Eric + Leslie Ludy Interview: When Eric and Leslie were scrutinized by Dan and Sandi McConnaughey

well hi everyone so i've been doing a series of interviews with uh the the team here at elderly it's been a lot of fun and one of the interviews which who knows maybe the most important of all uh with my wife leslie has been just tremendously problematic technologically uh speaking we've just had challenge after challenge and so we decided that we were going to just push back and do it as a zoom call so i know this is really strange that here leslie and i uh two people that are always together have a tough time filming together so uh but we we did it we decided to turn it into two instead of one so you get bonus uh because of this that's our way of sticking our finger in the enemy's eye on this one just in case he had something to do with all the technological difficulties but i think you'll really enjoy this just hearing leslie's perspective on our team is so refreshing so guys enjoy welcome everyone uh this is uh les how many times have we tried this is this four or five times i think so this must be an important interview i tell you what uh we even had to uh resort to doing it via zoom for whatever reason uh there must be some enemy faction that wants to hinder us from having a normal interview set up between the two of us which is fun you know we know that we know the better i don't think you and i have done much together on camera in a long time so it is very unusual and it's it's kind of fun it's different and that's probably why it's been so hard to pull it together i agree well uh let's dive into it we decided that if we're gonna have this much friction in trying to get an interview uh done that we are going to do two and so we might as well get more mileage out of this so we're gonna break up uh and sort of talk about our team because that's what all these interviews have been is just sort of get familiar with our team understand uh what makes us tick and it's been really a fun uh fun journey i think for me to spend that time even though this particular interview which we've done multiple times and it just like always has a technical glitch and we had a great interview actually it was about i don't know like a month ago when we did it first and it was really powerful uh and i wish we could just sometimes you want to bottle things but i trust that god is going to uh even draw us out more today that what we wanted to focus on in this particular interview is just our team uh what giving sort of that overview from our perspective as leaders specifically your perspective les uh in regards to what god has given us when years ago we prayed that god would surround us with men and women that were humble that feared the lord and trembled at his word and that were marked by honor those are three things that we felt were very very significant for what was needed in the church specifically and we asked for so did god answer that prayer would be an interesting start yes he definitely answered that prayer it's it's been a very unusual road how our staff how our team has been drawn into this ministry and felt that this was their calling and given their lives to it i remember when we first came off the road so we were traveling we were speaking full-time we were in churches all over the world basically and one of the things we that really grieved us that we didn't see much of excuse me are leaders who are humble and honorable like you said i remember being behind the scenes with so many different pastors or worship leaders who just acted completely differently on stage when they were in front of people than how they acted behind the scenes behind the scenes they were just not focused on jesus christ at all but they could put on a good show when they were up in front of their church or their conference or whatever it was and i feel like there were a lot of people we rubbed shoulders with who maybe had an impressive platform online or had a trendy new book but they didn't really have that willingness to get in the trenches to be completely unknown and to draw everyone's gaze to jesus christ and i remember thinking you know where is a team like that going to come from because as we traveled christianity we didn't see very many leaders that were that were humble that way and willing to do whatever it took to bring a soul into the kingdom of god and to wrestle with that soul to be established in truth and i remember praying for years that god would bring this kind of a team around us and every single one of our team members came into the elderly world in a very unconventional way we didn't go out there recruiting people we didn't look to see who was you know the most successful out there and asked that they could be a part of what we were doing we just asked god to bring those that he wanted to serve alongside of us and so with dan and sandy who are such pillars here at ellerslie part of our core teaching team part of our executive team and i remember meeting them for the first time it was actually kind of a funny story we were going through the process of getting to know a young girl in our church who was unexpectedly pregnant and she was really seriously considering adoption for her unborn child and she was living with dan and sandy at the time they were really ministering to her and she god had knit our hearts with her in a beautiful way and she kind of wanted them because they were like her spiritual parents she wanted dan and sandy to check us out she didn't you know we had only known each other for a few weeks and she thought i need their perspective and so i remember the the young girl who was considering the adoption she was super excited and she came home when she told dan and sandy you know i found this this family that i think is the right fit i think this is the way i'm supposed to go and i remember sandy saying well you don't you have to be really careful you i mean these people may seem really nice but you don't really know them and we need to check them out so they invited us over unbeknownst to us to check us out to scrutinize us and if if i had known that's why they invited us over i would have been a lot more concerned and nervous but we had such a neat connection with dan and sandy from that very first conversation there was such a like-mindedness a unity of focus a passion and i think it was that very day you know we met together just to kind of meet and get to know each other but it was that very day that i think the idea of working together in ministry surfaced and it was just one of those puzzle pieces that god put together this couple that was heading into their retirement years and of course the retirement years in our culture usually looks like more of a self-focused lifestyle sort of like i've worked hard all my life i've put in my time i've raised my kids i've worked hard at my job now it's time for me and i deserve a break i deserve a reprieve from just the daily grind but dan and sandy have not approached their retirement years that way they've been here at ellerslie for over 11 years since we first started and from the very beginning they have been so sacrificial so willing to be completely and fully invested whether that means praying with students into all hours of the night whether that means giving up their freedoms that they would normally have in the season of their life to just travel and and take more of a leisure approach they have completely put that aside and said we want to use these years of our life fully and completely for the glory of god and i think that has been such an inspiration to me because i've only seen a few people throughout christian history cory ten boom was one where she said i'm gonna die with my boots on and she literally did i mean she was preaching and sharing jesus all the way up until the day she died which was at a very old age i don't remember the exact age but i think it was in her 90s and then george muller was the same you know basically preached a sermon a day or two before he passed away in his old age and that is such a beautiful picture that we don't have we're not supposed to have seasons of our life that are effective and fruitful for the kingdom of god and in seasons of our life where that's kind of over and we just focus on ourselves but you don't see that a lot in in modern christianity and so i think dan and sandy have so exemplified that in the way they have poured out so sacrificially and they are very humble no desire for glory no desire for credit just that desire to share the gospel to serve to wash the feet of the church so that has been a huge blessing and apparently after 11 years we passed their their snuff test that we pas we asked with they scrutinized us and gave us the thumbs up i hope they haven't told us otherwise the fact that they've been around 11 years somehow is some evidence yeah i haven't actually asked them if we passed but i'm assuming i remember i remember nathan johnson is another one that it came into our our life and our ministry in such an unusual way he was someone that you had met at a speaking event really had a neat connection with him and he just had a passion to serve us and at that time we weren't even we didn't have elderly we didn't have a training school or a campus we were just traveling a lot and we had a ministry kind of out of our house and he just came out for i think just for anyone that needs a backdrop leslie and i have a lot of books and so we used to travel and speak just because of our books and so we were always going around the world and that's i had held a i think it was a week-long training at the nestus park and that's how i met nathan so he he just asked if he could come i think for a few days or a week to just serve us and just kind of wash our feet and you know my perspective on that was i don't know what i was expecting but he came into our world and he was just such a servant i i mean the humility that he demonstrated because he had been to seminary and bible school and was a bible teacher and had so many like high level qualifications and yet he was coming into our world and going out without being asked and buying all these supplies from office depot for our online bookstore for our you know little bookstore for shipping things out it's just just seeing a need and fulfilling it and i remember him washing our dishes and i remember walking down into the kitchen seeing this guy that who was just here to serve our ministry deciding he was going to wash our dishes and that was such a amazing moment for me to see someone so highly skilled and highly qualified who was just finding joy in delighting and washing our dishes which i never would have asked him to do i don't think we ever would have asked him to go to office depot and buy books bookstore supplies or wash our dishes uh but he willingly saw what needed to be done and just filled that role and i would say after 11 years of serving alongside of nathan that is still who he is he will just he does not he is an incredibly gifted speaker and teacher he is the students that come through elderly absolutely love nathan johnson and are so edified by his teaching and yet he is so willing to take the lowest place and to serve and to even wash dishes or do things that are behind the scenes and that's what's always stood out to me and i think that is also very unusual in christianity today because usually if someone is gifted and has a lot of talent and communication ability they're going to want to kind of fight to be in front of people all the time they don't really want to do the behind the scenes work but nathan is willing he's just as happy doing behind the scenes work as being in front of people which is a huge testimony and very rare quality so again i feel like god brought these people answered our prayer in such unconventional ways we didn't go out seeking them they just came to us in and they didn't come to us with fanfare and bells and whistles or putting a resume and they just god brought them to our attention and we said that's the kind of person that is cut out for this work and they have been amazing and it hasn't been easy i would say if if any of our team was in this ministry for the the benefits the personal benefits they would have left a long time ago because they're really it's like living in a battle zone it's it's very intense it's very hard there there are amazing rewards but you're not going to do it for financial success you're not going to do it for fame and glory you do it for the glory of god otherwise you're not going to last and so the fact that our team has lasted 11 years and is going strong shows me that their motive is is truly in line with gods uh sarah guthrie is another one that we met at a speaking event in rhode island and just kind of kept in touch with her over the years and when she finally came through a semester at ellerslie it was just so beautiful to see just how god perfectly prepared her for the role that she was to play as soon as she came through a semester i think our whole entire team that we were like okay how do we hold on to this girl she is like gold she is just so willing to to pour her life out in whatever sphere in whatever way that is needed and willing to do things that other people wouldn't be willing to do so i think we're we're fighting over sarah internally all the time in a friendly way you know i need her for this you need her for that let's see how we can share her she's just she's so she's so invaluable to us philip hartman is someone who came through an elderly semester at the age of maybe 12 or 13 right he was very young when he first came here he was young he may have been a little older his brother his brother has the record of being the all-time young okay yeah but he was young i mean he was in the he was in his teens when he came through elderly for the first time and he stood out to us even then and over the years just seeing god grow him into this really powerful example of practical christianity being lived out it has been the most amazing blessing to see him grow up and remain consistent uh and now that he's you know a businessman and a husband and a father nothing's changed i mean his his passion has only grown since those those days when we knew him as a teenager and and he i think in another interview that you did with him you talk about how he convicts you on a regular basis because he takes these truths so seriously and i i i totally agree with that and that we need that on our on our elderly team we need to stay sharp in these truths that they cannot grow stale after 11 plus years we need people around us who are constantly grappling with them wrestling with them living them out because it keeps us sharp and that's that's a huge blessing i i think of annie weshee who didn't do an interview because she's not in in colorado but she's our creative director so she designs our website she designs the set apart girl magazine she came into our life when hudson was three months old our oldest childhood and she was his nanny and god just connected her heart with ours from that very those very early days if she wasn't like a full-time nanny she was just kind of an extra pair of hands as we were trying to juggle parenthood in ministry and she had a passion and desire to use her gifts in design and photography for the glory of god and so she went from just doing you know helping us take care of of our kids to office work to being this amazing anointed graphics designer for our ministry and that to me is a testimony of someone just saying i submit my my talents my desires to you lord and i ask that you would use them for your glory and that's what god has done and so i could go on and on about our entire team those are just some highlights for me but i think oh i'm sorry go ahead it's the one problem with zoom is it's hard to sometimes communicate with delays but uh grace mcconaughey could you make a comment about grace because we didn't get an interview with her either she had left for belize when we were putting this together uh give a little just synopsis of what we've witnessed in the miracle the the power of her life as well so grace mcconaughey who's dan and sandy's daughter is another amazing team member who has been through some extreme issues in her life with health just very debilitating life-threatening health issues for multiple years i have seen her apply all of the truths that are constantly talked about here in this environment in a very real way to the very real struggles that she faces on a daily basis and one thing i appreciate i appreciate so much about grace is that when you're living kind of on that edge of eternity where your life feels very fragile which i feel like her life has at times felt very fragile it kind of reminds you and and brings brings to the surface what really matters what you're really living for what it's really all about and for someone grace's age who's kind of in those single years of her life you know that would be typically a time when you would be kind of pursuing more earthly things you know trying to get a career going or pursue marriage or you know develop a big social life or whatever it is that the people run after in those years she has fully dedicated those years to serving and giving glory to god whether she's in bed or whether she's functional she is always having that attitude that lord i'm a vessel in your hands and i've seen god to use her tremendously even when she's been tremendously physically impaired so i think that that story just in a nutshell could be encouraging for someone who might have that passion to be used by god to build his kingdom but has a lot of physical or practical restrictions grace has been so used by god in spite of those those things and in fact because of those things she's had an even stronger testimony i've seen god work through those challenges in her life in such a powerful way so overall i would say it's sort of the story of when god writes your ministry story you know we have the book when god writes a love story our team the way god has knit this group together and built this ministry is very much a god-written story so anyone who might be listening to this wondering you know how in the world did this elderly team come about it's it's literally submitting to god and saying lord you bring the men and women that you desire and those who come have had that complete surrendered attitude i am all in this is all about jesus it's not about me and that's the only reason they're still around and even though we live together on a battlefield i would say we we find such amazing joy in being a part of what god's doing in establishing our students in truth it is is such a great joy and such a great privilege and it's worth all the sacrifices the heartache the things that come with front lines christian ministry but we are so very grateful for the team that god has given us and i really hope that anyone listening to this video or watching this video will have the chance to experience that in person something very special well thanks les for giving just sort of that enunciation it's just beautiful i love hearing it uh and it just doesn't encourage encouragement if you're a leader out there and uh you're sort of in this zone of of of your ministry development we're less than i were too where was just like god are there those out there that share common vision uh just begin to pray very specifically lesson i prayed every day for years that god would surround us with men and women of like ilk of similar calling of similar gravity of weight of soul because it is hard sometimes when you feel alone but god knows where his uh warriors are his soldiers are and so just continue to pray for that god is faithful he he really is uh well les do you want to uh maybe share the rest well we'll sort of have some part two part two next all right well god's blessings everyone if you've ever had a desire to come to ellerslie but maybe finances were standing in the way we have a great opportunity for you right now we're giving away ten full-ride scholarships up and through march 8 2021 so if you're hearing this before march 8th then jump on it uh go to ellerslie.com to learn more about that if you hear this after march 8th just know our passion is to not allow finances to stand in the way so we have scholarships for you whatever we can do to serve you and wash your feet please let us do it god's blessings

Channel: Ellerslie Discipleship Training

Views: 1,020

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Ellerslie, Ellerslie Discipleship Training, Eric Ludy, Leslie Ludy, Daily Thunder, Christian, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Ellerslie staff, interview

Id: HsTGFrPKlHk

Length: 19min 47sec (1187 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 05 2021