MID WEEK MOTIVATION - January 21, 2026 (David Burgess)

You're listening to the Midweek Motivation Podcast from DeSoto Hills Baptist Church in South Haven, Mississippi.

Here's your host, Mark Lewis, David Burgess, Laura Ulrich, and Pastor Grant Diegel.

Welcome to the Midweek Motivation Podcast for January the 21st here at DeSoto Hills Baptist Church.

I'm Mark Lewis sitting with David Burgess.

We hope this programming can encourage folks throughout DeSoto County and beyond.

Be sure to subscribe and share our link on social media.

We wanted to talk first and foremost about Disciple Now because it is this weekend and we are in the midst of preparing for it as we speak.

This year's event is going to be at Longview.

Why don't you tell everybody just a little bit about Disciple Now, just in case they're living under a rock and don't know what we're talking about?

Of course, sure.

So Disciple Now is our big youth conference that we've been putting on for the past several years, long I mean, before I even got here.

And so we've continued that for the past 10 years, we've been working on it, and we have grown to a point where we no longer can hold the students that uh that we cater to.

We are in partnership with about seven or eight churches uh in the area all together.

We uh we make up the conference, uh uh Discipleship Now conference at Longview Heights Baptist Church.

And so uh for the weekend, we're gonna hang out uh Friday night, do uh there's gonna be some uh worship uh band, the Ignite band is coming, um, the worship team.

And Jason Curry, uh he will be um he has his own like organization uh Finish Empty.

Look at that.

We both look we both looked at our notes ahead of time, didn't we?

Yeah, and he's been speaking for over 25 years, and you reminded me we had him at DeSoto Hills for uh Disciple Now a very long time ago.

Over it had to be it had to be 10 years ago.

Or over 10 years ago, yeah.

Yes, because we were in the attic at the time, I remember.

Yeah.

Uh it was really, really cozy up in the attic back in those days.

Um, so yeah, he's uh incredible speaker.

The worship team ignite, they are absolutely insane.

I talked about it last week just briefly, that they were one of the best worship bands I've ever encountered.

The reason being is that the University of Mobile is one of the country's flagship universities for turning out worship leaders.

Really?

So what it is is this is a whole group of worship leaders who are playing together and they're all just oozing with talent.

So when you put eight people on stage like that together who are all, you know, could be the front guy, then you're just in for an amazing treat.

So they are extremely uh amazing, and they have a great team, and uh they have great hearts.

So a bunch of college students in Ignite, and we're very uh looking very forward to doing that.

And they do that as a ministry as well, so we are paying them, but we're not paying them what a lot right what you would normally pay.

For sure.

So that's they're blessing us uh by coming as well, and I can't wait for our students to hear them.

For those, and I've heard the murmurings around that would say, I see that it's like 350, 400 people, they that could fit in DeSoto Hills NPC, and you'd be right.

The problem is not the worship portions of the weekend, it is everything that's surrounded by the street.

Trying to squeeze them in every other room when we break out for small groups.

Because it is a conference essentially, and we break out uh quite a bit, and so that's where the problem uh that's where the problem happens.

Also, Longview is very fortunate to have a gymnasium for them to hang out in and play rec.

And um more importantly, the fellowship hall, which allows them to eat the meals of that kitchen and have tables set up uh because at the Soda Hills they have to do.

Yeah, over the whole weekend.

They just they just have to like plop down back in the day at the Sota Hills in the middle of NPC.

So it uh it's it is the the blessing of the amazing facilities at Longview, and that's the reason that we do it over there.

And there's a lot of churches that come.

Do you know how many off the top of your head?

I mean, it's at least four or five.

With uh that are coming with us?

Uh four or five churches that are all partnering to do Disciple Now.

Yeah.

Uh there's like six.

Yeah.

No, I'm I think there's seven of us total.

Okay.

Seven churches total teaching.

It's incredible.

Yeah.

It's incredible.

It's really cool.

And we all uh share in the cost, and so we're we're able to do some fantastic programming, and it's just gonna be really amazing.

The thing I'm excited about is that these students will be exposed deep into the word.

Like they will be deep into the word through the preaching, through the through the worship, even.

But uh s all of the churches are sending their pastors to do these breakout sessions.

Which is always amazing.

And just to give y'all a a little bit of a taste of how it works, is we have main group times, then we split out and we have small group times within grades, basically a couple of grades for each church has a little small group.

Um so there's tons and tons of those.

But then we also do conference style breakouts as a part of the schedule as well, where we have larger groups of students who go together and they get to choose different topics to go to rooms and listen, and all of the pastors of these churches come and do these topics.

And so they're exposed to some fantastic speakers through the pastors.

So it's just it is a lot of opportunity for the students to get fed spiritually.

It's a lot of great opportunities for them to get fed socially with like-minded Christians and to meet new students.

It is amazing.

Absolutely.

Having said all of that, you'd be really, really late to the game, but is it possible for people to still sign up?

Yes.

So sign up is live on our website, SotohillsBaptist.com.

Uh it is in two days, so you're gonna want to sign up now.

Yeah, that's true.

You need to be there.

Like uh we've got shirts that were, you know, that were in production.

And so if you want a shirt, like you need to you need to make sure you sign up before and try to sign up before the day.

Right.

And uh students, we do want to make we we've mentioned, but you will drop off at Longview Heights, not here at the church.

And then uh we are not doing host homes, so the students will need to be picked up and sleep at your house at the end of the evening and then return on Saturday.

And then Sunday morning, we want everybody who participated, if at all possible, to come to church here and sit together.

That's always uh really fun as well.

All right, so that is Disciple Now.

I wanted to grab real quick, David, because I love doing table topics with you.

Table topics, table topics, table topics, table topics, table topics, table topics, table topics.

So table topics.

Uh, our listeners, you know what this is, but we just we grab these special cards that are printed and sold on Amazon, and they have hundreds and hundreds of questions.

Question number one Have you ever pretended you were sick to get out of something?

I can almost guarantee you at some point in your life you've done this.

Work.

Think of think of work.

Well, not this job.

Come on now.

I just know some of the jobs you've had in the past, you talked so lovingly about how much you enjoyed them.

And so there has bound to been some times when you were like, I just can't make it in today.

Yeah.

Well, when I was like a teenager, I worked at Coldstone Creamery in South Avon, and for whatever reason, they made me like the manager.

And so um I remember my friends were trying to get me to go duck hunting with them, and I hadn't I hadn't duck hunted before, and so I was like, sure, let's go.

I had to work the next morning.

Well, we uh we got out there for you know, we didn't sleep that night and got out there, left the house around 3 30, went to this place.

I can't even remember where we went to, and then my friend, uh, they leave me by myself out by a pond, and then they're nowhere to be found.

And so I just start walking.

Um found found them their truck, my friend's truck, who we rode with.

His truck was buried to its like axles.

What?

Yeah, and he was my only ride.

I had to be at work at like 10 a.m.

and it was 7 a.m.

when he buried his truck.

And so I got there late, and I'm just gonna say it.

I fell asleep at work.

I was I was the only one there.

I was the only one there.

I was running the place and I fell asleep.

Sitting in a chair or laying on a floor?

On like a food prep table.

Oh my god.

I know it was awful.

Did anyone come in?

No, it was like dead of winter, and I I pushed this is all calculated.

I didn't just fall asleep.

Right.

I pushed it over next to the door, the doorbell, when the door chime would ring, it would just blare.

And so if somebody came in, I would have woken up.

But but nobody did.

Nobody did.

So you got to do that.

It was the greatest nap of my life.

I bet it was.

All right, last one.

Have you ever coveted anything that belonged to someone else?

I mean, I'm guilty of that.

Yeah.

Um, let's see.

I I covet uh Mark Lewis's talent and abilities on instruments and whatnot.

You should see his head, people, it's getting bigger.

A good friend of mine who is more well-to-do than than I.

Okay.

Has their own condo down in Gulf Shores.

Yeah.

And it's so much well-to-do better than me, that he told me straight up one day, we do not rent that out.

We don't want anybody messing with our stuff.

Wow.

So it just sits there as a private condo oasis for them.

And this Joker's condo, uh, if you know where um what is that really hot spot?

The hangout.

It's literally 40 feet from the hangout.

Like where?

In Gulf Shores, Alabama.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So literally 40 feet from the hangout, because one time we were down there, I walked over there to to chat with him.

I'm like, oh my goodness, this dude is right, like, that is the heart of Gulf Shores, like killer location.

Yeah.

And he talks about all the time.

He'll go down him and his wife go down there all the time uh in the fall.

They will take off work, they'll call in sick for Shrimp Fest, which is literally in the fall.

And they they, if you've ever if you ever heard of Shrimp Fest, they shut down all the roads down there in Gulf Shores.

Um three days, three days ahead of time.

So he has they have to get there three days before because they're stuck.

Yeah.

All the roads are shut down, and then they put out all the tents and crafts and everything all over the streets.

And for a week I want to go to Shrimp Fest.

For a week, it's for a week it's Shrimp Fest, and then the hangout has got um all sorts of entertainment.

Wow.

So I When are we going?

Mission trip?

Let's go.

Yeah.

Uh so anyway, I I kind of covet the idea of having like a little spot down on the beach.

Like Yeah, I was thinking small, man.

I was thinking small.

You were thinking on a way grander scale than I was.

Yeah, for sure.

Table topics.

Table topics, table topics, table topics, table topics, table topics, table topics.

We'll of course have some more table topics for Dave next time he's on.

All right, we're gonna move to the portion of the podcast that we call the midweek moment.

All right, for this uh midweek moment, um, I want to share a little bit of what I do when I approach scripture to study.

In light of the new year, everybody's picking up their Bibles, everybody's reading.

Um, and if we're not careful, like uh it is good to read chunks of scripture, you know, that's great.

Uh, but also when we don't sit and like stew in that scripture sometimes and try to dig deeper uh to understand its meaning, uh, we can kind of lose that and lose what the big picture is, lose what the smaller picture is.

And so I uh typically I use a Bible study method of uh or a method of Bible study called the sword method of Bible study.

And so I maybe have mentioned it in the past, uh, just passing, but I do want to kind of camp out on it for a second, and and I want our listeners, uh, and I want to challenge our listeners uh to to adopt some kind of Bible study method um as they engage scripture for the year.

Uh and and just throughout their life.

It's been such a helpful thing for me since probably my mid-20s.

Um I've really uh just gotten a lot more out of scripture when I approach scripture with some ideas in mind, some questions in mind.

I'm curious how you came across it originally.

Um so a friend of mine had the you know taught me this big uh like Bible marker uh idea of studying the word, like using color codes and all that, and it was good.

Like I still kind of use that today, but um then I was exposed to this other Bible method study called the sword method.

And and if you picture what a sword looks like, some friends of mine, what what they do is when they go overseas, they take this method and and that's what they're training pastors of these small churches around the world that they encounter with, and these Christians that they encounter, uh they teach them this method of Bible study because it helps the pastors ask the right questions in order to dig the truth and and the gems that are in scripture out.

You follow me?

So so that is what they do.

And so um that's how they just take and equip people uh you know locally and around the world.

And if you imagine what a sword looks like, it has a blade that points up, it has a handle that points down, and a hilt that points side to side, right?

So the blade points up, and you in in vision envisioning the sword and the blade that's pointing up, you want to ask yourself, what is what is this learned about what do we learn about God in this passage?

And you write those things out like what does this by passage teach me about God?

And then the handle points down, what does it teach us about man?

And then the hilt um kind of points side to side um and uh just signifies like what can we learn about sin?

Is there is there a sin to avoid?

Is there a command to obey?

Is there um an example to follow?

Um and so it's just a visual picture.

I'm a visual person, it's a visual picture um to remind ourselves of what type of questions that we can ask, and that's what I use.

Yeah, and the reason that it's important, the reason that it's important, um, there's a passage that I want to leave with our listeners, um, is in Acts uh chapter 17.

And so I I don't know if you're familiar with the term Bereans, but there was a group of uh Jews called the Berean Jews, and they were of noble character, and uh and they were no noble because they studied scripture and they studied it deeply.

Um Paul comes on the scene and he begins to share the gospel with them, and they loved it and they heard it, but this is what Acts 17.11 kind of says, and this is a new international version.

It says, now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what if what Paul said was true.

So they deeply encountered scripture, they studied, and they lined up what Paul the apostle uh what he was teaching, they sought um to to line that up with what they knew of scripture.

So the reason that I'm bringing this sword method to you is that we should all kind of take this scriptural approach to reading, to the things that we hear, because there's all kinds of stuff about the Bible, there's all kinds of false teachers and uh that are spewing stuff online and YouTube that that are just not true and are leading people astray.

Right.

So if our people can say, hey, we're not gonna bel take everything at face value, we want to take everything and filter it.

Everything that we hear, everything that we see in regards to scripture, we want to take it and filter it through scripture.

Sermons, pastors, what I teach, what Grant teaches, let's take what we're hearing, filter it through scripture, right, and make sure that what we're hearing is the gospel, what is true, what is good, the unadulterated gospel.

That's what we want.

Couple of questions, real quick.

Uh obviously, we are reading through the Bible as a church, so that would be one good mechanism for you to take as far as your daily readings if you just wanted some sort of plan for what to do.

And and we have material that is going to accompany that scripture reading.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

The book has like some commentary that will help you.

Yes, talk about it.

And there's a podcast, uh, the Bible recap podcast, you can find it.

Uh you can find it all through the Bible uh the U version app on the phones.

Like you can find it through there.

Uh just look at Bible recap and you can find it there.

Awesome.

And then if you need if you need any other resources for daily devotions, because I personally have to use a devotional of some sort.

I it's just it's just better for me to frame everything that I'm reading and get some sort of way to apply it.

Absolutely.

But David or Grant uh can either one uh point you in the direction because Dave used to run the disc at the Life Way.

I'm sure I'm sure you have seen your fair share of devotionals in your time.

Uh thanks for listening.

If you don't have a church home, we'd love to see you here Sunday morning.

You can catch our services online at DeSotoHills.com, our YouTube channel at DeSota Hills Baptist Church for all our church family.

We love you.

We'll see you back here next Wednesday morning, bright and early.

God bless.

This has been your midweek motivation.

We'd love to have you join us in person on Sunday mornings.

Our services are at 9 and 10 30 a.m.