Built For Belonging

What if the most life-changing ministry starts with a simple, honest conversation? We take a fresh look at Acts 2 and discover how a church becomes truly life-giving when devotion to teaching, fellowship, shared meals, prayer, and generosity move from a service plan to a shared way of life. Along the way, we talk about why Gen Z and Gen Alpha, flooded by algorithms and “for you” feeds, still lean in when someone shows up with authenticity. A small question on a long bus ride turns into trust, and trust opens the door for invitations that many people are waiting to accept.

We unpack the math that reshapes disciple-making: a few hours inside the building, a whole week outside it. That shift reframes mission as something that happens at work, at school, at the dinner table, and on the sidelines. From Paul’s charge to Timothy to the daily rhythm of the early church, multiplication thrives where people open their homes, share their lives, and give freely to meet needs. The result isn’t hype; it’s health—joyful hearts, humble service, and favor with people who notice the difference.

To anchor this vision, we draw a surprising parallel to Apollo 11. One small step captured the world, but hundreds of thousands made the mission possible. In the same way, the kingdom advances through many quiet acts of faithfulness: a ride to church, a shared meal, a patient answer, a prayer in a hard moment. We celebrate a year of baptisms, growing engagement across ages, and new outreach partnerships, not as trophies, but as signs that God adds to a people who keep Christ at the center and keep showing up for one another. If this resonates, share the episode with a friend, subscribe for more gospel-centered conversations, and leave a review to help others find the show. Who will you invite this week?

Chapters

• 0:03 Welcome And Invitation To Visit
• 0:34 Setting The Theme: Biblical Community
• 3:40 Acts 2 As The Model For Church
• 5:16 Gen Z And Gen Alpha’s Search For Real
• 9:17 The Bus Story And Authentic Conversation
• 12:57 Invitation Works: Stats And Invite Night
• 15:18 Community That Fosters Discipleship
• 18:20 Most Discipleship Happens Beyond Church Walls
• 21:20 Intentionality At Home And Everyday Spaces
• 23:31 Life-Giving Community And The Moonshot
• 27:24 A Year In Review At First Baptist

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Hello and welcome to the FBC El Daredo Sermon Podcast. My name is Taylor Gere and I have the privilege of being the pastor here at First Baptist. And I want to thank you for listening into our sermon this week. And I want to tell you this if you're in our area and you don't have a church home, we would love to see you any Sunday morning at First Baptist El Doredo. Will you join me now in listening to our sermon from this week?

SPEAKER_01: 0:34

Well, hey, good morning, church. Um happy, thank y'all. Happy uh student pastor national preaching Sunday. Uh for those of you that uh celebrate with me. Um today is the day that student pastors all across the nation are filling in for their pastors as they get their last minute vacations and things like that. So glad you're here. That's a joke, of course. Uh but I'm honored to be here to uh speak uh the gospel this morning and and get a chance to come and hang out with uh, as our kids call it, the big, big kids. So um thank you all for being here this morning. Uh this morning, I just want to talk a little bit about uh community. I want to kind of reflect on this past year of uh our church, um just the things that we have gotten to do, the things we've gotten to be a part of, um, but also the things that God has done right here at First Baptist Church of El Dorado. Um, in order to do that, I want to break down uh a definition for you, real quick. Um, community uh is this it's a group of people connected by shared characteristics, interests, values, uh, or location, fostering a sense of belonging, mutual support, and shared identity. Um I think I talk about community uh maybe too much, uh, but here's the thing about community. When we look at the church, when we look at this definition, uh we as First Baptist Church are defined as a community. Um we are a community of believers, of uh Christians, of people who come into worship. We share the same values in uh scripture, we share uh the same interests, a lot of us do, um, and we share a central purpose, and that is to make God known throughout the world. We know by scripture that a biblical community, uh, as we call it the church, um, is not really just a building either. I think it's important that as we go through this morning, we understand that like when we're talking about community, when we're talking about the church, we're not talking about uh four walls or eight walls if you look at our uh sanctuary, but we are looking at the people. The church is talked about all throughout scripture, not as a building, not just as a place of gathering, but specifically a group of people with a common purpose. Um, in fact, uh, if you look out uh in the New Testament, the 114 instances that the word church is used, it's designated specifically as a group of people. Uh people who, again, share a common goal in making Christ known. So the New Testament church always designates as a people and never the place where they meet. And here's the thing about community, and you know this, and I think that you uh have have uh done a good job of fostering a sense of community, but community is essential to our faith. Uh community is essential to the things that we do. Uh community is uh essential to the way we live our lives. Uh, it helps build us up and gets us ready to go out into the world. And to do that, I want to look at a familiar passage of scripture with you. In Acts chapter 2, um, we read about uh the early church. And you've read this, we've talked about it um before here on Sunday mornings, but I think it's important that as we move into a new year, uh as we close out uh a productive and uh engaging and um very God-filled year here at First Baptist, I think we have to also remember um the example that's set right here in Acts of how we should continuously be a community that goes and tells others about Jesus. Starting in verse forty-two, um, here is what we read. It says, And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers. Then fear came over everyone, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together, and they held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property, and distributed the proceeds to all as any one had a need. Every day they devoted themselves to the meeting together in the temple complex, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with a joyful and humble attitude, praising God and having favor with all the people. And here's the result of these things. And every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for the time that we get to gather together and dive into your word. Uh, God, thank you for your word, thank you for worship this morning. Um, would you just bless uh the continuous study? In your name we pray. Amen. Um I I think uh as a youth pastor, I would do a disservice to y'all by not talking a little bit about youth and and the generation of today. So I'm gonna be using two different terms today. One is uh Gen Alpha and one is Gen Z. Do y'all know those terms? Sorta, kinda? Let me let me break them down for you. Gen Z uh refers to people born from the late 1990s, somewhere around 1997 uh up to around 2012. And Gen Alpha refers to those born from 2013 through 2025. So we're looking at the kids and and youth of today. And there's some interesting things about specifically Gen Alpha, but also Gen Z as they're getting ready to graduate. Um, here are some things that we know through study about these two generations. We know that they uh have more information, access to more information, than anyone else ever has in history. Uh, and and they get it a lot of the times through these. Now, uh I say that, and some of you are rolling your eyes, these are not necessarily a bad thing. Um, however, they are accessible to all information uh at the blink of an eye. And it's important that we understand that along with cell phones, uh, we get information through different platforms from those or from other people. So we look at social media, we look at video platforms. Uh for some people, it's gaming platforms, um, influencers. Uh we see it uh in AI, the artificial intelligence, the one that scares a lot of us, uh, but also through personalized content. So when you're scrolling through Instagram or Facebook, you have your for you page if you know what I'm talking about. Some of you, this is going over your head. Uh but it's it's full of things that are of interest to whoever is scrolling. And here's the thing about this is there's an influx of information and information and information. But there's something funny about Generation Alpha because there's another study on this exact same thing that shows that this is not satisfying. And we have this dilemma. We have this dilemma because as we scroll and we get bored, we uh Generation Alpha seeks something different, and they seek authentic communication. Um, the point that I forgot to tell you was going to be on the screen is that uh community often starts with a conversation. And here's why this is important is because as much as we like to look at our phones, as much as we like to scroll and do all the different things and get our information from different people, this generation desires and seeks authentic communication. Authenticity is this, it's the quality of being genuine and acting in accordance with one's true self, values, and beliefs, rather than pretending or masking. It involves self-awareness, courage to reveal one's core self despite potential judgment, and consistent alignment of actions and deeply held personal principles. That's a huge definition for this. Jen Alpha desires something that is real. Something that they can see in front of them, something that they can have conversation about. Why do I tell you these things? Um, well, let me tell you about my first year, uh, really my first few months here at First Baptist. Um, in the very beginning of uh my time here, I was told that we were taking a mission trip to Hazard, Kentucky. Those of you that ask where Hazzard, Kentucky is, it's in Kentucky, and that's about it. It's a little bitty town. I couldn't tell you where, it's up in the mountains somewhere. And we took a bus and it was super hard to get through, and that's all I know. And it was hot and it was a long trip. Anyway, but it was a great trip. That being said, uh, kids and adults uh at the end of the week were exhausted. It had been a long, busy week. Uh, we had, I think, 33 teenagers with us uh to five adults. Um, it was a long week, uh, but it was a good week. But let me tell you about this 14-hour uh bus trip back. If you've ever been a chaperone for youth or for kids or uh for other people, you know that a lot of the times at night what you have to do is you have to separate the boys and the girls. And that's not as far anyway. You have to separate boys and girls. The girls were at the front of the bus, the boys were at the back of the bus. And I, on my first trip ever, thank you to Miss Sally, uh, you didn't know I was shouting you out this morning, uh, got to be what we called the bus barrier. Um, I got to sit and be one of the people who separated the guys from the girls. Now, this is important, and I'll tell you why here in just a minute. But there were some conversations throughout the week that I got to have with different students, um, got to know a few people, but there were still times uh where I felt that I didn't know uh students well because it I was still new. Um and this was our first big trip. Um but being a few months in, uh being given the the role of bus barrier uh was important, and here's why. Um does anyone know if you can see that what this is right here? It's a it's a uh earbud, air bud, air, I don't know what it's called. It's it's a headphone that puts in your ear and it's wireless. Now, here is here is the thing about these. Um this is a brand called Beats. Most of you probably know what beats are. Uh for those of you that are too young, beats came before the the Apple dangling ones, okay? Um I had this old pair uh that had the the little band that goes around so it unfall off your neck because I lose things, and we older people of 30 and above lose things. And um I remember listening to some music, um, and in front of me were three at the time eighth grade girls. It was um Haven, Presley, and and Maggie. And I can remember Maggie turning around and just kind of looking at me, and I kind of waved, you know, not still don't know all these people super well. And she said, What's in your head? And I said, What are you talking about? She said, What's what's the thing in your ear? I said, These these are these are my beats. And she goes, Okay, she said, What are what are beats? And I was like, Beats are headphones. Like, I don't know. That's the thing the music's coming from. And she said, Those don't look like my AirPods. I said, No, they don't. I said, they are older than your AirPods. Um, the one that I had at the time, probably older than you. And so here's the thing, though. That is one of the most important questions I've ever had in student ministry. And here's why. Because it was a real question from a real person that desired a real answer. And in that moment, we shared a conversation about beats and then taste of music, but also what are you studying in school? Like, what are some things you like in school? And then on the reverse side, tell me about your family. You're still new here. Tell me about uh uh Caitlin and Maggie Grace and Josie Kate wasn't here quite yet, but um, tell me about your family. And what that did is it opened up a conversation, a genuine, authentic conversation, just about each other. And with that, an invitation comes along with it as well, meaning that I now had a foot in a door uh with new students, three new students that I got to share for just a little while till uh everybody inevitably fell asleep, um, a little bit about myself, and they got to tell me a little bit about themselves. And here's why this invitation is important. Um, I think a lot of the times as Christians we fear um uh denial or we we fear uh someone telling us no when we invite them to different things, to church, to an event or whatever. But here's another statistic for you, and I'm almost done. I know this is a long point, but listen, here's what this statistic shows. Did you know that more people would come to church if they were invited by somebody? And and this sounds silly, like yes, like you need to invite people to church, but let me give you a number. Did you know that studies show that between 80 and 83 percent, that's four out of five people, would say yes to coming to church if someone that they knew just asked them? I mean, like an authentic, genuine conversation that opens up uh a world of possibilities in a community. Four out of five people. We did something um cool, special, new this year across the street. We had an invite night. And here's the thing about invite night is uh we brought in a guest speaker. You can ask uh if you have youth, you can ask them about all the different things he did. It was cool. Um, but for this, what we challenge students to do is go and invite one person to church, one friend. Just tell them about what Jesus has been doing in your life, invite them to church. Here's what happened as a result of students being faithful, going and telling their friends about uh church, we had 138 students between a couple churches show up. And and not only that, from that we had 15 different decisions of salvation, of interest of who Jesus is, of uh committing to go back to church to be plugged into church to start inviting other people. Here's the thing because students were bold enough to say, Hey, I want a conversation with you just about church, just about what God's doing, people showed up. As a community of believers, as a community of going and being called to tell other people about Jesus, a lot of the times this community starts with conversation. Um, some of these statistics I told a couple people I didn't have a children's book for you this morning, but if you go and you read The Anxious Generation, there's your book, um, you can hear a lot about the the desire for authenticity in in today's generation. It's really cool. Check it out. Let's keep going. Here's something else about community. It fosters discipleship. Read with me again uh in verses 45 and 46. It says they sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all as anyone had a need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with a joyful and humble attitude, praising God and having favor with all the people. Uh, piggybacking off of being authentic in conversation, community is to be fostering discipleship. Um, the cool thing about discipleship within community is that it spreads really quickly. There's a chart, uh, I think if you go over a slide, not really a chart, but like a list of six. There it is. Here's something about um generational uh discipleship. We all know who Paul is. Um Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 2, uh, he tells Timothy, hey, go find some faithful men and disciple them. Go teach them about how to spread the gospel, go teach them the foundations of our faith and see what happens. So what happens is Paul tells Timothy. Timothy then tells some faithful men, and those faithful men go and start telling other people as well. But the cool thing is that down here at the bottom, we see some other people as well. We see a couple generations. These are people that poured into Paul even before this. Here's the thing about your discipleship and your communities. A lot of the times that discipleship happens outside of the church, outside of these walls, and that's super crucial to our faith. Because what happens is we spend a lot more time outside of this building than we do inside this building. I have a picture for you as well. Um and it may be a little blurry, and some of you have seen this before. Uh, has anyone not seen this before? Y'all are in for a treat. Uh, so this tall bucket full of ping pong balls or Cheetos cheese balls, whichever one uh gets you through this Sunday morning. Uh that we'll we'll call it ping pong balls. Uh, there are two of them. There's this really big one, and then if you look over on the left, there's this teeny tiny one. And again, sorry for the image quality. That's the only one Google Images has anywhere. Um, but here's the significance of this right here. The one on the right, on average, is the amount of time that people will spend outside of the church in a year, and on the left is what you'll spend inside of the church. This picture is important because as we look at discipleship and we think through discipleship and we think about the people that we come into contact with, this is wonderful. Like we should gather and we should have the desire to gather and come and worship and read scripture. But realistically, when we leave these doors here in just a little bit, our mission field goes there. Again, I don't want to downplay this at all. The time that we have together to worship and to pray and to dive into scripture is crucial to everything that we do. But there is a whole group of people outside of the church that desires for us to disciple them and to pour into them. I want to break it down just a little bit further and talk about the the life of a teenager inside and outside of the church. Um, on average, uh church time per week, Sundays and Wednesdays, they get about four hours here in our church. That's pretty good. They get four hours. School time per week, on average, they get roughly 37. Outside of those two things, like the rest of the time, uh, they have 127 hours. And and you can take away some sleeping time and things like that for those of them that uh sleep eight hours. Um you can you can take away a few hours, and it still is significantly more than the time that they have inside of the church. And so we asked, why is discipleship outside of the church important? It's important because a lot of the times our mission takes place outside of these walls. Yes, God moves within the first Baptist Church and other churches and and does cool things in the sanctuary, but he also calls us to go out and tell other people. We read about that in Matthew, the Great Commission. Go and tell other people, go and make disciples of all nations. The truth about community is that it extends far beyond the walls of this building. Um, for me and Caitlin, we're still relatively new to parenting, we're only four years in. Um, there's a lot that we are learning. And what I'm learning and reminded of every day is that when I go home from work, I go to a new community, a familiar community of my family. Caitlin's there and dog is there but also we've got a two and a four year old that long for Caitlin and I to be home to be excited to play uh dress up or they put a little blue bow in my beard and say that I'm the beast from Beauty and the Beast and we have to spin circles and dance all the way through and I get dizzy and have to sit down and and all these things. But here's what that is is it's us being intentional with our kids. And this is not a parenting lesson. Again we're still new this is not a hey do better. What this is is we have these communities that take place outside of just our church family here. We have our families at home we have our our workplaces we have sports teams we have all these different places that we are called to go. We have to be intentional with the way that we engage outside of the church it's important. But finally here's here's the last thing I want to tell you about community community is life giving at the end of the day the church is life giving we read about it here in Acts uh let's look back one more time here at the end of Acts chapter 2 the second part of verse 47 it says that every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved. Through the efforts of the church we read about in Acts the Lord blesses them the Lord gives them a result of their hard work. Here's some things we see about the early church uh they have a main focus they're Christ centered uh we see they have intentional effort uh participation um they're inviting people within their homes they're being vulnerable uh they're selling their possessions and giving them to those who are in need they're honest and open with what they believe uh there's generosity and I'm sure there were some challenges as there are anywhere we're an imperfect people who are serving a perfect God we probably mess up each and every morning uh on our way to church uh whether someone cuts us off or whatever but listen we are to be life giving as a community we are to be uh there for other people um and we are to work hard with a central focus I have one more picture that I want to show you this morning um everyone probably recognizes this picture uh some of you including my wife she stepped out for just a second with the kids so I can I can pick on her for a second um some of you don't believe that this picture is real but that's not a conversation for now uh we can talk about why the moon landing happened at a different time but for those of you that don't know what this picture is is it is the Apollo 11 1969 moon landing mission uh one of the most historic examples of community and teamwork we have right here uh while the world focused on three astronauts Neil Armstrong Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins um the former two who worked on the moon most remember only Armstrong and his famous line uh being the first human to set foot on uh this moon he says this is one small step for mankind oh just kidding this is one small step for man but one giant leap for mankind and we see these three and we say man what an accomplishment but there's so much more to this story let me read some facts for you according to NASA there were an estimated 400,000 people involved in making the moon landing possible and this includes teams of scientists engineers technicians many of who did not even have any kind of knowledge of the aerospace field they were just asked because they knew what they were doing to help in part of this mission. To make for a more cohesive team the astronauts worked with these many groups making the human connection that is the blood of any team. And again you've heard uh the quote one small step for man but one giant leap for mankind and through working together NASA and these astronauts and these scientists and all these people did something and they worked together to accomplish something that had never been thought of being able to be accomplished. That reminds me a lot of the church and while we are not making uh the church about landing on the moon what we are saying is that we all have a part in a bigger picture. We all play a small role in making the kingdom known sometimes we it it bothers us because what we like to see is the end result of things. We like to see the person that we pray for invite to church come to know Jesus. We want to be the one to deliver uh somebody straight to the pulpit to prayer and into the baptistry and we should strive to to bring people to Jesus but here's the reality of that is that a lot of times it takes a few different tries a few different people a few different hands to have uh a part in this to make uh the biggest impact we can but I want to show you something because I don't want to end on something that's discouraging I want to show you what's happened here uh in our church this past year and I'm I'm honored to be able to to present some of these things to you because it's been uh a long year a good year um but also a really fast year and I think that if we don't slow down right here just a couple days before the year ends we're gonna leave 2025 thinking what in the world has God done like what all has has God done here at First Baptist let me tell you what God has done here at First Baptist. Looking back through 2025 we saw 24 baptisms take place here in this room we saw attendance rise in all areas of our church specifically in youth children Sunday morning attendance life groups and also in our choir and our orchestra we saw people of all ages getting to know the Lord we saw people being intentional in inviting their friends to church we saw uh people open up their homes for people to come in and just have a meal with them to go and have coffee with them uh we have started and are going through a relationship with Yokam primary where we get to go and take food and not only give a meal but we get to present and share a little bit of the gospel each and every week so that someone goes home knowing Jesus a little bit better and having food to eat. God's done so many things in first Baptist life and not just our life but the churches around Union County in Arkansas and the U.S. and the world and here's the thing as a church community as a community that we look at being good it's important that we remember what the end goal is. Even though we don't always see the result we have this right here and I'll read it one more time and then I'll close and every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved. That's the goal of it all isn't it I mean like that's that's what we come to church for and that's what we have community for. That's what we tell other people about Jesus for not so that it's something that we can say hey look at how many kids we had on a Sunday morning. Hey look at what we did on Wednesday night hey look how large this choir is those are all good things but here's the thing at the end of the day let's make sure um that we're just presenting the gospel staying focused and let's see just what God does in the life of first Baptist first uh church I'm I'm excited and honored to be um here as as y'all student pastor and I know I speak for the staff when I say that we are grateful for the work that you put in each and every day to go and make Jesus known. Keep being consistent and keep being a community that makes Christ known um here's what I'm going to offer to you as we move into a time of invitation uh maybe you've thought through here I really want to know who this Jesus is that that Colby's been talking about. I'd love to talk to you about Jesus. Maybe you've heard a little bit about community and you say hey that sounds like a good idea. I I think I want to join this community come talk to me about church membership. Let's let's get that nailed down too maybe you just need prayer or need to come and kneel and pray as we move into a new year about the the unknown challenges that we may face. Whatever it is I invite you after I pray to come down and uh and get it taken care of. God we thank you for this morning we thank you again for the time that you give us uh to come and gather in your house Lord thank you for uh this community here at First Baptist Church thank you for uh the good things that you've done thank you for getting us through the hard times that we faced um but God thank you for being faithful and as we see in in the church in Acts we just pray that each and every day you make known to us more and more uh people who are being saved those that get to know you God we thank you again for this morning and we pray uh that you continue to to uh be present through the rest of our worship in your name we pray amen