City Post Ministry Equip Session #2 | Discipling Difficult People.

You know, and if you look at those who are attracted to

Jesus, it was kind of like it was the sinners, it was those on

the outside, the people that hated Jesus the most were the

religious leaders. If you look at scripture.

So when it comes to ministry leaders, which all of you guys

are like, you guys are either leading ministry, you're

teaching or you are helping direct people.

You cannot avoid people, right? Like, so we're going to come in

contact with folks. I love that somebody said

there's nothing in common, like there would be nothing in common

with us. And so let's go to Acts chapter

Acts 2 · chapter mention

2 and look at the early church. So where we're going today, just

to kind of give you guys a road map is when we look at how to

minister to people. What I want to talk about today

are like how do we counsel people that come to us?

How do we counsel difficult people that come to us?

And, and, and counseling, there is a big chunk of discipleship

says Jesus tells us that we have to make disciples.

And if you look at the early church, kind of what they were

doing, they're making disciples. The Bible doesn't say to

counsel, it says to make disciples, right?

So there's, there's, they're very intertwined in each other,

even like when we do, when we do like suggest counseling, we look

at Christian counseling. So that way it's tied with the

scriptures. So counseling, therapy, all that

stuff is great, you know, but, but we got to have God's word as

well, right? So Acts 242 through 46, can

somebody read that out loud for us?

Because my voice is terrible today.

Anybody All right, go for it. Yeah, go to 47.

Sorry. All right, So this is the early

church and and God is growing this church.

And what I want to, there's two things I want to point out in

verse 43. It talks about everyone was

filled with awe and many wonders and signs performed by the

apostles. When we read that scripture,

when we read that text, immediately we think of healing

the sick, making the the blind see, you know, the lame walk,

all that stuff. But I think in the text we see

the greatest miracle, which is in the next verse.

The next verse is in 44. What's the greatest miracle?

All believers were together and had everything.

And what in common? How crazy is that?

When we read yet to remember all the sects of the Jewish people,

you had churches that had Jews, gentiles, different languages,

different traditions. How in the world can you come

together and worship one God and be and have everything in

common? So if you think about it, these

are like drug dealers, gang members, bodybuilders, everybody

came together and they all had something in common, you know,

and that's a great miracle and that's how God does ministry.

The greatest miracle is with Christ that he unites all of us

under himself. And then also when we talk about

disciple, sorry, I think, I think about here we talk about

when we talk about discipleship, there's 3C's to discipleship and

it's found in verse 42. It and all of this is tying

together. So just just run with me here.

A second in verse 42 says they devote themselves to the

apostles teachings, to the fellowship, to the breaking of

the bread and prayer. SO3C's when we talk about

discipleship and disciple making one is the content, right?

Like so the content here is what the apostles were teaching.

The apostles were teaching everything that they learned

from Jesus, from the word of God, from the older texts,

everything that they've seen from the disciples.

So the apostles, we're giving the gospel message.

So the content is very important when you're making disciples.

Advice is great. You know, like you could talk

about your, you know, the stuff that you experience to somebody,

but if you don't have the right content, you're going to lead

people the wrong way #2 is community.

It says that they fellowship, right?

And they fellowship together. So the content is important in

making disciples, but also fellowshipping together, hanging

out together, human interactions.

So there's a component of making disciples that you've got to be

able to care and to love people. And I know like we're a little

bit in a culture where it's, it's kind of the separated, but

what we see in Scripture is that fellowship is important.

And then the last thing is consecration.

You know, they, they set themselves apart, they prayed,

they broke bread together. If you look in the culture,

breaking bread is not just eating together, it's sharing a

table with somebody. So their meals would last a long

time and they which are very, very personal, intimate things.

So and then they would pray together.

So when you pray with someone, you share kind of not just your

prayer petitions, but you share and you talk about what is it

that that we're praying for? And you do that together.

All right. So we know that under Jesus, he

unifies all of us. We know that we find things in

common through Christ. We know, like when we talk about

disciple making the content's important, the community's

important. The consecration piece is very

important, right? All of this has to do with

people. So as we lead people, you can't

do ministry and avoid people. You can't be like, Oh my God,

he's coming, right? I mean, like we've all been

there, you know, like, if we're honest with ourselves, we, we

can't avoid people and serve the Lord.

And what I want to talk look at is I want to look at three types

of persons, three types of people that can be difficult.

And then we're going to talk about, we're going to, we're

going to talk about some tools on what to do on how to guide

them and lead them. All right, so disclaimer, I'm

not talking about nobody. OK?

Really, Ricky? No, no, right.

This is from my years of experience, but also on what

I've seen, because I've seen two things why people run from

ministry and one is capacity, but the other is people.

We're like, I ain't dealing with this and that's not what God's

called us to. God's called us to minister to

people, right? So I just want to highlight

three types that I believe can be difficult for folks,

especially in the church when it comes to counseling, when it

comes to discipling. And then we're going to talk

about like a tool to use that we could help disciple.

All right, see, I'll stick with me here.

All right, So three types of people that are pretty hard to

encounter. And I've just kind of did some

research and look like there's got to be like a title to this

stuff when it comes to like the psychology, anthropology of it

all. So the first one is the

conversational narcissist. All right, So the conversational

narcissist, this is the person that all they do is talk about

themselves. And whenever you approach

someone, when all they do is talk about themselves, it's

exhausting. And it and it and it really kind

of drives you in a different direction where you're at the

point where like, man, I don't know, I can cycle this guy or

girl, right? The second one is the over

emote, right? We're going to talk about what

that means here. We're going to get some

profiles. All right.

And then the third one is the high anxiety, high alert person

where everything is like it's an emergency.

And, and that could be difficult because we don't know as, as

ministry leads, as church leader, we, we don't know how to

manage that. So what we end up doing is we

try to pull that burden on top of ourselves and it makes it

worse. So let's look at some profiles

and then we're going to look at how just some tools that that we

could do it to counsel and disciple people.

So first of all, the conversational narcissist.

All right, this is the person that says I love to talk about

myself. All right, So the conversational

narcissist, they're always seeking validation, attention,

and the reason why they talk about themselves so much is

because they're managing deep seated insecurities.

So if you have a person where everything is about them,

everything is like what they've done and you know, a big sign of

a conversational narcissist, they don't ask questions back a

few weeks ago, I actually had dinner with somebody that was

like this. And, and I remember getting home

and I told Rach I was like, I don't think they asked me one

question the whole entire hour and a half, like we're eating.

And I don't recall the person asking me one question back of

like, Hey, so how, what do you do for a living or how are your

kids? Like, it was like I felt like I

was interviewing them and everything was about them.

So, so there's, there's reasons for it, folks that that do this.

They have poor social awareness and empathy.

They turn topics back to themselves.

They interrupt, they rarely ask questions.

Conversation is self focused, thus leads to rejection.

This becomes a vicious cycle. So the the conversational

narcissist because they're trying to get attention and

because they're trying to get validation, they need people.

But the problem is is because they focus solely on themselves,

people reject them. So it creates A vicious cycle of

I need people. But then, and I need people,

people push back because it's so exhausting.

So that means that relationships are not deep and meaningful and

intimacy is very, very difficult, which leads to the

next one. Others seek them out only if

they need something from that person.

So they never seek out the person because they want to hang

out, because they like being in their company.

They only seek that person out only because they need or want

something from them. And, and I'm saying this because

it's, it's I want you to put yourself in the person's, you

know, like how, how lonely can that feel?

And then they're great talkers, but they're terrible

conversationalists. Like they could talk all day

long and say nothing. They could chat, but yet nobody

wants to be around them. So it becomes like a really like

lonely place. And then with them, they leave

you feeling drained, unheard and unimportant.

And This is why whenever we approach folks like this and and

you want to disciple them, you want to help them because of the

way that you feel afterward, you tend to kind of say, no, I see

from me. I don't have this kind of

spiritual gift, you know, I don't have the gift of

listening. Where's Ray?

Chat Like, that's Rachel. Rachel's like, I forgot Rachel.

Rachel. Spiritual gift is her.

She loves. She's a great listener.

And so the conversational narcissist.

Wait, when you have that and we're talking about like how we

could bring folks in and disciple them better.

The second one is the Omar. All right, this is, I'm gonna

dump everything on you all at one time.

So when folks come to you, it's almost, I don't even want to say

a trauma dump, but it could be a drama dump.

It could be a success dump. It could be a family dump, it

could be everything dump. So when you talk to them, they

dump everything at you all at once.

And, and we don't know how to handle it.

Like it could be so overwhelming, right?

So the it's an intense oversharing.

And the reason why there's an intense or oversharing is

because they have a hard time processing or they have a hard

time to process, filter and regulate emotions.

So they're trying to reach out, they're trying to talk to you,

but because they have a hard time regulating it all just kind

of just flows out all at one time.

And it could be hard of most people that overeemo they they

don't take pauses like it's just a constant stream of like an

hour or two. They embellish and they

exaggerate details of their problem because they have

feelings of guilt is shame. So they're not liars is they're

they're they're regulating these emotions inside and they feel

guilty and they feel shameful. So they're going to exaggerate

details because of how they feel.

And then it's almost like binge drinking.

It feels great at the moment. The effects are lasting and

painful. So whenever you do over e-mail,

whenever you do blast everything out at one time, it doesn't

solve the problem. It actually creates a whole

nother problem because of the lasting memories.

Now that it's concerning. So it's a it becomes a vicious

cycle, right? So people that over e-mail, they

leave you feeling distressed and helpless.

So when, when you have folks that come at you or in your

ministry or you're trying to talk with them and it all comes

at once, we tend to sometimes feel so helpless, like, what am

I going to help them? How am I going?

What am I going to do? That it, it kind of chases you

away and we end up pushing back. Then the last one, high anxiety,

high alert. It's always an emergency and

needs to be fixed right now. And folks that deal with high

anxiety, a lot of this comes from trauma.

I would say a high percentage is childhood trauma.

So whether it's abuse, neglect, emotional, mentally, physically

abuse, it could take a toll on a person's mental health.

Childhood trauma can predispose people to developing anxiety

impacting fighter. So it impacts their fight or

flight response, memory and emotional regulation.

And then they're unable to walk through negative life events.

So when something difficult in life happens because of the high

anxiety or because of the past trauma, they're unable to

regulate it. So what ends up happening is

that negative life events turn into negative coping mechanisms

and negative coping mechanisms or something like, it's cool,

man, just go get a drink that's going to send you down a deeper

path. And people use coping mechanisms

to try to like help themselves in that.

So whether it's food shopping, I would even say like promiscuity,

whatever that looks like, those are not good.

So they instead of turning to positive, they go to negative.

And folks like that leave you feeling exhausted, worried and

unhealthy, like, like you can't help them, right.

So I went through just three, three like little

characteristics of, of folks that are difficult, not because

of who they are, but it's because we're called to make

disciples and we're called to, to serve people and love people.

And but if we, we don't understand how to manage folks,

we end up going away. We end up avoiding with Ron.

And that's not what God's called us to.

All right. So how do we, what do we do

right? So there is, there's a tool and

I didn't make this up. This is a Paul David trip.

It's, it's a great tool. It's called love.

No speak, do 4 simple words that you can use to help minister to

people, help counsel people and, and help whenever they can't

regulate emotion or help whenever like they're for that

attention or, or helping like nobody else wants to help them,

right? So it's four quick words, love,

no speak do. And all of this is found inside

of discipleship, right? So like this is actually

something that everybody here can do.

So we'll walk through these and then we're going to practice,

all right, with each other, right?

So first one is love. So everything starts with love

as as ministry leads, we, we encounter people, but we also

love. So it starts with love because

empathy has to be present and you can't be empathetic if you

don't have love. Now someone was like Mary, it's

hard for me to love, yes, but if you have Christ and you have the

Holy Spirit, you have love in you, right?

So somebody, if somebody could look up Matthew 936, we're just

going to look at a few of these verses.

I think they're going to, it's going to be helpful.

Matthew 936. Whoever gets it, just just spit

it out. So when Jesus saw the crowd,

what do you have? Compassion.

Yeah. So when Jesus sees people that

are following and the disciples, like man, tell me to go away.

Like, man, we're hungry. What does Jesus say?

Yeah, it says that he had compassion on them.

He looked at them like sheep without a shepherd.

Whenever we have difficult people in our midst, we have to

look at them through the lens of compassion, through the lens of

Christ. Right.

So empathy, being empathetic, that's where it all begins.

So you have to look at people with the lens of Jesus,

compassion, empathy, then rely on the fruits of the spirit.

We have the fruits of the Holy Spirit, Lovejoy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,

self-control. The first one is love.

So we we have to rely on the spirits.

We have to love people. Well, that's what Jesus calls us

to and it's a covenant model of change.

That means that what Christ tells us and what he shows on

the cross is regardless, I'm going to love you.

So even for ourselves, yes, people may have hurt us, may her

hurt them. You can still love them.

You can forgive, but you don't have to forget.

You don't have to keep falling into that, but you can love.

Just a few verses. First, Peter for a above all,

keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a

multitude of sins. Colossians 4/3/14 And over all

these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in

perfect unity, right? So the first thing is love.

We have to be able to love you. So whoever steps through that

door of City Post Church, don't matter what they look like, gang

member, tatted, gay, straight, whatever it is, they're welcomed

here. The message is not going to

change though, right? So we're going to, we're going

to love them, but we're going to proclaim the gospel and we're

going to stick to God's word. So love has to be first and

foremost after you love somebody and once you're like, OK, I see

this person, I'm empathetic, then you have to get to know

them. All right?

How do we know somebody? You have to learn how to ask

questions. Listen, if you have a

conversation with somebody, you should be asking more questions

than them. Especially as ministry leaders,

this is kind of a new thing for some of this culture because

we're so used to a one way direct, one way communication.

So e-mail, text messaging, it is, it's not transactional.

If I e-mail or text somebody, I'm trying to tell you

something, but if I want to get to know you, I have to be able

to communicate with you and ask questions.

So how do we get to know people? The best way we get to know

people is by asking open-ended questions.

Not close ended questions, open-ended questions.

They have to give a response. close ended is a yes or a no.

You know, are you sleepy? Yes.

It's like, man, you look tired today.

What you do last night. That's that's a different,

that's a whole different way of doing.

I know some of us are hearing this, like, man, Rick, I learned

this in school. Listen, Yeah.

But it's different in ministry because in ministry you want to

get to know people and you want to get to know them at a heart

level. So whenever you get to ask

questions and whenever you start digging, you get to see their

heart, their, their motives, what they're about.

And, and I know a lot of times we, we tend to judge the book by

its cover. We see somebody come in and

you're like, oh man, it's in trouble.

You don't know that you don't know, like if that was something

in his past, you don't know like what he went through until you

get to know them. And you can't ask questions.

You get to know them until you see, until you have empathy and

love and say, man, I really want to get to know this individual

right now. If you try to know someone, you

can help them know themselves. So the better that you ask

questions, the better you get to know somebody.

It actually helps them out more. So you're not just doing this

for you to gather information, but you're doing this as a

mirror to show them maybe something that they're missing,

you know? So asking good questions is very

important. Love this quote that I, I read.

It says the goal in ministry, relationships, and biblical

discipleship is to know other believers so that they in turn

can know themselves and desire the deeper heart transformation.

That is God's goal, which is exactly what the Holy Spirit

does, a change of heart renewal. It's not about a change of

insight or a change of idea or making people think like maybe

church is not that bad. It's a heart change.

It's about presenting them to Christ because He's the only one

that could change hearts. And then Hebrews 1404.

Sorry, wrong 1. Hebrews 4.

If somebody could read that chapter 4, verses 14 through 16

was a great passage. I think everybody should have

this underlined somewhere. Hebrews 4.

Thank you so much. So Christ understands when

people feel a certain way, He understands how we feel.

You know, he lived a human life, but he didn't sin.

Jesus gets it. So get to know somebody.

So you love them. You seem to rise a compassion

and empathy, right? Like you always give them the

benefit of the doubt and you start getting to know them.

That means that you go and you talk to them and you have a

conversation by asking them questions.

You don't wait for them to ask you questions.

You go and ask them questions. Get to know their life.

Get, go get deeper on a heart level.

Then once you do that, then you can speak truth into their life.

You cannot speak truth into their life.

Unless you love them first, because then it's going to come

off as judgment and they're going to turn away.

They're not going to listen. So to love them and then you get

to know them better. And then you say like, here's

their heart and, and their situation and their background

and their family life. Now you can speak truth and

listen. Speaking truth is not an option,

guys. You have to.

And when I say truth is not your truth, it's the word of God.

Jesus says, you know the truth and the truth will set you free,

right? So you've got to be able to

share Scripture with people. You've got to be able to say,

man, like I hear you. I'm so sorry that happened to

you. But man, like there's a passage

that comes to mind that I want to share with you.

You've got to be able to speak God's word.

So truth is God's word. What does God want this person

to see that they don't see? What is it that they're just

going through that maybe they're blinded and they can't see it.

How do I get to them? How do I love get to know what's

going on in their life and then you start speaking truth into

them. How can I help them see it?

Also, if you share the gospel and they walk away feeling

shameful or or guilty or condemned and you didn't share

the whole gospel because the gospel message is one of

redemption. Now, if they feel conviction,

that's different. Conviction is through the Holy

Spirit. So like man, like that really

spoke to me. But if they leave, like man,

there's nothing I could do. I'm I'm Sol, like I'm, I'm done

that. That's not what this is.

So redemption versus condemnation is what really like

if you could remember something when you share God's word and

when you share his message, the gospel is a message of

redemption. It's the good news for a reason,

you know, so it you have to share it like it's great news.

But if they walk away feeling just condemned and like, oh man,

there's no hope for me. No, you want them to walk away

convicted. So and then you continue to ask

questions and and then you continue that conversation.

All right, so we, we got you love them.

You know them now we're able to speak into them.

And then the last one to do part now is the action right?

So now start talking, helping others do something with the

truth they have been revealed. All right, So what are we going

to do with what you just learned?

Like how are you going to implement that into your life?

Now insight alone is no change. It must be applied to to the

practical, specific realities of life.

The best way I like to do like to talk about this is like, how

do we help people create next steps, action steps.

All right, so like came I learned some amazing stuff.

OK, what's next? I love James A1.

It says to be doers of the word, just hears of the word.

So there is a doing component to responding to God's word.

So us as ministry leads, we have to guide and lead people into

doing something. And of course you want to

encourage accountability and you want to be more of a trainer

rather than a coach. Usually what coaches do is

coaches, they they kind of give the game plan and then they just

kind of push you and yell. What a trainer does is a trainer

explains and it teaches you like like This is why you have to

lift a certain way. This is how you get stronger.

This is why you can't tackle people a certain way because

you're going to get hurt. So you want to teach people Umm,

so we want to make sure that we walk alongside people, we link

up with them and then we help them guys, this is Discipley and

this is also helping. So if I'm talking to a, a

conversational narcissist where everything is just about them

and they're just coming and everything, and then I'll, I'll

ask them. Then I go back to the format.

You look at them, you're like, they're not annoying.

They're just, they're just looking for attention.

Like there's something that must have happened in their life.

Then I'm going to start asking them questions.

Hey, man, tell me about your childhood.

Tell me about your parents, your family, Like what do you want to

do in life? And you just keep asking those

questions and then you start speaking.

So now it's like, man, I just, I just really want attention.

I really want people to like, tell me how awesome I was like,

yeah, man. But your identities in Christ,

you know, first like let's go to Ephesians and you can just start

walking them through it. And then the do part.

Hey, so like, what are we gonna do with this?

What's next? You know, like how can I help

you? Right?

So 4 quick things about discipleship.

So what I'm going to do, and I know I just kind of ran through

that, but I think if you just remember these, write them down

somewhere, put it in your Bible, you know, love no speak do, love

no speak do, love no speak do. And then as people come towards

you, you're going to know how to manage.

You're not just going to push them away and you're not going

to just run. This takes time.

This is not going to happen in 5 minutes.

Yes. I wanted you to feel like yeah,

yeah. You know, it could take, it

could take weeks, months, I wouldn't say years for somebody

to finally open up to you. Like you could stay in that no

peace for a while. It might take some people to

finally come through because they finally see that you care

about them and love them. I mean, I know that there's been

some some folks that I've invited to church for like 8

years before they came, but the Lord still works.

So it's like you just keep loving, you know, being that it

and then just trust the Lord and his guidance, get to know them,

ask questions, meet for coffee, hang out.

Another thing I'll mention is whenever you are discipling or

counseling, you want to make sure that's like same sex

couples with couples, men with men.

There is a very open even like it could kind of create intimacy

sometimes when you're sharing really personal things.

So it's it's better to be safe and just make sure that you keep

those distinctions and that's important.

That's why it's it's important for all of us to be trained in

this. As the church continues to grow

more and more people are going to come to you and and you're

going to connect with more people, you're going to grow

more people are going to lead more people.

The Lord's going to send specific people.

I think I know this morning, like we spent time praying for

Mia, like just the way that like everything got connected and we

prayed and I was like, Lord, like let Monica like plant a

seed in her life that she'll just not forget Monica.

And then and maybe like the word that she heard from Gabe and the

worship, you know, like just all these things.

But like, you know, God connects folks.

So and then last thing we'll end with.

So just remember, this takes time.

Don't get frustrated whenever they are like difficult folks.

Don't don't run lean into it. Just kind of go by the model.

You could always ask for some guidance or some advice from

some folks that have been in the game a little bit longer, have

experienced a little bit more. And then last thing, I'll say

just just five quick helpful tips because like I said, as the

church grows, more people are going to come to you.

So I think it's important for us and for you to create boundaries

for yourself, because if not, you're going to be pulled in so

many directions that you're going to become ineffective.

And you don't want to become ineffective for us guys or

ladies that have little kids and families, something I've, I've

been learning the last couple of years.

I mean, your, your family is your first church, like they're

the ones that we like. If your family's wrecked, but

the church is doing great, then I have failed as a pastor, you

know, like I, I don't need to be here no more.

So first thing is you got to set boundaries with some people.

You know, some people are going to want all your time, like

they're going to come to you. They're going to, you know, like

once they show up, it's going to be a good two hours, you know,

like, so you have to learn to set boundaries.

You let the person know ahead of time, say, hey, dude, I only got

one hour, so I'm just letting you know right now.

I got to get back to work at 1. So I got from 12 to one that we

could meet up or like men like I can't meet up, but if you want

to go work out, we could do that.

We could talk as we you know, So what you're doing is like you

just set an expectation of like, so whatever they need, you could

give it to them to the fullest. So you let them know ahead of

time and then you ask permission.

Sometimes you need to ask permission to people.

Hey, how honest can I be with you?

Because sometimes people come, but they're like, they're just,

if you're too honest and they're not ready for it is going to

hurt them and they're going to walk away wounded instead of

completed. So it's good to ask permission.

Like, can I be honest with you? Like can I share something

personally with you? Is it all right if I, you know,

if I, if I reach out to you as, As for permission, pray

beforehand. This is something I learned a

few years ago and actually do this now when I meet with

somebody or somebody comes to me and they're, and they're like,

Oh my gosh, can't believe this happened.

The first thing I do is like, all right, now, let's pray real

quick. And I pray and then we start

talking. I thought it was weird at first,

but then it works. A few months ago, we had a death

in our church and, and, and they called me.

I didn't know that it was Alex's son.

And he called, he's like, man, Ricky, like my son just got

shot. It was a Super Bowl all night

and he's like, the family's here, can you come?

And I was like, Alex, all right, can I just pray real quick?

And, and I remember on the phone with him, we just prayed.

And then I then I kept going. And what prayer does is that

you're, you're just asking the Lord to intervene because some

of these conversations could be very difficult.

You're not going to know their answers.

So you, you have to pray asking Lord for strength, for wisdom,

for endurance, for guidance. It's OK to pray.

Like it's not weird. We do that at restaurants too,

like with the waiter, I feel like a jolt like from the Holy

Spirit, you know, I'll look at the waiter and be like, hey,

we're going to pray for a food cap.

Pray for something like do you have something you want me to

pray for? Prayer is beforehand is a great

thing. And then remember your role is

not to be the fixer. Your role is to point people to

the one that could fix it, which is who's Jesus?

Like anything first aid. If somebody drowns, you do CPR

to keep the blood going till the paramedics come.

So that way they survive and they have limited brain damage.

Mental first aid, same thing, you help people, mental

challenges until you get to the psychiatrist or you want to make

sure that they're safe. And the same thing with us.

When somebody comes to you and they're bringing something to

you and you're trying to walk them in faith, your role is to

point them to Jesus. He's the only one that could do

anything about it. So take that weight off of your

shoulders and be like, damn, I can't believe that person.

They just don't learn. They're just going to keep on

running back. They're not, Listen, that's not

up to you. Like take, take, take that off.

You'll sleep better at night, I promise you.

Take that load off your shoulders and say, Lord, I'm

going to pray for so and so that you work on their heart, that

you work on their lives and be faithful to you with this

person's soul. And that's kind of like how we

do ministry. So if you could just keep these

five things in mind, what this is going to do, it's going to

help you avoid burnout. You know, we talked about that

last week, burnouts when you start doing things on your own

strength and it just wears you down.

So we got to take care of ourselves.

Self-care is important, but also spiritual care is important.

It's going to avoid burnout, it's going to avoid frustration.

And when people, when you understand people are going to

see a joy in your life and they're going to be like man,

like this person kind of knows what they're doing and it's

going to continue to grow and God's going to bless it, right?

So I'm going to pray for us and then thank you all for your

time. And if you have any questions or

anything, we stay around and chat.

So thank you all for being here. Let's pray.

So Jesus, we love you and we thank you God because you're so

faithful to us. And Lord, we know God that

ministries about people like you're, your story is about

redemption, about redempting the whole world back to you through

Christ. So Lord, help us to be faithful

in that that mission. And God help us not to be chased

away by people we don't understand or difficult folks.

But Lord help us, father, to love them, to get to know them

so that way we could speak truth into their lives and walk with

them and hold them accountable, Lord, so that way that they grow

into spiritual maturity. So Jesus, be with us, Lord, help

us to stay faithful to the call that you've given us.

And Lord, we pray that you continue to bless our church,

Father, and that we stay focused on what you've called us to.

So Lord, we love you and we thank you for every single

person in this room, Father, because you have placed them

here purposely. God, you're going to do

something great. And Lord, thank you for all that

you're doing. In your name.

We pray all these things. Jesus, Amen.

Amen. Good job guys.

Thank y'all for being here.