Beyond Sunday Ep 21 (The Right Kind of Giving)

Welcome to be on Sunday, an extension of the preaching

ministry here at Leamington, Emci am Pastor Jonah Chitty,

joined as always by Pastor Joe Penner, who has a confused look

on his face right now, which is always good.

Hello. Today we're going to be talking

a little bit about a few things. Actually, we're going to talk

about a question that came through to the podcast.

We're also going to be just recapping a little bit of Pastor

Jake's sermon from Sunday. Pastor Jake preached a sermon

from First Corinthians chapter 16.

1 Corinthians 16 · chapter mention

Woo Hoo, almost to the end of the end of the letter, right?

So that's something to be this. Sunday I don't.

Feel happy about it, sad about it.

I don't know. You just patiently, you just

don't realize how long you're in a book and then you realize you

finally get to the end and it is a little bit exciting to sort of

finish it, but. Yeah, sort of sad though.

I mean it was been First Corinthians have been so rich

and Paul's letter to them teaching us how to live and I

think that's really what it comes down to.

And so Pastor Vick's sermon was entitled The Right Kind of

Giving and it was the first 4 verses of the chapter.

I'll just read those really quick because it's a short,

short section. I'm going to read it from the

Christian Standard Bible. Paul says this now about the

collection for the Saints do the same as I instructed the

Galatian churches on the first day of the week.

Each of you is to set something aside and save and keeping with

how he is prospering so that no collections will need to be

made. When I come.

When I arrive, I will send letters, send with letters those

you recommend to carry your gift to Jerusalem.

If it is suitable for me to go as well, they will travel with

me. So, short passage, but there's

quite a bit of stuff there. Yeah.

Jake had an an outline. You want to go over that, Pastor

Joe? Yeah, well, he started with an

illustration about being excited for Christmas as a kid because

of what he was going to be getting.

And I was going to ask you, I don't know if you can remember a

story from your childhood, maybe something maybe as a Christmas

you were particularly excited for or maybe you something

you're excited for this Christmas.

I'm excited for something this Christmas.

I love Legos. I think I'm getting Legos.

I think I'm getting Legos because I I am the owner of the

Amazon account that they're ordered on.

So it would be a dirty trick if Val and the kids ordered Legos

for someone else, especially the set that I want.

Anyway now I'm excited about that.

But yeah I don't know. I just, I can remember 1

Christmas where I told my mom I really hate gift bags.

Like so please don't wrap anything in a gift bag for me.

I hate them so much. It's not any fun on Christmas

when you get a gift bag. Right, that's fair.

I mean, usually what OK, the excitement of opening the gift

and then you just cut a piece of tape and you pull out some paper

and there it is, right. You got it.

But so my mom being I'm very much like her in a lot of ways.

Like she was just like, OK, she wrapped every present that I got

in paper, but then she put it in a gift bag.

Oh, geez. And so I didn't like she kept

they kept bringing out because we, we do the thing where you

would, you'll pass out all the gifts to each each person before

they just you're sitting around and someone passes out all the

gifts. So you have them all by you,

whatever. And so like my sister was

passing them out and every gift I got was in a bag.

Anyway. That was annoying, but then then

they turned out to be wrapped too.

So that was. I didn't really answer your

question about like what did I anticipate?

But it was a fond memory from Christmas.

Nice. What about you?

You excited for anything this year or have you been excited in

the past? Well, it is funny.

Like I I feel like it is a running joke with guys about

socks and underwear. But legitimately like I'd, if

anybody knows me, they know I love socks.

Dress socks. Funny dress socks.

Silly socks. I, I feel like it's a way I can

not take myself too seriously to wear like socks that are

somewhat funny. So I'm looking forward to that.

You see the posts about on, you know, on Facebook or social

media, people go on, don't worry, guys.

You know, there's a picture of a holy sock and it's like, don't

worry, guys. Only a few weeks left for

Christmas. But your your holy socks are

your church socks. So you need to just like embrace

those for them. Your holy underwear or your

church underwear? Yeah, yeah, didn't.

Think we were going to go there today?

Nope. And we'll go.

We'll quickly run from that so. Yeah.

And so then Jake. Jake had three points in a

sermon. The first one was.

So again, the title was the right kind of giving.

First point was giving is an opportunity.

And so Paul was encouraging the Corinthians to support Jerusalem

and and this was an opportunity that they had to minister to the

needs of others, to those less fortunate.

And so he he did talk about Paul's sacrifice for the Kingdom

and Jesus's sacrifice for the Kingdom as examples for us to

follow. And so his encouragement there

was, you know, we should be motivated to help those who have

less than us. And those are opportunities for

us to be a blessing to other people that, you know, sort of

like the Christmas illustration. You know, rather than us always

focusing on what we what we get, we can be focusing on what we

can give to others, which I have heard.

You know, someone on Sunday actually stopped me and shared

this idea that they were doing this with their kids.

They had got an idea from somebody else that you have your

kids pick gifts for one another, right?

So that at least there's some aspect of them being selfless

even in their giving, right? And so their kids are going to

get presents and so they're excited for that.

But then you can shift their focus and help them to go, hey,

you know what? Here, pick a gift for, you know,

exchange names as kids or. Whatever, we actually did that

in our in our family this year. We've done it a couple years,

but this year and then we, we all went out to, I don't know,

Walmart or where'd we go. Yeah, it was Walmart this time,

and they each got a certain dollar amount.

There's nothing major, you know, nothing like extravagant.

But you can only spend this much money and you have to spend it

on this sibling. And it's funny to watch them

like be thinking through and to go to the toy section and just

in the toy store or Walmart and say, oh, yeah, you can't think

about yourself at all, right. So it's kind of hard for some of

them, easier for some and then harder, you know, and I think

that changes with age. But yeah, that's a good.

It is good to think about. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Absolutely. And then he went on to his

second point was giving should be planned.

And so here, you know, Paul encourages the people to set

aside money every week as they're able.

And it's sort of within that point.

He talked about the fact that it's not about the amount, but

the heart that matters. And he also, he also mentioned,

you know, in Matthew where, where Jesus talks about when,

when giving is focused on our recognition, it's meaningless.

You know, that if we're giving to be recognized or if we're

doing good works out of a desire to be recognized by other

people, then it's meaningless. You know, as Jesus mentions in

that section many times. But I thought that was a

helpful, like giving should be planned because, you know, as as

we were talking about this, we were talking about, well, let

you know, I don't know what the timeline is here for, for when

Paul is planning to come back. You know, is he planning on

coming back in six months or a year?

Or who knows? Maybe he doesn't know exactly,

but it it's also a strategy for getting more money to be able to

take to Jerusalem, right? Because if you say, hey, now I

want you to take a little bit of a little bit of your increase

every every week and set it aside.

You know, when Paul comes, there's going to be a lot more

money that he's going to get to bring to help those people in

Jerusalem. Then if he just shows up one day

and then goes, all right, all right, does everybody have some

money? And then like, well, you know, I

got 20 bucks. And, you know, there's not going

to be as much as if they are systematically giving over the

course of the next few months waiting for Paul to arrive.

Right? Yep.

You'll never like, you'll never like give as much as you can if

you just wait until like the end and you're ready, right?

I think that's Paul's point too. He he also doesn't want to like,

like harass people when he gets there, like when he arrives,

like we're planning to send this on.

We don't want to like spend a ton of time.

I don't want to have to try to spend a ton of time convincing

you, twisting your arm to make you give right.

That's you don't we don't want to collect it when I'm there,

right. Have it already ready.

Yeah, let's make this a non issue and and be ready for this

gift. So yeah, systematic giving.

Well, and we see that a lot in our world today too, right?

Like whether it, you know, as a church, we encourage people to

tithe and that's that same, that same sort of principle, you

know, give on a weekly basis, you know, whatever it is that

you can give, you know, every, every little bit.

Like we sort of talked about this last week a little bit too,

where if you increase your giving, let's say by a

percentage, even if you're starting from zero and you're

going from 0% to 1% giving, that is already going to be a

sacrifice to some extent, right? And so we would encourage

people, you know, to give and to give on a regular basis, to give

to the Lord's work. But then, you know, ministries

that are taking donations, you know, there's all sorts of

ministries out there that you can give.

They all do that too, right, Where they encourage that

monthly giving or you know, whatever it is, this recurring

giving, you know, as opposed to a one time gift.

It's like partnering with that organization to help them to be

able to, to get the word out or whatever their ministry is on a

regular basis. And so you see this like

strategic planned giving. Right.

Yeah, I think it's good. I think like you and I talked

about like tithing recently, it's interesting to think about

giving and like the New Testament's view on it.

And like, yeah, I think, I think that's right.

It's sacrificial giving is the is the norm in the New

Testament, right? In the Old Testament, it was a

percentage. It was like a legalistic thing.

10% give it. New Testament is not as clear,

right? It doesn't say, I don't know if

it like maybe I'm overlooking or I'm not thinking of it, but

like, I think that. But the, the overall thing is

like here he says give in keeping with how you're

prospering. So like if you're if you're

having a good month, increase your giving, you know, given

keeping with what with how you're prospering, like, yeah,

it should be a sacrificial thing, not like to make you like

destitute. You're not trying to make

yourself destitute to raise others up.

But yeah, yeah, I thought it was really good.

And it's good to think about this and especially this time of

year as time with it. It came up, yeah, at Christmas

time, right. You know, thinking about giving

SO. Well, and it makes me think of

like when you think about the world, like, I guess I'm just

thinking of businesses and how different things work.

I, I was hearing the story of, of this or I can't, I hate that

I can't remember right now, but it was, it was this idea that,

you know, this guy was a sale, a sales representative or

something. And so he did this sort of

background work for this person. Oh, that's what it was.

I was with a friend and he was talking about logging.

He had a, he had a, a large chunk of property and he had it

logged so timber. Timber was.

Cut. Yeah, timber was cutting.

So what they did was a guy would come in and he would survey the

whole property and he would mark the logs that need to be cut and

then he would put it out to bid. And then loggers could bid on

what, what they would pay for that job 'cause this, you know,

they're paying to take the wood 'cause they're gonna use it,

right? And so whatever, whatever

company gets the, gets the bid, they pay the amount.

And then this guy who did the work gets a percentage, right?

And so my friend who had hired him, he willingly pays that

percentage because this guy's doing that work, right.

And I, I was sort of thinking about tithing in that same

sense. You know, the Lord gives us the

money that he gives us. He provides for us, he blesses

us. And, you know, as we think about

that example of, you know, I maybe the New Testament isn't as

overt with tithing. This might be one of the most,

the most, you know, out there passages that that seems to, you

know, emphasize that, but that you're giving a percentage, you

know, my friend doesn't even question.

Oh yeah. Well, that guy gets a percentage

because of with the work that he did for me, right?

And we think of like a a realtor, you know, a real estate

agent who I know going in that he's going to get a cut of the

work that he did. And I think that's sort of the

mindset that we need to have when we think about all that the

Lord has done for us. This is our worship.

You know, that the money that he gives to us, we give a portion

of it back to the building of his Kingdom, right to Kingdom

ministries and, and whatever. So that, you know, we can be,

we're not just looking at ways that we can, you know, use the

money for ourselves, but we're actually looking for ways to

build his Kingdom into, into sacrifice for that.

And so I think it's helpful to remember that we are stewards.

We are just stewarding what God has given to us.

It's not our money. And so we need to to be wise in

using that to the best of our ability.

Yeah, that's really good. It's really helpful.

Yeah. You know, I think that's a good

example of like the percentage we should.

We don't even think about it when it's like a business

decision like that. Like it's not something, it's

just what you pay, right? The the percentage of whatever

is like whatever you pay, like the paying the closing cost on

your loan for your home or, or just paying the realtor fee,

right? Like, oh, it's just what?

It's just what you do. Giving a tip at the restaurant.

Exactly. It's just what you do.

And so like, just yeah. But when it comes down to like,

giving in other ways, I can feel it too.

Like you feel the pressure or you feel like the desire to hold

on to, and it's not yours really anyway, so it's really good.

Yeah. So what was this last point?

Giving should be done with discernment.

And so some of these, again, all these things are just my notes,

things that these are just things that I've written down to

the sermon. This may not be all the things

that Jake said, but I know one of the things he said in this

point was that money is tempting.

And so just being cautious, you know, the, the love of money is

the root of all evil. And so we need to be cautious

that we're not being trapped by that.

And so so we need to be discerning in a sense.

But he also talked about being discerning and who we give money

to. And so I think be generosity

doesn't mean that, you know, we're just doormats and like,

you know, that we should just always just give money to to

maybe people who will not be responsible with it.

We can be discerning at times. And so you can use wisdom in

making those sorts of decisions. And so, yeah, which I thought

was helpful. Yeah, I think that this, like

the sermon, Pastor Jake's application was very, it was

very focused on the individual, which is fine.

The passage, though, Paul's not talking to one person.

So I think that's something that that to draw out too.

Like it's, it's it's it's not, it's not wrong that Pastor Jake

didn't do that. I think it's just like something

that that we should think about. Like Paul's talking about like

corporate giving. Yeah, he's talking about like

the church should should have a plan for their money.

The church should have a plan for like what organizations that

they will support. So it's something for for all of

us to be thinking. About which he did have that

that sayings, I think it was towards the beginning of the

sermon where he was talking about to give corporately, you

know, the individuals have to be given.

So you're but you're right though he is.

But Paul is talking to the church and it's like, but the

individuals are going to have to give in order for the church to

be able to be. Able to corporately bless

another, right? Another congregation, really.

Because that's what's happening, right?

And, and something, you know, I, I would assume most people know

this, but maybe they don't. You know, we as a church have a

benevolence fund. And so benevolence is literally

just acts of charity, whether that's to our church, our church

members or our community. And so I would encourage, I

would encourage you all. I mean, even in light of this

Christmas season, if you know, people who are struggling and,

and who need help, we have actually money that we set aside

specifically to be able to help people.

And we want to spend that money. We want to be generous.

We want to be able to help people.

And so that's, that's one way we as a church strive to be

generous with, with the funds that we have as a church to be

generous to other people. Yeah, they would.

That's managed by the, the benevolence ministry is managed

by the deacons, right. So like the ministerial, if you

have a question or if you need their, just reach out to someone

on ministerial and they can help you there.

But yeah, I, you know, the sermon, like it's a four, it's a

four verse sermon. Yeah.

So it's kind of hard to get too much in depth, but the

principles are there. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, yeah.

So any other thoughts on the sermon from Sunday?

I think just I saw he closed with, I guess just going to his

closing that God is a generous God and he expects the same from

us. And I, and I thought it was good

because you know, God, it, it's interesting.

You know, God knows our weakness and yet he, he, he never lowers

the bar. He always sets the standard

high. You know, you therefore should

be holy. Since God is holy, you therefore

should be holy. And since God is perfect, you

therefore should be perfect. And there's, he never really

lowers the bar. We are always to be striving to

become like God, being like Christ.

And he, he sort of had that, that image at the end too.

You are born looking like your parents.

You die, you die looking like your decisions.

And he, he sort of modified that slightly that we want to look

like Christ. You know, when people see us,

when they see our life, when they see our actions, when they

see the way that we're living, we want them to see Christ.

We want them to see, you know, what would Jesus do?

Yeah, WWJD not what would Joe or Jonah do?

Or Jake, what would Jesus do? Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, I I know that he had mentioned that quote to us

earlier in the week and he was going to use it.

He said it was going to be a spoiler that he would tell us

early. But yeah, I thought it was a

good, a good thought for sure. That we want to, we don't really

care what we were looking like when we were born, but we want

to make sure that at the end of the day is best of our ability.

We can look like Jesus. So, yeah, very good.

You said you had a question that came in.

Yeah. So this is this is a question

that had come in a day, a day after we had recorded the

podcast last week. And so it was a question related

to my sermon, which was all about the resurrection body.

And so the question you. Fool, why would you want to talk

about what's why? Why you foolish person?

So this was a so this, this person said, it's a question

from my daughter. And the question was, if we get

new glorified bodies when we go to heaven, is it the same type

of bodies that people will get before they go to hell?

To which I I had responded with like an exploding mind emoji.

Yeah. Something in like, man, that's

a. That's a pretty deep thought for

a child. Yeah, I was gonna say it's not

your daughter who's 25, It's a daughter who's under 10 years

old. Yeah, who's thinking big

thoughts thinking. Yeah, Mind blown, right.

Not the same type, I would say. I don't know that we would.

They wouldn't get a glorified body, right.

So that would be one of the the caveats, I would say.

But the other overarching answer is, yeah, I think we are eternal

beings. Like, like we have a soul,

right? No, we don't have a soul, right?

Yeah, I sure don't have a soul. Shared that quote from CS.

Lewis We are a soul and our souls are made in the image of

God, which would mean that they would possess some form of like

eternality, like we we're going somewhere for eternity.

That's taught clearly throughout Scripture and that's, that's the

whole basis of like the salvation.

What are we being saved from? Well, we're being saved from an

eternity in hell, right? Like we're being, in other

words, we're being saved from an eternity completely separated

from Christ and our creator, from the from the source of life

and light in the world, in the universe.

You're going to be separated and cut off for eternity.

So yeah, you will have a body that's separated and cut off for

eternity. Revelation talks about that.

You had a quote too that you like.

We're thinking about like that applies to this, right?

Yeah. Clive Staples again.

Clive Staples I'm I'm on a Clive Staples ACS Lewis role.

He shares. He shares this quote.

I I borrowed this book from Pastor Jake.

He might not remember this. I borrowed it from him like a

year ago. Note to self, don't loan Joe any

books. Don't don't loan Joe books.

And well, The funny thing is I was telling somebody this

recently too, Jake. I don't see his name in the

beginning of this book. Actually, that's kind of ironic,

but I've always noticed that he puts his name in the front of

his books. Well, that's why I didn't get

this one back. That's why I didn't get it back,

because I didn't. Yeah.

But I always wonder, I'm like, oh, why does he do that?

And then I started, you know, now that I'm a pastor, I've

loaned my books out to people. And sometimes I'm looking at my

bookshelf going, I'm like, I know I have this book somewhere.

Where is it? And it's like, I must have

loaned it out to someone and they will never remember, right,

that it was mine. And I will never remember who I

loaned it to. And so I'm like, that's pretty

smart. We need a catalogue like

electronic library system for our books.

Yeah. So I had borrowed this one from

him I'd seen on his bookshelf probably about a year ago.

It's called Paved with Good Intentions by CS Lewis, A

Demon's Road Map to Your Soul. And I'm, I'm guessing I don't

know, but I thought, OK, yeah, it does say this has previously

appeared in the screw tape. Letter so excerpts from screw

tape. Yeah, And so this in the

beginning of his book, he has a quote from another one of his

books, but it says I willingly believe that the damned are in

one sense successful rebels to the end that the doors of hell

are locked on the inside. They enjoy forever the horrible

freedom they have demanded and are therefore self enslaved.

And so from that perspective that that those who, who choose

to reject Christ, they don't want God.

I, I, I want to be free from God.

I don't want to be under his thumb.

I don't want to be under his rule.

They really want separation from God.

That's what they want. And he's saying in this sense

that I they get what they want and therefore suffer that

horrible freedom that they have demanded.

And our self enslaved, they've they've now enslaved themself

and they're now going to suffer for eternity that which they

demanded, which was freedom, absence from God.

But then he sort of counters that with what the believer

experiences. Just as the blessed forever

submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and

more free, so them submitting to Christ, submitting to his

lordship, submitting to God and all that he has for us, they

submit themselves to him and it and it in their eternity, they

become more and more free in Christ, experiencing his

goodness, which I thought was a really interesting, really

interesting quote in light of, you know, that conversation with

eternal bodies. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.

Yeah. The hard answer is, yeah, we to

to the question, to the, to the little girl's question or a

child daughter. Yeah, yeah.

It does mean that, yeah, yeah. It does mean that you will spend

eternity somewhere. And I think that's the thing

that we need to remember. And even like coming up to the

Christmas season and like we're going to be possibly my family

not right. And my family right now, we're

not going to be gathering with our other family like we already

did, that you're going to be surrounded by people who either

are believers or are not believers.

There are going to be some in every family that's not a

believer. And like keeping in mind the

reality that we are eternal beings, like we're not, not in a

way that's like omniscient, like like God, you know, we're not

that way, but we are. We are going to spend eternity

somewhere like that means like thousands and thousands and

thousands and millions of years in our time.

There is a place that we'll end up And like, you know, we need

to be sure that we're letting people know that there's hope

that you can, you can live eternity with life giving like

God, who, who's the source of all life and light.

Like right, like in Revelation 22 says, he basically says there

is no sun. There's there's the source of

light comes from Christ on the throne.

He is the source of light and hope.

And if you want to experience the eternity in the presence of

light or in the presence of just like utter darkness and despair.

Weeping and gnashing of. Teeth, is that what you want?

Like, you know, so is that really what you want?

Because that's what that CS Lewis quote comes out like.

You know, I don't think that's what people really want.

I think they just want whatever they love their sin too much.

And I think that's the thing we have to, we have to come to

terms we all had to like, do I love my sin so much that I'm

willing to like to like have a moment of whatever satisfaction

and like that I can get here on earth in this current state?

Or do I want to maybe maybe give that up for freedom that comes

in stages overtime in life, you know?

So anyway, yeah, the answer is yes.

Well, and to, to that point, you know, like, and, and what we're,

what we're talking about saving people from is God's wrath,

right? Like, it's not like God is up

there going like, hey, like there's a, there's a Cliff at

the end of the road and like, I'm just trying to stop you.

It's like, no, it is his wrath that he has has made a way for

you to avoid. But.

He's made the way. The way.

Yeah, I have a beef with one of the songs you sang on Sunday

because it says he made a way. I can't remember the song it

was. It might have been the last

song, but it's not. It's not.

You didn't write it, but it's like I I would like, I would

always like, just think, let's just sing.

He made the way there is only one way.

Yeah. So anyway, I didn't mean to cut

you off, but it was like, yeah, he.

Made well, no, I was I was just going to go from there to go.

You know, we, like you said, we need to be telling people the

good news of why Christ came, right?

Christmas. We always hear that Christ is

the reason for the season, but what does that mean?

Like don't just say Christ is the reason for the season.

Like we are saving people from that eternity in hell that we

are eternal beings and we'll go either eternally, eternally into

Christ's presence free or eternally into the absence of

his presence, which is hell enslaved.

And so to that point, we, we were just talking about these

statistics, the one I'll the one I'll share, which will tie into

yours, but. Oh, right.

The about inviting people to church.

I, I read a statistic the other day and I think we may have

shared this before with the church, but over 80% of non

church going people would be willing, would, would consider

going to church if they were invited by somebody.

That's mind boggling. It is so like they're doing

these surveys and these, these people who are not church going

people, I don't know if they're Christians or not, but it's like

over 80% of them say, yeah, you know what?

I I'd think about going to church if some, if someone, if a

family member or a friend invited me.

So invite people. Yeah, invite people to church.

I mean, we, we're closing First Corinthians this coming Sunday.

You're going to preach the last sermon in this book.

And then we have Christmas Day services and we, and even as we

come into the new year, maybe maybe that's a way to say, hey,

you know what? And have you thought about in

the new year, like, you know, how you might change your life.

Maybe you think about coming to church.

Would, would you consider coming to church?

Maybe just asking that question, you know, invite someone.

Maybe they will come. Especially if it's a friend or a

family member. Because honestly, if they're

your, if they're really your friend, right, they might just

come because they, they like you or they respect you, right?

To say, yeah, you know what? And it may be as simple as like,

hey, I know that we've been friends a long time and I've

never really brought this up, but I'm a Christian and I go to

church on Sunday and they'll be like, they'll be like, yeah,

Jonah. I know, right?

They they know these things about it and it's like, you

know, would you just be willing to come with me on Sunday or

would you be willing to come with me on like we're going to

meet there after we open gifts on Christmas morning.

We're going to meet there at 9:00.

And would you just, would you just come?

You don't have to dress up fancy.

Just come. And they like they might not

come that Sunday, but if they're that that day, but they might

come another one, you know, just just ask.

They will come. Most likely they will come at

least once. You know, you don't get it, but

but I guarantee you want it. How they won't come.

You never invite them. Like you're always going to get

a no if you don't ask the question, right?

You can always figure out a way to talk yourself out of inviting

someone to church. So my, my statistic is very

similar to that, except for this guy, Matt Smethurst.

I'm cheering because I think I said it right.

He this source for this question came from church outreach and

attendance campaign. So he put this out on Twitter

and it says why do people start attending church?

So they actually, these people actually start attending.

So 2% said that they they started attending a church

because of an advertisement. So like a Facebook ad or

billboard, a flyer, a Mailer, whatever, an ad, an ad, they got

2 percent. 6% say it was an organized visit.

So like, maybe, I don't know, maybe they were invited by, you

know, some kind of strategic campaign.

Like somebody came to my house, knocked on the door and invited

me to church. Another 6% said that they came

because it was an invite from a pastor.

So Joe, I hate to tell you, if you ask 100 people to come to

church tonight this week, only 6% or 6 people will say yes.

I just got it. I just can't tell them I'm a

pastor. Right, that's true because you

can't tell them I'm a pastor because an invite from a friend.

So like this is this even more than just like a stranger, an

invite from a friend. What we were just talking about

86% of people started attending church because they were invited

to church by a friend. It matters like what we say, how

we invite like this, just the fact that we invite people

matters. Invite your friends, not just

random strangers. You have relationships like a

sphere of influence in your life.

We talk about this in business all the time.

You know, you're not like your, your first target audience for

your customer base should be your sphere of influence.

Those are the people you live with, you live with, you work

with you go to church with all those different things that

that's, that's it's low hanging fruit.

These people trust you already. So, so that's the thing.

Like a friend is going to say, they will say they're going to

start coming. 86% of people said they came because a friend said,

hey, would you come to church with me?

Yeah, I'll meet you out front. You won't have to worry about

finding a seat. I'll find one anyway.

I think it's so important for us to think and keep that in mind,

like just random, like even our strategies, our Thursday night

strategy, right? It's a good strategy.

There's going to be a small percentage of people that say

yes there though. But if they're your friend,

right, the likelihood goes way up because you've got that built

in trust already. And I would argue you've got

that built in God ordained trust because you God ordains your

friendships. I believe that like he's

sovereign over everything. You're friends with the people

you're friends with because God wants you to be friends with

them. That should change your life

too, that that'll all change your paradigms.

So. Well, and it just bring it full

circle to to Jake's pastor Jake's sermon, the right kind of

giving, thinking about, well, maybe you could use

opportunities of generosity to invite people, you know, and

maybe that's and so maybe this is sort of like a like a

lifestyle as opposed to just like a one time thing, right?

Maybe you're looking in friends and family members, you're

you're looking and you probably are already doing this, but

looking for opportunities to bless them, looking for

opportunities to give things to them.

And then, you know, when Christmas or Easter, you know,

those are big ones, those you don't always need to wait for

like a holiday, but then just use that as a, as a place to

launch from there to like, Hey, would you be interested in

coming to church? Or, you know, like build those

relationships, build those friendships.

And maybe it's you bake a batch of cookies and you start handing

them out to your neighbors and you invite them to come to the

Christmas Day service, you know, things like that.

But use generosity as a way to to as an inroad and then invite

people to church. Yeah, I I agree.

There's so many different things you can do, so many strategies

you can take. Yeah, so good.

So do you have anything you like this week?

I guess I'll just hit on this this book I I've Paved with Good

Intentions by CS Lewis. You're going to read this?

Yeah, you got good. You had good intentions to read

this 12 months ago. That is the irony of ironies.

It is like the most convicting thing ever.

It's just like sitting on my shelf there.

I took it from his office and was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to

read this book. And now like for the last year,

it's sitting there like. It's not like this taunting

giant tome of a book either. I'm looking at this book and

it's maybe like the size of a 5 by 7 index card and then it's

like probably 85 pages. Long.

Oh, it's tight. I got through half of it in like

30 minutes. It's a tiny book, but it's just

been sitting there taunting me for a year.

Like you said, I had good intentions to read it.

But anyway, it's just as, as it talks about this idea that, you

know, the screw tape letters, this, this, you know, older

wiser demon is teaching this younger demon how to deceive

people and turn them away from God.

That's the whole point. And I don't have anything in

specific to point out. Just I guess thinking, though,

thinking of demons as having a strategy is interesting because

I've, I've often said this with, with Dave Ramsey, He has this,

this lesson in his Financial Peace University called Buyer

beware. And some of the things that he

teaches buyers there is when you go to the grocery store, like do

you think it is an accident that candy and cookies and things

that kids would want are located on the bottom shelf where kids

will see them? You know, there's a reason

they're not on the top shelf. And so he talks about the fact

that companies are paying lots of money for shelf position to

put their product in line with where the the most likely person

who's going to want it is going to get it.

And that just really opened my eyes the first time I saw it, to

go, they have a strategy and a plan to separate me from my

money so that they can become wealthy.

And I think to think of our spiritual lives in this sort of

same way is to think of how many times are we just haphazardly

walking around, pulling up our phone, walking down the street,

walking into town and putting ourselves in these situations

just randomly. We don't really have much

strategy for the way that we're living our life.

But the enemy does have a strategy, right?

And he's seeking for whom he will devour.

And, you know, I think that changes things to think like, I

need to be living more intentionally and not go, oh,

just at the end of the day, I'll sit on the couch for two hours

and, you know, pull up my phone and just see what to look at.

No, you need to be, you need to have a strategy.

You need to have a plan of attack for your life.

How you will not be putting yourself in Sims pathway.

Yeah. And yeah, just to yeah, that

would really that sort of struck me this morning as I was reading

that book. That's so good.

Yeah. I'm thinking about.

What were you going to say? I was just going to ask about

things that you like. I don't.

You made me use my quote earlier.

No, no, I think like I'm just thinking, thinking about next

year's reading plans, things like that for what we're going

to do as a church. There's so much to do, right?

Like so much to plan for. So maybe we could talk quickly

about that. Our goal for 2025, the Reading

plan, will be what Joe? We are going to do a plan called

the F260 plan and so this is similar to the ones we've done,

but it is actually the one we did.

Two years ago. Two years ago and so it is sort

of like it hits the high points of the whole Bible.

Yeah, the F stands for foundations.

So it's 260 foundational texts in Scripture.

So you're not reading the whole Bible with this plan, but you

are reading through the whole Bible.

So there's going to be passages from every book of the Bible.

There'll be something there. But yeah, you'll read a lot of

the Old Testament, which is good.

I think that was one of the things that a lot of people sort

of I know I missed it this year, the Old Testament like there's

just some something about being connected.

We don't want to be unhitched. We're going to be connected to

the Old Testament. So yeah.

So I'm excited about it. And then the memory verses,

obviously they'll be peppered throughout.

It's not as it's not as strategic like this year.

If you were if you were faithful and memorizing scripture, by the

end of the year, you should be able to say the whole Sermon on

the Mount, which is cool. But this want to be the

foundations 260 plan. We, we, we debated all sorts of

things we like, thought about. Like there's one called the

McShane read Bible reading plan, which makes you read well, it

makes you, it encourages you to read 44 sections of Scripture

every day. There's no two day break on the

weekends. We thought maybe that might be a

little bit much for for many people.

So the foundations 260 plan and we'll be printing those up and

those should be in the four year, I don't know when the last

Sunday of the month for sure. We want you to start on in the

first Monday of January. Maybe, maybe we'll get them

printed this week and have them there Sunday.

I don't know. Yeah, and we would just really

want to encourage people to, to get a reading buddy or a reading

group or something, have someone because because we, we know, I

mean, we've struggled with Bible reading.

And when you don't have accountability, it's easy for

things to to fall by the wayside and to fall off the rails.

And so we really would encourage you, you know, we know there are

some discipleship groups out there, groups of men and groups

of women who are already doing this, holding each other

accountable. If you want to start your own

group or want to join a group, you can reach out to us and ask

about that and, and we can help get connected.

And we're always encouraging people to start groups.

Yeah, and one of the things too, if you're not, if you're like,

if you're just going to do it one other person that is like

the bare minimum we would recommend like read the Bible,

commit to reading the Bible through like through this plan

with someone else. But like, our plan is to, to

give you some way to supplement like how to, how to do a hear

journal. Like, like we're talking through

an idea. I don't want to let too much out

because we're not sure it's going to come, come like be all

fleshed out. But we, we plan to, to like,

release something in this format, like a podcast format or

like a, like a YouTube video format where we show you how to

do a hear journal by giving you hours like saying, Hey, here's

the reading from today. Here's a hear journal from that

reading. And like, maybe you won't do

exactly the same thing, but but it gives you like the idea of

how to do it right. And so like we would, we would

obviously try to use different voices in our church too.

So different leaders in the church offering up their own

interpretation and using the here journal.

But I think that would be we want to help you.

Like, so that's the thing. Like we don't want you to like

feel like you're on an island or you don't know what to do.

We want to give you like as many resources as possible to make

that happen. So yeah.

So I'm thinking all through those things.

So those are the things I like right now.

Also, like the rest of First Corinthians chapter 16, I'm

1 Corinthians 16 · chapter mention

looking forward to through that text on Sunday.

Yeah, you get to close this out. Trying to figure out what he

means by there's a a wide door of effective ministry and at the

same time many oppose me. So like how's it going to be

effective if you got a lot of opposition right.

So thinking that that's that's fresh on my mind and yeah, it's

going to be fun to close it out. I can be the last one, the last

word on 1st Corinthians. Nice for us.

So yeah. That's good.

I'm excited for. It it would be fun.

Yeah. So, Pastor Joe, you got any

final words for us today? I don't think so.

No, OK, well, listen, don't like if you don't get socks and

underwear, it's going to be OK. I will be a little disappointed

though. Hint, hint, Yeah.

Family, family, who's listening? Hint, hint.

You know, Duluth, Duluth trading in the US.

They make the best underwear ever.

Just so you know, I know that's a weird thing to say on a

podcast based on, you know, Christian things, but like, you

know, Christians wear underwear too.

It's not a secret. Anyway, not where we wanted to

go to finish the podcast, but it was on my mind.

I'm going to pray. To finish this out, is that OK?

Good. All right.

Father, we thank you for the ability to laugh.

It is so refreshing knowing that you created us as as people who

experience a like a wide range of emotions.

And so, Lord, I'm just grateful that that we can laugh together.

Pastor Joe and I can laugh together today.

And Lord, I pray for, for our church, those who are listening

to the podcast, who, who are thinking through like they're

the Christmas season. Maybe they, maybe they have a

friend that, that they, that's been on their heart and on their

mind and, and that they feel like they should invite to

church. So I pray that you would give

them the, the courage to ask, to ask their friend to come to

church. And maybe, and maybe from there,

they start more conversations about the gospel.

Lord, I'm I'm so thankful for those who you have been drawing

to yourself, who have become believers over the last year in

2024, those who have been sharing their testimonies about

their desire for baptism, for membership in our church.

Lord, I'm just grateful for all the things you're doing.

It is easy for us to get caught up in all the different

insurance and outs of what we do here at LEMC, all the different

things we have to do in order to make Sundays and Wednesdays and

all the different ministries we have go and to lose sight of

what you're doing. So Lord, I pray that you would

keep us, just keep us tethered to what you're doing.

Help us to, to look and find ways where you're working, maybe

in the, in the cracks and crevices where we we're not

looking. So help us to to not forget that

that people are the reason that that churches exist.

We want to give you glory and we want more people to come to hear

the gospel so that they can believe and put their faith and

trust in you and so that there's one more worshipper or two more

worshippers who are who are who are giving glory to your name.

So Lord, we, we ask today that you would keep us faithful as

pastors, keep us faithful as church members, keep us faithful

as Christians in our community to share the gospel, to share

the love of Jesus who came as a baby, but who died as a perfect

someone who lived a perfect life as a substitute for us, who

bore, as Pastor Joe said earlier, who who took on the

Father's wrath so that, so that we could be saved from our sin

and to spend eternity with you. Lord, I pray that we would not

lose sight of our of our eternal nature.

And then to keep remembering that though we may experience

troubles in this life, it's all worth it in the end because if

the if we know you, if we, if we believe in you, then we will

have eternal life with you forever.

So I pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.

All right, well, that's all I've got for today.

We hope that you have a great week, a Merry Christmas.

The next one would be released on Christmas Day, if we if we

hold true to our schedule. So we may or may not see you on

Christmas Day. All right, thanks guys.

Have a great day.