Make Yourself Useful | This Is What We Do

Following Jesus was never meant to be passive. 👀

At Fierce Church, we believe church is more than attending services.
It’s about:
✨ Growing spiritually
🔥 Developing leadership
🤝 Helping people encounter Jesus
👣 Walking with God step-by-step

And one of the biggest ways people grow?
Serving.

In this special hybrid sermon from the This Is What We Do series, Pastor Mark Carter and several ministry leaders unpack why leadership, teaching, and shepherding matter so much in the church.

Because when you’re surrounded by strong, healthy, God-centered leaders, one of two things happens:

You either:
📈 Grow into who God is calling you to become
OR
😴 Stay passive while everyone else carries the mission

This message is an invitation:
Not just to watch church happen…
But to help build it.

✨ In this message you’ll discover:
Why leadership matters in the kingdom of God
How serving develops your character
Why teaching and discipleship are essential for growth
How Fierce equips people to become who God created them to be

💬 Ask yourself: Am I spectating… or participating?
🙏 Comment “I’m ready to serve” if you’re taking a next step.
🔔 Subscribe for more from Fierce Church
👉 Watch more here: https://www.youtube.com/@FierceChurch

God didn’t save you just to sit still.
He’s growing you into someone who helps lead others closer to Him. ✨

Transcript

Confidence And Gratitude Together

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hey, um, I'm excited about today. I'm gonna talk to you about confidence and thankfulness. I did a little bit of a research study today. It wasn't too deep. I mean, I just used Gemini to do it, so it's about as trustworthy as anything you're gonna find on Google. But um it sounds right. It's one of those things that this seems intuitive. So let me read you some things that happen when someone is both confident and grateful. You become more secure and less prideful. When we're confident, we're operating from resources that are in us and that God has put in us. We're saying, hey man, whatever the situation is, I got it. I'm enough. But when we're grateful, we know it's not just us. We know that people helped us. We know that people gave us stuff to get us where we are. When we're confident and grateful, when we're confident and grateful, we handle setbacks better. We handle setbacks better because we know we're confident. Hey, life is hard, hard stuff happens, I get through hard stuff with God, but I'm grateful and I know, but hard times don't last forever. And I know there's a lot going right right now, so I can be grateful while I'm confident. We compare less. How many need this one today? We compare less. How much energy does comparison suck out of people? We compare less because we're not really looking, we're not, we're not in competition with everybody else. We're not saying, well, man, they're winning, therefore I am losing. We're saying, hey, they're winning, that's great. I'm winging it, winning at things that the Lord is helping me to win at and things that He has purposed for me. And I'm grateful, yeah, I don't have that, but I do have all this good stuff. And so I'm confident and I'm grateful. We make better decisions. One big one is confidence gives us courage to act. Confidence gives courage to act. Gratefulness says, let me take stock of all the ways God has already acted, and maybe some of the ways He's taught me wisdom from foolish action. Confidence and gratefulness. Here's one more. You protect yourself. Oh man, if there's ever a generation that needs this, you protect yourself from anxiety and discouragement. Your gratefulness gives you gratitude that there's a lot going right in your life, and it shifts your mind from what's wrong to, yeah, but here's what's right. Here's what's wrong, yeah, but here's what's right. It overrides it. Yeah, this is wrong, but this is right. This might go wrong, but here's all the things that God has promised me is going and is going to go right. But confidence reminds you, no matter what's happening, you're not powerless and God's not powerless. You're not powerless. There's something you can do to glorify God in this situation. There is hope that someday something's gonna change and you can move forward and you can give God praise. You're not powerless, and God's not powerless. This is not the end. I don't have to get stuck here. I can go forward into the future and say, God is still good tomorrow, just like he's been good in the past. My God won't let me down. I can be confident and I can be grateful. How many know it's true? Today, I want to remind us that Jesus is not asking anything of any of us that he hasn't already supplying us with. Everything God calls us to do and to be, he says, by the way, I'll give you everything you need to do and to be that thing. And maybe it's not the best of all, but it's pretty doggone good. God has given us communities like this one, and people like the people that you know to help us, to develop us, to challenge us to walk in confidence, to challenge us to walk in gratefulness. There's rock stars sitting around you. Do you know that? There's rock stars in your life. And they can they you do see them, you see them help you, you see folks around you. You know folks that have been in your life and they challenged you and they told you, hey man, you keep going, or they said, Why don't you try this? And then you did it, and it developed you, you became something better. Now, here's the one danger about being surrounded by rock stars, surrounded by good people, surrounded by people that are gifted and talented and make you better. One potential danger is it can create passivity because we're like, they're all great, they're all great. So why do I have to maybe I'll just sit back? I mean, the things happen great anyway, and we we say the rock stars are gonna do the rock star things, and I'm gonna remain sitting back, underdeveloped. And yet God wants each one of us to develop everything we have that he's gifted us for his glory. We can all do this, yo. Jesus, however, we we gotta know this, he's not just about us knowing things, my friends, he's about us becoming the very best, dopest, most anointed version of us that we can possibly be. And he's gonna use other people around us to challenge us, sometimes to give us trials, but to draw us out and up so that we are taking ground because we know Jesus and really because we know his people. So the apostle Paul, here he is, he's writing to the Ephesians, and he's been going on for three chapters about hey, here's how awesome God is, here's how you want to be like him in his humility, and then he gives gives them, he goes into chapter four. This is how it plays out, guys. He says, Y'all are supposed to be one, you're supposed to be united, you're supposed to be together in everything. It says, even though you're supposed to be one, though, I'm gonna pick it up right here in verse seven. Even though you're supposed to be one though, however, he, Jesus, has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. That is why the scriptures say, now he's gonna point backwards, he's gonna point to a previous psalm that is really, it's glorifying God, it's kind of a prophecy, and he's gonna use it as a prophecy here. He says, that is why the scriptures say, when he ascended the heights, he led a crowd of captives and gave gifts to the people. This is Psalm 68, 18. And he's describing a conquering king coming back from battle, going into Jerusalem, ascending up to Jerusalem. And this king is, he's got all these spoils of war. He's got prisoners, and he's got plunder, and he's he's such a dope king, because there were bad kings in that time who they just they kept everything from themselves and all the people just didn't have anything. But this king is good and he he shares all that he has with all of his subjects. And Paul says, You don't know this, but that's actually about Jesus. And he goes on to explain. Verse 9. Notice that it says, He ascended. This clearly means that God that Christ also descended to our lowly world. See, Jesus had a battle to fight, and the battle took place on earth. And so Jesus descended into the lowly place of earth to do the battle, to overcome Satan and sin. And then he ascended, not just to Jerusalem, but to the heavenly Jerusalem. He ascended, and this is the same one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself. And when he did that, he's about to tell us that he gave gifts away. He had gifts, he conquered the universe. It was already his, but now he's taken all the treasure and he says, I'm completely in charge. I just participated in the plan of God. I brought glory to God by giving my everything. And now, my sweet church, I'm gonna give you the gift of being able to participate in what I did. Jesus, I'm not the kind of king who just hoards all of it. I want y'all to have some playtime. I want y'all to get in on the action. It's so awesome to have won. It's so awesome to have beated all your foes. It's so awesome that I got to serve the Father with everything I have, and I want you to serve the Father with everything you have. And so he gives these things called spiritual gifts. Some of them are equipping gifts. That's what he's gonna talk about first, and then in a second, we're gonna talk about the other gifts. But the equipping gifts are just people who help other people develop who they're supposed to be turned into. When I went skydiving, we had an equipping time. That is when they put the pack on you and they're making sure all the things and all the stuff you're supposed to have is in there, and they're they're making sure you're equipped. I've gone on canoe trips and they're equipping you. They're putting on the backpack that you're gonna put in the canoe, and they're like, You're gonna need that thing, man. Oh, don't forget that. And they're putting this in. We all know what it's like to have equippers, and God says, I've created for the body of Christ some that are just they're just really good at equipping, and they're gonna help equip so that everybody gets to go out and do battle and become everything that they're supposed to be because I've already given you, if you belong to Jesus Christ, I've already given you spiritual gifts, which are for the benefit of others, not just for yourself. Now, these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and teachers. It is their responsibility to equip God's people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. I want to point out a couple things. He's talking about the leaders of the church. Okay, there's people in every generation, there's certain folks that God has raised up to say, I want to help everybody else do what God has called them to do. You know these guys. It's not just pastors, by the way. It's people contemporary versions, this might even be, hey man, it's a podcast that you listen to. But when you listen to it, you're like, I'm I'm more ready to follow Christ. I'm more ready to do battle against my spiritual foes. I'm more ready to be a doper spouse. I'm more ready to be a better parent because I've been equipped. Lots of different versions of equippers, but these equippers they do something special. They're given by Christ, it's a gift, and their responsibility is to equip the people to do his work and build up the church. That means every one of us, if you name the name of Christ, you have an assignment. It is to do his work and build up the church. That is one of the reasons you are here. See, Jesus told his disciples, he said, I want you to go in all the nations. I want you to make disciples of all of them, teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. And lo, I'm with you even to the end of the earth. Every disciple has been given the privilege and the assignment of making disciples. That's what we do here, Fierce, by the way. Every disciple's been given the privilege of making disciples. But here's what we gotta know None of us can do it alone, dude. None of us can do it alone. I'll bet you, here's what I bet you. I'll bet you if you were just saying, I'm gonna do this alone and go make a hundred disciples, that would be pretty hard for most of us. Honestly, man, you for most of us, you wouldn't even know what to do. You wouldn't even know where to start, you wouldn't even know how to start the conversation. And that's okay. You know why? Because God didn't give you maybe the conversation starting gift. But together, when you throw us all together, oh baby, now we all see none of us singularly singularly represents Jesus, but all of us together can represent all of his heart and all of his power and all of his gifts. Where he says, I put you all together so the gifts could come out and help people around the world. And right there in Sweet Little Fierce Church. So he's provided everything he need, everything we need. He's given us gifts of participation. Like, don't you think it's awesome that he wanted us to participate? Like, he could just be just sit there and live, but he said, No, I'm gonna do I'm on an adventure, and I want you guys to come with me. I don't want to have all the fun, I want you to do it too, church. And so he gives us participation. Now, here's some other things that he gives us. There's lots of uh in the New Testament, there's lots of passages on the spiritual gifts that Christ gives, but let me just read you one of them. God in his kindness gave each of us different gifts. This is Romans 12, 6. If your gift is speaking, what God has revealed, make sure that you what you say agrees with the Christian faith. If your gift is serving, then devote yourself to serving. If it's teaching, devote yourself to teaching. If it is encouraging others, devote yourself to giving encouragement. Some of you crush that, by the way. There's some of you, I can't even be around you without you saying something that is building me up. There's lots of different versions of this, my friend. It's not all the stage folks. In fact, very few are the stage folks. It's just in your life, at your place of business, in your class, God has caused you, called you to just do the things that Jesus would do, and He's gonna give you unique and blessed power to do it. If it's leadership, lead enthusiastically. If it's helping people in need, help them cheerfully. So today I want to talk to you about three of the equipping gifts because we're in a unique moment as in our church where we need these gifts. They're almost linchpins, they're they're like bomb gifts. If we set these off, boom, a whole bunch of good goes happens. Without these, though, we're a little bit hamstrung. So I want to talk to you about what they are. Three super necessary equipping roles. The first one was leadership. If it is leadership, lead enthusiastically. Leadership means seeing the mission, it means setting direction, it means helping other folks go toward the direction that God wants to go and like it and achieve it. That's what leadership is. It's not just some of us, there's a there's a dark version of us that could be attractive this because we like to tell people what to do. That's really not what it is. There is a telling people what to do sometimes. There's there's direction that's brought, but it's really is there's a there's a special blessing from God to see what needs to happen, have a certain amount of acumen, so there is knowledge, and then there's charisma, there's enough charisma to be able to help people go that way. And this comes in seed form sometimes. So sometimes you have a little baby version of the gift, and that's great. We just want to develop it. Some some young people, you already have these seeds in you. You're already a leader in some of your classes. The best thing to do, honestly, is to get into leadership soon, where you're under other folks who can take a look and give you thoughts and sharpen you because the sooner those things are developed, the more you can use them later in life. And besides, especially if you're young, you're gonna make a lot of mistakes. Yes, you are. Better to make them early when you're around people that love you, who can help you, than to make them late when you're out on your own. So it doesn't matter who you are. If you've got the gifts, God's calling us to do the gifts. But if we don't access this, if we don't develop these guys, here's what happens in churches where the leadership gifts are not developed. Some of you know this, some of you have seen this. There's a sense of lostness, there's a sense of wandering, there's a sense of scattering, there's a sense of, what are we doing again? What are we trying to do? And here's what happens when nobody necessarily knows who's in charge or what to do. People start making up their own agendas, and sometimes the folks with the least character but are the most loud start to have a big influence. And dude, that's a mini-version of hell. So it's just way better. Let's just develop leaders that are full of character and love and winsomeness and helpfulness. Let's do that because if we don't, progress is gonna be very small and very slow. That's what happens without leaders. The people run amok, man. We just lose our way. So you don't have to be an adult to lead. You know, some other things that you can do? You can, even on a small level, you can just lead yourself well. I mean, just think about it. You say, I want to be in charge of something. Okay, well, you're currently in charge of your life. How are you doing leading that? Like, think about the wise decisions people make. Are you leading yourself into those decisions? Are you doing the things that cause relational peace? Are you doing the things that cause you to progress in life? Okay, well, that's, I mean, just at a very basic level, that's a smart place to start. But then there's other places where God is, it's not necessarily church leading from the pulpit, but there's places in the church where your leadership and your personality and your love and your sense of knowing what to do, man, it would be super helpful to the people of God in this little corner of the universe right now. We need leaders. One of those places is we need producers. I'm gonna invite Pastor Brandon up to have a little chat with me at the table. We need producers. Brandon knows about producers. What's up, B? Hello. Hey, thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. You know it. Hey, so tell us about this producer role, bro. Why is this important for our church?

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Yeah. So the producer is a serving role on a Sunday morning. We have one right now, David. Hey, David. He hates that I'm doing this right now. Let's wave it, David. Um, so the producer is really tying together a lot of different moving parts that happen in here on a Sunday morning. You might just cut, if you just came to church and saw what happens up here, you see maybe like the tip of the iceberg. Um, but there's a whole lot that happens in the background behind the scenes. There's a lot of moving parts. In addition to David, we've got Jeff on sound. What's up, Jeff? James on camera, Chris on camera. You can't see him, but in there's a room back there where Jaden is working a video switcher, Andrew's working these slides that we see, all these things, there's different teams uh trying to work together under a vision. So we've got a plan uh for a Sunday morning service. We we kind of plan ahead of time, try and get as clear as we as we can about what we're gonna do when you get here to church. Um but you gotta know when when there's a lot of people working on a project and there's some moving parts of like different transitions, like there's a song and then there's something that happens next. All those things, stuff goes wrong. And so there's instability introduced into the to the plan, and the enemy hates what we're doing here. So he tries to exploit those instabilities and start to create dissonance and confusion, anxiety starts to arise and stuff like that. It could become a bad thing. But that leader, the producer, is walking through. Here's the plan. Let's talk about the plan. Um, and kind of bringing communication between the various parties if a problem arises. They don't have to know how to solve the problem, but they it's really helpful to have somebody who can spot the problem. Okay, this is the problem. We need to pull in this party and this party and get them to talk and solve that problem and move on. So that's how they help. Honestly, they help that kind of leadership, just that calm, that confidence, what you were sharing about. That's really the role. That's helpful. Do you have to be like a super tech nerd to do it? No, that's something that people often misunderstand about the role.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Oh, good.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Um, there are specialty positions in the auditorium serving teams. Like, if you want to play guitar, you have to be able to play guitar. You can't just come up here and grab a guitar. Um, but on the, you know, all those roles that I just mentioned, really like the sound, the sound engineer, you you got it, like that's a specialty role, but probably all the other roles, you don't have to have a lot of back knowledge or or understanding before you start serving. And the producer kind of they touch all of those areas like cameras or lights or or things like that. There, there's a there's a sense of responsibility for solving problems or or identifying and and helping bring about solutions in those areas, but you don't have to know, I don't know what half the stuff does. So you don't have to know all that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

You just have to be able to spot the problem and so someone want to use their leadership gifts to do this. They don't know everything, but they they have a sense of I feel like I can winsomely help people do stuff. Um, and they didn't know anything about it. Will we just let them fail and blame them?

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Yep. No. We wouldn't do that. Um yeah, we would train them. So we'd we'd kind of help walk through. And and if you're like leadership gifts, and that maybe is a new idea, like a spiritual gift of leadership. If you're like, I I've never taken a you know spiritual gift test, so it's never been highlighted to me. I would think I was trying to think about a way that you might know you're a good fit for that producer role or for a leadership role, is if you've ever um if you have a personality that can spot problems, but not just spot problems, but actually start to think about solutions and start to uh bring about change and improvement to areas. Maybe and if you're a leader, you're probably willing to roll up your sleeves and put some work into it, not just ask other people to do it. Um, or I was thinking about like if you're on a serving team or you're on a work team and something goes wrong, or let's say you're on a family trip and you get a flat tire, there's that initial moment of panic. But maybe you're the maybe you're the first one that kind of gets your bearings and comes to your senses and says, Okay, I see the problem. That is a problem, here's what we should do. You might be a leader then. You might be a good fit for a producer role. So nice.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

What about like people at work who might be project managers or something like that?

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

Are you still there?

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Yep. Yeah, that'd be that'd be a great fit. So if you've ever managed projects and you feel like you're pretty good at that, um you have some experience doing that. That's that's essentially the kind of role that that producer is doing.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Um, one more question, bro. What do you feel like people don't understand or realize about this role?

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Yeah, I think we already kind of touched on it. I think the the thing that is a common misconception, we we do get that a lot, is um people are surprised to discover, oh, I don't have to know how to like program computers to solve these problems. No, you don't. Um or or that like there the the solving the problem is all on that producer. It's really just about identifying the problem and then alerting the parties that need help. Um there's a there's a sense of responsibility, but it's delegated responsibility. I'm the most responsible for it, and you're the most responsible for it next. So um, yeah, so there's there's a there's a network of shared responsibility, and we're all just working together and trying to make, you know, kind of just yeah, trying to realign if there's instability, trying to realign things and push in the same direction. Um, but yeah, I think that's the biggest thing that a misconception is that I have to know how to work the soundboard and the cameras and the guitars and all the you don't have to know all that stuff. You just have to be able to really kind of start conversations and yeah. Reach for solutions.

SPEAKER_03 22:01

Dude, I'm so thankful you came up here today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Thanks for having me.

Teaching Gift That Clears The Mud

Shepherding Gift That Stays Close

Serving Kids And Teens With Courage

SPEAKER_03 22:05

You know what? Hey, so guys, might this be you? Uh there's a QR code on the screen there. If you think, hey, that's the very kind of thing I would want to do, then go ahead and the one on the left is the one you want to click on. Everybody else, there's any other gift that you want to do, you can go to the one on the right. Um, but I wanted to mention sometimes we can feel like, oh, that's got to be like my thing that we think about spiritual gifts, it's like this is gonna be like my soul, you know, stuff that makes me feel so good. I haven't found it to be true most of the time in church. Like God just tends to direct us when we start. So, like a lot of folks that really have have continued to climb the ladder at fierce, they started somewhere entirely different. They just said, Oh, I got nothing to do, I'm gonna go do this, or even I have a ton to do, but I'm still gonna go do this. And the Lord has a way of just directing over time, getting them into the place where they're most gifted if we start where they're maybe gifted. So there's other places in the church that use leadership gifts, yo. There's business leadership gifts that we need. There's fierce kids leadership that we need. There is digital media leadership gifts that we need. By the way, there's a digital media party for anyone who might be interested in digital media. There's a party right after church, right where we usually do connect class, around the corner, up into that room. Um, you you can know nothing about it, have never talked to anybody about it. And if you want to go to that party and just maybe, maybe plug in, see what that's like, you are invited to do that. But leadership is not the only gift we want to be thinking about. So maybe that's you, but another one would be teaching. If it is teaching, devote yourself to teaching. Here's what teachers do: they make God's truth clearer so people can grow. And they don't just do it from a stage. The gift of teaching is the supernatural ability that God gives people to help other people understand God's truth and how it works in their lives. That can happen, certainly, it could happen from some kind of a like podcast situation or something like that, but it can just be with your kids sitting on the living room floor. There's a sense that God is anointing that thing to make it happen. Now, here's the thing: as a church, we need teaching gifts because here's what happens if we don't have them. Things start to get real muddled real quick. People start to lose their boundaries, man. They start to get biblically misaligned, they start to believe things that aren't really true. They start moving forward on things that are just false presuppositions. They stop seeing Jesus so clearly because, in part, they're making some crap up as they go along. That's why we need teachers, dude. That's why if you've ever had a good teacher in your life, you ought to give God praise that you had a good teacher in your life. A good teacher helps people connect their lives to good, healthy, robust theology. When there's good teaching in the church, people can see Jesus more clearly. When there's not, people get decreasingly spiritually healthy. Because there's there's not really anointed folks. People have a general gift by the Holy Spirit. You have a general gift to understand the teaching of God's word. But when there's an anointing from God on certain individuals to teach God's word, baby, it's just supercharged. Like we're really growing in the things of God, and hearts are healing versus a place where things are muddy and hearts are not healing, and people are really what they're doing, you might have seen this, people begin to take more and more pride in personalities because personalities are temporarily entertaining, but they're not actually growing deep spiritually. They're not actually becoming whole different people because the word of God is not ferocious and meaty and helping them grow. You know, there's ways that you can be a great teacher, even if you're not necessarily a teacher. One of them is just in your crew. Maybe it's around your family, maybe it's around the ones you're at work. Begin the practice of helpful questions. And that's where you just prompt people. See, a great teacher isn't always talking at you, they're actually just prompting you to think. So that just means even it's with your only family, even if it's with your own family, even if it's with just your work group, saying, Hey man, um, what'd you think about that? What do you think God wants us to learn about that? You just mentioned at church that you learned this cool principle, but what do you think God wants you to do with that? That's why some of you know if you come down front to me and you say, Oh, Carl, that's a great message. The first thing I'm gonna ask you is, oh, great, what did you like about what was a good thing that you took away? Because I I'm I know God makes your mind go, oh, truth is cool, because it is. But see, we need to be prompted to, but where are you going to obey that? How is that going to change you? That's what teachers do. I've heard of other folks at this church. They take things they've learned from this message, and then they go online and they just talk about it. They put they go on to YouTube and they push out their videos, and it's just them talking about what somebody else taught them. And they're reaching a whole different audience because of that. They're just passing on the knowledge that they didn't have to prep much, like all they did was just hear it. But now the truth of God is going forward. So is that possibly you? Here's another one: Shepherding, pastoring, shepherding, and Ephesians 4, and pastors and teachers. Shepherding is this it's protecting, guiding, and encouraging people to stay spiritually healthy and close to Jesus. Some of us are gonna think, and I I I want to I want to make sure to explain this carefully. There's a lot of pastors of churches in the world. They do have spiritual gifts of pastoring, but they may not even have the most profound gifts of pastoring in the church. There's a lot of folks with pastoring gifts that are not the pastor. The pastoring gift is just a little deposit from Jesus that makes you care about people, that makes you want to take responsibility for getting people somewhere. That's the pastoring gift. It's you look at folks and you're like, I hope they don't fall off this thing. I want to help them. You don't have to be the pastor of a church to help help that. That's why there's folks like small group leaders. That's why there's folks like team leaders who, dude, there's something in you that resonates that you're like, man, I just do not want to see them sink. I just want to help them get where they're going. I want to be an advantage to them. I just want to be one of the people. So maybe it's a mentor. Maybe it's maybe it is a small group leader, but whatever it is, it's a little deposit of Jesus. It's not just someone who wants to like go drop a truth bomb in the room and walk out. Pastory people, like maybe some of you, it's a long game, dude. It's sticking with people for a long time. It's watching them make mistakes and then being patient with them and then building them back up again. Dude, some of the most profound people in my life, I don't know about you, have been pastors that put up with my stupidity. They just stuck with me. And as I as I messed it up, as I stumbled and went, they just stayed in the picture and they represented Jesus and they said, Hey, bro, God still loves you. Get up, let's go. You ain't stopping here. And many of them were not in clergy at all. They were just people that would take you out to lunch and ask you about your day, ask you about your life. There's lots of those folks in this church, and what I want to challenge you is, okay, you've received that from people. Maybe you're even grateful for that from people, but do you have the confidence to do that for people? Gratefulness and confidence. You're already grateful, but what about the confidence? What about the stepping toward other people? So that might be mentors, it might be counselors. It might be, and this is how you know it might be you. You'll just have the impulse. I better check in with them. Maybe I should check in with them. Maybe I should just text them like, hey, how's it going today? If that ever just occurs to you, you might have pastoral gifts. If you're just just thinking about somebody, be like, man, they were having a tough week. I hope that they're doing okay. That is a little clue, precious. You might be a pastory person. So let me invite my friend Carla up. We're gonna talk a little bit about some of the gifts that are desperately needed in this church. Here she is. Carla, thanks for coming on up.

SPEAKER_04 30:12

Hey, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Hey, I know that one of the most crucial roles that we need at our church is classroom teachers. Yeah. Oh, yeah. What do you know about that?

SPEAKER_04 30:23

Oh man, so we absolutely need teachers, people that have a heart for kids. I think it's maybe easy to forget that we have kids because it's quiet in here and they're not, they're not around. They're actually in the classrooms, but we have classrooms full of kids and they are the leaders of tomorrow. And we get the privilege of teaching them about God's love. I always say, you know, I have two two girls and I I mess up a lot, but I say to myself, if I could just give them Jesus, they're gonna be okay. And so I don't want people, we don't need people who just want to fill a spot and watch kids. We don't need people to watch kids. We need people who maybe even right now you're feeling like a prickle of the Holy Spirit. Like maybe you've never done anything with kids before, and you're just, oh yeah, like that, that might be me, but you just don't know. It's caring about the next generation, it's caring about who we're raising up because they're gonna be the leaders of tomorrow. And we want to give them Jesus because we know if we put them in his hands, then we've got a secure future.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

Carla, that's really good, but kids are scary.

SPEAKER_04 31:29

Kids are scary.

SPEAKER_03 31:31

What do you say to somebody who's like, yeah, but kids are scary?

SPEAKER_04 31:35

You know what? I have my own personal story here. I feel like I've so teens for me. So we not just fierce kids, but we we need help in fierce teens as well. We need actual like leaders and mentors, small group leaders to come up. I was scared of teens, guys, but I was always like a little intrigued by them. And the reason I was scared from them is because as a teen, I never really fit in with my own peers. And so I thought, why would I ever fit in with teens now? Because they didn't like me then, and why would they like me now? And um, anyway, I just got over it and I started coming whether they like it or not. And I still don't know if they like me, but I like them. So I feel like it goes pretty well. I would just say give it a try because you just never know. You never know what door God is trying to open for you. You might just find out that wow, something about this clicks. And I'll say this I think sometimes you think that you have to have a certain personality to be effective in a child's life. Some of the most impactful people in my life were older people who were just present and loving and patient and constantly reminded me that I was loved and that they were proud of me and that they were there to give me a hug. Like I, those are some of the most impactful people in my life. And you better believe anything that they said after me. After that point, I was gonna listen with both my ears.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

What do you think are maybe some things that people misassume about uh like fierce kids teachers or things that they're like, um, they don't totally like we'll talk to teachers now and they'll share, here's how it is. And that wasn't intuitive at first.

SPEAKER_04 33:12

I don't know how to answer that question. It wasn't intuitive at first. Like, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_03 33:17

Like, yeah, so I mean, I know like we've got teachers who they were, they did not think that they were important at all. Like they didn't think like I'm not a kid person.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

But then they go in and they begin to see God use them and they begin to see kids responsive to them, even though they're not responsive to kids necessarily, the kids are loving them.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

Yeah, I mean, like that's pretty much I would say, like my story. I don't know if I would necessarily call classify myself as a kid person, but I know that if God's giving you the grace for it, there's just something about it where like kids will just start to flock around you. And that is, you just never will know until you give it a try. And especially if you feel like the Holy Spirit is like prickling your heart, like kids matter. Kids matter a whole ton. And I think getting over the fear, getting over any insecurity that you have is worth it. Because here's what you should know. If you were to check out Fierce Kids, we're not just gonna be like, you're a teacher now. Like, that's not how it goes. You're gonna have time to follow somebody. We want you to take some time to follow a rock star, get the handle of it, see what it's all about. And then we would slowly implement those things. So there's a there's a real time for you to kind of come in and get your bearings before anything like that would take place. It's just not, you don't have to be scared. You can just try.

SPEAKER_03 34:36

What if you are thinking about being a small group leader like at fierce teens, but you don't know that you're always going to know what to say?

SPEAKER_04 34:44

Yeah. Um, I think that you should just try too, because teens, what I'm finding out, what I needed most as a teen was somebody just to care about me. True. That was presence mattered so much more than I think I would imagine it does today. Like it's hard to believe that you just being there and showing care, right? Like asking questions. How was your week? What was something that happened this week, right? Like, and we'll give you we'll give you prompting questions. If you can't think of prompting questions, like there's just a ton of resources out there that you can ask to draw people out, but um, never underestimate just the impact that you're simply being there with patience and an open heart. The conversation starts at acceptance, like just being an accepting adult. Um, wow, what an impact, even that is.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Yeah. I think I would just echo that with God trains you on the go, dude.

SPEAKER_04 35:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:39

Like that's how it works. Like you just start with what you got. And then before you know it, the Lord is.

SPEAKER_04 35:43

I've seen that time and time again. He absolutely does equip you as you go. And that's the hard part too. Some people are like, well, I don't feel ready now. But the problem with that is it's so much easier to move uh a moving vehicle, it's easier to steer it than one that's parked. And so if you just take the first step, God and the Holy Spirit is inside of you. He is going to empower you. He's gonna, even if that's not the direction you're supposed to go, you might find out like, oh, that's a complete left turn, but you were already in motion. And so God is like, yeah, that was an easy easy turn, turn off.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

Yeah, that's it, dude. Um, Carlos, thanks so much for hanging with us today.

SPEAKER_04 36:16

Thanks for having me up.

Security Team And A Safer Church

SPEAKER_03 36:17

I would challenge everybody, yo. Um maybe just give it a summer. So if either either of those are interesting to you, just try it for a little while, dude. Like, we're not gonna put you in a jail cell. Uh, you know, just just see what God would do through you. Let me invite one more person up. It's Mr. Kevin. Come on, Kev. I don't have that much to say. Kevin, thanks for coming, dude. Let's talk about security, man. Don't y'all feel so safe with these security guards walking around all the time? I'm so thankful for them. Why isn't it my picture up there? You know, buddy, we looked and looked and looked for a good picture, but it was just rough, man. Hey, um, why is this role particularly so important to our church?

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Um, I think it's important for a couple reasons. One, I mean, we I think nobody will deny the fact that we need just an element, a visual element of security in the church just to, for one, feel safe and two, to look like we're creating a safe environment. I mean, um it's not to say that it's a facade. I'm just saying it's it's we need to just let people know that we take security seriously. Yeah. Um, we're ready. And you know, just also too, I think it's important for just I think God wants it to just be another avenue for people to be able to serve the mission of the church.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

Yeah. What do you think maybe people don't totally realize about the security team or the security role?

SPEAKER_00 37:47

I I feel like I'm revealing a trade secret here. Um, a lot of us have nothing to do in our background at all about security. A lot of us don't know a first thing about security. Um, sorry, hate to spoil that for you. Um we are not trained professionals. Um, we are just well, I want to say men, but women, you are completely welcome to be a part of the security team. It is not just for for men. Um, but we don't so when you ask them what the secret, we just we're figuring it out.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Um, there's plenty of material online for you know with church security, um, videos and and groups to be a part of, and we're we're just trying to figure it out.

SPEAKER_03 38:33

Here's one of the things I love about our security people. What they don't always know is that they're representing really the pastor's heart of Jesus because they run toward danger. However, equipped Kevin might feel this particular moment, I know every one of the people on that team are saying, I am ready to run toward danger on behalf of God's kids. Like that's what they'll do. And I don't know if you've thought about that. Are you thinking about your imaging the protector Jesus when you give yourself to a role like that?

unknown 39:04

I think they're first aid trained, too.

SPEAKER_03 39:06

They're first aid trained.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

We are first aid trained.

SPEAKER_03 39:08

God be praised.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

They don't let you do mouth to mouth anymore. So just know that.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

So that's who should do this?

SPEAKER_00 39:17

Who's the kind of person I mean, anyone that should do it who is, I think, an owner of this church that who calls this church a home, who cares about this church? Um, you know, really that is the that is uh my only requirement when I'm looking for people is do you care about this church? Are you gonna show up for your your shifts and be ready to like Carter said, you know, act, jump in the line of fire, not literally, but just you know, just speak up, you know, if something seems like it's not quite right.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

So anybody that just cares about this church.

unknown 39:53

And Mark, I know one thing about the security team.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Tell us.

unknown 39:57

They're vigilant.

From Consumer To Contributor

Prayer And Next Steps

SPEAKER_03 40:01

Their eyes are wide open. Thank God for a security team. Hey, give Kevin a round of applause. Well done, my friend. So, guys, big idea. Is any of that you? Or is any of that just trigger something in you that wants to explore God using you, maybe in a more training type of a way? Jesus is not asking us to be to do anything that He is Himself is not providing for us. Because at the end of the day, Jesus is the teacher and Jesus is the leader, and Jesus is the pastor. But you and I have to make the choice. Some of us, am I gonna choose consumerism as just the way I do it, or am I gonna choose to be equipped? Am I gonna stay thankful that I get direction, or am I going to consider becoming in Jesus' name someone who brings Jesus' direction to lives? Am I going to stay thankful that my mind gets to absorb cool truth from God, or am I going to be competent to share truth from God with others? And then am I going to allow people to care for me, or am I going to be confident to care for other folks? My friends, whatever comes next, God is calling us to take our place, to be developed, to thank God for the gifts that we have and to not snooze on them, to use them for his glory and for one another. Let's bow our heads and pray. Father, I'm so thankful for the gifts that you've given. I'm so thankful that you have challenged each one of us and given us the gifts you actually want us to utilize on this planet. God, would you give us a sense of direction? Would you give us our next step? For some of us, maybe it's taking the first step. For others of us, maybe it's taking steps with other people to help them keep moving. God, we want to recognize it's a privilege to be part of your mission. It's a privilege that you would share your adventure with us. I know that it doesn't look the same in every life stage, but I'm praying whatever life stage everyone is in, you would affirm them, you would applaud them, you would encourage them, and you would draw them even when the going gets tough. To like you embrace the cross and lay it all out there for the King of Kings while we have life left to live. In Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, folks, that's all the time we have, but thank you so much for listening to this sermon. If you got a lot out of this, feel free to share this with somebody who might need it. Also, there's a ton more content on our website, on our YouTube channel, on our Instagram channel, on our TikTok channel. Feel free to check all that kind of a thing out. Also, if you're interested in leadership type stuff, go ahead and check out another podcast or any other blogs or videos or anything over at BibleLeadership.com. And whatever else you do, make sure that you believe God for something big today.