EP 60: What is Missional Living?

When, when I think about this missional Living Group, I, I

think about that verse quite a bit.

So if you were to ask someone, or I guess tell someone that,

hey, I'm a Christian, and that surprises them, if they can't

tell by how I'm living my life that I'm a Christian, then I I

think that's a problem. Hey, everyone, and welcome back

to the Grace Church Podcast and when you made us your host.

And today we're highlighting missional living.

While that phrase may be new to some, it connects directly to

one of our 6 core values of discipleship, being culturally

engaged. Simply put, that means

intentionally creating opportunities outside the church

to share the hope of the gospel. Living missionally involves both

personal responsibility and communal opportunity, and today,

two members from our downtown campus join me to share how

missional living groups have helped catalyze and strengthen

this value in their everyday lives.

Paul Gato and Beau Patterson welcome guys.

We're glad to have y'all. Glad to be here.

Happy to be here. Before we dive into our topic

for today, I'll have you both do a little bit of a quick intro.

So how long have y'all been at Downtown?

Tell us a little bit about your job, your family, all that good

stuff. Yeah, so my wife and I, Tinsley,

we, we are from Charleston and we've been in the Greenville

area 7A year or something like that.

And, and that's how I found grace actually is is I was

living downtown and just walked to the first church I could see

on Sunday morning and. It's an easy one to spot with

that steeple. Up there, yeah, exactly.

So, so and I never left. So I I still tell the story.

Joey Espinosa sat me on the front row.

I'm not a front row person. I I quickly moved to the

balcony. Shout out balcony.

Is Joey Espinosa the first person everyone meets at

downtown? I think, I think he knows

everybody. I think he knows everybody.

But so yeah, we've been at Grace since and and we've we've loved

every second of it. We've got two boys with a third

on the way. Let's go.

Yep. So expecting our third end of

September and and yeah, my wife and I work at a a technology

company here locally called Vivacity.

We provide technology to school districts.

Yeah, that kind of thing. So that's awesome.

We'll be praying for Bo and Tinsley and they're busy

households. Yes, that would be great.

What about you, Paul? Well, so yeah, my name is Paul

Gate. Oh, my wife Patty and I have

been members downtown for about ten years.

I'm retired. I spent most of my career with a

Caterpillar big heavy equipment manufacturer and move down here

really with no connections at all.

So just tried out different churches and really like Grace

weren't crazy about the videos, but other that we really like

the the ministries that they were involved in in the

teaching. We thought was was fundamental

and was really great and so so yeah, so we've got three kids

and just this past month added two grandchildren.

So one out in San Diego. We have 3 grandchildren out

there and 1:00 here in Greenville and we were blessed

to be present for both of those or so.

Very exciting about that and it unique to have one now locally.

Yeah, very sure. No, that's a fun season to be

in. So Paul and Bo are Co leaders

for a missional Living Group at downtown and really just ask

them to come in and share how it's been going.

But also just wanted to talk big picture on what it means for us

to live on mission as believers, which I feel like living on

mission or missional living, like those are phrases that we

use a lot. We throw them out a little bit

to the point where we're like what does that even mean?

So maybe just start out? Can y'all just define like what

do we mean when we say missional living?

Yeah, I'm, let me go ahead and take that one.

And as you say, Whitney, there's lots of definitions for it.

For me, it's, I guess intentionally pouring yourself

into somebody who's living at the margins in the name of Jesus

Christ. And like I said, that's other

people have different, different definitions for it.

But that can be done here in Greenville or that can be done

on the other side of the world. But the idea is you're getting

up every day and thinking about, OK, how can I serve?

How can I walk in the footsteps of Jesus for somebody who's can

never pay me back and kind of looking at it that way?

Yeah, that's well said. You know, seeking after people

who are vulnerable and, and that's the way that Jesus lived

his life. He lives life on mission.

And so we're just trying to emulate the kinds of things that

he did. So then what has missional

living looked like for you guys personally?

And how, how did you even get to a point where you're like, OK, I

think I really want this to be a big part of what I'm doing and

just thinking really intentionally about it.

Yeah, I mean, I think for for me, it's I'm more of a doer, I

think just by nature, like I want to, I want to jump in and

help, like if someone needs help moving, I want to be the person

to do that. And and so where actually Paul

and Ty Burke reached out to me about the mission of living

groups and their ideas for it. And, and when they walked me

through it, it was just like, oh, that is right down my alley.

But what what came from it was moments of discomfort and some

awkwardness in realizing that that that wasn't, it wasn't

exactly as down my alley as I thought it was.

But but I mean that in a good way.

So, so thanks for still reaching out to me, Paul.

But, but yeah, it's, it's I, I just come back to, you know,

when I, when I lay my head in the pillow at night, it's, it's,

you know, God, what else can I do?

And, and reveal that to me. And, and that's something I

think about a lot. And so, so mission of living is,

is that, and, and I thought Paul's definition was perfect,

but it's, it's just what can we do where we're at?

And that's, and, and where we're at right now is, is Greenville,

SC and that's our community. And we want to, we want to do

things to spread the gospel, talk about our testimony and,

and really just be an image bearer for Christ.

Yeah. Have you always kind of had that

bent of just like wanting to help, wanting to do, or was that

something that you've learned over time?

I think it's something I've always had It's I I grew up

painfully shy, like incredibly shy, like yes, like like hide

behind my parents when you know, when they introduced me level of

shy like it. So it's, it's maybe wild that

I'm on a podcast right now, but so I, I was always just more

comfortable doing something instead of, instead of talking

about things, instead of, you know, trying to really connect

on a deeper level of just like, just just tell me what I can do.

I want to help. I don't want to talk about it

really, just just just point me in the right direction and I'll

go. So yeah, it was more natural for

me. That's cool.

No, I love that. Yeah.

So, and I want to give some credit to Bowen and Tinsley

because he talks about serving where your your plan and where

you are. But where where they work with

their company, they they're very flexible in terms of giving

employees the opportunity to serve in the community and to

give them that time and have that built in.

And that's a a very, very creative idea and I think giving

encouraging people to do that and go out and serve in some

capacity. Yeah, absolutely.

And for you all to take advantage of that opportunity is

great. Yeah.

What about you, Paul? So I would say for Patty and I,

you know, we moved a lot during the course of my career.

And for us, a priority anytime we came to a new city was one

find a church home and then find a ministry that we can get

involved in and typically was through the church.

And that's where grace is, is just wonderful is that we talked

about people at the margins and, and we have so many ministries

that can focus. I mean, pick, pick an area and,

and we've got some ministry where you can serve.

And so that was really, I think what what prompted us and just,

you know, with the idea that we we grew up in families where I

think service was a big part of that and you just try to pass it

on to your kids. Yeah, absolutely.

I love, I love that you guys see the ways that God has kind of

uniquely gifted you for some of those.

But you've also mentioned that some of it is just, you choose

to do it and you are obedient and you perceive that.

I mean, if if I had to ask like why?

Why is this something that we are called to do as believers?

I don't want to just take that for granted, but what?

What is it about Scripture and about the gospel that compels us

to live our lives like this? Yeah, so I, I, I come back to to

James too when I think about serving really and and if a

brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and

one of one of you who says to them go in peace, stay warm and

be well fed, but you don't give them what the body needs.

What good is it? When when I think about this

mission of Living Group, I I think about that verse quite a

bit. So if, if you were to ask

someone, you know, or I guess tell someone that, hey, I'm a

Christian and that surprises them, if they can't tell by how

I'm living my life that I'm a Christian, then I, I think

that's a problem. And so that, that is, that is

stepping out and that's, that's being uncomfortable, that that's

also wearing a hard on your sleeves sometimes and, and maybe

in settings where that's not the norm here in the United States,

you know, work culture, corporate America, that kind of

thing. So yeah.

Yeah. And I'll talk a little bit about

Scott, since he's not here and he can't defend himself.

He taught a Power of money course in the fall that my group

was in, and he made this point that oftentimes the first

commands we think about from the Bible are maybe related to

worship or gratitude, knowing Scripture, prayer, evangelizing,

and obviously all of those are really good and important

things. But oftentimes we can gloss over

how many times God tells us to care for the poor in Scripture.

And I think it's like 300 to 400 times, something like that.

Umm, and even in that there's this case for we care for the

vulnerable because God tells his people like you were once

vulnerable and I cared for you. Umm, in first Peter, it talks

about like you didn't have an identity and God made you a

people and you received no mercy, but then you received

God's mercy, you know? So that just really shapes up

for us. Like why this is our

responsibility is because we know what it's like to be

vulnerable and to have been cared for really well by God.

So then we get to go do that for others.

Yeah. Now for me, I would say it's the

Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, S 31 through 46 is the sheep and

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

the goats. And there's just your list of

the vulnerable, right? So he goes through it with the

hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the prisoner, the sick and the

stranger. And then we're supposed to be

focused on them. And so that that to me is pretty

clear. And then Isaiah 117 says, learn

to do right, seek justice, defend the oppressed, take up

the cause of the fatherless and plead the case of the widow.

And you know, as again, look at where grace is focused and it's

it's all of those areas. And you have the opportunity as

a member of Grace and to just plug into to one of those

ministries. Yeah, absolutely.

And we try to, we try to make it as easy for you as you can, but

you got to say yes. So, well, tell us a little bit

about we keep talking about these missional living groups at

downtown. What is that?

What and what have y'all been doing?

Well, so we started talking about it probably 18 months ago

or so and realized Taylor's was the Taylor's campus was actually

doing something like that. So met with with Donald Spann

there, talked about what they were doing and they had three or

four groups that were meeting less and serving more.

They also had a capstone trip, I think was a international

missions trip, which is something we didn't do.

We had a, a group that just recently went to Kenya, but for

the most part, we were going to focus locally.

So kind of took what they had and, and built on that.

And so we've got four different groups, kind of like a Home

group about that size, you know, 12 to 16 people.

And we meet once a month with the full group with all, all

four groups meeting together. We'll meet typically at a

partner's location. So homes of Hope, front Porch

housing, Elias Mill Village. It gets you on their campus.

So you learn a lot more about them by being on their campus.

So that's once a month and once a month you meet with just your

small group and then the rest of the time you're you're serving.

And we're usually reading a, a text.

Tim Keller has one called Generous Justice that we've been

reading along with with doing that work.

So we have the opportunity to discuss that in the small group,

but then also to hear from the leaders of our partners in the

large group once a month as well.

Yeah. And what are just some of the

things that you guys have benefited from personally?

What have you learned? Just what?

What's some of the fruit that you've seen even in the other

members of your group? Yeah, I think for me, one of the

cool things is, you know, Paul mentioned the different meeting

spots that we go to, you know, front porch housing, Elias is a

couple of examples. But just learning about how much

good work is being done in Greenville.

And I, I just didn't realize, you know, how many opportunities

were out there. And so that's really cool.

So we talked a lot about, you know, just, you know, try

something and see if it fits your, your gift, your gifting.

And, you know, because there's so many opportunities that we're

learning about, I think we're able to try a lot of different

things. And hey, that, that piqued my

interest. I might circle back with them

when our, when our group is over or next weekend or whatever.

So I, I think that's been the cool part is just, it's just the

variety of needs that are out there and then us having the

opportunities to, to learn about them.

And then, you know, one day serve there if that's if it

resonates. Yeah.

And I have not lived a ton of places in my life, but it does

seem like Greenville, Anderson, Spartanburg, like they really

are. It's just some incredible

nonprofits that we're partnered with and like you said, just

people who are doing great work who have, you know, figured it

out. They spent a lot of time

thinking about it. They've built the connections

with the community. And so then a lot of what we're

doing is just showing up. We're following their lead.

You know, we've talked about this idea of partnership on the

podcast before and really just making ourselves available to

support instead of having to be the people who are always in

charge and figuring everything out.

What, what are just some personal anecdotes that stick

out in your mind of maybe a funny story or as you guys have

been going out, as you've been surveying, just some things that

are just this you want to celebrate honestly.

Well, we have two areas where we're focused on.

So one is Carolina High, we're focused on Carolina High School.

And then through World Relief we're wrapping around Guatemalan

family, refugee family that's been here a little over a year.

So it's a family of five, Grandma, mom, mom's not very

old, she's only 30, but she's got a 14 year old daughter, 11

year old daughter and a seven-year old son.

And they are just, I mean, they love it here.

It's just been a lot of fun to really kind of show what our

community has to, to offer. And they're the oldest girl will

turn 15 later this year. So it's a quinceanera time.

So we're talking about. Notice how I said that with a

Spanish accent. You did great.

So we've got to figure out what that is all about.

But now we want to we want to provide that for her.

And then the seven-year old boy, my name's Paul.

He calls me Paoul. So I barely pronounced it the

wrong way, but you know, he, they're picking up English

quickly. They're all going to school,

really loving it. And the other day I, I was

explaining something to him and he goes, Paul.

Well, that's easy peasy. You know, I mean, it's just,

it's just so much fun to see him growing, just the zest that he

has for, for life. Yeah, seeing that in real time,

that's awesome. Yeah.

Yeah, And, and I want to call out too, there's awkwardness

there just is. I mean, I think that that's

serving, right? You have to step out and you

have to sort of embrace that awkwardness.

And, and we've we've had those moments too.

And I think those are, those are kind of the fun memories.

If you really do embrace it is, is you know, that, that car ride

or that interaction or, you know, we serve food to that

person that really didn't want to talk and they, they came back

for seconds and thirds and we kept serving them anyway.

It's just there's, there's awkwardness involved.

And so I think it's important for people to know when we talk

about living on mission is is it's not going to be comfortable

all the time. It will be fruitful most likely

but but there is definitely awkwardness involved.

Yeah, and you bring up a good point that I mean, it's time we

keep using this word mission. And I love the Mission

Impossible movies and like they are called Mission Impossible

because he's super uncomfortable and it's not going well and it's

very difficult. And maybe he manages to pull it

out in the very end. But there is something about a

mission that is hard, that is difficult.

How have you guys just seen that play out?

But then I mean, why is it worth it just to push through that

discomfort and that difficulty? Yeah, well, I'm especially

blessed because according to my wife Patty, my spiritual gift is

social awkward. And if you have an awkward

situation. From everybody else if.

You have an awkward situation, invite me and I'll make it

really awkward. But and and part of it is just

getting older. I'm 66 years old now.

So you get the point where you don't care anymore.

It's like, you know, So what if I embarrass myself?

You lean into it and we've talked about our family from

Guatemala. I don't hablo much.

And so when we're in the car, lots of times it's quiet and I

don't like that. So I go to stoplight and I get

on Google Translate and but it's, you know, you just as I

say, you just lean into it. The example I would think of the

the most is I, I do some work as a guardian at litem.

And when you first show up, nobody really wants you there.

They don't know what you're there for.

You're an advocate for the child and the bio parents definitely

don't want you there and the foster parents are kind of

figuring out what your role is and but over time to gain their

confidence is is such a wonderful feeling.

And then the case closes and grandma's sending you pictures

of the kids and how things are going.

I mean, that's, I guess that would be the, the earthly reward

anyway, that you feel like that's, that you're making a

difference that way and that you've earn their trust.

And so and and even with our Guatemalan family, it's plenty

awkward, both says. But just to I guess see their

the appreciation that they have for makes it makes it

worthwhile. And I think it's important that

you're talking about like all of that.

It happens over time. That the good feeling part comes

at the end, sometimes it never. Comes and that's a good point.

Sometimes you just never get around the awkwardness and.

Just live with it and that's OK, right?

That the no one's ever died of awkwardness so far that we know

of I guess is possible. But yeah, that the hard part,

the difficulty part that's, that's going to be probably a

little bit more than than the fun part, but that's part of

what we're signing on for. And and we can be OK.

Just like everything else that we talk about in our lives when

it comes to difficulty is we of all people are equipped and able

to withstand all of that because securing Christ, you know, we

don't have to sit and wonder like, does this person like me,

do they hate me? And should I talk about Jesus

more? Should I talk about Jesus less?

We don't have to spend all of that around in our minds because

like the Spirit is in US. And if we're just submitting

ourselves to His purpose, then you know God will bring fruit

out of that, even if we never get to see it and.

Candidly, suffering's biblical and I think, I think we sang the

song on Sunday, son of suffering, you know, which is

one that I love that we sang, but suffering's biblical, it's,

it's part of it. It's, you know, fasting is hard

and praying is hard and having, you know, reading your Bible

that discipline is, is hard. And so I, I think it, it leads

to spiritual endurance and spiritual grit.

And I think, I think that's just an important part of, of living

a Christian life. And so I, I think that's a

reminder too, like the the awkwardness is part of, that's

part of that suffering and that's OK, yeah.

And coming back to the book of James, you know, talking about

the trials are meant for us to build endurance and like we get

discipled and God is forming us through these processes.

So for you guys, how have you seen just as you have submitted

yourself to some difficulty and some inconvenience, like how

have you just seen God work in your own life and reveal things

to you? Yeah, I.

Think sometimes you feel guilty because it's like, I'm going to

go serve and I'm not, I'm not excited about it.

You know, there's a lot of other things I'd rather be doing.

But just to the point you both made that sometimes there's

suffering involved. It's supposed to be sacrificial.

And, you know, I, I think one of the things that I do sometimes,

even though I try not to, it's a human reaction as you start

stereotyping folks. So prisoners, if you're working

with prisoners, there's a certain stereotype that you

have. But when you when you meet them

and when you get that, you form that relationship with them, you

kind of, you kind of work through the, you realize they're

image bearers and they've got any characteristics and they

know everybody doesn't just fall into one, one package.

I think that's something I think I've learned from this, from

this process. Yeah, that's cool.

I think for me, it's, I think I've started seeing more

opportunities around me. I think it's been a little bit

more top, top of mind as, as my wife and I, you know, we pray

through these opportunities and we, we just, they keep popping

up now. And so, so then, then we got to

decide, you know, what to say no to.

And then Paul, you mentioned guilt that I think there's some

guilt involved that we wish we could do more.

I feel like that's a common talk track when we get in our small

groups is this is great. We love what we're doing.

We love our group, we love the conversation, we love where

we're serving. We just, I wish we could do more

for that family. I wish we could do more for

Carolina high school. And, and, and there is a level

of guilt involved. And I think that tension is a

good thing. I, I think I love that, that our

group as a whole just wants to do more.

But, but there is, there is some guilt associated with it too,

for sure. And, and you start to see that

as, as more and more opportunities kind of pop up

around me. I should talk to that person.

I should reach out to that person.

You can't do it all. And and so you really do have to

rely on the spirit there to to guide you and, and where he

wants you to go. And so, yeah, that's, that's

kind of been the big thing for me.

Yeah. And I think it's interesting

that both of y'all kind of mentioned this phenomenon of

maybe we'll call it noticing or maybe a better word is

curiosity. So as you serve, as you're

engaging with people in a different environment than the

one that you're used to, you start to see outside of

yourself. You start to wonder like, hey,

that that person probably needs something.

Maybe let me ask a question. Hey, like, do you need any tires

on your car? Or, you know, Paul, you're

talking about stereotyping people and you start to ask

questions, you start to spend time with people and you're

like, OK, wait. I think this paradigm that I

built up in my head of what you're like is not true.

And and I think that is a key principle to serving in in

missional living. So can you all talk about that a

little bit? Just how how is view developed,

this sense of curiosity and in practice that almost as a

discipline? Yeah.

It's. Interesting and and Beau

mentioned some of the discussions we've had in our

small Group 1 is living missionally.

Do you have to live in the neighborhood?

Because so many of the leaders that we've talked to again,

Elias Mill Village front porch housing the leaders are there

and they're living there. And we've had folks say, you

know, if you're serving as a missionary in China, you're

there, it's there every morning when you get up here, you can we

talked about Greenville has the haves and have nots.

If you want to live amongst the haves all the time, you can't

you have to be intentional about it.

And so I think that's been really a, a challenge to say,

no, I'm going to be intentional. I'm going to go out and I'm

going to actually engage. But but the, the idea is, you

know, you can, you can live one place and serve another.

You end up spending a lot of time there anyway.

You just have to find what that balances is for you.

There may be family reasons or other reasons you live

someplace, but you've got to then be intentional to make sure

you go out and interact with folks.

As we say, they're at the margins.

Yeah. And then?

You can notice like you can't notice if you're not around it

and you're not seeing it if you're removed.

And you'll never know what people need.

But if it's your neighbor and you see them mowing their lawn

or getting their mail or you see the flat tire on their car, then

you say, hey, what can I do for you?

You know, right? Yeah, That's great.

Do you have any thoughts around curiosity, though?

No, I. I think Paul had the nail on the

head. Intentionality.

I mean, I think that's the word. And remaining curious.

So it's looking around your neighborhood.

It's it's where are those opportunities?

And I think the more you do it, the more you see it.

Yeah. And so I think that's that's

there's some momentum involved there.

But intent, intentionality is a word.

I can't I can't put a better one than Paul just did.

Yeah, that's. Great.

And you guys have kind of already alluded to this a little

bit. I mean, we talked about the

difficult parts, the the awkwardness, the discomfort.

That's certainly part of it. But there's also a lot of joy to

be had. You know, and Paul, you gave a

great example of being a guardian ad litem in that moment

where you get pictures of the kids and you see the fruit.

What are some things that come to mind for you guys where

you're like, this is a joy and a privilege, and because of this

one moment, I'll keep doing this forever?

For me, I often time when we finish up as a group or if we

finish a serving opportunity, I walk away energized.

That that's it probably goes back to that being my

personality a little bit, just how I, you know, how kind of how

I grew up, but I walk away energized.

So for me, there is some selfishness there.

You know, I, I like going out there doing the work because it

energizes me. And so, so there is, there's a,

there's joy associated with that.

And then we, we just have a fun group too.

I think that helps, you know, you hear some horror stories

about groups that not, not everyone, you know, melt, melt

together real well, but we, we love our group and so that that

makes it fun too. So when you're serving alongside

people that you also just happen to enjoy hanging out with

socially, that makes it a lot of fun as well.

The. Community piece for sure.

So I'll give you another example from one of our other ministries

as Jumpstart. So the prison ministry and I

have the privilege of working there Tuesday afternoons and New

Year's Eve this past year, One of the gentleman that I work

with who've been incarcerated for seven years was being

released. So I was taking him from there

to the Restoration Village, which is a jump start facility

in Wellford. And the thing to note is that

December 31st was also our 42nd wedding anniversary.

So what, what my wife was like, really, what are you doing?

And, and anyway, so I picked this gentleman up.

He was 25 years old. They said he'd been in prison

for eight years. So we went, he was incarcerated

at 17 and you know, it was, he was, you know, he was nervous.

This was different. He hadn't been out.

We stopped to eat along the way. And he said, I haven't held a

real knife for eight years. I mean, that's just plastic

utensils that they get. But before he left, several of

the guy that the older guys who are in the program prayed with

him. And, and I know these guys and a

couple of them are lifers and one of them had been on death

row for 18 years. So they're not doing it to try

and beef up their parole resume. They're doing it because they

believe in the transformational power of Jesus Christ.

So he was really touched by that.

Well, then when we arrived at the campus at Jumpstart, there's

five more guys, you know, to meet him.

And I thought, well, I'm going to have to help and try and get

him to feel comfortable. It's like I'm pretty much OK,

Paul, thanks. We'll see you.

And they, they just took him in, showed him where he's going to

be living. He had a report in that day with

his parole officer as to where he was going to be living.

And again, it was he used the word privilege.

And it was just to be a privilege part of that and

realize I was just a cog in the whole machine, but proud to be

part of that. That was great.

Yeah. It's.

Like you get this little window into the Kingdom, you know, and

it's, it's invisible most of the time.

And you know, you don't always get to see the progress, but

then when you do, you're like that this is everything that

we're living for. This is everything that Christ

has come for. Yeah.

And to your point, Beau, I think like there is part of it that

can feel a little selfish, you know?

And certainly we don't do all of these things just for what we're

personally going to get out of it.

But I love the phrase, especially when it comes to

serving. I think God wants far more for

us than he wants from us. You know, we usually view it

through the lens of, Oh my gosh, you're asking for my time and

you're asking for my money and, you know, my giftings and all

this kind of stuff. And how much do I have to give,

You know, and doing it long enough, you really just start to

see, like, Kaz just trying to show me the Kingdom.

He's trying to give me the window.

He's trying to bless me, give me the privilege of being a part of

something. So then for someone who's

listening who is like this, I love all of this, This is so

cool. This is compelling to me and but

I just don't know where to get started.

Like what advice would you have for them of here's one step that

you can take towards missional living today?

Yeah, I guess my thought would be take take that first step be

deliberate about it. So don't talk about it.

Find something and sign up for it.

And again, I can't remember if it was mad or Bill, but they

said try stuff see if you die and you probably will not.

But part of finding out what your gifts are in which where

you want to serve is finding out where you don't want to serve.

And if you try it once and it's not your thing, that's fine and

move on to, to something else and try and get on the campus.

Boat talked about that as well, that the benefit of being at

these places as opposed to hearing about them and giving

money is great. But being their present, I think

helps quite a bit and learn about what what they do.

And, and, and I guess the last thing I would say is what are

their needs as opposed to kind of what, what can I bring to

them? We'll find out what they really

need. Because we've come in to some

Carolina Highway, had some ideas of what we should do there.

And they said, you know what, our special Ed department has a

couple new teachers. They need folks to go on field

trips with them. And it's like really, cuz that

can be awkward. There's that word again.

And we said, you know, let's, let's do it.

And we've, and I know all about the Greenville bus system.

I took a field trip with them. I tell you, it's so that's been

been really rewarding. So take that, take that first

step and lean into the awkwardness.

Yeah, that's. Great.

And to piggyback. A little bit along with taking

that first step. You know it.

Anyone that I've known long now knows that my most consistent

prayer is for opportunity, courage and wisdom.

And it's. Opportunity.

I want the Lord to show me opportunities and provide them

to me. It's it's courage to take

advantage of those opportunities when he presents them to me.

And then it's wisdom by the Holy Spirit to to say the right thing

and really not screw it up. And so opportunity, courage and

wisdom to to kind of go along with what Paul said.

Yes, dive in. But I think pray to the Spirit

to to guide you throughout throughout that.

That's a great. Balance of both of those pieces

of wait on the Lord, consider him first and involve him in

that process. Don't just barrelhead first.

But also if you know that your bent is to wait too long and not

do something, you know, at some point you do just have to take a

step. Umm, and we do both of those

things in tandem. Umm, like so many areas of our

life, So and I, yeah, I'd say to please reach out to your staff,

to the leaders around you. We do have so many

opportunities. If your campus doesn't have

missional living groups, they are serving somewhere and

missional living is happening in some capacity.

So you just have to ask, you have to find out what

opportunities are available and then ask for the courage to to

step into it. So guys, thank you just for

being here and just for teaching us a little bit more.

I'm I'm grateful and I'm encouraged by the work that

y'all have been doing very good. Well, thank.

You for having us. Thank you.

It's been. Great, Paul would.

You, before we end, would you just pray for our people and

just that our church would be a body that is living on mission

for Christ? Oh, absolutely.

Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this time together with

Owen with the in the discussion we've had and just pray that

you'd be with the members of Grace Church with the

opportunities that they have to serve that we would overcome our

human tendencies, which are more towards fear and more towards,

you know, fear of being awkward. We have stereotypes.

There's lots of things to overcome, but that we would be

truly seekers, seekers for opportunities to to walk in the

footsteps of Jesus and to live lives that are are are pleasing

to you, Father. And we know they're out there

helping us to just take that that first step and to find that

particular niche. Lord, where we can, we can serve

somebody who's living at the margins and that we can

basically be a reflection of Jesus.

Lord, as always, it's in your son's name and we pray.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Thanks guys.

Thanks for listening. We'll see you all at next time

on the Grace Church Podcast.