Midweek Podcast - Getting Involved

Morning, Madison.

Good morning.

It is morning as we as we reboot.

As we convene.

As we convene.

First uh podcast of the year.

How was your Christmas?

Christmas was good.

Yeah.

Restful.

Restful.

And my son turned three over Christmas break.

Oh, that's right.

I was thinking you have a Christmas Christmas birthday.

Christmas birthday.

And uh it was like the first birthday where he was like into his birthday rather than just like there's things happening and I'm playing.

So it was really, really fun.

What is his birthday?

26th.

26th.

So do you guys combo it up?

I mean, you kind of have to, I guess.

We've done work, we kind of go both back and forth between doing like a New Year's birthday party.

Okay.

And then, you know, we give him like the gift from us on his actual birthday.

Okay.

Yeah.

My little brother was born on the 18th of December.

And so he always had kind of that weird, like.

And you can't really have a birthday party on the 18th of December.

Like everyone's sort of in Christmas movie.

Everyone's busy.

Yeah.

So he got a lot of combo gifts and stuff.

But that's cool.

Well, good.

Happy New Year.

And what are we going to talk about as our very first little topic of 2025?

We kind of went back and forth on it, but we are talking about basically what it means to be a contributor at a church.

Yeah, to be involved in our church.

Versus kind of like the customer mentality.

And we didn't want to be too cynical and be like, everyone's a customer.

No, not at all.

I thought I thought of something to help like frame this.

Okay.

There are always going to be more patients than there are doctors at a hospital.

Definitely.

Like if it was like, well, everyone come on and be doctors.

It would just end up being absolutely being crazy.

And the church is a similar sort of thing.

But there is something really special.

There's always going to be a large number of people that just need to be here to show up to receive 100%.

But what's cool about a church that's unlike a hospital is that you can be a sick doctor.

Exactly.

That's one of the unique things.

Exactly.

It's like I've been in the hospital for a while.

I think I could grab a glove and join the game.

You know, mix all the metaphors.

No, I I get it.

No, I absolutely.

So, yeah, not in a cynical like people need to get involved.

Sometimes churches can have this really like heavy-handed approach and pressure, and that's what I'm talking about.

For me, um, there's just a lot of joy that comes from being really involved in in your church.

And not just here, I've been involved in multiple churches.

And so I kind of know your story of going from just being here a lot to being involved because I sort of You forced my hand.

So I I before I tell you my version of you getting involved, okay.

I'd like to hear yours.

Okay, my version from how you remember it.

My version of me getting involved was I came to youth group and came a ton.

Yeah, you were a fixture.

Yeah, probably there every every Wednesday.

You I mean, you and uh and and Alex who's sitting over on that couch, like there were certain students.

Bryden.

Bryden, yeah, a lot of those guys.

Certain students that we as a as a student team would be like, hey, we don't lose these.

Sure.

Like we will make sure that like when you transitioned from eighth to ninth grade, we had meetings about like, hey, we gotta make sure these guys because we saw you guys as leaders and yeah, and my family had been coming to the church, and at the time there was nothing for students on Sunday mornings.

I think at a certain point there was, you know, like a small group or a couple guys after church meeting.

But um, so me and my buddies that came here, we would just sit in the service on Sunday and probably be too annoying to the people around us.

So sorry if you tolerated draw things and like well, we would draw things during your messages on Wednesday nights.

Me and Alex actually have like a game that like we would you would leave prayer request cards.

I did.

And I saw many doodles on the but we would just draw one line and then pass it, and then you'd add to the drawing and then pass it and you'd pass it back and forth, and you probably not hear a single thing you said.

100% understand.

It's it was about being me.

It was about the loving environment and the the osmosis, the encouragement, the encouragement that came with it.

No, that's all good.

And so I just was there for a long time, and then I think you probably started asking me to help do the really annoying tasks.

Like back in the day, I remember there was a Wednesday night youth group and a Thursday night youth group, and you had to flip the room between those.

Yes.

And so after they had very different sizes and structures.

One of them was like in rows of chairs, and one of them was at tables.

Yeah, basically the middle school was rows because they couldn't handle tables.

They would just like no focus.

Right.

And then uh the high school, we wanted more like relational stuff, so we flipped it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so you would ask us or a few guys to like stick around.

I think you had like a team that was working on that, but you'd be like, and grab those guys to move chairs.

Yep.

And so that's kind of like my first like, oh, I'm actually helping make the high school thing happen or whatever, whatever it might be.

And then that probably snowballed into like Madison's really good at moving chairs.

Actually, it's like once you've trained someone on how to do the chairs, they're like an expert.

They're all chair experts.

That's because then you don't realize it's if it's not perfectly set up, it's gonna fall over, not stack well.

They should ask that on church applications.

How many chairs have you stacked?

Just if you haven't stacked chairs, you'll have to go.

Zero to one thousand, one thousand to five thousand.

You just come in for a church interview and it's just random chairs, you're like, stack them.

They're like after the segment, you're like, sorry, okay, I'm gonna work these.

If we ever get a new like new hire, can we please do a chair?

It's like a set of challenges.

Okay, so you're kind of like funny in my mind, you're sort of like jumping from when you were like a middle school kid helping set up the room to then sort of early college when we got you in here doing all kinds of manual labor.

And with contained within that is the less like um so that's like the workhorse contribution that I did for the church.

I know that I was also used um or used sounds terrible.

I mean manipulated, utilized.

How about that?

Utilized, utilized as a better version of the channel.

I was I was bought in and I love the Lord, and you know, everyone's got their stuff, but like I was able to contribute.

And so I know that as a student you had me involved, like, hey, someone's here for the first time, Madison, show them around.

I do that all the time with students where it's like, yeah, yeah, hey, this person doesn't know anybody.

I'm gonna stick you with the student.

Will you stick with them for the or on road trips?

I'd put certain kids in your vehicle or in your room and be like, hey, well, you kind of look out for the exactly.

You know, meanwhile, I'd pellet you with ping pong balls in between.

That's right.

And so I know that it wasn't like necessarily like I had this official title or you were even using me in a consistent way, where it's like every week you're gonna show up at this time and do this thing.

I knew that I was involved regardless of you know what I happened to be doing that.

There was also this period where you and several other of the high school students that I had a close relationship with, I was in charge back in the day when I was doing youth and kids.

You kids, I had Sunday mornings, then the middle school and high school I had like Wednesday nights, Thursday nights.

Um so I started really need help on Sunday mornings in my elementary school.

Yep.

And just needed like warm bodies because we had so back then that room was first through fifth grade, and now that how many like different environments would that?

I guess well, so it was first through fifth grade.

But all in one room, but there was no partitions on the side.

It was a whole different world.

It was a giant, it was just a giant room.

A giant room filled with with kids.

And now we have the the tree house, which fourth and fifth graders have their own thing.

Yeah, and it was basically like in the back of the room, there's a big snack bowl on the other side of the room, a bunch of foursquare.

Yes, and this side of the room was chaos.

And so I really needed help.

And so I started like scheduling you and a bunch of other high school students that I trusted to come in and like once a month, right?

I had you guys on a rotation of being like my helpers in the kids area, which in some ways was sort of nerve-wracking for me because like you know, like Paul wrote, You need to I I have learned to be all things to all people.

So, like, like my energy and vibe with the elementary school on a Sunday was sort of goofball, cheesy.

Not exactly what's gonna earn you a lot of cred with uh your high school students, yeah.

You know, because I'm doing like you're doing motions.

I'm doing motions to songs and stuff.

Um, but I really need help.

And what's funny about that is it was like my my first thought was I had these volunteers, but they they were all kind of overwhelmed with the kids.

So I'm like, well, I'll pair my adults with a high school student.

And you know, that'll help them pretty quickly.

It became that the high school students were way better at that than the adult volunteers.

So, like a uh after six months, I kind of had it be more like you guys are are leading these kids, and then these adults are kind of helping you out.

Um but yeah, you got really involved there.

So and would you say that okay, so that's kind of your slow moving some chairs around, helping out with kids, and then being asked to help out with all kinds of stuff when you got to college and then you started working here.

Um, overall, was the the more you got involved, was it frustrating, fun, was it?

How would you do it what would you describe it as?

I was probably there's a there's like an old school youth pastor, I don't know, I can't remember his name, but he's like there's there's is it Wigglesworth?

I don't know.

Is that Sam Wise Wigglesworth?

Sam Wise Wigglesworth.

He's the American pioneer of youth manager.

Yeah, he's got like the big beard.

Yeah, him.

Uh it's not a real person.

No, it's not.

But um, he says, like, you've got your throw-up kids, and this is the kids that would show up to anything.

Like, if you were like, we're gonna go to the church and clean up a bunch of throw-up on the floor.

They're like, There's like one kid that still shows up.

That was like that was probably me.

Like I loved being, I loved being here.

Yeah, and so uh moving chairs, helping with students or kids, helping with anything.

Like it was I'm just remembering all these random stuff, like Alex, who is uh sitting there.

Do you remember the time, Alex, that we wrapped all of the pads of the basketball goals in red duct tape because we couldn't afford new pads, they were really junky.

And so I was like, Can you guys come and we're just gonna wrap all this stuff?

I remember them being covered with red for a long time.

Yeah, and then that that didn't last very long.

They sort of like it got but it's all the random stuff we used to do.

I'm sorry.

And so I enjoyed I enjoyed being here and it gave me a different perspective on the church.

Yeah.

Again, it's like the thing that I liked so much, now I got to be part of, so I helped make it happen, and I liked that I got to help make it happen.

Well, and back then, what's crazy is we only had two people on staff, and so a lot of my I was so busy that even with you and some other guys, Matt Simmons, a lot of times it'd be like I wanted to hang out with y'all to invest in you and just to get to know you better.

But the only way I could really do that is if you came and helped me with something.

So I would have Matt, hey man, can you help me put these picnic tables together and we'll hang out while we do it?

And I just did a lot of combo stuff like that.

Yeah, for me, it's funny.

Um, I didn't really get involved involved in church.

When I was growing up as a kid, there really wasn't much for the youth to help with.

And I went to much smaller churches.

So there just wasn't as Yeah, if there's four teenagers, there's not like a big youth group that you're and we had we had more teenagers than that, but yeah, it just wasn't it wasn't like built, it wasn't designed like that.

So I didn't have a lot to sink my teeth into volunteer-wise as a as a student.

But I know when I got to college, I had a moment, I've shared this from the stage before.

It's kind of one of those God speaks to you moments, and you hear something so clear.

We were at a church in Kansas City, Missouri, which by the way, got fourth largest single-day snowfall yesterday in its history.

And I used to live there, and I was like, anytime I feel bad about the weather here, I look up Kansas City and Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and I feel much better.

So there's it's it's four inches of ice in Wisconsin.

They got 11 inches of snow in a single day, which actually because it was snow, it's not just how much you get, it's how quickly you get it.

Right, right.

That's a lot.

So doing good.

But anyway, up in Kansas City, I was in college, and Meg and I started going to this church, and we really liked it.

Um, it was it was different than what we'd grown up with, but we we were intrigued, and we started coming, we met the pastor, um smaller than his hands, but bigger than the churches that I had grown up in for the most part.

And then I don't know, a couple of months, two, three months in, you know, we started just it just wasn't as awesome.

Because that's how life is.

Like you go to something, you go to an amazing restaurant for the first time, and you're like, this place is incredible, and you tell all your friends about it, and you all go and you order the same thing.

But then like three months later, you're like, I I kind of stopped going there because you know, that's how we are.

Um and it kind of applies to church too.

We'll talk about that later.

But we were in that mode, and so we were starting to come once every other week, and and then one day we walked out and I looked at Megan and I said out loud, I just don't think I'm getting anything out of this anymore.

And I heard very clearly in my mind when I said that, like, what are you putting into it?

And I I was really putting nothing in.

Sure.

I was just showing up, and so I really that hit me hard, and and so literally the next week we signed up to to volunteer and we started helping out uh with middle school kids.

And then I became an intern at the church, and you know, two years later I was leading the entire middle school program at the church, and it was accounting for a significant portion of my weekly hours of life, but I loved it and had a lot of great experiences, and it all started from that what are you putting into it?

And so, all that to say, my most joyful memories of church are not moments where I was was there and uh heard a message that you know there's those moments for sure.

I I have several that I could say that was really meaningful, but most of my most joyful memories and experiences have been just doing being actively involved in the church, you know what I mean?

Yeah, and we we look for opportunities to make stuff like that happen.

And it's funny, like we ask the juniors and seniors that are involved on Wednesday nights, we ask them to get here early on Sunday mornings, just like you guys you kind of hang out and have like a little just like a powwow.

We just like pray for each other and catch up on the week.

And sometimes, you know, volunteering is part of that, and sometimes it's not.

But um we had our our break over Christmas, and then we had you know Sunday, uh Sunday morning, and we were like, I wonder who's gonna who's gonna show up early on Sunday morning.

You know, we asked them to show up and now you got a little extra time, yeah.

And and also we don't push it.

We're not like show up early, show up early, be here.

It's really important.

It's more just like we're providing this space to meet and we're gonna see who shows up.

And we had a bunch of uh students show up early on Sunday morning for prayer and just to be there.

And I think it is like you underestimate how much it is like that step of being involved or getting a little bit more ownership.

It's not this pressure-filled thing that it's like I'm I'm gonna have so much responsibility and I my life feels already crazy, anyways.

It's like, oh, actually, this makes church um that much more enjoyable.

Or I don't know.

For me, it was just like a this big like step of like, oh, I'm I'm bought into this thing, I've invested in this thing um because of they've invested so much in me.

So it's just kind of like a a cool thing to think about, even Sunday morning, asking teenagers to show up early to church and they still can make it happen.

Um we had a meeting after church on Sunday uh with the leaders of generations, our married and engaged thing.

We're gonna do a very different approach to that this year.

And uh, you know, and I told them I'm like finding this balance with them of like like with that group particularly, I feel like I've underutilized those people, but it was in the spirit of not wanting to burn them out.

Right.

So sometimes, you know, some people might have like even seen the title of this, whatever the title ends up being, I don't know, or the topic, and are like, no, because they've been burned out in churches before.

And and I say this a lot at our newcomer gatherings.

For a lot of people, maybe you're coming from a church where you you did get burned out, you did get you were the person that was dependent upon, and and and you were sort of like, I know people in churches that are like, I'm if I'm not there, no one's there to right, you know, and then over time that becomes a burden and it's tiring.

Yeah.

And then you get burned out and you go to a church like his hands, and we're like, hey, just be here.

Like Sheila, such a huge part of our church, she was here for an entire year before she ever signed up for anything because she needed that year, and we're totally cool with that.

Um, but on the flip side, it's just kind of like the way life works.

Most of the things you enjoy the most are things you're deeply invested in.

That's just the truth.

You know, like your hobbies, it's like you've spent money on it, you've carved out time for it.

I need this to go.

You've had a conversation, you've had a conversation with your family about it.

You know, where it's like you arrange your schedule around it.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, I mean, it's just it's like a cheesy analogy would be like a sports analogy.

Um, you know, who's most excited about a win?

Is it the fans in the stands who are observers, or is it the players on the court who are participants, right?

It's like the more the higher degree of participation, up, I think, until that that unhealthy burnout, uh, which can happen.

And I think the burnout too, I was talking with somebody who was like, Yeah, I'm just like, if I don't show up or if I don't do this thing, like what's gonna happen?

I'm like, was that here?

Yeah, here recently.

I was like, we'll be fine.

Like, I've never we've you've had this conversation with me too.

It's like I've never asked you to do that.

You just do it on your own because it's helpful.

And with that, you may know who you're talking about.

You've kind of hold held on to that burden.

So let that go.

Like, just be here.

You know, it's like people need that reminder of just be here, especially when they're super highly active and highly involved.

It's like they want to do everything.

Exactly.

And to an unhealthy degree, or maybe it's not even burnout, it's just like you've become dependent on this.

Right.

And you need to just go to church.

Exactly.

Um, and I think as a church, we work really hard on not burning things out.

That's even with our single service approach.

Part of the single service approach is we don't need as many volunteers.

Right.

And so we can space out the volunteering in a way that is a good rhythm without it being, you know, and obviously sometimes you're just tired.

But I say all that to say um it's funny, we're doing this not because we have we don't have giant holes on our teams that need filled.

I'm sure there are some, but all the kids' teams are like cringing now, like, yes, please.

Yes, yeah, I probably are.

Um, but I don't know, it's it's just there's this opportunity.

I I believe that the the church, a local church, especially I would say a healthy local local church, provides the average person with a unique opportunity to contribute the the the things that God has gifted them with, their talents, their just their personality.

It gives you a chance to to use that in a way that's really meaningful.

And I think a lot of people don't feel uh utilized.

Right.

And you use the word used earlier.

You can be like used.

Yeah, and that's used up is used up, yeah.

But utilized is is different, where you're given opportunities to to do things that you actually enjoy and you feel like it has an impact.

A lot of people have jobs where they're never really fully utilized, they're not, their talents aren't recognized.

And I don't know, um obviously in church, there's certain roles we we need someone to we really need people to white watch kids and invest in kids.

But even in those roles, you can do it in unique ways where you you're an encourager to certain kids, you're a mentor to certain kids, you're like you make it fun, and there's a lot of kids who have hard lives day in and day out, and they need to come here on a Sunday morning and have fun.

I'm just thinking of kids as a as a whole.

Um, or even like our worship team.

I mean, it's like everything from the people playing drums to singing to like running cameras, you know.

On a typical Sunday, there's almost a thousand people watching our service from home.

And you're part of that.

You're doing something that's contributing to I don't know, I I felt like church provides a unique place, a unique opportunity for people to invest themselves into something that's bigger than them and is really meaningful.

And it's hard to find that sometimes in the world.

Yeah, it's an opportunity that isn't offered by anywhere else.

And I think that's why it's like not to be too cynical, but the the customer mentality, that metaphor starts to make sense.

Because if you walk into a target, there's never gonna be a day where a target employee is like, hey, could you help me move this end cap?

Never.

Like you could see them struggling and you could offer to help me like no insurance won't allow us to let you help.

And so uh great example.

Uh I'm so glad you mentioned that.

So I had uh uh was it Publix?

Okay.

And um and I guess maybe if anyone's watching this that lives not is are there Publix's everywhere?

Uh it's a grocery store.

There's like Ralph's and I was at the grocery store.

And are you a self-checkout or a have people checkout person?

I mostly have a person checkout person.

I kind of tend to go that way too.

Um so I go to the the the person and this was like right after Christmas and there was a fairly good line behind me.

And so the the girl, she was like 22, 23, and she's scanning stuff, but she was kind of talkative, like you could tell she's a she's definitely an extrovert.

And so I just say, How was your Christmas?

Right?

That was the question.

She's checking, he's like, How are you?

How was your Christmas?

And she goes, It was hard.

This was the first Christmas without my mom.

I really miss her.

And it was like, Oh, I'm so sorry.

Because like I have to, there's people in line behind.

It's not a can I here, you go take a break, I'll check the rest of the Right.

I mean, I actually had a moment I was like, hey, I'm so sorry about that.

I'll pray for you.

And I told her that like it was a meaningful moment, but it could also like, well, you can't.

Yeah, it's just not the it's not the context.

And at church, everyone has that opportunity to opt into.

Obviously, it's like be here, heal up if you need healing, grow if you need growing.

Um, but you have that opportunity to get involved.

And on the flip side for the the church staff, it's our responsibility to respond to that involvement or to respond to the gifts of the people and to help you get placed in a in a place that makes sense and help uh understand like, yeah, what is the rhythm that makes sense for you and and all of that too.

Yeah, or even in some church in some work environments, you might want to, I don't know, depending on the context, you might really want to.

Take a coworker or someone else that you work with and say, Hey, I I've just I've been praying for you and I want to share with you.

And maybe in certain cultures that's not right allowed, even like HR wise.

I don't know.

Yes.

I've got a buddy who works at a big tech company and he's got um he's got like Christian tattoos and stuff.

Yeah.

And he's like, I love having them just because it lets me they have to ask me about it, and it gives me an opportunity to share about my faith and stuff because it's not an environment that's super friendly to them.

I'd love to pray for you.

Yeah, can I pray for you?

Jesus is king.

No.

Yeah.

No, but but here you can do that.

I mean, you can I remember um when I was this like hit me really hard when I was first working with little kids because that wasn't I came here to work with teens, and then they gave me the younger kids too.

And there was this one time with like second, third graders, I had a little boy, and we were all sharing prayer requests.

And you know, prayer requests of like the average third graders walruses or their dead pets.

Yes.

Like, why would we get a lot of dead pet prayer requests?

Can you pray for my dead pet?

Also, my grandma died.

Well, there'd be like my my pet dog.

I remember one time I asked a girl, Oh, what's going on?

Well, she's dead.

I was like, oh, well, okay.

Um, but then this one little kid was like, Pray that my dad gets out of jail.

And it like it really broke my heart.

And this kid was a pretty rough kid, and he was kind of a behavior problem.

Right.

But all of a sudden you go, Oh.

And so not a ton, but a few times I ended up having his mom uh let him hang out after church with a few other kids and just played.

You know, like just hey, would he want to hang out after church for a little while and play on the playground with some other kids?

And we kind of organized that.

And he would just like light up.

You know what I mean?

And that's an opportunity here that no one's gonna bat an eye.

Right.

If you're I mean, obviously I was a background-checked adult, yeah, right.

Leadership structure.

I wasn't like, you know, but my point is in the normal world, you for a lot of reasons, sometimes it just feels awkward, other times you can't.

But here you can always have meaningful conversations with someone in the midst of whatever you're doing.

Yeah, and I think that's where probably in this conversation we focused a lot on volunteering.

I think there's other ways to be part of the church that are very vital, that if the church doesn't have this, then it's impossible to kind of run in a healthy way.

And that's like people who are, you know, committed to showing up week in and week out to Bible studies and like engaging in conversation and Bible studies.

Yeah, you bring yourself and all that your wisdom and your experiences and your encouragement.

Yeah, 100%.

And like the people that are like willing to invest in relationship, there's kind of like the um I I don't want to call anyone out specifically.

There's like the in the youth group, we have couches.

Okay.

I have couches intentionally and I have them placed intentionally because I know for a lot of students, they need to be like the fly on the wall before they're engaged in the in the situation or whatever.

And that step from going from I sit in the back farthest darkest corner to actually I'm willing to to speak and share myself and I'm uh listen to other people and all of that.

That's like a huge step for a lot of a lot of teenagers with social anxiety and all that.

Yeah, definitely.

And so, like that, even that step is like a way to get involved in your church, is like actually like asking the name of your neighbor at your chair will go such a long way over the course of the yeah.

That's why you hear video games in there for years because I'm like boys will not typically walk up to a new boy and be like, hi, I'm so-and-so, what's your name?

Yeah, but they will like grab a controller.

Oh, the the teenagers hate it.

I do once a month we do name tags and I make them all stand up, and I was like, 100% 100% participation, buddy up.

And sometimes they can't find a buddy and they end up finding a buddy, and then I make them you know ask a question or whatever.

Um, and it's cringy for them, but what I've noticed is like things like worship on those days are much more highly engaged in because I think the ice has been broken.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And like the tension in the room of like, are they weird?

Oh well, I'm glad you mentioned that because even like okay, worship.

Right.

So sometimes there's times where like because that's a way to be involved in church too, is to like actively participate in worship.

Not that if you're sitting contemplating, and just that's great.

Um but the the more comfortable you are with the people around you, the more comfortable you are to even do that.

A lot of the barriers that we have to all kinds of spiritual experiences are the discomfort of not knowing the people around you.

And so just being involved, I again, whether it's volunteering or showing up to other things, the more involved you are, the more familiar you become with other people, to other people, and the walls start to go down.

And that even allows really spiritual experiences to kind of happen in a different way.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

What's the verse that's like uh this?

I don't know that one.

Uh it's like uh teaching and admonishing each other by singing spiritual songs and hymns.

It's like it's not to say teaching and admonishing other.

I think so.

I've never connected those two.

Maybe I'm either way here.

You might know I'm gonna this isn't gonna be a matter of.

I mean, no, you probably speech uh I know the singing spiritual songs.

That's Paul that's the same verse.

There we go.

Um Colossians 3 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

So I added the by.

Well, yeah, but you're doing that together.

Yeah, a collective experience kind of thing.

Yeah.

How much easier is it to worship when you see someone like you worshiping next to you?

And that's where it's like to see dads with their, you know, I don't know, a dad standing with his family or whatever, just worshiping.

Yeah.

Um, it's always super encouraging.

I agree.

I agree.

So worshiping, yeah, worshiping and and being showing up.

Yeah.

I mean, serving, volunteering, yeah, that that's um like I said, we always need volunteers.

However, we have created sort of an intentional way of doing things that is as simplified as possible.

So we're not we're we're rarely as a church like dying for volunteers.

I say that to say certain kids probably.

Um but but my thing is I just know this for me.

When I moved from being an observer to a or a customer to a contributor, it really changed my life.

And it it it didn't take it wasn't like I lost something, I gained more than I I mean, I guess I lost some time because I was Yeah, money.

I think that's another way to like absolutely serving take that step.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I mean, yeah, clearly that's trusting God with your we keep that very private.

We don't like have a list of like here's who gave last week.

You know what I mean?

Um so that's more of a personal there might be people that don't that that do genuinely, when they take stock of their life, do not have the time to do that.

Oh I actually know a few people here who, because of their work life and their travel schedule, right, but they're super committed to financially supporting the church.

And that's a hundred percent.

I'm I'm just saying when your mind shift happens, when that mind shift happens from this, I'm here to receive to I'm here to contribute, the funny thing is you don't stop receiving.

Right.

It's not like I used to come and receive, and now I just and you maybe if you find yourself in a position like that at a church, you gotta get out of that.

If you can't do both at the same time, that's that's something's wrong.

Um, I just know for me, I I gained so much.

I gained closeness with the pastor, and it was a smaller church when I was in college, um, with other couples and individuals, and I it was like it went from being a thing that I was one in the crowd to like I was one of the family.

It was just really a really good experience.

So I guess I say part of why we're just talking about that is it's we're filming this early in the year.

And man, I I would encourage anyone who's looking for a more meaningful experience in their year to go, well, get get involved in your church.

Like find a place where you fit.

And that might mean serving on a team.

That's a great way to do it.

It also might mean coming to being a regular, uh regularly attending, not just Sunday mornings, because Sunday morning's such a big crowd that's such a function.

Well, that's why we have our come on Wednesday nights.

Like even our youth stuff, we do that a little bit.

And this is the thing that I I think is worth saying.

So our youth Sunday mornings are pretty big, but then we have like our Wednesday nights to opt in, it's Bible study.

But there still is kind of a um an unhealthy way you could approach a Bible study, is like if you're grandstanding or trying to bring um maybe impertinent, like we I deal with middle schoolers a lot or middle schooler and high school.

And so it's like, oh, this was prayer time, not like me vent about my week time.

And sometimes you need to vent, and we've got you know areas where that can happen.

But um, just showing up and being willing to listen and being willing to ask questions and grow, yeah, like alongside everybody and share yourself with them, I think that's a huge, a huge way to do it.

It is a huge thing.

And it will bless you.

And so the flip side of that is if you stay in the, and we'll wrap up with this, if you stay in the customer mindset, um, which we're sort of trained to do as Americans.

I mean, that's the church is an interesting experience.

I sometimes it's there there's cynicism, and then there's just being kind of realistic.

Um the average person's going to to move to different churches multiple times in their life, even if they stay in the same area.

Right.

Not everybody will, but that's just how we are as people.

We do that with restaurants, we do that with I mean, with all kinds of things.

We have a we are trained as Americans to sort of be somewhat transient.

You know, and I wish it wasn't like that.

And so that's why I say not being cynical.

Like sometimes it's easy as a church, you know, we we're on staff, if people leave your church and go somewhere else, you're like, right, what do we do wrong?

What and and it's like, maybe nothing, and maybe they just needed a change, and we're used to that.

Um but on the flip side of that, it's like, man, if if you can have something really meaningful that is an anchor in your life, like like this church has been that for me and you for individually, it's been an anchor in your life for most of your life, it's been an anchor in my life for the last 20 years.

And I've had a lot of stuff happen, a lot of change, a lot of turmoil, but this place has been a constant and a source of comfort and encouragement and challenge and all kinds of things.

It's been great.

And the more involved I am with it, even as the pastor, I have the ability to not be that involved.

Right.

That's the funny thing.

Is I can have Sundays if I wanted to, where I just kind of show up, give the message, get out of here, and I don't hang out, I don't linger, and I don't talk, and I don't come to the Bible studies.

But I find even for me, um, like the more involved and invested I am, the less of a consumer I am, and the more of a contributor I am, the better.

Yeah, and then it becomes it's it's weird because it becomes less of a chore.

Because what you think of like, oh, I have to go to the store, that's a chore.

And then there's some times where it's like you really look forward to it.

And I think being involved and having like um equity or whatever the the phrase might be, like having a stake in the situation means that you look forward to showing up because you want to follow up about somebody who asked for prayer last week, or you want to see uh which students showed up from last week.

Everybody wants to be like noticed, known, and loved.

There you go.

You know, and that's one of the the more involved you are, the people will know your name.

Yeah, they'll notice when you're there, when you're not there, and you feel the love.

And so, yeah.

So I just would encourage anyone um get get involved in your church and serve, be there for extra things, you know, to whatever degree it makes sense.

And also recognize that's the way God's designed it.

I mean, we all sometimes we all want to be one-stop shops for all spiritual experiences, but usually, I mean, most of the most uh incredible lessons I've learned, I some of them I've read, but most of the time if someone said something in the context of church, where I'm like, oh, that's amazing.

And I've held on to that.

Uh and God just wants us to be a body to where we all kind of combine together and our talents come together to make something special.

We're not meant to be these little isolated, self-contained whatever.

So um, yeah, so so get involved and uh whether it's here at his hands or whatever church you're at, uh find where you fit and then stay in it.

Sounds good.

Bye, everybody.