Sermon
GIFTED // Equipping Gifts (Pastors & Teachers) // Pastor Richie Fike
Publisher transcript
Transcript
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Welcome to the Movement Church Podcast. We want you to
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know that God is for you and so are we.
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You're about to hear a sermon from one of our
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weekend services in the tri-lakes of Southern Colorado. God is
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not a monument. He's a movement. So we're praying that
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this message will move you in a meaningful way. Listen
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closely after the message for ways to get connected with us.
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God bless you. Thanks for tuning in.
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Okay, good morning, everybody. How are we doing? You guys
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all right? Two people are good, right? The host and
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what'd you say? Your emotional support human. Yes, that was cute.
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Welcome to the Movement Church. I'm Richie Fike, pleased to
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be your pastor today. We're doing something a little different,
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as you can tell. We are going today to do
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a spiritual gifts assessment of one another, and it's going
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to be a lot of fun. But first, I'm going
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to teach for a little bit, okay? We're in this
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series called Gifted, where we have talked about the fact
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that you are, in fact, gifted by the Holy Spirit.
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It's a really beautiful, really unique reality that comes to us.
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The moment that we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior,
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the Holy Spirit takes residence within us and then shows
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evidence of who he is through us. And that's what
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we've been talking about. This series has been really fun
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for me. A lot of you have been interacting with me.
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I think this might be my gift. I think this
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might be my gift. It's been really fun to hear
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from you about that stuff. So last week we started
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on the last little bulk of gifts, which are the
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equipping gifts. This came from Ephesians chapter four, where Paul
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tells us that not only do certain gifts sort of
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flow through us, but there are certain gifts that our
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people and certain people that are gifts. You're welcome. These
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are the gifts, he says, he himself, Jesus, gave the body,
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some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors,
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some teachers. And this is their job, to equip the
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saints for the work of ministry, to build up the
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body of Christ. And so these people, their gifts and
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their worth is not quantified by their personality or their
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skill set, but rather the building up of the church
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into faith, unity, and maturity. And specifically, our job, these
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people that are in this group, is to make sure
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that you are doing the work of ministry. This is
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how we will be measured in eternity. We are meant
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to be instigators. I'm good at that. We're meant to
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be lightning rods or enactors. Last week, we talked about
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these three folks, the apostles, the prophets, and evangelists. And
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this week, we're going to be talking about shepherds, and teachers.
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Shepherds and teachers. This is called, by the way, the APEST, A-P-E-S-T,
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in case you want to be a theological nerd like me.
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That's what they're called, the APEST. So today we're starting
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with shepherds and pastors. Shepherds and pastors. How many of
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you love your pastor? I'm just kidding. It's just a joke.
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Just kidding. Next month is pastor appreciation month. I don't No,
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it really is. That's not a joke. It really is.
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And I really do expect to be appreciated. Okay, so
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who are these people? Who are these pastors? People with
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this gift naturally protect, guide, counsel, and disciple other people.
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You don't have to ask them to do it. They
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run to it. They lean into it. They find great
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joy in seeing people mature in their faith, overcome besetting sin,
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find hope in the face of discouragement, and grow in
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their relationship with God. There's nothing... really more satisfying to
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a pastor than to see someone that they're working with
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have a breakthrough moment in their relationship with God. Shepherding
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is a spiritual gift. And these words, pastor, shepherd, overseer,
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they're kind of a soupy word in the New Testament.
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There's one word that kind of gets applied in different
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contexts to mean pastor, shepherd, overseer. It also describes a
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recognized leadership role in the New Testament church. That role
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is the role of elder. And here's what makes this
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distinction really interesting. Where scripture talks about those formally entrusted
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with oversight of the church, it places serious character requirements
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upon them. I sent out a text earlier in the week.
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Many of you responded to it. The text was, when
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you hear the word pastor... What comes to mind? And
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what do you tend to expect from your pastor, of
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your pastor? I'm going to share with you a few
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of the answers that you gave. And I won't ascribe
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your name to it so we won't have to embarrass anybody.
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But one person said a teacher, a mentor, a connector,
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and honestly someone to ground you in this crazy world.
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One person said a pastor means an advisor and safety.
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Expectations are to feel seen and heard. to be consoled
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in hard times and laugh with me in joyful times,
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and to continue to bond over football scores. Amen, somebody.
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Go Tigers. And Broncos. Come on, big game tonight. Anybody excited? Okay,
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right on. One person is excited. Everybody else is afraid
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we're going to lose. Okay. Pastor is less a title
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of position and more a title of responsibility. It means
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being entrusted with people, not just entrusted with. with a church.
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Another person said, pastors are being charged to tend to
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Jesus' sheep till he returns. Care for them, pray for them,
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visit them in the hospital, or when they get sick,
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be with them. And I love this, when life, be lifing.
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Come on, that's good. That's good theology right there. Another
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person said, that title is a lot to handle. Amen.
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But also extremely special because you've been put in a
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place where a group of people look to you for help.
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They look for the God in you to comfort, advise,
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and question. Now, a lot of your answers were beautiful.
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They were high-minded. They were holy. And I tend to
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believe that you didn't tell me the truth, that what
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you really expect of a pastor, you didn't actually tell
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me through text. So I asked ChatGPT. I said, let
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me give you all the answers that they've given me.
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What is it that they're not telling me? And here's
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what ChatGPT said. By the way, this is how we
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know we're all cooked. ChatGPT said, Someone who works one
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day a week but is somehow always tired. Okay, too
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much humor there. They also said, someone who visits you
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in the hospital but ideally never sees you at Costco.
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Someone who should challenge me but preferably not about the
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thing I'm currently doing. Right? Another one, someone who should
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be available 24-7 but have really healthy boundaries. Right? Right? Okay,
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no laughs on that one because you're like, I agree
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with that one. Basically, a Christian mayor except nobody voted
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for him and the town doesn't have any money. Great answers.
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I think a lot of you have proper expectations for
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what a pastor is. I think it's why you've been
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drawn into this congregation. It's why you feel at home
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here because you have expectations of a pastor that I
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think are appropriate. I just want to tell you, that
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what's happening to pastors across the nation is that pastors
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are struggling. Pastors are hurting. Pastors are either quitting, quiet quitting,
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or thinking about quitting because pastoral work is really, really hard.
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So all I would say to you just in just
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a kind of a brief moment is if you're not already,
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just maybe once a week for like 12 seconds, would
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you pray for your pastor? And by the way, pray
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for your elders and your leadership here at the Movement
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Church because we do carry a heavy burden. I heard
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this incredible talk from this guy named Glenn Packiam. Anybody
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know Glenn? He used to be on staff at New
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Life Church and he's out in California now. And he
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did this talk about what is expected of pastors. He
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basically said this, that lots of Christians tend to expect
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most of these expressions to be prominent in their pastor.
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Think of this one person having to be all these things.
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Number one, A talented communicator. Number two, a careful theologian.
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Number three, a trauma-informed counselor, able to speak all of
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the counselor language. A visionary CEO. A compelling fundraiser. Come on, somebody,
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open up your pocketbooks. A social activist. And lastly, a
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political commentator. We tend to expect, lots of Christians tend
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to expect most of these things from our pastors. That's
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a lot, right? Anybody want to say amen? That's a lot.
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And I'm not half of those things, just so you know.
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So pray for your pastor. The more I do this job,
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the more I understand that there's a reason why God
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uses the language of shepherd and sheep. You notice that?
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Shepherd and sheep. Because the job of a shepherd, the
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job of a pastor is to feed the sheep, protect
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the sheep, steer the sheep, attend to the sheep. The
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job of a pastor very often looks like this. He's free.
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He's free.
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He's free. You got to see that in slow motion.
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The passion with which this sheep jumps right back into
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the ditch. By the way, that's as much me as
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it is you. That's as much me as it is you.
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We are all in this thing together. And sheep do
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really dumb things sometimes. We get stuck. We find ourselves
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in tough positions. And we need somebody just to pull
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us out. And you know what? We're probably going to
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run back in. And then the guy has to come
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and pull him right back out. That's the job of
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a shepherd. Now listen to what Paul says to Timothy
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about what an overseer, elder, pastor, shepherd is supposed to
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be like internally. This is a high bar. He says this.
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This saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to be an overseer,
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he desires a noble work. An overseer, therefore... Must be
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above reproach. That's high enough. The husband of one wife.
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That's all I need. Self-controlled. I probably shouldn't have said that. Sensible. Respectable. Hospitable.
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Able to teach. Not an excessive drinker. Not a bully,
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but gentle. Not quarrelsome. Not greedy. He must manage his
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own household competently and have his children under control. I quit.
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with all dignity. If anyone does not know how to
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manage his own household, how will he take care of
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God's church? He must not be a new convert or
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he might become conceited and incur the same condemnation as
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the devil. Furthermore, he must have a good reputation among
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outsiders so that he does not fall into disgrace and
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the devil's trap. This is a high bar. And what
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the Bible is telling you, your Bible is telling you
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what you should be looking for in a shepherd. Some
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of you have church shopped. Some of you have tried
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to find the place that you want to be. Some
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of you online are church shopping right now. And I
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would just say if you're pastor shopping, 1 Timothy 3
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is a great place to start. But I can tell
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you that you're never going to find a guy that
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lives up to all of that, including me. We try
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really hard. We earnestly seek the Lord, but we're human.
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And so there's a really difficult paradigm at work. in
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the pastoral gift because we're just like you. We're just
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like that sheep that runs right back into that hole.
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And yet we've been tasked with the responsibility of helping
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pull you out of your holes. That's the hard part
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about this job. It's a high and holy calling. And
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there's a reason that the standards are so high. These words, pastor, shepherd, elder, overseer,
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this language is overlapping. And I think it's for a reason.
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It's to help us see that that role is significant.
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It's really, really important. Overseers who shepherd God's people. And
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the reason Paul wrote all that to Timothy was to
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tell him nobody should ever try to lead a church
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on their own. Every pastor needs to find other guys,
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other people who can help them to lead alongside. And
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that's why we have what we call the wisdom table
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here at the movement church. The wisdom table is our
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sort of polity of choice. The way we've set this
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up is that we have four elders and three strategic leaders.
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And that group of seven people and myself get together
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and we lead the church. We believe that when it
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says husband of one wife, that that means that an
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elder must be male. And so what we understand that
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to mean is that we're going to have four male
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elders who have a vote and a deciding factor whenever
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we have a moment of decision. And we have these
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three leaders. When we started this church, we decided we
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wanted to have the female voice at the highest level
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of conversation in our church. We didn't want it to
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just be all dudes in a room talking about how
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the women ought to act. We want it to be
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in a room together and listening well to one another.
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And so the strategic leadership team always will have two
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women and one elder in training. That's the way we've
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structured it. And we come together and we seek consensus.
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And then when it's time, to vote, then the elders vote.
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And if they can't come together, these two guys or
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these four guys, then I'm the tiebreak. That's the way
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our structure works. We just recently worked through our budget
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for 26 and 27. You got a text from me
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if you're on our text chain about the fact that
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today is our last Sunday of the fiscal year. And
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so if you want to be a part of helping
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to shape the narrative of our fiscal year, this is
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your last shot these next two or three days. We
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appreciate all of your generosity. and the ways that you've
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contributed to the movement church. Like God has absolutely been
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faithful through you in our church. But we got together
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and we looked at the numbers and the narrative that
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the numbers were communicating. And we decided that our big
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number for 2026 and 27 is going to be $ 300, 000.
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That's going to be our budget for the year. And
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that's a bold number, but it's also a very careful
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number because we're looking at the ways that you all
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are faithfully giving and trying to make a budget that
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makes good sense. Guess what? It took a lot of
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conversation to get to that number. And then it took
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a lot of conversation to figure out how to make
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that number work. That's the process. And it's beautiful and
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it's plural. I want to honor two guys today. If
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you two guys could stand, Jeff Rudd or John Janisch.
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These guys have been on the wisdom table for three
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years and they're going off the team. That's not why
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we're applauding. We're applauding your faithfulness. Yeah. Jeff's applauding that
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he gets to go off the team. These guys were
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founding members of the movement church. And the way we
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do this is our elders serve for three years and
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then they're off for at least two. We want to
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give them a break. But what's interesting about this next
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wisdom table is that there isn't a single founding member
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on the wisdom table. It's like second generation movement church.
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And I'm excited about that. I'm going to show you
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who the team is. It's going to be me, Chico Lynch,
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Brad Bush, Wes Schlau, John Wilson. That's the elder level.
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And the strategic leadership team is Jenica Tomdale, Barb White,
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and Ryan Michio, who we believe we are training him
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up to be an elder at his next church. Ryan
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is military, and they're only going to be here for
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a certain extent of time. And so we are so
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pumped to be able to raise him up and send
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him out because this isn't just about the movement church.
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We are developing leaders here at this church, and I'm
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excited about that. So I want you to do me
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a favor. You should have just gotten a text somewhere
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in the next 10 or 15, last 15 minutes that
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There is a little link with this picture in that text.
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I would love for you to save that, print it,
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put it on your refrigerator, put it somewhere that will
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remind you to pray for these people at least once
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a week. Will you do that? Pray for your leaders.
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One last thing about this pastoring thing that I think
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is so cool. Do you know that moment where Jesus
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and Peter are having breakfast together after Peter has ruined
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his reputation? after he has denied Jesus three times before
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the rooster crowed, right? Peter has kind of gone back
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to his old life. He's out on a boat fishing,
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thinking about his mistakes. And someone says, I think I
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see Jesus on the shore. And Peter, who like invented,
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say less, like he just jumps into the boat, jumps
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off the boat into the water, swims to the shore. Ah,
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it's you, Lord. And they have this beautiful interaction. I
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want you to listen to this. This is in John
John 21 chapter mention
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chapter 21. When they had eaten breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, Simon,
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son of John, do you love me more than these? Yes, Lord,
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he said to him, for you know that I love you.
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Now listen to the instruction. Jesus is going to give
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this same similar instruction three times. Same question three times,
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same instruction three times. Feed my lambs, he told him.
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Second time he asked, do you love me? Yes, Lord,
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you know that I love you. Shepherd my sheep. Then
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he asked him a third time, Simon, son of John,
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do you love me? Do you love me? He says, Lord,
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you know everything. You know that I love you. Okay.
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Feed my sheep. And I want you to think about
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the significance and the symmetry of this. Because earlier, just
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a few months earlier, Jesus makes this grand pronouncement about Peter.
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He says that he is the rock upon which I
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will build my church. So let me just ask you
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a question. Whose church? It's not Peter's church. It's Jesus's church.
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This is the rock upon which I will build my church,
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Jesus says. And here, when he asked Peter, do you
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love me? He says, listen, I want to give you
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some instruction. Feed and shepherd who? My sheep. Hey, Peter,
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they're not your sheep. They don't belong to you. They
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belong to me. This is what Jesus is saying. And
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so it's important to Jesus that Peter knows two things.
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Jesus is holding Peter responsible for the well-being and welfare
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of his people. And Jesus is in charge. That's important
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for Peter to know. And guess what? It's important for
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us to know at the Movement Church. Jesus is holding
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Richie Fike and the Wisdom Table of the Movement Church
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responsible for the welfare and the well-being of you. And
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Jesus is in charge. Can I hear an amen? Amen.
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You're not my sheep. You don't belong to me. You
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don't need to know my voice. You need to know
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his voice. And my job as your pastor is to
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lift your head so that you can see him clearly
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and hear him fully. That's the job of a pastor
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because Jesus is the good shepherd. He's the leader of
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his church. Every pastor you've ever met, myself included, is
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an under shepherd. We come under the authority of Jesus
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to care for you. that's why god gave you us
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that's why god gave you me to come under his
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authority to care well for you that's the job of
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a pastor and the way that we show pastors the
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way that we show the lord that we love him
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is by caring well for you isn't that beautiful That's
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the way it's supposed to work. Man, when I first
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got this job five years ago, I was like shook.
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I was like, I'm not the right guy for this.
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I shouldn't be the pastor. Surely there's someone else. And
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I went to a friend of mine, Al Pittman, who'd
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been a pastor for 40 years. And I said, hey, Al,
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I need some advice. Tell me how to do this
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job that you've done for so long. And he goes,
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real simple. You're a mailman. You're a bus driver. I
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was like, can you expound please? You're a mailman, you're
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a bus driver. Mailman didn't write the letter. Mailman just
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delivers the letter. It ain't his letter. It ain't his message.
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It's somebody else's message. Now once in a while, somebody
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might ask the mailman, can you read this message for me?
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Of course, do it. But it ain't your message. So
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don't put yourself in it. You're a mailman. He said,
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you're a bus driver. Bus driver doesn't own the bus.
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Bus driver drives the bus. Somebody else drives the bus.
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You are not in charge of what happens in this bus.
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Your job is to keep the thing moving forward and
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make frequent stops. Let people on. Some people are getting off.
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Sometimes you're going to look in that beautiful mirror, that
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big mirror, and you're going to see people that you love,
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that God is calling to another assignment. And your job
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is to bless them on the way out. Sometimes there's
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people that are coming on the bus and you're not
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so sure about these people. That's okay. Keep the bus
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moving forward. You're a mailman. You're a bus driver. And
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I'll tell you, in my career so far, five years
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into being a lead pastor, senior pastor, that word of
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advice has been so useful to me in the way
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that I've experienced this job. Because there's been people who
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I really love who've had to get off the bus
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because God called them to another assignment. And you just
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bless them and you go, I love you and I'm
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going to miss you. But I'll tell you, That I'm
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really excited for all of you who are on the
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bus right now. And I'm praying that you stay on
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the bus forever. I hope you never leave. But I
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know that God is crazy. And God calls us to
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do things that we never saw coming. And some of you, 5, 6,
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12 years from now, you won't be sitting here. Because
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you'll be on another assignment. And my job is to
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bless you. You're a mailman. You're a bus driver. That's
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what a pastor is. Jesus is the shepherd. You are
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his people. He's holding your leaders accountable for taking good
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care of you. Pastors are entrusted with a great deal
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of expectation, a great deal of responsibility. And while that's true,
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that a lot is expected of us, there is something
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that's expected of you. It's called Pastor Appreciation Month. Just
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once a month? Come on, people. No, it's true that
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honor is expected of the body of Christ for its overseers.
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Listen to what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians. He says,
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now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to give recognition
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to those who labor among you and lead you in
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the Lord and admonish you and to regard them very
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highly in love because of their work. Be at peace
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among yourselves. So that's your responsibility. Now let me just
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ask you, there are probably people in the room who
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have this pastoral gift and have been denying it for
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years and years. So let me just ask you some
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open-ended questions. Do you notice when someone begins drifting away?
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You might be a pastor. Do you pursue people so
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that they'll know that they're loved? Do you continue to
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show care after the immediate crisis has passed? Do you
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help people take responsibility for their spiritual growth? Do you
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seek to protect people from the dangers? you see coming?
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And do you lean into difficult conversations? Some of you,
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everything I just said, you're like, dang it, I'm a pastor.
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This is beautiful. This means that your responsibility, your opportunity
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at this church is to serve. You can use this
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gift as a growth group leader, as a move group leader,
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a ministry leader, or as a member of the wisdom
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table eventually. Your gift is not for you, it's for us.
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Don't keep it to yourself. Amen? You with me? All right,
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last one, and we're done for the whole series. Teachers. Teachers. Teachers.
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My mom and dad are both teachers. I got this
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sort of curse from them to love teaching, to love learning.
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Let's talk about teachers. The ability to understand and communicate
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biblical truth in a clear and relevant manner so that
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there is understanding and application. Teachers are not settled with
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just telling you something that's true. They want to see
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you apply it to your life. Learning, researching, communicating, and
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illustrating truth are qualities that an individual will manifest when
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exercising the gift of teaching. Jesus, of course, was called
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a rabbi. Rabbi means teacher. People went to him. They thought,
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there's so much I can learn from this man. Jesus
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taught as one who had authority. All the other rabbis
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that were around in that day, they taught, but not
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like Jesus. He taught in a way that caused fear.
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a stir, it caused action in people's lives. This is
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the nerd gift, the teaching gift, in case you're curious.
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This week at our Young Adults Move group, Addison Babcock,
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our wonderful children's director, said to me, Fike, you're kind
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of a dork. You're kind of dorky. And I was like,
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thank you, I receive it. And she said it wasn't
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a compliment. But that's okay, I received it as one.
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Are you a little dorky like me? Do you like
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studying and researching? To be a good teacher, you gotta
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be a good student. And when you study, you tend
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to go deeper and you chase rabbit holes and you
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love it. Is this you? Do you love imparting a
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biblical truth to others? When you learn something, are you
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just looking for somebody to share it with? Right, that's
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the teacher gift. Teaching gifters are able to apply the
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wealth of scripture to the grind of daily life. They
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see the direct application. You know, sometimes you're reading the
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Bible and you go, I don't get it. What's the
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point of this? Well, how does this relate to me?
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A teacher's like, I know and I'll share it. That's
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what they love doing. Through your gift, people learn to
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read scripture more carefully. They recognize what's true and they
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put it into practice. You can help people become grounded
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enough to follow Jesus when you're not there to explain
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it to them. There are some shadow sides to the
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teaching gift. One is this, teaching gifters tend to work
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in the realm of ideas. We love ideas. It's not bad,
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but when you're dealing with ideas, you can become idealistic.
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And when you become too idealistic, you can become a
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little legalistic, right? And so the deal is it's a
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lot easier to work with ideas than it is to
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work with people because people are complicated. And so when
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you're working with people, when you're wrestling with topics like identity, self-esteem,
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or faith, platitudes just won't work. And so if you
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know this, if you have this teaching gift, you've learned this,
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that sometimes you have to figure out how to contextualize
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what you've learned to the person. Teaching gifters have spent
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lots of time thinking, studying, and exploring ideas. And so
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when I get up here on a Sunday, and you
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can't imagine, I know my sermons are long, you can't
-
imagine how much I've cut from my manuscript to be
-
this brief. You can't imagine it. I mean, just the
-
amount of editing that happens between Monday and Sunday is
-
wild to me and hurtful to me because I want
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to share all of it with you, right? And so
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here's what happens. We have a hard time slowing down
-
the things that we've learned in order for you to
-
learn them. Teaching gifters, you got to slow down because
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the people that you're talking to are not living at
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your speed. So you got to find ways to communicate
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with them at their speed. Give people time to understand
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what you've learned, and stay humble enough to learn something
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from their questions. Some of the best lessons I've ever
-
learned from preaching is when someone comes up to me
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and says, I don't have any idea what it is
-
you were just saying up there. That made no sense
-
to me. I go, that's awesome. What was unclear? What
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did I miss? Because that helps me to slow down
-
and teach at your level. Not that I'm at a
-
higher level and you're not, just that I've spent so
-
much time in the text That there's things that I've
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sort of skipped past that I didn't communicate with you.
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Does that make sense? And so teaching gifters, slow down.
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And remember, you're a mailman. You didn't write the letter.
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It's not your message. It's God's message. Don't make it
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about you. And by the way, I think that lesson
-
is important for all the spiritual gifts. None of us
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should ever make our giftedness about us. It's about God.
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Your spiritual gift is not for you. It's for us.
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It's for me. And so teaching gifters, if you make
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your gift about you, I'll tell you the danger there
-
is that you can easily become one of the worst
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categories in the Bible. And that is a false teacher.
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Someone who has a hidden motive to why they're teaching.
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Here's what a false teacher is. A really gifted teacher
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can make really compelling arguments couched in really biblical language
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and convince really genuine people to believe really appealing truths.
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That's what it is. what false teaching is. That's what
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it does. People, you and I, are already naturally oriented
-
towards justifying our sin. False teachers give them permission to
-
do that. False teachers couch biblical ideas and in a
-
way that make you think that God has changed and
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he hasn't. So if this is your gift, I want
-
you to use your gift to teach our kids, to
-
lead a group, to invest in our students, and yes,
-
to join our teaching team. We would love to have you.
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We don't want this to be the Richie Fike show
-
at the Movement Church. We really are trying to develop leaders.
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That's why I'm so proud of people like John Wilson
-
and Jeff Rutter who stand up on this platform And
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teach from the word of God and use their gift.
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And it's totally different than the way I do it.
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Have you noticed that? They have their own flavor, their
-
own style. Because the Lord manifests himself through them uniquely.
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And that's what it's about. God already has a Richie Fike.
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He wants you. Amen? So teaching gifters, your gift is
-
not for you. It's for us. Don't keep it to yourself. Okay,
-
everybody breathe deep. We did it. We covered it. Come on,
-
we did it. We covered all 20. We covered the
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functional gifts. We covered the clarity gifts. We covered the
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sign gifts. We covered the equipping gifts. And now, just
-
as a reminder, here's our theme verse, that a manifestation
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of the Spirit is given to each person for the
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common good. What does that mean? It means God chooses
-
your gift. You don't choose it. It means everybody gets
-
a gift. It means your gift is not for you.
-
It's for us. And it means that you are both
-
needed and and needy in this body, in this season,
-
in this moment. So if God gave you something for
-
the common good and you refuse to use it for
-
the common good, it's not just you that's missing out.
-
All of us are missing out on your unwillingness to
-
share who God made you to be. You are gifted.
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And so what we did, if you look at these
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packets we have on your tables, and if you're watching
-
this online, we will have this available. It'll be in
-
the YouTube link and it'll also be in the podcast link.
-
You'll be able to find this PDF and use it, okay?
-
What we did was we made a little quiz here,
-
and so what you're going to do is you're going
-
to go through each of these questions, and you are
-
going to assess yourself. Now, listen to me. Before you
-
start answering these questions, I just want to give you
-
some really clear boundaries and sort of a way to
-
approach this. It says up top, look at the categories,
-
one through five. It says one is almost never, two
-
is rarely, which are really the same thing. Sometimes is three,
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often is four, consistently is five. If you answer every
-
question as a three, at the end of this test,
-
you're going to have every spiritual gift. So what I
-
want you to do is answer the question honestly. earnestly.
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Let me give you an example. I'll talk about me.
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Number 34 says, conversations about Jesus with people who do
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not yet follow him tend to energize rather than intimidate me.
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That's a good question. What do you think it's fishing for?
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It's fishing for evangelism. Now here's the reality. For me,
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conversations about Jesus that don't end in salvation frustrate me.
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They do not energize me. And so I would put
-
a one on that. Do you understand what I'm saying? Now,
-
there are some questions on here that you're going to go, yeah,
-
you know, sometimes I think I'm that way. If you
-
feel like, yeah, you know, sometimes please answer a one.
-
What you're going to notice is that the answers that
-
are most five for you are your gift. And so
-
the ones where you go, dude, that's me all day,
-
every day, put a five. And if it's not a five,
-
Live in the realm of one and two so that
-
you can have more clarity at the end of the gift.
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You with me? Everybody clear? Do this at home. Do
-
this online. And let us know what your gift is.
-
Email us at the email address that's online. We'd love
-
to hear about this. And for you guys in the room, ready? Go.
-
So what's God leading you to do next? And how
-
can we help? Send us an email to info at movementchurch.co
-
and tell us how we can pray for you and
-
help you to take the next step in your spiritual journey.
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If you'd like to contribute financially to our ministry, you
-
can text the amount you'd like to give to this number, 833-725-0132.
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That's 833-725-0132.
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Or just look us up online at movementchurch.co. You can
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find the Movement Church on all social media platforms. And
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we hope that you'll give us a follow. God bless you.
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And remember, God is for you and so are we.