BTS: Why are we called His Hands?

Be serious.

It's time to start.

I can't.

Hello, and welcome to his hands behind the scenes.

It's harder than it looks.

What are we gonna do next?

Starting like that, that's exactly how it goes.

That's as far ahead as I thought.

Nathan grabbed the bull by the horns, and then the bull quickly, quickly tossed him off with its horns.

The bull didn't have a guitar.

I was like, what do we do?

Yeah.

I don't know what to do with my hands.

No, no, you start, you start, we start every time by saying welcome to his hands behind the scenes.

Behind the scenes.

I have I've been trying to think of other like alternative behind the scenes show names today.

No, and I couldn't like I couldn't think of any other clever.

I keep telling myself I'll think of one.

I can't think of any others.

And I've made that like, no, no, you you think of one, and then I don't even think about it until about five minutes before we start.

I'm like, oh, I was supposed to think of something, and then I just by that time the pressure's too high.

I don't like it.

Yeah, you choke.

It's like ah well, I wouldn't say I choked.

I I would say proverbial me.

I don't I don't I just I just I want to be uh that's a microaggression, I think.

Oh my god.

To say Is that is that the appropriate use of that term?

I don't know the appropriate use of it.

I don't actually know.

All right.

Getting triggered with his hands church.

Um a small portion of the people listening will know what that is.

And uh hopefully they don't try to go research it online because they'll fall into a hole that will just like you'll never get out of that hole.

It's a deep one.

It's a deep hole.

Um Welcome to His Hands Church behind the scenes.

Uh we're in a deep hole and we're gonna try to get out of it.

We uh we do this podcast uh every once in a while.

It's not it's not something that is a regularly scheduled thing, but uh when Nathan and I get some time, we like to talk about different aspects of our church, uh, really pull the curtain back so that uh you who are part of our church can learn why we do things the way we do them, or if you're someone that's just sort of figuring out whether or not this is your place, you might have questions.

And hopefully we'll be able to answer some of those in in a lot of depth.

Like the idea when we first started this, I was thinking, man, there's all these questions people always ask us.

And I can just tell them, oh, that's a great question.

We actually have a podcast episode that it and so that actually happened to me two weeks ago.

Yeah.

But I but what I totally did was I said, that's a great question.

We get that all the time.

And then I told them about the podcast, but then I went ahead and went on and explained everything that was on that's probably totally at the same time though, that's probably if they had the time and you had the time, that's probably good though.

I know, I don't I did not have the time, and I'm pretty sure they didn't either.

I it was just me.

Yeah, I just was like explain everything.

I was like, oh, I'm so this it's working.

Here's the thing.

And then I just completely and totally just started rambling and giving a lot of answer.

And then I had this thought was quite what if I didn't did we say that and I don't know.

So anyway, that's why we do this podcast.

I'm Justin McTear.

Uh this is Nathan Fowler.

Hello.

And uh yeah, here's what we're gonna talk about today.

Uh we had a couple things we have we have we have sort of like a backlog of stuff that we can talk about.

Yeah, a few different things that we get asked a lot.

And we'll we'll get to those.

But actually today I was talking with Ben Sykes, who's uh a big part of our church.

He's a awesome volunteer that's helped out for years and playing playing piano, playing keys and organ and stuff on Sundays.

Singing all the time.

Speaking on Sundays in the past, he was on our teaching team, he's written curriculum for us.

He's yeah, he's like uh he's part of a different podcast we're doing, uh kind of separately that we haven't rolled out yet.

But just all kinds of stuff.

He's he's a man of what would you say?

I'd say many talents.

That's much better.

Renaissance man.

And he's one of those guys that's smart enough that if you said Renaissance, whereas like you say Renaissance to me, I think Yeah, I generally know what the Renaissance was.

I think like Shakespeare and some art, he'd probably be like, Oh, the Renaissance was uh a movement that began in 1590.

I'm probably really he would know that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Almost walking encyclopedia level of intelligence.

And he's just a super cool dude.

So absolutely Ben Sykes, you know, you you need praise.

We're praising you, Ben.

Uh but the uh no, he actually said, hey, in passing, he's like, oh, by the way, next time you guys do that, and I was like, well, actually we're gonna do one today.

He said, What you ought to do is is talk about why we're called his hands.

Right.

And I hadn't even thought about that.

Exactly.

But that's a good one to do.

So great question.

Why his hands?

Before we jump into to really the the the nuts and bolts of his hands, so um I uh you you know that I like to play video games because I'm a mature adult.

And uh I'm not ashamed of it.

I you know, I it's it's it's I can tell you a s a super sad story about why that has to do with my older brother being in a car accident and not being able to walk for a year and playing video games with me.

And that's a true story, by the way.

And so video games were like I just have these memories, and so and that will make you accept me socially and go, well, that's why I'm an adult that plays video games.

No, yeah, now hold on.

I wouldn't so much say I play a lot, I don't play a lot of video games.

I'm just an enthusiast.

And so I have video games.

My son plays them more than me.

Yeah.

I tell myself I'll play and have fun, and I never get around to it.

But there was a period of my life before I had children and and uh I played a lot, and I just started working at the church, and me and Chris Fournier, who was on our team back in the day running the the facility, he had he had an Xbox, I had an Xbox, and so we played a lot of Xbox together um like on our days off.

And my my my Xbox name was his hand grenades, and I was super proud of that.

His hand grenades, his hand grenades, and I really I remember you telling me that and I wanted to find someone who could make their name his handguns, and then our names would and then like then there was this plan for this could like snowball, and you can have someone that was like his handlebars, and someone could be his handkerchief, and because you know handkerchief is actually spelled like handkerchief, and so it would just like it is like hang yeah, no, look it up.

I'm like 100%.

I trust you.

Well, I believe you.

I don't trust hold on.

Uh I'm pretty sure.

So I had this my my point is I had this plan, and uh to just gradually brand all sorts of things starting with his hand something.

Yeah, you know his hand fill in the blank.

His hand lotion, his hand uh sanitizer, his hand I don't know.

Yeah, hand hand handkerchief.

It is handkerchief.

Wow, I really thought you were wrong, and I was actually trying to pull back so as not to embarrass you.

But the D is the phonetically, no, I'm looking at it.

Phonetically, the D is not said, is is handkerchief.

Handkerchief.

Well, no.

Because the English language is jacked up.

Yeah, no, I just something.

So why are we Nathan?

Why you've been here longer than me.

So why are we called his hands?

By a couple months.

Yeah, but that counts, so you should know the answer to this question.

Oh gosh.

More than me.

When did you first hear about his hands?

What was your like Okay, when I first heard about his hands, it was a friend who is involved.

He was gonna be leading the the youth group.

You know, the group for I think they were at that time sixth grade through college age in one group.

And it was basically a home group.

They were meeting at his house.

You're talking about the guy that had my job before I had my job back in the year.

Yeah, Dave, yep.

Yep, he's a good guy.

And he was an awesome guy.

Uh was a good friend of mine and had been a mentor to me uh uh going through high school.

And uh he was involved with his hands getting started.

Um, and uh I distinctly rem remember him talking about this church that was gonna get started, and he was really excited.

He was telling me all these good things, and then he told me they were gonna call it his hands, and I I I I'm almost certain I made a weird face at him.

No, because I just like it.

You made you made a weird face based on an instantaneous reaction to something.

Yes, I'm a pretty crazy one.

Me, a strong, instant emotional reaction, yeah.

Uh but I just it's that stuck with me for a while.

Uh it's like it's still there's still times where I go, why are we called his hands?

Like maybe we should pick a normal name.

Um like I still feel feel weird saying that to people to this day.

But then at the same time, it's good because it's a reminder of why we're called his hands in the first place and and whatnot.

Um well I was mine's sort of similar where like you know, I uh I came here originally to work with with students.

Yeah, you were interviewing uh we had reached out to recruit you, right?

Yeah, actually, well, sort of what actually happened long, and I won't go into the details, but uh Doug Bennel, who was kind of like uh what would you even call called Doug?

He was like the operational guy.

Yeah, he yeah, he was kind of running all the internal team leadership management day-to-day operations.

Yeah, he'd bumped into a dude named Will Goodwin, who uh is a pastor actually in Canton and good friend of mine, and Will was kind of my mentor in high school.

I think he basically approached Will and said, Hey, we're looking for someone.

Are you interested?

Yeah.

And Will was like, Nope.

But I might know some people who are.

And then Will reached out to me.

I was up in Kansas City and he's so thanks, Will, for turning it down.

Yeah, thanks, Will.

Um yeah, and uh so anyway, so I called, and obviously a lot of stuff's happened since then, no longer working with youth and doing other things, but it's uh but but I I heard about it, and again, in fact, Will actually told me, now it's kind of a strange church.

Like that's what he said.

It was, yeah.

Especially for that time.

And I didn't know what he meant by that.

I'm like what do you mean by weird?

You mean like because there's weird can mean a lot of things in church world.

Like it can mean Yeah, it can mean anything.

Yeah, it can mean anything from like awkward from my particular perspective all the way up to they have snakes.

Yeah.

They're actually handling snakes.

Yeah.

That could fall under weird.

That's really weird.

Yeah.

There's less of that these days.

I almost I'm just gonna do it.

No, no, it was in the charismatic movie.

I almost went into a big snake thing, and I was like, that's a big dislike.

I'm actually gonna I'm proud of myself for avoiding.

So same thing, I like his hands, that's a strange name.

And uh and I I remember coming here and not really knowing why it was called his hands.

Right.

I really didn't.

Um back then we didn't really talk about that much, and uh and I just know I was really annoyed with the name because in the early days our URL is his handschurch.com.

But when you have to like tell people your email address over the phone, yeah, it's like his hands, his hands church, and they're like, his hands, his hands like hands, like H because you don't say that D.

Yeah.

Like H H I S H A N D S church.com.

And it was like all the time like, oh, why why couldn't it just be like something else?

Well, yeah, very first world problem.

But I get it.

I immediately understood where you're going with that.

And you're right that it's a weird name in the sense that most churches have either like a name that's rooted from a denomination.

Maybe it's from the denomination, something straight out of the Bible, like a location that was special in the Bible, like a mountain or like a super cool word in today's world, like a word like relevant or renaissance church.

Anything with cross or point in the name or both combined.

There's probably a cross point church you just cross stitch community church.

Actually, I have a good friend who's involved at a church called Cross Point in Douglasville, and they're awesome.

Someone's just spilling bottles everywhere behind us.

There's bottles flying everywhere.

Um So his hands, like it's it's very total, like there's kind of a general clump where church names, like, oh yeah, yeah, that makes sense as a church name, and then his hands doesn't make sense.

What if we were first united, his hands?

Which as a total aside.

Sounds like a soccer team almost.

As a total aside, I've never understood the whole first being in front of your church name.

Because you know, like in like some denominations, there's a first, and it's like Jesus said the first will be last.

And the last so if I were naming a church, I would be the last such and such church, last United Presbyter Baptist.

I think it's actually part of denoting the denomination, like first Baptist.

I know, that's fine.

I think they are too, but whoever the first person that made that decision, they should have called it last.

Because the first are gonna be last.

By naming it first, you just guaranteed you guys are last in heaven.

When there's a big buffet for dinner playbook, y'all.

When we all go to heaven and we're in that buffet line, uh the people that go to first churches are they're they're stuck.

And then Jesus would be like, I said it clear as day.

Don't don't try to be first.

I'm sure that's how it works.

It's gotta be.

So so what really I think makes it even more interesting about our our name and why is it his hands, um, is because you would think if our name was his hands, then like hands would be this symbol that would be uh, we'd have a logo with hands and we talk about.

But but when I first came, it was his hands church, and then the tree of life was this symbol of what our church was.

So Steve was always Steve, who was our founding pastor, was always talking about the tree of life, and we have this artist that goes to his hands named Marlin that was really inspired by the Tree of Life painting.

And so if you walk into our building, there's all these trees of life paintings that are like everywhere.

And we'll have to do a tree of life podcast another time to talk about why that's so important to our idea.

That'll be a good one.

But it would have made a lot of sense if you if I would have walked in here, you know, eight years ago when all the tree of life painting was already up because back 10 years earlier.

But even if you walked in here today, yeah, and I said, This is called Tree of Life Church, you'd go, Yeah, like that makes sense.

I see these Tree of Life Trinities on all the walls, yeah.

And uh and so I remember for me it was whenever I first transitioned, you and I were transitioning into the lead roles here.

Late 2013.

And so uh, you know, I w we were taking over for Steve and Susan, and we were in this, we were in this period of time where for about the first six months of that, I feel like most days were me and you just having these intense meetings where we were questioning everything about the church.

Yeah.

Like, why do we do it this way?

Right.

Let's make we were we were making a lot of changes.

We were um trying to make sure that we preserved what needed to be preserved.

Yeah, like when you making all the changes which you going through that kind of process, I think we were both trying to be really intentional, go, like, let's dig all the way down to the foundation and make sure we understand.

Like you don't change something without inspecting why is it.

Yeah, not arbitrary change, but but but we knew that things needed to before because things had kind of stagnated a little bit, and that that happens.

It was no one's fault, it's just it was it it was it was time to make some changes.

And some of those changes rolled out really smoothly.

And I'll never forget like the we had that meeting with all of our we had this Wednesday night groups in classes back then, and we were switching from that to home groups.

And do you remember that meeting where we had we brought all the home group, the the Wednesday night leaders together, told them we're making a big change, we're switching to home groups, and we explained it, and they were not excited about it at all.

No, and they had all these questions that we hadn't even thought through.

So they were like, what about this?

And we're like, great question.

I don't know.

It was not, and that was like our first uh their first taste of us being in charge, and that that was not their confidence was not.

I don't think that built confidence with them very much, but at the same time, all those people have stuck with and supported and been it ended so uh that has gone on to be such a good thing.

Yeah, no, it's home groups are awesome and and our teams are everyone's.

But sometimes trying to make those changes feels like uh So I remember as as we were going through that, as we were going through and this I probably to make sure this is not a tangent, like I remember in that period of time, we were we were looking at everything and saying, should this change?

And we added a service and we changed a lot of things in how our staff worked and how people were focused, all this kind of stuff, and we got to the name, and that actually would have been a really that would have been a really uh like it would have made sense at that time to change our name.

Right.

That would have been the moment if we were gonna go, hey, we we figured out a good name for the church that's better.

That would have been the same.

I mean, we were we had a change.

That would have been the time to change.

We had a change in leadership.

We were we were launching our our second service for the first time when it was time to do that.

It it would have made it would have been like, and we are we're we're becoming Tree of Life Church, and it would have made sense to everybody.

We would the logo is already done because Marlon's made all these paintings.

We just pick which painting of Marlon's do you want to be the logo?

Done.

And it would have, I think people would have actually received it really well.

Um but we we really believed and felt like no, no, no, the name his hands is that's something God gave to say.

Like let's really ask the why questions.

And um, because we were both, we I think we were both, uh at least I was kind of thinking, yeah, we we should pick a name that let's pick a name that doesn't seem weird the first time you hear it.

Um and that was kind of like the the first thought, but but you were the one I think that brought up, wait, I this is a name that that God spoke into this church.

Yeah, so and that's a big you know, even talking about our culture and going behind the scenes, pulling the curtain back.

So so there's always like I I had a meeting with uh with a friend of mine who's who's a pastor, really great guy.

Um and I really respect him.

And he's he's got this like logistical mind that I do not have.

You know that.

I'm not blessed with logistics.

I think more than you give yourself credit for.

Well, yeah, but I'm trying to appear humble.

So then then no.

Um no, you don't you don't want me to to plan details too much, not too much.

But anyway, um he asked me this question one time.

He's like, Man, so when would when would you sell your building?

Like, tell me the scenario that you guys would sell your building and move into a new place.

And I I I never we we had spent so long trying to fill up our building because we had such a big building to start with that uh selling it, like what?

Well, first we're gonna pay it off, then we're gonna sell it.

But uh, but uh but I it it hit me because I never thought that.

And I told him, I thought for about 30 seconds, which is actually pretty good for me to think.

Uh and I told him, well, God would have to tell us too.

And he kind of looked at me puzzled.

Um and and the thing is, he kind of comes from, he's a like, this is not a knock, he just comes from the the church planter world where everything is like we've done our demographic study, we've determined that this is the best location to put a church based on a project.

It is, it's a very like marketing analysis, data-driven way to start a church and all that.

And it it works in a lot of situations.

But his hands did not start that way.

Nope.

Uh, we did not, Steve and Susan did not choose this building because they did this data analysis of projected growth in the community and in homes within a radius and ease of travel and traffic and discernment that God told them, they believed, yeah, and I agree that God said that's where I want the church.

So they said this.

So I told him, I said, look, we're here, we're where we are, because God said to do it.

That's right.

So we won't move unless God says that's right to change.

Yeah.

Because I'm not gonna and the name's kind of the same thing.

Yep.

God said his hands.

That's right.

We can't change that unless uh God says to change it.

That's right.

And then that forced me to go, okay, well then why?

Yeah.

Why are we called his hands?

And some some things started to come to my mind.

Like I started honestly, I started thinking about the hands of Jesus.

And we have this statue in front of our building, yeah, and it's this awesome statue of Jesus.

And uh, it's one of those things where it's so funny because we are a non-religious church.

We're about as honestly, we're we're more non-religious in the sense that we're kind of a little bit more unfiltered, a little bit less uh we don't take ourselves that seriously.

And yet we have this statue in front of that.

Oh man, yeah.

Steve was making a joke when we were filming him for the 10-year anniversary, like as he was kind of giving us his retrospective, and he's like, here we are, we're building this non-religious church.

And what what what's more religious than a statue of Jesus?

Yeah.

And so it is kind of funny, but that statue is such a picture for people of who Jesus is.

Yeah.

Um, not just who is from our perspective, but who he actually is, because he's A, he's smiling.

He's smiling, not he's not angry or intense.

Yeah, his arms are open, yeah.

And he's basically saying, Come, I want you here.

And his hands are very prominent on that statue.

So I thought about the statue and the hands, and I started thinking about all these times in scripture where Jesus is placing his hands on someone, he's touching something.

And he doesn't have to like like the one that really pops to my mind is uh there's a leper that he heals.

And it was illegal to touch a leper.

Yeah, yeah.

Because that because they they understood to a certain degree, they didn't understand germs, but in their mind it was all about ritual unholiness.

And so lepers were ritually unclean.

If you touched a leper, you became ritually unclean.

And so you were not allowed to touch a leper by law.

Right.

To touch a leper meant you would be expelled from the community.

Yeah.

So here's this leper that comes to Jesus.

Eyes are on him, people are watching, and he's already like a marked man, right?

The Pharisees are looking for any reason they can to use have something against him.

And he has healed people just by saying a word.

He healed Lazarus from death by speaking.

He didn't have to go touch Lazarus.

Um, he healed a uh a sick guy from like from miles away.

Long distance.

Long distance.

He didn't have to touch that leper, but he did.

That's right.

And he risked a lot doing it.

So there's all these moments, the the nails on the cross.

There's just a lot of moments where the hands of Jesus show up.

And then that led me to this one thing, and I just want to say this and then let you talk about how you've seen this work out.

Here's what it here's what it really reminded me of.

Uh, and I think this is a big part of why God's God wants us to be his hands church.

Um the story of Jesus is the story of God rolling up his sleeves and jumping into our mess.

God did not decide, even though he could have, just like Jesus demonstrated with his miracles, God could have fixed things from afar.

He is powerful enough that he could have spoken the word and sin could have been dealt with, and you know, he he could restore everything without having to touch it himself.

And that's right.

I think we all know what it's like to like, especially if you have kids.

Like I remember the first time I had to change my my child's diaper.

The diaper explosion where it goes everywhere.

Yeah, because for the first few months trying to like carry them with the very tips of your fingers.

You're trying to rinse them up.

Exactly.

You're like, how can I for the first time your kid like vomits on you and you're trying to like you have to touch it.

It's always the first time, because pretty soon you're like happening again.

Yeah, you know, it's like whatever.

But there are there are things that are messy enough that yeah, your natural reaction is like, how can I address this without touching spray something from far away?

Right.

And God could have been like that with us, he could have looked at our mess that we created, it's our fault.

And he could have been like, I need to fix that, but like I don't want to touch it.

But no, he said, No, I'm I'm I'm gonna get my hands on this.

I'm going the story of Jesus is the story of God going hands on with our mess.

And I think something that God has has wired us to do as a church is to to a be okay with messes and messy people.

Yep.

Because we're messier than we we admit.

It's that's reality.

Yeah, we're all messier than we like to admit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But to say we are going to be hands-on with the mess of life with people.

Jesus went hands-on, we're going hands-on.

And so his hands is his hands because we're hands-on in our community.

We're hands-on in people's lives.

We don't go like, oh, you're having problems.

Um yeah, I want to here, here's a referral to like, yeah, how can we help?

Let's let's let's dive in.

And I think there's something to that.

Yeah.

You know?

So what what is that?

I mean, I say that.

That was a long kind of spiel for me, but that are basically really the way you spoke that is very much how I think of it.

Well thank you, Nathan.

Um I I think about it I was like, no, no, yeah, thank you.

And um what was what was your favorite part of what I just said?

And what if I was like a really self-gratifying person that was like, no, no, go go on, go on.

Like continue trying to like fish fishing really hard for the compliment.

So was it No.

Um there's so there is there is such a um a human tendency like to want to avoid messiness.

Like I'm a really tidy person, so like I like avoiding messes, and I feel messy when I really step back and reflect about my life.

I feel like I'm a mess, if I'm honest, uh most of the times.

There's a lot of good, but there's a lot of mess too.

And so there's an immense power and healing that comes from experiencing God not just as creator or as heavenly father, but in the way he personified himself when he was here as Jesus.

Which very much lines up with how David and prophets uh in the Old Testament wrote about him, but it's not what most of us, when you look throughout history, like that's not what the normal experience was for people who are kind of keeping God at arm's length.

But he doesn't want to be at arm's length, he wants to be intimate.

And um what you said about him healing the leper reminded me of.

I remember reading um some something online about I I'm interested in psychological news and stuff like that.

I just think that kind of sucks.

The psycho news network.

Just whatever stuff psycho.

But just stuff like I I I I I like reading different whatever else is out there, like new learning and research or whatever.

P and um there was um there it's now known that there is a significant difference in just going to a doctor and being treated and prescribed than going to a doctor who who cares and and and when the doctor touches you, there is something that in our body we we respond and we start to feel better just by the touch of someone who's taking time to empathize with us and care.

That it's it's not like there's magic happening in our body.

But but we start to feel better before we even get the medicine because the attention and empathy and hands out that the doctor would take that time.

And and they specifically mentioned, I remember reading, they specifically mentioned that there's something about the physical touch of that doctor touching you and taking time to empathize with you.

And um, and when I read that, I was like, oh, that that's what Jesus is like.

And it's like what you said about the leper, is is he's not just going, okay, here's your mess, here's what you need, here's what you need to take, here's what you need to change in your diet, like go home, you know, like it's he he does step in and care, and he's willing to be involved in in our day-to-day life and and touch us where we really need healing.

And it's not not just in the like, hey, here's what's broken and it's fixed, but it's it's the care, it's love.

It's love.

So um it's uh it's for me a reminder when I think about our name, it's a reminder of his love for us that he would do, like you said, to to give that attention to that leper who who has probably been craving the affection of a human touch for as long as he had been sick, and no one could touch him.

He hasn't experienced a hug, hasn't experienced a handshake.

How much we need that and to not get that for years, and to go to Jesus just hoping to get well and that he went as far as to put his hand on and give that affection, that that's that's really deep and special.

And so we're we're in that place where God wants to do that in us and for us.

It's also uh for me a reminder that that's our role.

Yep.

Because for me, just the way I'm wired, I'm a very black and white person.

I go real, like whatever I get into, I'm real extreme, 100% into this, 100% into that.

And so it's easy for my personality type when you do disc profiles or Myers Briggs type stuff, I'm like the very type A.

So I it's very easy for me, just in my own selfish thinking, to like write off anybody that's not totally on board with wherever I'm going.

Right.

And be like, fine, all right, if you're not with me, you're against me.

Um, and it's a reminder of how Jesus was so not that way.

That he was like, hey, no, no, no, no, don't just because things aren't going great for that person right now, you don't write them off because what Jesus would be doing is to go, I'm gonna go pick them up.

I'm gonna go carry them, I'm gonna go be with them and walk with them hands-on.

Yeah, and you know, you as you say that, it's a reminder to how like okay, so we talk about this a lot, and and it's it's on one hand, I always want to preface this because it's so important that we never ever be people that are like pointing it at church and saying you're doing it wrong, because that's just religion.

Yeah, there's no help blaming it's no good blaming anyone.

Well, you can and you can always ending things.

There's always something to look at, but we do have a very strong desire, and I would say I I believe it's a God-given desire that we want to we see some things in church culture that we want to see change.

We we do.

Yeah.

And and we have we've said this in previous you know podcasts that we we're kind of unique in that we have grown up in a time, you and I were in our early 30s, and we've grown up in a time when since the time we were born, I don't know if there's ever been a time in like church history where the world has changed as fast as it's changed.

You think about the the world, you know, my grandpa was born in 1917, he passed away a few years ago.

So when my grandpa was born, like the world still looked a lot like it had looked in like 1817.

Yeah, you know, but within the next 20 years, you have things like cars and and you know, airplanes would have been right around that same time.

And so by the time my grandfather died, we have the internet and mobile phones and like all this stuff.

And he was born in a time when horseback was still the primary method of travel.

But but that's how things had been for years, and so we just live in this this time when society changes very fast.

Society started changing really fast, you know, a long time ago.

But churches, church tends to be sometimes things that are rooted in tradition can be a little bit lacking.

So I I feel like church kind of held on really tight to the way things had been.

But then since we were young, church has probably changed as rapidly, it not in terms of beliefs, but in terms of like you walk into a church today that that's that's been started in the last 10 years, it feels like you're in a whole different world than a church that was started in the church.

It just does.

Yeah.

Um that's right.

So we've seen a lot of change, and most of it really, really good.

But one of the things that that we we talk a lot about being authenticity, how as the the as churches have become so much better on average at the production quality and the excellence factors and things like that, what tends to kind of go by the wayside is authenticity.

And what can happen with that is you become really focused, you is as a church, you become really focused on kind of putting on the show for people, but you're you're you you insulate yourself from the people as you do that, right?

And so, you know, we we could we could spend all of our time, all of our time in meetings, planning sessions, cultural things, doing things like this podcast, uh, and and then get up on our stage and and talk to people about life, but we're not actually living life with the people we're talking to because we have created this like this bubble that we live in.

It's insulated.

It's in we're insulated.

And I think that happens a lot in church.

The church leadership can become very insulated from life because we, you know, if you're listening to this, you probably don't work at a at a bit if you work, you probably don't work somewhere where 100% of the people you work with are passionate about Jesus.

Right.

But 100% of the people we work with are passionate about Jesus.

So I go, I I I come here eight hours a day.

I am surrounded by people who pray and are passionate about Jesus, and we might have our issues as a team, yeah, but everyone here is like amazing.

Then I go home to an amazing wife who's passionate about Jesus.

I have my kids, and so I if I wanted to, I could literally close myself off from real life.

Yeah.

And now I'm this person trying to help the people that that are part of our church, but I'm losing touch day by day with what life really feels like because I'm not hands-on, right?

You know, and it might become it might be really excellent because of the time we spend in those meetings, it might be really, really good.

People might go, wow, that was a really well put together, whatever.

But if if you don't go hands-on and stay hands-on with life, you you forget what the real problems actually are.

Yeah, and so one of the things I noticed about Jesus is that talking about being hands-on, yeah, he was interruptible.

Like he was on this mission, but the the most lowly, unimportant person in the eyes of society, it seems like if you read the Bible, had access to Jesus.

And anytime someone tried to bar that access and be like, hey, he's a little too busy, he's uh, do you have an appointment?

You know what I mean?

I'm sorry, he's not gonna, yeah, Jesus would be like, no, no, no.

So he'd stop everything and he would go hands on with that person's problems.

You see it with Zacchaeus, you see it with the the woman who had the bleeding issue, you see it with Bartimaeus, the blind guy, you see it like left and right in scripture.

And so church, and we say this a lot, church should look like Jesus.

That's right.

It just should.

I think you can Yeah, it's it's a no-brainer.

So if Jesus was so passionate about being interruptible, jumping headfirst into real life, into real pain.

Mm-hmm.

And sometimes it was messy, like sometimes it didn't like it's not like that just made everything go smooth all the time.

It ruffled a lot of feathers.

You know, when Jesus ate with Zacchaeus, the people in that town, they were not happy.

Yeah.

You know, it wasn't smooth, it was it was messy.

Yeah, it's not like Zacchaeus was already a reformed criminal.

No.

Like, no, he was still totally criminal.

And you know it's so funny.

Distorting everyone in his local community.

We don't really know.

We don't really know what happened in his community after he left because Zacchaeus was this guy, he was attacked, if you don't know the story, he's a tax collector, he ripped people off for a living.

That's what he did.

Yep.

Then he has dinner, then Jesus comes to his town.

Jesus calls Zacchaeus out.

Everyone's probably thinking, Oh, Zacchaeus is about to get like taken to task.

Right.

And Jesus says, Hey, you're the one tonight I'm eating dinner at your house.

And everyone's like, He's why would he go eat with a sinner?

Then we don't know what Jesus even said to him, but apparently it was powerful because Zacchaeus changes and he's like, I'm gonna pay back everything I've stolen and then some.

And then that's all we get.

What we don't you might assume that everyone in town was really happy because Zacchaeus was paying them back.

But then sometimes people aren't happy when the person that they used to look down on is now someone you should look up to.

That actually, like Yeah.

They I I bet I bet the aftermath was messy, right?

That's probably true.

Yeah.

But Jesus didn't avoid messes.

No, that's right.

And I think one of the things we have to be really careful about as our church continues to grow and mature in our quest to do things really well and to be excellent and knock it out of the park, a lot of the times, the more you're focused on that, the less tolerance you have for messes.

Right.

Because messes aren't excellent.

But if we're gonna be his hands, we need to be able to embrace messiness in ourselves, in people, in our own processes and how we're doing things, and just go, yeah, you know, we're not we're not trying to make this some pristine, perfect little thing.

We're messy, you're messy.

So every once in a while, there's gonna be some messes, and when those happen, we will work through them together.

Because that's what it means to be hands-on.

You know, his hands.

So does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's it's you know, there's one of the things about hands is you you can tell what kind of work people do if you look close at their hands.

So you're a guitar player, or do you have like some guitar players have one fingernail that's longer?

Are you that guy?

I have all the nails on this hand are long, and I've got if you look at the fingertips over there, I'm gonna touch your fingertips, hold on.

They're they're pretty gnarly.

Are they gnarly?

Oh yeah, like super callused.

Yeah.

Um I've got I've got brothers that are are carpenters and they're they're really good.

Um, but you get you get tough hands.

But so they don't feel like soft, they don't feel like you've been getting manicures, and they don't feel like you use lotion.

You have soft hands.

Um, it's like you're talking about like my video game controller calluses.

Can you tell everybody?

Yeah, no.

I'm just feeling my own fingertips, and they're they're now I feel less manly.

Well, that's silly.

I feel manly because hey I felt your your fingertips.

And that man points just went way down, and now I'm feeling my own fingertips and it just lowered.

I'm in a hole.

I'm in a I'm in a manhole.

Aaron Powell Well, but all that to say is like that's that's always historically been one of the signs of the upper class who don't get into hard work, which is which that's a stigma in itself.

But but the one condescending way to look at upper class people is like, oh well, their hands are so soft, you know.

They never had to get their hands a little dirty, you know.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

It can be used as an instant.

Absolutely, but they've never had to swing a shovel, you know.

Um But Jesus Is that a phrase?

Swing a shovel.

I'm probably mixing up metaphors.

I don't know.

But I'm just picturing swinging shovels.

I'm like, that's that sounds extremely dangerous to the people around you.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

It sounds like a mosh pit almost.

Um but Jesus career since Jesus swung a shovel a few times.

Oh my gosh.

Go ahead, get it all out.

He's a shovel swinger.

All right, I'm done.

What I was trying to say is that you can you can see what kind of work people do when you when you look at their hands sometimes.

And Jesus would have had carpenter's hands, right?

But I think it it's not that like that's a perfect metaphor, but I think there's something about when you look at the we we gotta pick what do we want?

Do we want soft, clean, manicured hands and go, look how well I take care of them.

And by the way, r religion or like even if it's not religious in its in its look, something that really values things being respectable, yeah, excellent.

Because in our minds, yeah, what religion tells us is the better it looks, the the nicer it looks.

That's the measure of success.

That's the measure that you're pleasing to the Lord.

And so sometimes it can be a really well-intended thing.

I'm trying to stay tight- you know, but it's it's the wrong direction.

Yeah.

Wrong direction altogether.

Um church shouldn't feel like a really nice hotel.

You know what I mean?

No, yeah.

Well, and what I mean is like the facility could be beautiful and it could be really well organized and really well run.

Okay, but like if I go to a really nice hotel, I'm gonna walk in and the lobby's gonna be beautiful and the food's gonna be great, and uh, you know, I can't afford the food at hotels.

I've learned that, so I just I don't eat the food.

But I bet the food's good.

Um and and and there's gonna be people really helpful, right?

Like the concierge and and uh and and the people working the desks and whatnot, they're gonna be really helpful.

They're gonna have the information I need, and I can go to them and say, hey, I'm looking for where I'm oh great, we'll direct you there, and I go to my room and it's ready for me, and it's beautiful.

But then, like, if I'm having a really bad day, I'm not gonna go to the hotel concierge and be like, hey, I'm at a breaking point.

Can you please help me?

They're gonna go, uh, so the swimming pool is you know what I mean?

Like, that's not what they're there for.

And sometimes it is.

And and because the purpose of a hotel is to give you a really nice experience or give you a really nice moment.

And that's not the purpose of church.

Like the purpose of it of church is not to give you a really great Sunday.

So sometimes you can walk into a uh a especially churches that are larger and whatnot, and and it's like, and we are one of those churches, that's okay.

You walk in, and we value these things.

It is, man, you walk in, is it clean?

Is it excellent?

Are there people at the info desk to help you, you know, know where to go if you're here for the first time?

And yeah, you go, here's here's where you drop your kids off and your kids area.

Wow, isn't this really nice?

And you go in and it's organized and well run and helpful and all that stuff's good, and your experience in this moment's good, but if you are in a really bad place, like you should never go to someone.

It shouldn't be hard to find someone that's like, all right, cool, because we're actually here to dive into your mess.

That's we're not here to give you this really great hour-long, well, hour and a half uh long experience.

We're we're here to meet you where you are, and you you you shouldn't have to make an appointment.

Right.

You if you didn't have to make an appointment to talk to Jesus, you shouldn't have to make an appointment just to be able to get five minutes, ten minutes with someone.

I'm not saying necessarily the person in charge, because some you know we only have so much time in a day, but uh it should be easier to get access to people to help you in your mess.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

I keep a I I realize that's like the fourth time I've gone.

Does that make sense?

That's gonna be my thing.

Does that make does that make sense?

So like buckets and squirrels, okay.

Pulley system in a tree.

Everything gets does that make sense.

You see what I did there?

I just started connecting random things.

Right.

And then I asked a question, does that make sense?

I I like no I was hoping that's all you're doing because I was like, if you're trying to go somewhere, this I I'm lost.

Yeah.

That's probably a sign that this is this is coming to an end.

Yeah.

Um I will say that's actually one of the things this reminds me as we close.

Um one of the things as we close, what the heck?

Like it's a I'm I'm going into my my Sunday morning speak.

If the worship team would would come, which is such a polite question, but it really means is like, hey, worship team, get out here.

Yeah.

Because it's not like you guys can't be like, nah, we're give us a few.

It's always like.

Um but anyway, the uh I remember when when we first transitioned to the roles we're in now three years ago, one of the first things that happened was we kicked off home groups.

And you were the one that really that championed that and launched it.

And that the way we launched it was you came out and you shared the story of you dealing with some pretty intense depression for a good bit of time.

Yeah.

And how you needed people around you to dive into your mess.

Yep.

And so I remember being really struck in that moment because it's not normal in church to see the leadership peel back layers and go, hey, I'm this, I'm exposing myself and like my some raw emotion.

Here's my mess.

Here's my weak points.

If you want to know, it's like if you want to know where the the weak spots are, you know, this is the Or it's done in that way, but then it's but it's because it's like a huge triumph has happened, and so it's like Right, but that But you you were sort of like, and I'm better, but I'm still in process.

Still in process.

And I think that was a really like you leading in that way, you sharing that such a great example again of like, hey, his hands aren't afraid of messes.

That's right.

We're his hands.

We're not afraid.

And to anyone listening to this, we're not afraid of your mess.

That's right.

That doesn't mean we won't like maybe challenge you to let's clean up.

Let's just stay there.

Let's let's get this mess taken care of, let's do some stuff about it.

But we're not we're not afraid of your mess.

We're we we we kind of want you to bring it.

Yeah.

Because he can he, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, he will deal with it.

He will fix it, he will get there.

And we'll roll up our sleeves al alongside him and help you out.

Absolutely.

His hands church.

So we're keeping that name.

His hand lotion.

I think there's a something there.

His hand, like there's a product line.

I'm serious.

I joked about that on Sunday, but I think we could like in winter it could be hit his hand warmers.

His hand warmers?

I didn't even thought about that.

His hand sanitizer, his hand lotion.

His hand puppets.

His hand puppets.

Oh my possibilities are endless.

His hand what else?

His hand.

Alright.

Sounds like a plan.

That's gonna do it for this episode of His Hands Behind the Scenes.

Yeah, thanks for listening.

We'll see you next time.

We will be able to do that.