Richard Baxter DMD Shelby Pediatric Dentistry Birbingham Alabama Tongue Tie Center Gospel Reach the Rest Financial Finish Line Podcast
Finish Line Podcast Episode 23

Richard Baxter DMD on Leveraging His Entire Dental Practice to Bring the Gospel to Unreached People Groups

You may want your career, business, and income to serve God’s purposes while still wondering how to move missions and generosity from a separate part of life into the work you already do every day.

How can you use your professional skills, business profits, and growing opportunities to create lasting gospel impact without assuming you have to leave your vocation behind?


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Meet your guide

Richard Baxter is a pediatric dentist in Pelham, Alabama, founder of Shelby Pediatric Dentistry and the Alabama Tongue-Tie Center, author of Tongue-Tied, and a board member of Reach the Rest. His passion for global missions developed alongside his dental training as he began considering how his profession could help advance the gospel among unreached and unengaged people groups.

Richard shares how that calling now shapes nearly every part of his work, from the missions theme of his dental practice to training national believers to provide basic dental care in underserved communities. As unexpected opportunities grew through his tongue-tie practice, book, courses, and professional training, he chose to direct those additional revenue streams toward missions and strategically support organizations working where the gospel remains least accessible.

The conversation explores how generosity can influence business decisions, giving strategy, and even the causes you grow to care about. You may come away seeing your existing vocation, expertise, and income as practical tools for participating more intentionally in God’s work around the world.

What you’ll gain

  • How to integrate missions into your everyday professional life
  • Why business success can expand your capacity for generosity
  • How professional expertise can multiply impact beyond direct service
  • Why strategic giving matters when supporting global missions
  • How generosity can reshape the causes your heart values
  • What it means to steward unexpected opportunities for kingdom impact

Inspired? Take your next step

Try the Game of Life Simulator

Step into a four-minute interactive experience and see what unfolds as you decide how to manage your resources.

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Game of Life Simulator Mobile Screenshot

Inspired? Learn how to partner with ministries well.

A compelling ministry story can inspire you to respond. But wise partnership often begins with better questions.

Applied Generosity Intervention Partnership Focus

What is the ministry really seeking to restore?

Learn to look beyond visible needs toward people, context, relationships, and flourishing.

Applied Generosity Intervention Partnership Fruitfulness

How do you recognize meaningful impact?

Consider how ministries learn, evaluate their work, and pursue lasting change.

Applied Generosity Intervention Partnership Faithfulness

What does genuine ministry partnership look like?

Explore how to foster trust, alignment, and shared mission in your giving.

In our Intervention Series on the Applied Generosity Podcast, we’ll help you become a more thoughtful, discerning, and faithful partner.

Start the Series

Quotes to Remember

  • “Don’t separate the reason for God’s blessing from the purpose for God’s blessing”
  • “There is an ability to finish the Great Commission, as far as we understand it, for every tribe, nation, people, and language.”
  • “99% of Christian giving goes to where the gospel is already known … less than 1% goes to the unreached.”
  • “If my middle school teacher knew I wrote a book, she’d probably die.”
  • “Unreached people groups are the best bang for your buck, the best eternal return on investment.”

Links from the Show

Bible References from the Show

Psalm 67:1-2 | The Purpose of God’s Blessings 1

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us— 2 so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.

Matt 6:19-21 | Do Not Store Up Treasures on Earth

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Use Our
Free Guide

Have you considered the ways you are uniquely called into generosity? We’re not all called into the same adventure.

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Use Our
Free Guide

Have you considered the ways you are uniquely called into generosity? We’re not all called into the same adventure.
Generosity Profile Image
Enter your information below and we’ll send you our free PDF guide to explore the specific adventure you were called into.
Generosity Profile Image

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