Bible Connection Podcast: Love Thy Neighbor with Thomas Hunter
In this 12th episode of the Bible Connection Podcast, former professional athlete Thomas Hunter talks about his journey out of athletics and into his current role as a pastor and the community relations director for the Davidson County Sheriff’s Department. Thomas tells us how important it is for the church to be involved with the community and shows us what it looks like to touch the broken.

      
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Thomas Hunter

Thomas Hunter began his career as in athletics, first as a player and then as a coach. Through the calling of the Holy Spirit, Thomas followed God into a career in community relations for the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office as well as pastoring Nehemiah Missionary Baptist Church in Nashville. Through his multi-vocational ministry, Thomas Hunter has touched countless lives around Nashville.

In this 12th episode of the Bible Connection podcast, Thomas shares with us how important it is to be involved with your community. The church is designed to reach out and touch the hurting and the broken, no matter how difficult that is. Thomas shares how God has given him a deep love for his neighbor. He also shares how he is always open to meeting with anyone and cherishes the opportunity to cross bridges and see others as sons and daughters of God.

The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Thomas Hunter shares how his church and his ministry are trying to obey that commandment. He shares how the living, breathing Word of God is essential to reach the broken.

Excerpts from This Podcast

1:58 — “I transitioned into a phase where I thought more about others more than I did myself. There was a time, when I was playing pro ball and stuff, it was about me. But God shaped and formed and molded me into this space in my life where it’s really about other people. And for me, that’s where the blessings come from.”

6:03 — “I remember the first day, I had never worked in a jail setting and I remember walking in the hallway. This hallway is a big corridor and you got pods on the side of the hallway. At that time there were probably 700 men in this one facility. I was sitting there saying ‘Lord, what in the world am I supposed to do with all of these men that are incarcerated?’ It was like overwhelming to me. By that time, I was an associate minister, I had gotten into ministry—not pastoring, but as an associate at St. James. It was overwhelming to see that. And I said ‘Well, I’m just gonna do whatever You want me to do.’”

12:23 — “The bulk of what we generate as a church goes to this club. Our biggest bill is money that goes directly to this club. There’s 230 kids that come in here every day. But we’re not concerned to say, ‘Hey, can you give us a list of where our dollars go and which kid it’s touched.’ We could care less about that. We know that what we’re doing impacts children on a level that you cannot even imagine.”

15:15 — “Come where the brokenness is. You have to see it. And not just see it; actively engage in saving or being a part of the restorative aspects of it. When you think about it and say, ‘What is the answer?’ At the end of the day, the church has to make a decision to say, ‘Are we going to be the church and be present where there are broken things?’”

19:38 — “I don’t know if I’m a bridge-crosser. I just deal with people. I don’t really look at it and say ‘Okay, well this is how this person looks.’ If God is in it, there’s some purpose to it.”

24:49 — “Honestly, we’ve got to come outside of our walls. We’ve got to come outside of these big, giant facilities and go and say, ‘How do we share with broken people?’”

30:11 — “Something living and active is present where it needs to be present. What does the Bible look like to a broken person? Is it, ‘Here is a Bible I need you to read,’ or is it a person saying, ‘Let me feed you, but let me show you how to feed yourself. Beyond that, let me show you how to feed someone else.’ I think what we do is we stop at ‘let me feed you.’ We never walk along and do the harder work that says ‘let me show you the Christ that says let me show you how to feed somebody else.’”

33:34 — “If it’s living and it’s breathing, it’s not going to touch nice things. It’s going to touch things that are broken; it’s going to touch things that the world may see as dirty, as harmful. Jesus didn’t come into this world to touch things that are perfect. He came for the broken. He came for you and me.”

Featured Scripture

John 3:16
For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Episode Links

Davidson County Sheriff’s Office website
Nehemiah Missional Baptist Church website
Gotham Leadership Training page

      
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