Growing Together
Step into a virtual garden of spiritual growth and community connection with the "Growing Together" podcast. This podcast is a nurturing space for individuals seeking to deepen their faith, cultivate relationships, and explore the boundless beauty of a shared spiritual journey.
Each episode of "Growing Together" is a breath of fresh air, where Pastor Michael, Syd, Nic, Pastor Holly, and Pastor Roger try to navigate the twists and turns of life while staying rooted in faith. Their warm and inviting presence makes you feel like you're sitting in a cozy living room, engaged in a heartfelt conversation with old friends.
Diving into topics ranging from personal growth and self-care to building resilient relationships and fostering a sense of community, the podcast aims to equip listeners with the tools to nurture their faith in all aspects of life. Through scripture readings, open discussions, and interviews with experts in various fields, "Growing Together" provides a holistic approach to spiritual development.
Whether you're a lifelong believer, a seeker on the spiritual path, or simply someone curious about how faith can shape lives, "Growing Together" offers a welcoming haven for everyone. Tune in during your morning routine, while taking a leisurely stroll, or even during a quiet moment of reflection – the podcast fits seamlessly into your daily life.
Join the "Growing Together" community and embark on a journey of discovery, growth, and genuine connection. In a world that can sometimes feel disconnected, this podcast reminds us that nurturing our faith and cultivating meaningful relationships can lead to a life that's deeply fulfilling and spiritually abundant. Subscribe now to start your journey of growing together in faith and fellowship.
Growing Together
What’s the Sabbath’s?
Have you ever reminisced about the days when music came in a physical form and the thrill of waiting for your mail-order CDs? Join us as we explore the quirky world of CD clubs like BMG and Columbia House, where promises of exclusive Elvis outtakes and limited edition box sets often led to both excitement and frustration. A nostalgic journey through the sounds of the 90s brings back fond memories, like the summer when a Dixie Chicks album was the most anticipated event. Listen to heartwarming tales of "Goodbye Earl" being hilariously performed at a church talent show, proving that music's charm truly transcends generations.
In an era where our smartphones are practically extensions of ourselves, how do we balance technological advances with our spiritual lives? We travel back to the days of track phones and BlackBerrys to reflect on how these devices have reshaped our daily interactions and faith practices. The conversation naturally evolves into a discussion on the significance of the Sabbath, the authenticity of worship music, and the importance of having a theologically sound approach to spirituality. We emphasize that while music sets the mood, it cannot create a genuine spiritual experience on its own.
Dive into the complexities of interpreting ancient texts and evolving religious beliefs, influenced by contemporary discussions like those of biblical scholar William Hough on Joe Rogan's podcast. We unravel the transformation of concepts such as repentance over time, sharing preferences for modern Bible translations that make ancient scriptures more accessible. The episode ends with a touching story of an Amish girl navigating her father's traditional beliefs, highlighting how kindness and generosity can bridge divides. With tales of heartfelt community support and humorous anecdotes, we explore the profound impact of simply being there for one another.
just recently, three weeks ago, maybe. It's $60, $80, three CDs. We all know Elvis ain't making new music, right? Like we're all aware that we've already got these songs on other CDs somewhere. That's what I was going to say. So then they're like oh, these are all unheard outtakes from Girl Happy. First of all, that movie sucked. So do we? Do you really want, right, you really want to spend?
Speaker 1:60 bucks a lot of times it's like 15 or 45 seconds of a song that like. Then they're like oh no, no, no, let's start that again. And I'm like who wants to listen to this? Yes, like it's, and listen. They did a complete anthology of elvis many years ago. That, um, I may or may not have gotten off of the internet for free, but it's like 600 songs, and Elvis said once that he recorded something like 900 songs in his career, and so this is about as complete as one set could get and there's no outtakes, there's no secondary versions. It's the stuff that was on the albums and I'm like you know what? That's good enough for me. That is good enough for me.
Speaker 4:I was in high school. They came out with the 50s, the 60s and the 70s oh, the little the, was it the flip up one? Well, it was a box, okay box. You opened it and it was a limited edition serial number and it had just great books inside of it. They were really beautiful and I and I got all three. You know, remember when you used to be able to do the?
Speaker 1:BMG. Oh yeah, Buy one for a penny.
Speaker 4:If I bought one box set, well, I could get three for free, so I had so much stuff from doing that, so I learned how that worked.
Speaker 1:This is fascinating, how they're able to do that. I mean they did it with cassettes. They did it with cds. You could get 10 for a penny a piece if you signed up, whatever. And what happens is they're not the actual cds that you would go to the store and buy.
Speaker 1:The upc is different, and what they would do is they had the rights, the ability to produce those cds on their own, and they would produce them cheaper, not that it mattered, like it was the same thing generally speaking, but like maybe the label would be different on the CD or the cover art would be slightly different or the back would be slightly different, but basically the same exact CD. But because they produced them in-house or with a overseas, whatever, they were able to produce them cheaper, just give them away. But then they would charge you 30 for the next one. Like you got 10 for free but you had to sign up for the club, and the next 10 that you bought were 30 dollars a piece, but you could have gotten them at walmart for 12. So they made their money.
Speaker 4:But for anybody who ever actually followed through with the commitment, well, that was the thing, because bmg was the best, because once you followed through they would send you like quarterly, they would send you like, the stick catalog, and it would be about this big Well, in the middle of that catalog were all these certificates, and each one was a buy one, get three free. Buy one, get three free. And I just Went crazy. Crazy on that stuff, especially after I had my first job and I was making, you know, three $400 a week.
Speaker 1:I'm like I have all the CDs. My grandma, my grandma, alabama grandma she was a big I don't know if it was BMG or Columbia house or what it was, but she always buying CDs through there. And when I lived, lived when I stayed with her that one summer they were only country music listeners down there, go figure right, and so I became obsessed with some of the 90s country music is when I started to really like love music, genuinely love music, and so I would nothing else to do. My grandma would go to work. We couldn't do anything by ourselves, like we couldn't go anywhere, we don't have to drive. So I would like clean the house and organize and whatever, and go through all of her old junk and turn on CMT and it used to just be country music videos all day long yeah.
Speaker 1:And I remember, um the Dixie chicks album that came out, um, whatever their first album was. Anybody remember the name of it? I don't remember the name. Yes, okay, it doesn't matter, but that album came out and I wanted it so bad and my grandma was like, well, I can't order it from Columbia House because you'll have to go home before it comes, because it takes like nine weeks for them to come. She had it mailed to my house. I'll never forget the day that they mailed it to my house.
Speaker 4:I'll never forget the day that they mailed it to my house, I lost my mind it did take a long time.
Speaker 1:It did. Yes, it took forever. Well, but you gotta think too. You were snail mail, you were mailing that sucker in. You had to mail them the form. They had to process it. Then they had to pack it, ship it. It wasn't like everything digital now, so it was a different world, yeah.
Speaker 3:Dixie Chicks that sang Earl's Gotta Die. Yep, yeah, yep. That's what got him in trouble.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, that and their comments about George Bush. Earl's Gotta Die. Goodbye Earl was the name of the song.
Speaker 3:So my grandma at Park Christian Church is having a talent show.
Speaker 1:Somebody sing it.
Speaker 3:My kids Clayton and Sarah. That wasn't what they were supposed to say. Yes, yes, Gotcha. I could have died myself. That is hilarious.
Speaker 1:That's good stuff.
Speaker 3:Sarah and Clayton stood up there and sang it.
Speaker 1:Was it? There's your Trouble. Was that the name of the album? I think that was the name of the album Wide Open Spaces. Wide Open Spaces, that's it. That's the name of the album. Wide Open Spaces, that's it. That's the name Wide Open Spaces. And it was the best. And I don't care what anybody says. I am not. I don't care if you like the Dixie Chicks or not. That album was fantastic. The harmonies were just phenomenal. Those girls were so talented. I mean good stuff, really good stuff. I want to go home and listen to it. Listen. We'll occasionally throw it on in the car. When we're all in the car and my kids are like Dad, you know every word to every one of these songs.
Speaker 1:Yep, because I listened to nothing but that CD for months.
Speaker 4:What I really miss is being able to look at the liner notes and everything as you listen to the music. That's what I miss.
Speaker 1:Do you also remember that they used to put the lyrics inside of some of the original Backstreet Boys album had all of the lyrics, so like I felt like one of the Backstreet.
Speaker 4:Boys, because I knew the words, I didn't have to guess yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the physical. So video games are going digital for the most part now too. So they want you to buy a digital copy of something that you download on your system. And I told my wife so long as they make physical copies, I'll never do that, because right now I have a regular Nintendo, I have a Super Nintendo, I have a Nintendo 64. I have a Nintendo. What was it?
Speaker 4:Not the.
Speaker 1:Switch GameCube. I have a Wii, wii U, then the Switch, so, and then we've got an OLED Switch too. We don't have a Switch Lite, but then we have all of their handheld systems and we've got all of the games that we owned that went with them. So at any point we can pull one of those out and we can play those games. Wii, like Nintendo, no longer supports the Wii Shop, so if you digitally downloaded Wii Bowling, you can't play it anymore. Because you can't get to it to download it.
Speaker 3:Huh.
Speaker 1:So why would like our Xbox Series X like? I have Madden 25 as a digital download. My son bought it for me for my birthday. Well, when they stop supporting that, I'll never be able to play it again. So I am physical copies all the way. For that reason, yeah, I'll stream music because I don't need to own like I love that I can. It can be eclectic, but if I, if there's something that I love, I want to buy it. I want to have it forever. Yeah, yeah. Did I ever tell you guys about what I did for my kids? And if anybody ever wants to do this, hit me up. I'll help you guys with it.
Speaker 1:I recorded twas the night before christmas for all of my kids. I took a just like this setup right here and I played some fun Christmassy music in the background and I recorded the entire book, my voice, recording the entire book for my kids. I put it on a flash drive as a bookmark and then got each of them a copy and then I wrote them notes in the back of every one of those books and then that's part of what we will gift them when they move out as they get older. I also put QR codes in the book, so it is forever housed on YouTube. So long as they have the link, they'll be able to access that recording. I've tried to get my parents to do it for my kids and they won't. But I'm like you don't understand the value of that. Like I was thinking the other day, I spent an entire summer, like my childhood, with my grandma in Alabama and I remember a lot of that.
Speaker 4:But there was. I had things like that. That's what I'm saying Like just Alyssa's mom.
Speaker 1:When she passed away, we found some audio clips after she had had her stroke. One of those audio clips was her singing happiest girl in the whole USA by Donna Fargo, and so I took that clip with another clip of her telling them that she loved them, and I put the two of them together and I made one for Alyssa's sister, and all it is is it's a wooden plaque with a QR code. You scan that QR code, she sings I'm the happiest girl in the whole USA and then tells them that she loves them. Can you just being able to have that, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Anytime. Yeah, caitlin has some videos of my mom on her phone and just every now and then, just to listen to that.
Speaker 1:Yep, and so I am really cognizant, but I'm also a little bit morbid. I'm always thinking about those things. What happens when I die? What legacy am I leaving for my children? What are they going to remember me for other than being crazy? Right, right.
Speaker 2:Sid. What's tonight's topic Sabbath?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Sid what's?
Speaker 2:tonight's topic, sabbath. Oh yeah, like the importance and I just I think it's impossible for this generation to press in on it, I suppose you said you think it's impossible.
Speaker 1:It's not impossible.
Speaker 2:It's not, but the they make it out the choice, making the choice is difficult yes, they have to want to yes, and like Nick said earlier, it's because, you know, for people working full time you have one, two days, if that, to get your things done.
Speaker 4:A child's mind does not have a minute of rest or repose ever in our current society. I mean, if they've got a cell phone, their mind is not at rest.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 4:Or in repose, thinking about things at all. Their brain is constantly being exercised, entertained.
Speaker 2:Somehow.
Speaker 4:And not by themselves, not by their own thoughts, or yeah?
Speaker 3:You know it's.
Speaker 4:Creativity yeah or just constantly just being fed information.
Speaker 2:It's scary yeah.
Speaker 4:So it's like I'm, it's like I'm doing like I'm really trying to do this, this no cell phone sunday thing. I can't imagine saying hey, maggie turn off yourself. This is going to include you, like every sunday. We're not going to have cell phones. Their brains would explode yeah I think they would just have a. They would, I was a complete meltdown.
Speaker 2:I was thinking about that, you know, your Sunday situation earlier when I thought of the topic. I'm like it's like a sabbatical Sunday, you know, because, yeah, yeah, but I think people really need to press in on that, um, but it's, you know, I just don't think anyone true, like I don't see anyone ever talking about the Sabbath right you know, or or if they do it's, they don't dive deep into it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, let's. I want to pivot but, not away from that, but just to to tie that in with something else. It's the the same with fasting.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:We we're all guilty of this, but we have taken a fast, which was intended to be food and drink and things like that, and turned it into social situations as well. There's nothing wrong with that, but we have taken a fast and adjusted it to the lifestyle of today, just like we've taken the Sabbath and adjusted it to the lifestyle of today. We can't determine what the word tells us. It is what it is and it doesn't change Now. When God put that on to paper or to tablet, I guess when he was inspiring these men to write these things, they didn't know that technology would be the way that it was. Even if you told them that they would have phones or they would be able to call somebody at a great distance, they're like, oh, we're going to be able to shout louder, like they wouldn't have realized what that meant, and so they're writing it in the time that they live in, and so we try to adapt that to fit the lifestyle that we are now forced to be in.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Think back. Most of us, I mean all of us, said maybe not. How old are you? 28? Oh, okay, so you probably remember life before cell phones. Yeah, like there's. Yeah, I remember when we got my grandma her first cell phone yeah and she was getting older, but she wasn't old by any stretch of the imagination. But when she would leave the house, everybody'd want to be able to reach her in case something happened.
Speaker 2:And and she'd forget it.
Speaker 1:Roger in the event of the emergency. It would never have minutes on it, because at the time the only thing that you could get was a track phone. You bought a track phone. It was the little square brick that you could play Snake on. But that was it right, and it was my grandma's was red, had a red face plate on it, had a little thin antenna that you could pull up on it. Like that was the first kind of standard everybody could afford, a cell phone type of thing. Then progressed to the mini flip phones. You guys remember those, just flip, flip, flip. And then the slider phones and now we've got phones the size of a brick.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I love my BlackBerry. I did too.
Speaker 1:Until they started making them out of plastic. When they made BlackBerrys out of metal, those things were legit. You could knock a plane out of the air with a blackberry. I mean these things were crazy. But then now everybody has one. My dad told me when he was in school there was a teacher that would tell him that before you knew it, everybody was going to have a phone in their pocket. And my dad would make fun of him and say, oh, you're going to have a cord that runs out of your pocket to your house.
Speaker 2:Now here we are, or when they were saying it's not like you're going to have a calculator with you all the time. Yeah, literally yes, I do.
Speaker 1:Take that and, quite honestly, go one step further. Why did you need a calculator? Mental math isn't a thing anymore. Nobody does mental math. If I need to know the square footage of something, you typically have a laser level or a laser tape measure. Nobody's measuring. Most people can't even tell you what the hashes are on a tape measure anymore. It has gotten to the point to where we have become lazy in every way because we've allowed technology to adapt our world versus us making. No, we've adapted to technology versus making technology adapt to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, that's kind of how, like this, you know the Sabbath like it's supposed to serve us.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:We're not supposed to be serving. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And it's supposed to serve us like for our mental health and for to grow deeper and with our connection with God. But we don't see it that way.
Speaker 1:No, we treat it as if it's something that will. I don't want to say that God requires us to do. We see it as something that is optional, that we can do or not do, and if we choose not to do it, that's OK, because there's really no point in doing it anymore, because this is Old Testament, right, and Old Testament doesn't matter anymore because Jesus came, and so the Old Testament is. He came to fulfill the law, not to abolish the law, so he's fulfilled this and we don't have to do that anymore. And again, even in the 50s, into the 60s and probably some of the 70s, it was easy to do, because stuff was closed on sunday. Right, you got gas on saturday night because you couldn't get gas on sunday?
Speaker 1:yeah, you got.
Speaker 2:You made sure you had food and all of those things because you couldn't get it yeah, I read somewhere where it was kind of saying like it was created to basically invest in your relationship with god, even more than a typical work day, we'll'll say, or a typical day. But now it's like people are only investing on Sunday for an hour and a half. So that's the way they're looking at it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Speaking of Sundays and investing. For an hour and a half I saw this really cool video. It was this pastor who said you know, you have to be careful with the worship music that you play, because your worship music has to be theologically sound. Right, because we listen to the song Jaira. We all know the song, right? Most of us know the words to Jaira. You are Jaira. How many of us know what Jehovah Jaira actually means? Crickets, right? Why? Why? Because we know songs. We remember songs. They're catchy, they're fun, but most of us can't tell you a passage of Scripture. Yeah, you can give me the John 3.16, for I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. Or good Lord, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Yeah, that's a good one. We're going to roll that one back later. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever should believe in him shall have everlasting life.
Speaker 2:We know those Do you, but apparently not, apparently not.
Speaker 1:That's Philippians 4.13, though, by the way, just so we can say that I do know it, I do know, it. But it's so funny because we don't pay attention to the scripture, but we pay attention to the music, and so if the worship music is not theologically sound, then you're going to just take whatever you get out of that and that's the Bible that you read.
Speaker 2:I will say I liked the fact that you were very honest about on Sunday, like saying with the um, the chords and how people you know the chords of worship and how that's supposed to make people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I feel like a lot of pastors want to admit that and saying that they're almost setting up a tone and a mood you are trying to and I said this to a congregant one time you cannot manufacture a move of the Spirit. You can't. Now you can play the right chords and you can sing the right songs and you can get people to weep and cry and they can have what they feel is an emotional experience, but it is not truly a spiritual experience if you are not welcoming the presence of the Holy Spirit in place.
Speaker 2:I read something that said people feel that same move at a concert. Yes, you know, yes.
Speaker 1:Well, I was watching just the other day that Justin Bieber sang a, a worship song at one of his concerts and everybody's like, oh, this is just so wonderful. I'm like you realize, you just listened to all of his other trash music before he did this and now you're trying to like have some out of body experience. It doesn't work like that. No, Right, like yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like he was going to Bethel Redding, so the church in California, and he was a big part of their ministry and like I mean, heck, if Justin Bieber came here, I would advertise that Justin Bieber came to our church you know what I mean.
Speaker 4:We do the same thing with athletes sure, certainly no, when athletes say something about God or Yep.
Speaker 1:That was my next point.
Speaker 4:So John 3.16 is incredibly popular because Tim Tebow wore it on his little, I almost said John Cena.
Speaker 1:John Cena, there's another blooper you can't see. That would be Austin, austin, 3.16. Yes, yeah yeah, yeah, he wore that on his little blackout thingies under his eye, yeah, and so that was the number one Google-searched scripture for a long, long time because of that, and so, okay, that's great that John 3.16 is for God, so loved the world.
Speaker 4:Don't get me wrong, I think he's genuine.
Speaker 1:Oh, I agree with that, I agree with that, yeah, so I don't want to play like he's not, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever should believe in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. That is a great passage of scripture and people want to believe that that is the synopsis of the gospel and that's what the Bible is. That is not true, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
Speaker 1:That whosoever should believe in him shall not perish but have everlasting life is a great start yeah but the thing is is whosoever should believe in him and repent of their sins shall have everlasting life. And we miss that part right, because we're only taking a snippet of the whole gospel, of the whole bible, and we're trying to make everybody believe that part. Deathbed confessions and deathbed salvations are a thing I don't want to pretend like they're not, but it is not common. So we have to help people to understand that they can't just look up one passage of scripture and be saved. They have to form a relationship with Christ. They have to genuinely understand.
Speaker 4:You just can't form a relationship with Tim Tebow Like oh, he's been recorded back.
Speaker 1:he said this and now no it doesn't work that way and I am thankful for famous people who do that. You know. Remember when that I think it was the Buffaloes Bill Player got hit really hard on the field and they prayed for him on national television. Those are big steps, but they're not doing it now. Like you don't see them praying before the game on Sunday. You know what I mean. Like there's still a huge gap that we have to fill.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we're not going to get there so long as we're just pretending like this one passage of scripture is Now you do see him being still very grateful for the outpouring of prayer.
Speaker 2:Certainly Of the community.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yes, well you could tell, like you could tell, that changed his life.
Speaker 1:That's what I was going to say. Yes, and it affected a lot of people's lives, because a lot of people are like, oh my gosh, this is, but there was no real change in their life, which is repentance Right.
Speaker 3:Back to Holly's yeah.
Speaker 1:It is repentance, and without repentance there is no salvation, and without salvation you will burn in hell.
Speaker 2:And repentance, there is no salvation, and without salvation you will burn in hell, and that's just the way that it is. Did you hear of the William Hough and Joe Rogan podcast that just dropped a few days?
Speaker 4:ago, I did not With Mel Gibson.
Speaker 2:No. So William Hough had one with someone I can't remember who it was and he basically fact-checked it. William Hough is a scholar like a biblical scholar.
Speaker 1:I think I know who he is tall, skinny guy. Yes, I know who he is Canadian maybe. Yes, yeah, you can hear it in his voice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Joe Rogan had him on because, basically, william Hough was on here just fact checking this guy who was I haven't even listened to that first podcast, but Joe Rogan was so like, oh my gosh, like I need to have this guy on my podcast. So I've. It's like three and a half hours long, so I've been listening to it, but on my way here they said um, throughout, like the different uh translations, repentance used to be, let me think, because now it's turned, but repentance used to be like almost like give you, not giving your all, because you are, in a way, repenting, almost like a financial transaction type of situation. Um, but whenever this translation came to be it, he named the person I can't think of who it was um, they basically were like oh well, no, repentance means to like turn your life around. So for the longest time, people were thinking that we almost like we need to give the church our goods and give the church all of our money which?
Speaker 1:yes, it has a big part yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it has a big part, but that's not what the actual.
Speaker 1:No, because that part comes after the repentance, that part comes after salvation. You find it so much easier to be invested in the storehouse.
Speaker 2:Discipline yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one thing that I just love to speak to about translations is, if you, I'm an NLT guy, I prefer to read it, I prefer to preach from it. I think it's easier for people to understand. Last Sunday after church there was a a young lady sitting in the back who, um, you guys know I don't like to talk after a sermon. I want to go to the bathroom. I want to just, I need to decompress. I thought about coming in here on Sundays after I'm done preaching and doing like, hey, here's my afterthoughts, because there's so much that I didn't say. And how cool would that be to just get that brain dump at the end. But I haven't done that yet, typically because I can't get away but doing that no-transcript, lesser quality.
Speaker 1:So, doing my homework, I learned that the King James version was translated in like 1662. So it's like super old and we didn't fully understand what we were translating Greek and Hebrew and all of those things. We didn't have words that translated equally and as we've learned, we're able to translate them more clearly and easier for people to understand. So the passages that are missing were never actually in the Greek or the Hebrew, but it was taken out of. It was taken in order to fill the context of the passage before it or after it, they would add that line. So that makes perfect sense right Now. Whether or not that's a bunch of BS and I'm just believing lies, I don't know, but I find that if I were to preach out of the King James Version, so many people would be lost Because you can't even understand this one begat that one, that one begat this one. Lo and behold, someone said some stuff. What are we talking about?
Speaker 4:Very complicated sentence Right.
Speaker 1:And it's not in. I don't want to say the Bible doesn't have to be enjoyable, but ministry is supposed to be easy. Yeah, it is supposed to be. It shouldn't be complicated as to what we're trying to figure out. There's a local church that believes that Jesus has already come.
Speaker 2:The second coming has already happened Like how local, local, local? Okay, that's what I thought.
Speaker 1:Yeah, local, local. And I, every time I listen because I do listen regularly because I'm like I want revelation, knowledge, I want new and exciting and I want to understand something new. Every time I listen, I'm like I don't know what's going on, Because the words that they use and I'm not a dumb man yeah, I'm not a dumb man, but I'm like you could have said that in three words or less.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and you listen to a wide variety of pastors.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, I listen to all sorts of stuff, yes, and I love to listen to local pastors, but I also love to listen to those who aren't local. I do not listen to megachurch pastors it has nothing to do with megachurches but believe that a lot of times their messages are written for them and not from them, not from them, and so I don't believe that there's always an anointing. They're rehearsed, and things like that. I want to walk into a sermon that is like raw. I want you to mess up when you say something and have to like get back on track. That's what I so I identify with that. But anyhow, I feel like we try to to take the gospel, take the word of God, and make it something that it's not day in and day out, whether you're in a church or out of a church, like that's the, it's the social norm. I want to tell you why you're wrong, based on what the word says, but I'm not giving you the full context, like I'm going to.
Speaker 1:I had an Amish girl who asked me one time Her dad was not happy that she was having a wedding. He wanted her to have an Amish wedding. She did not want to have an Amish wedding. She was not Amish, but he was On and on and on. And so he starts quoting scripture to her and he's talking out of Leviticus, and I mean that man loves some bacon. And I was like, well, okay, but if we're going to do this, then we have to do it all Right, like we can't pick and choose, because, like, if it's good enough here, it's got to be good enough there. And uh, I was telling her, I was like here's my opinion, cause she was asking me for advice. I said do not weaponize this. Like, I'm giving you my opinion, I'm giving you my viewpoint, wouldn't you know? She took every one of those words that I said and sent it back to him Like copy and pasted.
Speaker 1:I was like, well, that was not the intention, because my point to her was Don't allow him to make you feel less than Because of this. But she wanted him to feel less than and so she was going back and Blasting him and it just it wasn't good obviously. But she ended up having an English wedding and he was there, so apparently it all worked out you'd be surprised how many amish people get braces I don't think I would be.
Speaker 2:I see a lot of amish people every day and they almost well, they're probably all from yeah my doctor because he's got millersburg, as he's got a millersburg office and then the dover office, but like the berlin and sugar creek people, they are kind of in the middle. So I'd say 75, 80 percent of our people.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. I know it's crazy. Yeah, no, I had one girl that worked for me in a high level position that had braces for a long time. So, yeah. So, anyhow, the Sabbath though, I had a couple of I want to keep off topic for just— Okay go ahead Because you know I blurted out the name Mel Gibson. Oh yeah, Did you hear that interview with Joe Rogan? I haven't heard it yet, but I'm told it's—. I haven't heard it, but—.
Speaker 4:Well, and the first question I wanted to ask, because my wife has always asked me this question and she's talking about it, she and yet he brings these people on to talk about it.
Speaker 1:I think he's skeptical. He's skeptical. I think.
Speaker 4:But anyway, he had Mel Gibson on the show and he's trying to do Passion of the Christ 2, the sequel. Oh yeah yeah, how do you?
Speaker 2:do that.
Speaker 4:Well, the interesting thing is that he brought up this interesting idea. He said that—.
Speaker 1:We do it again.
Speaker 4:He's not just trying— Of course it's supposed to be about the resurrection, he says but I'm trying to convey that there's something else going on, that us, as humans, you know, we're just seemingly these insignificant humans, and yet there is this war raging in the heavens between good and evil, between good and evil, and what really is our purpose in this whole fight, you know, between good and evil, between God and Satan, that you know all this stuff is playing out, that we, we can't see, we can't see.
Speaker 4:We don't know, but it's happening, and that's why you know, there is the struggle and the chaos and everything in the world. Because because of this ongoing struggle, yeah, and I had had a thought. This was before we came back to doing the podcast. I think it was over like New Year's or something, and I don't even know why I had this thought, but I think I was even getting ready for work and I was thinking about you know why? You know why the world is the way it is and, of course, people always question you know, if there's a God, why do people get sick? Why do you know, why do we have all these problems that we have? And it kind of ties into what he's saying is for me, I don't think people realize that, no matter who you are, even if you're not a believer, that you're human.
Speaker 2:Yeah, god loves you, yeah, and Satan is so jealous of us.
Speaker 4:He is so jealous of us because he wanted to be seated next to God.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And you could argue that he wanted to be God.
Speaker 3:He wanted to be above, oh else, yeah.
Speaker 4:Right, but God gave all his love to us. So Satan is so jealous of us humans on this earth and that's why we have the struggles that we do. That's why we have the sickness, that's why we have all these things because he's so jealous and he will do anything to destroy us to make us, so we'll turn away from God, so that we, you know we won't become Christians. And that's just.
Speaker 4:His jealousy just fuels him to just you know, corrupt our world and corrupt us as human beings and I thought you know that's in a sense, I mean that's just so central to I think that battle is just if you think about Satan and his position and where he wanted to be and the whole origin story of it, it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:to me it does make sense, yeah.
Speaker 1:But do you realize that a lot of people don't know that Right? Like a lot of people don't realize who Satan is and who he was. That led to the world being the way that it is, right, right Like they think that he's just always been a bad guy. No, he was one of God's best angels, one of his, but he was so greedy and so desiring for power that he had to be expelled from heaven and sent to hell because he could not.
Speaker 1:I picture you ever met those people who like go to McDonald's and they argue with the cashier at McDonald's because this dude's making minimum wage. You know what I mean. Like he's, but that's what I picture him being like one of those people who are just like always nagging about something. There's always a problem, never happy with anything. And you know what? I could do it better if somebody would just let me.
Speaker 4:I'm the man.
Speaker 1:Yes, Right, I've got you know. God doesn't understand any of this and it's reflected in every moment that you read about him in the word.
Speaker 4:Or it's like I understand what your plan is, but I have a plan that I think is much better.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yes, and if you would just let me implement it, but go to the garden and think about the conversation that he had with Eve.
Speaker 4:What do you mean? You're not supposed. He just doesn't want you to know the things that he knows, the good things that you could have.
Speaker 1:You could have so much more in life, but he doesn't want to share that with you. This is not him just trying to be manipulative. He believes it. He genuinely believes that he was probably, he probably believes that he was cast out of heaven and condemned to live in hell and walk the earth because God didn't want him to have all the things that he had. It's that, like big brother, little brother syndrome, he had to expel him because he had all the right answers.
Speaker 1:Yes, because he had all of the right answers. He was so much smarter, so much better that he had to expel him. God had no choice. But yeah, picture him attempting Jesus in the wilderness. Yeah, he uses scripture to tempt Jesus. He knew what he was doing. He knew scripture forward and backward. Why?
Speaker 4:Because he was there and, as we talked about, he still does that today.
Speaker 1:Oh 100%.
Speaker 3:How people weaponize scripture. He's still doing it Yep, yep.
Speaker 1:But we don't look at it that way. You realize what you just said. When somebody is weaponizing scripture, they be acting like the devil. And it's true, but we as Christians, little Jesuses, we don't believe that, right? Because we think well, I'm not trying to, I just need them to understand. I don't have to argue with anybody in order to get my point across, because if I just show you Jesus, then you're going to be okay, I'm going to be fine, as long as I can exemplify who Jesus is.
Speaker 1:Somebody's kid's going to get whooped in about a second.
Speaker 2:Is that yours?
Speaker 1:Oh no, Somebody's blowing a shofar. Is that the wolfman.
Speaker 3:It was a full moon.
Speaker 4:Yeah, somebody's blowing a shofar.
Speaker 1:I think. Hey, wednesday night's happening. Who knows what's going on in St George 70 people laying on the floor in there. We don't know. We don't know. But I have two books about the Sabbath that I was required to read in order to get my four square license. If you'll notice, the binding is not split on these. Do you know why? Because I never read them. Do you know why I never read them? Because I don't get a Sabbath. It's not really feasible for a pastor to get a Sabbath the way that most people do.
Speaker 1:Most people say Sunday is my day of rest. I go to church on Sunday morning sometimes and then I just go home and I just rest. Here's the problem. I have to frigging work on Sunday. You know what I mean. Like you get up in the morning and you get all your sermon notes together and make sure you got all your stuff, all your ducks, in a row. I come in and make sure the technology turns on the way it's supposed to fix the computer when it doesn't work, and I might spend six hours here on a Sunday. So Sunday cannot be a day of rest for me. It used to be that. Pastors, I'm not saying that I'm not well cared for, but we're very well cared for. They lived in a parsonage.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I almost said brothel, which would have been another. It would have also been another great blooper, but I did not say it. Therefore, yeah, they lived in the parsonage and like people brought them casseroles all the time and like they were very well cared for. That's not the case nowadays, and you know, I've got a large family and so I have to be able to feed them, so I have a full time job on top of that. That job requires me to be on pretty much 24 seven.
Speaker 1:Now I have other people who can handle things and I can step back, but to be completely turned off is impossible, so I have to find pockets of time during the week in order to do that. That's a challenge too, because, before all of the things, I'm a husband and a father and, just so you know, when I'm home there is no rest. Easton wants to play a board game, adeline wants us to play Barbies and Emmett wants me to play Fortnite with him, or whatever the case may be, but there's always something that requires my attention. So to find that rest is virtually impossible. But I will tell you, I started 24-6 and I did enjoy this. This is actually a really good book and it talks about going hard six days a week. But on that seventh day you just got to do it.
Speaker 2:Can I read it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Take it with you Okay, thanks. And if you want this one too, you can borrow that one as well. That one's called Subversive Sabbath AJ Swoboda, who, aj Swoboda I believe, is connected to foursquare some way somehow. I also personally think it's just their way to get you to buy their books. That guy's probably made a fortune just off of the people who have to get a license or who are getting a license and have to buy the book.
Speaker 4:So sorry, do you know? Stonewall jackson would not even mail a letter if it would be in transit on a Sunday. Really, that's how intense he was about the Sabbath.
Speaker 1:So what if he was mailing it really far though?
Speaker 4:He would calculate.
Speaker 2:Wait till.
Speaker 4:Monday Nope, If that has any chance of being, which maybe for who he was and he didn't have to mail anything. That far Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So, but yeah, he was like as far as the Sabbath, my mom's mom. Yeah, he had a lot of rules for the Sabbath.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she wouldn't cook. You know, she prepared her meal the day before.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I was kind of reading up on it and they said do a crock pot meal or meal prep? Yeah, you mean.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 2:But that is the thing I correct. Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1:My wife and I joke about that all the time. So I told you guys in one of the episodes in the past about the your kid, my kid kind of joke.
Speaker 1:And so you know, whenever I get home, if she wants to take a break and she goes back to the bedroom, that means I don't get a break, right, and I've been at work all day, but she's also been with the kids all day. So, like you have to find that balance, and I always joke with lots of moms, alyssa, specifically on Mother's Day, I always say, hey, make sure you get all your stuff done on Saturday so you can enjoy your Mother's Day, because it's going to pile up for Monday, right, but that's what we do. If you take a day off, you have two days worth of work when you come back to it, and that's. I mean it's problematic, it's real problematic, because the world doesn't stop just because we want to stop.
Speaker 3:No, and with my schedule it's usually like you said, it's a few hours here, a few hours there. Yesterday I took a few hours After I got done with Finn in the morning. Somebody called her four times.
Speaker 1:Oh, jeez, oh. I turned my phone off, so I had no idea that she called Good call Because she doesn't stop. No, she doesn't stop. She calls once and you don't answer.
Speaker 2:She's knocking on your door in 20 minutes, especially when you live right down the road. I was going to say you've got to be careful, don't take me 20 minutes anymore yeah.
Speaker 3:I put, she was home by the time I left for work, so it was early for her to be home.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:My first thought was what's wrong?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then when she didn't answer, I'm like I'm going to have to leave work and go find out what's wrong.
Speaker 1:So this isn't really Sabbath talk, but that's a great segue into a conversation I had with a friend of mine Yesterday. I had a friend who was like just off their game and I was like what's going on? And she's like I think my husband's going to get fired from his job today. I'm like why, like for somebody to say I think I'm going to get fired from my job, like you had to do something right, like it'd be pretty egregious. And he works as an electrician of some sort, like, but a high level electrician, and the company that he works for has talked to him about buying the company and it's like so he had gone and taken some tests to be able to license other people in electrical.
Speaker 2:Like an apprentice, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm not an electrician. That's why I get shocked when I put in light switches, okay. But anyhow, the guy that he went to take the test with they went at the same time got fired for going and taking the test. They found out that he had taken the test and that because they looked at that as he was potentially looking to leave uh-huh like over qualified.
Speaker 1:Yes, so they let him go and at the same time her husband's company phone got shut off and his email wouldn't work and it was like writing on the wall. It's coming and end of day hadn't heard anything. So he finally just went to his boss's office. He's like, hey, what's going on? And the boss is like oh, no, no, no, no. So we've got several people whose technology is out today. We didn't realize yours was so sorry, we'll get it fixed. They get it fixed, no big deal.
Speaker 1:But she lived with that stress all day long. Do you know what? What I mean? Like that is an awful, awful feeling, and where do you find rest in that? So she texted me later in the evening and told me hey, this was a total misunderstanding. They understood why he went and took the test, because you know there's a potential for him needing that certificate in order to do like to buy the company, if he would ever get to that point. And so, um, um, it all worked out, but it would just like I think about that type of stuff and how hard it is like for me if I'm taking a day of rest. Let's say I take saturday as my day of rest, everything that happens between saturday morning and saturday evening that I don't know about becomes my problem on monday morning when I walk into an executive right, right.
Speaker 2:That's how I would feel like if I would take a week off when I worked at the one office and you know we'd have all these pile like papers.
Speaker 1:Nobody's helping you out. No one else is going to help out.
Speaker 2:And how long have? Yeah, how long did they know about my vacation? For probably a year, but God forbid, we couldn't prep that year. But god forbid, we couldn't prep that.
Speaker 1:So it's like, is it even?
Speaker 2:worth taking a vacation, then you know, because then you're gonna come right back to all of that.
Speaker 1:I don't take vacation very often. I take two days here, three days there, a couple of days here, but for that reason. But I still never disconnect yeah we're um. We're taking the kids to great wolf lodge in may, I think, and my wife said the 11th. She said it was for homeschool days. I can't remember what it was for. No, we won't be gone on a Sunday, we'll be-. How?
Speaker 2:did you know that?
Speaker 4:was a Sunday. Oh, it's a.
Speaker 1:Saturday. Why did you ask that then? No, it's a. Saturday, I know that, but why did you ask that then what?
Speaker 3:did you-.
Speaker 2:No, it's a Saturday Never mind.
Speaker 1:Is this the Krusty Krab? No, this is Patrick.
Speaker 2:Oh geez.
Speaker 1:Is that the?
Speaker 2:other thing that I was planning to do.
Speaker 1:Can I tell him? Should I tell him no?
Speaker 3:Should I just keep my mouth shut? Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1:I'll just keep my mouth shut. Come on, tell him I have learned. I had a very hard conversation with some people I respect very deeply and they told me that I have to be okay with being lonely at the top and there are certain things that I know that I cannot share. And my wife said they're right, you need to be a better secret keeper. So I have to keep the secret.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, you can wait. Keep it secret.
Speaker 1:To a lot closer. Well, yeah, because it may not happen.
Speaker 2:So is it confirmed to a lot closer? Well, yeah, because it may not happen. I was going to say it may not happen. Do we need to write it in our books?
Speaker 1:No, no, okay, no, I don't think so. Okay, I don't think so.
Speaker 3:It'll be all right. All right.
Speaker 1:Now I'm stressed about it Now I'm stressed about it. Now I've got anxiety, roger Jeez, but anyhow, we were going to take the kids to Great.
Speaker 2:Wolf Lodge.
Speaker 1:And before Alyssa sends me a text hey, we need to talk about Great Wolf Lodge. Now, this is before we've ever had a conversation. As soon as she says Great Wolf Lodge, I respond with my answer, before we even have the conversation, is no, because that does not sound like any type of fun. I'm interested in having.
Speaker 4:Is that Sandusky? Yes?
Speaker 1:I am not interested in taking my kids to a Because Adeline can't swim well, so she has to stay in the baby pool. And then the big kids want to go on the slides, but they won't go by themselves, they want me to go with them, I am not.
Speaker 2:And then it's 105 degrees in there.
Speaker 1:Yes, I am not injured. It smells like pee, like I just don't want to be there, okay.
Speaker 2:The screaming yes and it's so loud Anyhow.
Speaker 1:so we talked about it and we compromised and she got her way and we're going.
Speaker 4:Where are you going?
Speaker 1:When are we going? I can't remember the date. It can't be the last of the month. I can't remember the dates.
Speaker 2:Can I see your pen? I'm going to forget something. Yeah, that's why this is here.
Speaker 1:I can't remember the dates, but anyhow and it may be March I can't remember for sure when it is but at some point we're going there and I told Alyssa I'm like I'm going to try those two days to just be off. I'm just going to tell everybody like hey, I won't have access to my email. Leave your phone at home, I won't have.
Speaker 2:Leave it in the room.
Speaker 1:I won't have access to my cell phone If there's an emergency. Sorry about it qualified people on staff that can handle any of that. There's nothing that's going to happen that they won't be able to handle, with me not being there. Like I might come back and say, hey, I wouldn't have done it that way. Here's what I would have done instead, or I would have started with this but, that's a learning opportunity for them.
Speaker 2:That's what I was going to say.
Speaker 1:They can do it and then ask forgiveness later and you, you rob from people whenever you say no, you have to ask me first right, Rob that that learning and trust that you have to build, trust that I'm going to trust that you're going to make the best decision.
Speaker 1:Whether it's right or not, you're going to make the best decision. So I'm trying to get better at that. But I don't like the statement that it's lonely at the top. But I'm learning that in every area of my life. And again, for those of you who aren't fully aware of, like just kind of, how bizarre my life is, I'm the senior pastor and one of the younger people in the church, but I am the senior pastor of a church. I am the executive director, more or less, but my title is general manager of a large hotel management company. I have 150 people under me with some direct reports, and the only people I report to are the people who own the company.
Speaker 1:I'm the head of my household, obviously, while my wife is kind of the boss. She's the supervisor, she's the supervisor. When you want to talk to the supervisor, you talk to my wife, okay, so really I don't have accountability and I don't mean that in a way that like, but I don't. I'm in charge almost everywhere that I go. You know my dad, who is supposed to be my father, is my congregant. It's just strange the way that my life is, and so I have resolved to having to find people who will hold me accountable. And so I've met with a local pastor who's like I'm confiding in from a ministry standpoint a local pastor who's like I'm confiding in from a ministry standpoint. And then I found um, a CEO of a very large corporation out of Dover, new Philly, who is kind of like he's calling me on my bull crap, if that makes sense, like get lunch with him and I tell him about yeah, it's not really that, it's more more of a mentorship in professional growth, because I am young and I was not, I didn't go to college, I didn't learn some of the things in the office that most people might learn, and so I have no problem If you tell me oh, we're going to go do X, y and Z, I have no problem turning around and saying that to somebody else, because to me, why would we hide that?
Speaker 1:But there are some things that you just have to keep your mouth shut about, and so I don't like the statement that it's lonely at the top. But there are some times you just have to be okay with not telling people about what's going on. That's not fun. And listen, if you guys knew even a fraction of some of the stuff that runs through my brain, you would be freaked out. I probably, six times a week, talk about leaving the church. Like six times a week I'm like I'm quitting, I ain't doing this anymore, like it. Just it's that like constant nagging, like I've got to find time, I've got to do this, I've got to do that. If I don't get this, I'm going to freak out and that's why you need a Sabbath.
Speaker 1:I know that's what I'm saying, so I was circling back to. I'm hoping that in that growth for me there's growth for the people around me which will allow me then to take that Sabbath time, that I can say that I don't have to worry about this on Saturday or I don't have to worry about this on Sunday. I wish that there were people in the church, aside from Roger, that I could trust to open the building for me on Sunday. There aren't people that I can trust with that. Open the building for me on Sunday, there, just there aren't people that I can trust with that. Like I come in and I make sure the TVs turn on and the projector turns on and all of the sound equipment works, because our sound guy shows up at 9.45 for a 10 am service. I can't make him come sooner than that and you know his life doesn't really afford him the ability to be here earlier than that. You know, a lot of times Roger and I are making coffee at nine o'clock in the morning and I don't want to feel that way. But until there are people around me that can come up and take this and you, just you have to do it I.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I thought about is just, we'll just stop coffee service. Bring your own coffee. You don't like that? Maybe you volunteer to come in and make coffee. Then it's not hard 's not hard. But then you have to clean it up too, because what tends to happen is people love to come in and help, but they don't ever love to finish the help. Right, right, yeah, we're starting a job, but not finish it. Yes, right, and so, um, yeah, the it's hard for me to find that sabbath time because I am always so responsible for so many things around me. So I'm hoping that business coaching and that life coaching and that ministerial coaching will help me, will allow me to come to a place where I can just say you know what, If we don't have coffee, we don't have coffee.
Speaker 2:Have you brought that to their attention, your mentor? That is a goal of yours.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but my favorite part is like I say things like you know, I just don't understand why, yada, yada, yada, and he'll be like three sentences ago you just said this and that's why, and that's why that's nice. I'm like, I don't like that. You said that, but okay, I get it. Yeah, but it hurts. It hurts, yeah, but sometimes my word for the year is candor. I'm going to make people uncomfortable. This year I'm going to sit in the discomfort myself.
Speaker 3:I'm going to have people tell me that was a dumb statement and you should have never said that I don't like it Sometimes when you're looking for advice.
Speaker 4:You're hoping they'll say something that you want to hear.
Speaker 2:Well, no, not that you want to hear but something so original and so you never thought of that pretty time they'll convict you and you'd be like, oh yeah, I didn't want to wear that I didn't want to change, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not that I ever want. I don't ever want anybody around me to be a yes person. I don't. I would rather people push back or at least poke holes and say that doesn't make sense, or why would we do this instead of doing this? And so I like that. But when you again, when you hold the titles that I hold in a lot of the places people are afraid to do that.
Speaker 1:And that's why I have to look for that outside, you know I you sit down with people who, like the guy that I meet with for for business stuff he has no hand in my business Doesn't know anything about the company that I run. He knows about it generally speaking, but he doesn't know profit and loss and he doesn't know about the people that I manage he's never met them and profit and loss, and he doesn't know about the people that I manage he's never met them. And so when he says like I'll say like well, this person never gets this done on time and I feel like their sense of urgency is lacking, yada, yada, yada, and he looks at me, goes but have you ever said that to him? Well, no, they should just know. They should know like there's this do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:Like you said, it's not, that's not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear yeah, you know what. You're right. They should be able to sense what it is that your expectations are. But that's not what they say. They say things that make me uncomfortable, but that's the whole purpose, and as I grow, they grow. I'm able to rest and relax and take a deep breath and say you know what They've got this.
Speaker 2:Dealing with people's money, like in the front desk, and that's that's uncomfy you don't want to talk about money, especially when it's with their teeth, and people hate going to the dentist. And there was one part where you know I think I've talked about it before where one of my filler words is just you know it's just two thousand dollars yes, it's only it's only, and something that someone was kind of saying was let them, you know, go over that and then pause, let them think about let them canter, you know, and let let it be uncomfortable, like you don't.
Speaker 1:That that's not on you or their emotions I um, I left a car lot one time because of the word just I didn't't realize it at the time. It was many years later that I realized that, and I try not to say that as well. Yeah, specifically when I'm asking somebody to do something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, oh, it's just filling the coffee.
Speaker 1:No, not that More like I'll just handle it or I'll just do it, because that implies like it's inconvenient for me.
Speaker 1:You know what? I'll just take care of it. That implies inconvenience. I don't typically mean that, but it comes off that way it does. But here's what happened I was in a car lot and Alyssa and I this was very early on in Alyssa and I's marriage and we knew we needed a minivan.
Speaker 1:We didn't have excess funds and we went to a dealership in Zanesville I won't tell you which dealership, but you can probably figure it out right quick if you were a zanesville type of person. Walk into the dealership and uh, the guy's like like we did everything over the phone with the guy. He's like oh yeah, we definitely get you in that one. Oh, no problem, we get you in that one. So we go down there, we see it and he's like okay, you need five thousand dollars down. I'm like we don't have five thousand dollars to put down. He's like well, I understand. Like well, you didn't say that to us on the phone when we were 40 minutes away, which you could have told us like hey, yes, we can get you approved. But you didn't do that.
Speaker 1:I said so now we've driven here, so now he's showing us other things and we said here's our top monthly payment. We cannot pay more than this every month. And he comes out with another car and we weren't going to need. We had the down payment for it, but the payment was going to be slightly higher. Now, when I say slightly higher, it was like a hundred dollars more a month and he goes well, it's just $3 more a day. And I looked at him and I said do you make your car payment by the day? Well, it's just a cup of coffee every day. I don't buy a cup of coffee every day, my friend.
Speaker 1:I make it at home because I'm broke. And I said that to him and he was like well, let me get my manager to see what we can do. I said that's not necessary. And my wife and I got up and we walked out of that place and they were flabbergasted that we would just like leave like that, Because to them $100 is nothing. To me, at that point in my life I couldn't spend a hundred dollars more a month, because then I couldn't pay my rent, I couldn't put gas in my car, I wouldn't be able to buy groceries. Something else would have had to have sacrificed. So when you say it's only or it's just, especially when referring to money, it's just $50. To me, If I go out to dinner, it's just $50.
Speaker 2:But to somebody who can't afford that that's a big difference. Yeah, that's $50. I didn't have in there for their gas bill this is one of the things about me.
Speaker 1:It drives my wife nuts, I don't know. So does everything else about me, but if I ask you to go to dinner with me, you can almost count on me paying, and I don't know that you need me to pay. But if I've asked you to go, I'm not going to assume that you can afford to go with me. If I've asked you to go, I'm covering your dinner Like that's just the way.
Speaker 3:I am yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I don't want you to. I don't want you to feel obligated to say yes and then get there and struggle with how you're going to pay for that meal.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just it's, it's not not normal. This is another thing that I'm going to share our little experience. The other day I I was what was? What were we texting about? Oh, she accidentally sent me a text asking me if I could pick up food for the Covert of Hope, like she said like hey, can you meet at 1230?. She meant to send it to somebody who was picking up a box from Covert of Hope. Oh, okay, and I said I think you sent it to the wrong person, but I'll definitely take a box. And she joked that she had just gone grocery shopping and doesn't understand how I can afford to feed my family. So she will happily pack me a box. So that was the back and forth. And then she told me that she wanted a roast, but they were super expensive and she's like you know, I was really counting on that for dinner. And yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 3:Well, not that I couldn't afford it. I would Right Correct that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:That's what I're going to go buy Beth a roast, and we did. We went to Bueller's, I bought a roast and we dropped it off on her porch. I didn't have to do that and she didn't need that roast. But she does so much other stuff for the church and for the ministry that, like it's the think about. Like when you pay for the Starbucks behind you or the McDonald's behind you, those people can afford their own Starbucks and their own McDonald's. That's why they're in line. Right, they could afford that. There are other people who can't afford that, and so I'm really cognizant about how I use the word just and only and who I help and things like that, because they're not everybody needs it, but sometimes the people who don't need it.
Speaker 1:Beth texts me. I sent her text. I said, hey, easton left something on your porch. As we're pulling away, she sends me a text and she's like oh my gosh, that was so sweet. I'm crying like, yeah, we, it wasn't meant to be that, but sometimes don't you just need that? Yeah, it just makes you feel good to think somebody else is thinking about me. Yep, right, but we, we don't do that always to the people who need it because the oh my gosh. I was just complaining about people who are always like I need, give me, give me, give me. When you live that way, like you expect people to just give, but when we live, working hard every day, people don't do that for us because we're expected to manage on our own. So sometimes we have to go above and beyond for the people who go above and beyond for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Nothing to do with the Sabbath, but just a fun little. I did a couple of things this week too, actually for a couple of my patients. And I went in and the one lady she's like let me write you a check for that, and I said no. She's like yes, let me write you a check. And I'm like don't steal my blessing.
Speaker 3:I told house I thought I never have cash on me ever. So I ran out to the car. I had $80 on me that day. I took it back in. I just had it all folded up and I handed it to her and she's like, no, I don't want that and she probably thought it was just a 20. And I'm like, just take it, don't steal my blessing. Yeah, you know so.
Speaker 1:Alyssa and I are. When I, if I take my two big boys to Jerry's Aaron and Aiden if we ever go into Jerry's for any reason, like we're, just if it's just one of them, it's if it's both of. It's something we've done since they've been little. And I always ask the boys who do you want to pay for? And I promise you, every single time they pick the biggest table, the biggest table. I'm like all right, whatever, I walked into that, but I always let them pick and I'm hoping that that's planting a seed to just be kind. And again, I know they may not need it because they can afford to be there, but sometimes it's not about the financial blessing afford to be there, but sometimes it's not about the financial blessing it's the fact that somebody was just kind enough to do that, just kind enough to just pay for that.
Speaker 1:I don't know that Alyssa and I have ever had anybody do that for us. No, I'm trying to think, I don't think anybody's ever done that for us, but we've always just kind of been that way. That family that we helped for Christmas we put together that list never thought in two days that that list would have been cleared by the church family and cried and cried. And it wasn't because we had given them gifts for her kids to have Christmas, but the quality of those gifts it wasn't just. We didn't just go to the dollar store and buy junk. Do you know what I mean? These were things that the kids wanted and are going to enjoy.
Speaker 1:And that was a little bit different because she never asked for help. That lady never once asked for help. She mentioned in passing thatmas was going to be tight for them because dad hadn't been working and they just didn't. She's like I had money set aside and then something broke or a car broke down or whatever, and that money that she had for christmas was now spent on that and there just wasn't money coming in their of cash. It was easy call right, like it's, it's, it's a no brainer. Even if they would have each gotten one thing, it was more than they would have gotten and she would have been thankful for that.
Speaker 1:But just being able to, to bless some of those people in in ways that they really can't particularly understand. We had another family that we had an anonymous donation for. I think the husband has cancer, he's sick, whatever had an anonymous donation to send them a fairly sizable check. So I wrote a card and just hey, we've heard we're praying for you, we want you to know that, while we don't necessarily know you, that we want you to be well and we love you and all of that fun stuff. I stuck that check in there and I mailed it A couple of weeks it probably wasn't a couple of weeks, four or five days.
Speaker 1:Check was never cashed. Day seven check still not cashed. I'm like the thing get lost. And then finally the check clears and I was like, okay, good, the thing get lost. And then finally the check clears and I was like, okay, good, at least they got it right. Um, I never checked the church mail, but I was waiting on an envelope for something that I was working on and so I saw that it had come, so I went down because of informed delivery you know what I mean so I went down and I picked it up and inside is a card.
Speaker 1:I had no idea who it was from and I opened it up. It's hanging on the bulletin board so you can read it. This lady was just beside herself that we would think of them and send a check. Now I don't know these people, but the person who donated the money did, and they didn't want it to come from them because they didn't want it to be like. They didn't want recognition for it.
Speaker 1:Right. So that was like. It's the beauty of being able to bless those people who, again, may not need exactly what you're giving them, but it allows them to feel loved, cared for and understand who Jesus is through that simple gift.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was able to. I wanted to start like sending a Bible to someone that I kind of introduced God to, and I was able to do that the other day and they got it today and I was like yeah, that's super cool.
Speaker 1:I had a congregant who they called me one day and they were really struggling in their marriage and it's not like we're getting a divorce struggling, but like she doesn't understand me. I don't understand her Really, don't know where to go with this. And I said, hey, I got a book, I'm sending it to your house right now, I'm ordering it right now, and I sent them five love languages. I said, don't you need to read it, like because you need to understand the connection. They were blown away that I would do that. That book was 12 bucks. It was the easiest thing I could have done and I can't fix it, but I can give you the tools to fix it yourself, right, and so, yeah, that's. Those are the types of things that are wonderful to be able to do for people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I told him about our podcast. So if you're listening hello.
Speaker 1:That's fun. That's fun Any other Sabbath stuff.
Speaker 2:Oh, a funny one but, like a honey-do list, like when you're going to have time to do a honey-do list. Like, if you're not doing it on Sunday, so like, hey, nick, if Margie's wanting you to do something, margie it's my. Sabbath day, come on.
Speaker 1:I can't plant 14 shrubs down the property line.
Speaker 4:Or pull them out, and each one of those shrubs will probably have a cat buried under it. Oh jeez, you know she's listening to this, I know.
Speaker 1:When somebody else moves into that house and has to pull their shrubs out, they're like what is going on here.
Speaker 3:We hit a pet cemetery Cat's in the tree.
Speaker 1:Oh jeez.
Speaker 4:Of course, the last point Can't do the honey-do list because Sundays are for football.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 4:Do you want to take anything that tears you away from the Sabbath.
Speaker 2:Yes, Well, and I'll tell you, Michael, this Sunday Chase is like I said, there's football on. I said there's football on every Sunday, but it's playoffs. I'm like I don't care, You're going. We said we're going, You're going.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell you we will. We can turn it on somewhere.
Speaker 2:He'll be fine. You're like the first game's at 4.30. No, he's like there's one at 1. There's one at 3. There's one at 4, I think.
Speaker 1:I've got that little TV sitting over there. We'll put a R it Because I'll tell you I don't know that Alyssa is going to be willing to miss it. So it's gotten weird in my house, like stuff has gone sideways. I don't know what's happened. Hey, I've got a dumb joke but I want to share it with you guys, just because I this. So this is my old sermon notebook that I used to write my sermons in when I wrote on my hand. Now I'm upgraded to technology and I use and I just wrote single lines of the joke, not the full joke. So when I read it I was like that's really funny and I don't know that I've ever told this.
Speaker 1:So there were two blondes running a ranch. Their bull died and they realized that they needed to go buy a new one. So the one blonde told the other to go to an auction and see if she can find a bull. But they only had $500 to spend. So she goes to the auction. She finds a bull 499 so she buys it.
Speaker 1:Now she had to figure out how to tell her sister to come back and pick the bull up. So she goes to um, to the, to the telegram place, and she says I need to send a telegram and they said, okay, it's a dollar, a word. Well, she only had 500, so she's got one dollar left and she's just racking her brain trying to figure out what she's going to do and, uh, she really didn't know how to tell her sister that they needed to pick up this bull. And then all of a sudden, she hands the paper back to the agent and the agent's like what? And she's like it's only one word, it doesn't make sense. She's like just send it. And on that piece of paper she had written comfortable, comfortable.
Speaker 3:Comfortable.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Comfortable, comfortable. Wow, that's a good one, isn't?
Speaker 3:it Isn't it? That's all fool.
Speaker 1:Every time, like when I read that note, I was like that is an amazing joke, and why did I never tell it? I don't know, because it's on a page all by itself. There's nothing else on the page except for a picture of a roundabout. It's not a joke, I don't know why, but there's a picture of a roundabout. So that's when I knew that it was time for something. It was yeah, your pencil, yep. Any other parting wisdom before we head out for this evening? No, that's it All. Right, your turn to pray.
Speaker 1:It is my turn. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for our time together. Father, for the laughs, for the joy and just the excitement that comes into this room each and every week. Father, I thank you and I praise you for the blessings that rest in this house. Father, for the blessings that rest on this team. I pray that you just continue to keep us safe and bring us back at our next appointed time. Father, I'm praying blessings over every person that gets to listen to this podcast, whether it's today or in 10 years. Father, just allow them to be blessed by the words that are shared. We thank you and we praise you. We give you all the honor and glory in your precious Son.
