.

So, yeah, that's that's a quick summary about who we are. And as Harvey said, we do have the honor of working around the country. We work in 41 states and, love working with partners like Lifeline.

You know, one of the funny things, Andy, as we walked around that church that we kept talking about and laughing about was how it felt like we were always at the same dance together. And I think this is my analogy. And I think you liked it, but if you didn't, you can certainly say you didn't. But I felt like we were always at the same dance together, and we always ended up in the middle of the circle. And everybody expected us to dance together, but we never did.

We just kinda stood there and looked at each other. And, you know, through God's providence, we've had so many great opportunities to partner with Promise 686 and movements. But I I I love the opportunity when we finally sat down a year and a half ago with our whole teams, and we said, hey. Look. Let's quit doing our own thing, and let's do it together.

And really mutually beneficially, we can help Promise 686, and Promise 686 in a huge way can help Lifeline. Let's not build on the same foundations, but let's do more together. And it's been a it's been a blessing to us, and I know that people think, you

know,

I love it when organizations talk about, you know, working together. It's hard, but it's worthwhile. And maybe just talk about a little bit from your side of why you think this partnership is important, and not just the partnership with Promise 686 and Lifeline, but also partnerships that Promise 686 ultimately has with the church.

Yeah. Absolutely. The the first thing we looked at in thinking about, how to get on the dance floor with with you guys at Lifeline was, value alignment. And, you know, I think it's so important that, when I have interacted with your people, I've seen the values of Lifeline employees, which are it's part of the culture there. There's a humility.

So when when I think about partnership, it's a lot easier to approach someone to partner when there's a level of humility. The other thing I that was that's been really valuable as we've kind of gone deeper into partnership is that you guys come to this with a win win mentality as do we. I've had interactions with other partners where, where it didn't work out so well. And I came at it with a win win mindset. But I think for whatever reason, in the back of their minds, there was a win lose.

And as a good friend of mine always says, he said, Andy, it doesn't matter if you bring a win win mindset. If the person on the other side of the table has a win lose mindset, you're gonna lose every time. And, that's not that's never been the heart, that we've experienced with you guys. So that value alignment is huge in our partnership, and I think that's what allows us to sort through. Well, how do we actually do this?

I kinda laugh. The the 3 of us here, doctor Rick, Erbie and I, we we sat down for kind of the vision level conversation about, alright, if we're really gonna do this, if we're really gonna get deep into this work together, this is what it's gonna look like. And then people on our teams came back around and found a 1000000000 and one reasons why all of our great ideas at 30,000 feet wouldn't work. And when you have the value alignment, when we are in this because we wanted to honor God, when we're Christ focused, where we see the gospel as being necessary to be communicated. When all that kind of you fall back on that, you can work through an awful lot.

So answer your question that Herbie, just value alignment, such a huge part of the partnership and why we're in it. But what what really fires me up about our partnership is that we want we want to be, like, the ultimate, like a like a base camp, like a like a boot camp for you guys. Like, when you guys start to build a relationship with the church, you say, hey. Let's send these guys off the Promise to get their basic training on how to be a ministry that can do so many things so well. Let's hand it off to Promise for a little bit so that they can develop the leadership within the church to understand the heart for what this work is and also have process that will allow that ministry inside the church to be sustainable and help lots and lots of kids.

So that was kind of the heartbeat in this. It was like, man, we're we're doing this work. Our mission is to mobilize church communities to care for vulnerable kids. And you guys help us accomplish our mission because we can accelerate the mobilization of churches. We can accelerate the number of churches we reach.

And then we can, god willing, say, hey, church. You have what we we've given to you. You can go and do the things that Lifeline has and offers, to you that are fantastic, including even thinking outside of the US foster care into international adoption. You guys have so many ways that people in churches can actually go and live and serve. And our job is just to make sure that that church of the field is is all plowed up ready.

It's soil's ready, and and they're ready to to step in and do the work that you guys have plenty of opportunity for.

You know, Andy, I think, it's when I hear you kind of retail, all of that brings back some great memories, first of all, because I think those were fun days when, you know, when we were kind of sitting around and and really, you know, getting to the work of dreaming about what it could look like. But one thing I want to, like, I want to point out and I don't I want to make sure we don't skip over, it has been hard. And that's just because when like when we purpose to come together, work together and and when we have to figure out how to stop doing some things that we've done and that we've, you know, taken ownership of, that can kind of be messy. And and I think I really appreciate the fact that, you know, you acknowledge that it, you know, when we put it in the hands of our teams and they started to really try to figure out how to, you know, to bring our 2 ministries together, that they were honest and said, hey, this is probably it as easy as you guys think it is, but we've stayed at it and we're continuing to stay at it and we're committed to it.

And we believe that God has given us a better way to get into the future and a better way to help churches and to mobilize churches by working together. And I think, you know, even even over this time, we've really admired you guys in in just the the way that you're able to engage and equip and prepare churches to do well in the things that they do for for kids and families. And and I think churches are better when when they're participating with us, whether it be adoption, whether it be, you know, foster care, Families Count, heritage builders, whatever it is that we're doing, in and around the the foster care space and and in and around the adoption space. It it's all better when a church is organized well and they're caring for their people well and they're and they're mobilizing their people in in a strategic and systematic way. So I say all of that.

Explain a FAM to people. Like, tell people what the organization actually is and what you guys actually do because I think it's it really is pretty genius in the way that you've come to and the way that the Lord's led you to, you know, to to get churches moving and help them keep moving.

Absolutely. Yeah. A FAM is a family advocacy ministry. And what a FAM does is it is, it's a sustainable ministry inside of a church. It's church owned.

It's church operated. And it's powerful in the community because it's transformative for kids. Fams pump out people. They pump out foster parents, adopted parents. They pump out volunteers who can roll with, rally with, walk alongside, families who are taken on the task of caring for vulnerable children.

And fams plunk out. Pump they don't plunk out. They pump out goods and services, in the form of meeting all sorts of practical needs that kids have. So they are this little compact element of sometimes big churches, sometimes really small churches. But it's the means for the church to really bridge inside of their community.

FAM's a model. Right? It's it's a it's a way of actually addressing a local orphan care need. And because it's plug and play, we just break it down for churches. Simplest way to answer your question, what's the fam?

It's a plan. It's a plan that we're gonna guide you through so your church can get in the game and stay in the game of of caring for kids. When we walk into a church, and and sometimes our partners walk in on our behalf. So sometimes they're presenting this message. Sometimes we are.

We basically say to pastor, look. A fam it's a family advocacy ministry, and we have three strategies in mind for your church. Your fam can prevent children from coming into care. Your fam can help intervene when kids do come into care, or your fam can connect children to families forever. Fam is bigger than foster care.

Fam, is about making sure kids don't come into care. It's about supporting families as they're breaking down before they're falling apart. Families after foster care. Sometimes a fam is what's there as a ministry inside of a church to step up on behalf of a family that adopted 10 years ago. And maybe now at 10 years later, some of the some of the pains that child felt in those earlier years are being experienced not only for the child but in the family.

And they're they're struggling that point. So FAM is this broad idea of deeply engaging so that children can be radically different because your church said yes. So that's that's kind of the the picture of what what those ministries look like. Doctor Rick, we kind of say it from the perspective of of, like, a push motion versus a pull motions. Are you pushing into something or pulling back something?

We found that most ministry partners to churches, have a a a way of pulling resources from the church and and and deploying them into the community, which is a fantastic thing. It's some of the greatest ministries that have ever worked alongside churches have borrowed from the assets of the church and said, let's go let's go help you do this. In a sense, the church out sources to those ministries, and that's great. It helps a lot of people that way. We said, what if we flip that?

And we said, let's invest in. Let's push resources in and make sure that the church itself has the technology, the the the coaching, the curriculum, all the things they need so that they can be successful. And then we can step back and they can go do their thing. The one thing that's really great about churches owning the model and us pushing into them is that in their community, promise 686 doesn't become known. What does become known is the name of their church because ultimately what we want to happen in the lives of children and family in the community is that they have a place to come and not just be served, but to ultimately serve others and into worship.

And that's because of that church and that community. That's not because of promise. So that's that's a little bit more on how it works and and what it looks like and why we do it the way we do it.

Well, and I think, you know, I I appreciate you pointing out that distinction because I think that's the place where we found the greatest common ground. I mean, that was kind of the moment and and sort of the the for us is when we really recognize that and and just saw you guys in action and and saw, you know, churches that you were working with and and understood that you're committed to you're committed to the local church. You're committed to to mobilizing churches and helping churches to be the ones that are seen as the, you know, those that are bringing the gospel to bear in the lives of vulnerable kids and in the lives of families. That's our heartbeat. And so it it all got a little easier and a little clearer as far as how we begin to work together when when we really understood that that part of it, we were pushing in the same direction and we had the same set of goals.

I think maybe one additional thing just to kind of throw in, because I think it's helpful. You know, as we think about this from the lifeline perspective, we look at what you've done in the model that you've created and the way you deploy it. And it's just a great way to organize churches. It's a great way to to to bring large numbers of people in the church into finding their place and finding their way of being able to use their their gifts and talents and and the things that God's blessed them with in order to in order to do things to affect the lives of orphan and vulnerable children and, you know, and the families that are around them. And so for us, we see so many of the things that we do as maybe the end product that a church deploys.

It's the it's the thing they go do. It's the way they engage. And so there's this there's really a very nice kind of, you know, marriage of this where you're helping to prepare them and organize them well and keep them positioned well. We're giving them the tools to be able to go out and, you know, and to do the work. And so there really is a, you know, is a very nice interplay.

So, Andy, the one thing that you really haven't touched on that I want to make sure folks understand about, about promise and just kind of your whole model is promise serves. And and it's the kind of the software portion of this, the online piece that really helps people to be organized well. And one of the things that just again has impressed us about the things that you brought to bear, you guys have invested a ton in thought and time and people and technology and resources to help the church do what they do as simply and straightforward and organized well as they can. So just give folks a little bit of a glimpse into, Promiservs and and what that tool is.

Promiservs is it's tech, and it's tech for churches to run fans. That's the bottom line. And so it's an accelerator, and it's a disruptor. It's an accelerator in that we looked at our capacity as an organization to train up churches around the country and thought, goodness. If we don't have a way to accelerate their onboarding process to get churches to do more faster, We're not gonna be able to grow at the rate we think America's kids need us to grow and and and you guys to grow, the the partners on our team.

We want to go out, and we wanna rally churches on behalf of these kids, and we wanna reach them faster. So it's a real accelerator for us, and I guess that's really one of the fundamental fundamental reasons any of us use tech. But it's also a bit of a disruptor, for us because what it does is it gives more insight into what's happening inside those churches and how they're serving. So let me let me hit it this from maybe 2 different perspectives. 11 from the promise perspective, or maybe I go so far to say the lifeline or agency type perspective, and then one from the the church perspective.

Why does this tech matter? Why is Promised Serves important? I think for folks like us who are in this professionally, we we we recognize that the the the race that the church is is running when it comes to serving vulnerable kids has 3 big segments. 1, there's a starting line. 2, there's the grace course itself.

And 3, there's a finish line. And with you guys and with others, we're serving thousands of churches. And we started to see that it's very hard to have a new a movement when you don't know collectively where the starting line is, what what the race itself itself will entail, and and what a finish or result could look like. And we we came to find out that the best possible way to introduce the sort of language that would be cohesive and get everybody rallying toward the same goals on the same course, starting at the same point, would be through technology. And, that's that's what's been fantastic.

As as more and more people start using the system, we have a real picture of what does it mean for the church in America to step up on behalf of kids? What sort of difference is actually being made, for kids? And so that's an amazing thing about this technology that I would want people to understand. It gives us insight into the power of the church and what what she is doing collectively. The second thing is more just from the perspective of leaders in churches.

Yes. They will benefit from being able to see more of the the data around what their church is doing, and that that's important. I think it's important particularly to pastors to say, hey. We're we're investing our time and resources in this. What's happening as a result of it?

But it's really about ease. It's about saying to a lay leader in a church who said, hey. I wanna give a couple hours of my time each week to running a fam. I wanna make sure that my church has a potent ministry for the community when it comes to vulnerable kids, for foster kids, for kids who might need to be adopted. Oh, my gosh.

I'm overwhelmed. I don't even know where to start. And so to walk them into the tech to show them that the applications for new volunteers are as simple as a QR code on the screen and someone putting in their data, that they're gonna see everybody with the CRM functionality, that they can match people to families. And that a coordinated effort then allows for communication to spit from the system, and people get email reminders about the commitments they made to help serve that family or to to plan events inside the system and have the RSVP set up for them. It's all about making it easier for those lay leaders because nothing that we do at promise works if there aren't local champions.

And so we just kept looking at this saying, how do we make this as easy as possible for them? And what Promise Services has done is really simplified their role and made it so they can spend more time ministering face to face, serving, encouraging the volunteers and the families to keep going in less time doing the administrative challenges?

Yeah. You know, my mental image is, you know, I sort of see somebody with a desk or a dining room table or whatever that has all kinds of legal pads and and, you know, manuals and all sorts of things scattered all over it and them trying to spend time trying to organize all of that to put people in the right place so that the church does well. And and what I love about Promised Serves is that's an app or that's a dashboard on your computer that does all of that and takes the place of all of it. But it also anticipates what your needs are. And so, you know, there are there are pieces and parts of it that are already like they're already designed for you.

You don't have to think about how to put a tool together or you don't have to think about how to to put a report together. Those things are there and they're just really easily accessible to everyone. And, you know, the deeper we've gotten into it, the more I just you know, I really understand what a powerful tool it is. It helps us to be able to understand what churches are doing and how to learn better, how to serve. But but it helps churches just be able to do what they do really easily.

And, and and so it's just a great tool. Thanks for thanks for clarifying that. Well, Andy, if, you know, I mean, we're actively pointing churches toward promise. And so part of the, you know, part of the strategic turn for Lifeline is really beginning to say we're going to take this piece of preparation of churches and helping churches to be organized well. And we just want to point churches to promise to fulfill that part, because you do you guys do it so excellently.

Somebody's listening to this podcast. If they haven't called and talked to us or we haven't shared an email and they've heard about what you guys are and want to, you know, wanna connect, let's save them a little bit of time. They don't have to call us to then figure out how to call you. What like, what's the best way for people to get started if they, you know, if they want to explore a family, their church, or they wanna help their community in that way?

Yeah. They would go to lifelinechild.orgforward/fam. That is the spot. Herbie said as we open up the presentation today, that the reason that's the spot is because you guys are are introducing that church. You have a relationship with them.

They trust you. They know you. And all we wanna do is build off of what you've already started and get them up to speed on some things that will make them better for kids, better for the partnership with you guys. So that really is is the best spot to go. If you if you wanna cheat the system, you can go to promise 686.orgforward/fam.

But we're gonna point you back to the same spot eventually anyway. You know, the the people who listen to this and say, man, we've been doing this at our church, but we want to elevate it. We have a heart for this. We we served in this fashion last year, but I'm looking at 2025, and I'm saying, how do we take this farther? Hey, we're we're you're the perfect person to talk to us.

We wanna help you systematize your ministry. We wanna help in goal setting. We wanna make sure that you are offering programs through the ministry in your church that really fit the DNA of your church. And it you might also be someone listening going, oh, gosh. You know, I've always wanted to do something like that in my church, but I I just don't I don't know if my church would be up for it or, I just that seems like a lot.

It can be a lot. If you if you wanna make it a lot, we can, but it also can be something really simple and really small. It can start with learning a little bit about a fam, the basics, and just doing a service prop project a couple times a year. And then we build from there, if your church is ready to really deploy families or deploy volunteers. There are children, in your community who are being fostered by folks who are perhaps outside of your church, and those foster families are struggling.

And they need folks in the local church to say, yes. We wanna have a ministry for those guys, and we can help, set that up as well. So, yeah, lifelinechild.orgforward/fam.

Well, Andy, we thank you for your time. We thank you for your partnership. You are a dear friend, dear brother, and we're grateful to partner with promises 686. And we just wanna encourage anyone who's listening to this. Even if you don't think you wanna set up a fam or even if you're not a part of a church or or or anything, learn more about Promise 686.

Learn more about their ministry, what they're doing, and how they're doing that, and and, oh, ask the Lord also to open up your heart about how you could play an instrumental role at your church of getting a a family advocacy ministry started. There is nothing more that we can offer children, vulnerable children, orphans, vulnerable women, then the hope of the gospel of Christ Jesus through our presence, through our advocacy and through our ministry rooted in the hope of the gospel of Christ Jesus. So Andy, thanks for joining us. And we hope that you will learn more about Promise 686 and celebrate this great partnership of starting family advocacy ministries within the local church.

Thanks, guys. It was a pleasure.

Thanks for listening to the Defender Podcast. If you enjoy making this podcast a part of your weekly routine, we'd love for you to take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review the Defender Podcast to make it easier for more people to find. For more information on how you and your church can partner with Lifeline, visit us at lifelinechild.org. If you want to connect with me, please visit herbynewell.com. Follow us at lifeline on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter by searching for Lifeline Child.

You can email us directly at info at lifeline child dot org. Beloved, will you allow god to use the gospel to you to impact the life of a child? Please contact us because we are here to defend the fatherless. We'll see you again next week for the Defender podcast.