Step Out Celebration | Tim Bollinger

More than 500 Shepherd's Gate volunteers served throughout our community during Step Out & Serve Weekend. Together, they partnered with local families, widows, seniors, single moms, and nonprofits to meet practical needs and share Christ's love in action.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, and thank you for listening to this message from JeppardSgateGurch. Located in Kelby Township, Michigan. To learn more about ShepardScape and to access more content, visit FetsgateGirk.org.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Well, once again, we're so glad to have you with us this morning. This is a special Sunday morning, so if this is your first time attending or streaming in online, uh last weekend uh was a very big weekend for us as a church community. In fact, we didn't gather here formally in our worship space. Uh, this place was transformed into tables and people were working on projects that they could then go and take out into our community and be a blessing to our community. Uh at the same time, there were actually people from our church who were out at over 50 different sites all across Metro Detroit serving. And so today is unique. If this is your first time here, we hope you come back next week, which is another unique service because it's an outdoor Father's Day service. Uh, but just check us out. We always challenge people to check us out for three weeks in a row and pray about and see about whether God would not have you call uh this church and have this church become part of your life and of your spiritual journey. Uh but today, uh many of us that were part of Step Out and Serve last week, and can we just be honest? We're probably still recovering a little bit. Anybody still recovering? Um our church has been doing this for 17 years, 17 years, and I'm always amazed uh at the battle scars that we often carry with us after a week and of it of intense work. Uh many of you might have scars on your hands or your legs, you might have even gotten poisoned ivy. Uh, and it's always interesting because you ever find out that you work muscles that you normally don't work on Step Out and Serve weekend?

unknown 1:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

But I want to know this morning, how many of you, this was the first time ever, I want you to raise your hand high if this is the first time ever that you participated in Step Out and Serve weekend. Look at all those hands go up. Can we give God praise for all of them? And we've expanded it now that we do this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And for the majority of our people, they'll pick either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. They'll have one site that they go and that they're a blessing at. Uh but we do have some just crazy servers here, like super servers, I guess we could call them. Is anybody here this morning that you did Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? Anybody that you just raise your hand? We had a couple in the here we go. Can we give them a hand too, just for their dedication? God bless you guys.

unknown 2:36

And Monday.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

And Monday. Wow, you get a bonus. That is incredible. Uh, so uh we are we were privileged to have Matthew Murphy leading our entire weekend. This is his first time uh doing it this year. And so would you give him a hand as he comes up and shares just a little bit about what took place last weekend?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

So, first, I just want to say thank you to all the volunteers and the site leaders that uh took their time to make how deserve such a huge success, where we were able to bring God out manifested love in the form of labor at all these wonderful sites. We had uh over 532 unique volunteers. So that means there were those that visited multiple days multiple sites, but these were how many volunteers we had, and truly that doesn't even capture those that worked behind the scenes to make all these sites prepared and ready to work for us on our step officer weekend. We had over 50 sites. We refurbished uh 38 bicycles, and we uh uh constructed 200 essential bags. And for those of you who don't know what these are, we're gonna have them on the table on the way out. We want you to grab a few. Along your journeys, if you come across someone that looks like they need a little something to get through the day, this is how we can blast them in a real way. We created uh 1,250 care notes. So those care notes go in the essential bags. They also went into our lunch bags, and they were nice little pick-me-ups, good uh messages. And uh God oftentimes worked through those messages to uh bring wisdom and peace to people who truly need it. 61 yards of mulch so all those sore muscles mulch had a lot to do with it. PB and J sandwiches over a hundred, and uh mission fifteen blessed this project with a little over twenty-two thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Well, we want to thank Matthew for his leadership, his entire leadership team, and all the planning that they put into the months leading up to this, and what another incredible, successful weekend. Can we give Matthew one more hand this morning? Because this really is the question. Like, why would a church give up their weekend services to go out into the community and serve? If you didn't know, I get to I get asked this a lot by fellow pastors, and uh people are always surprised, and they'll say, you know, something to this effect, Tim, I can't believe that you canceled church on a Sunday. And I always say, cancel's kind of a harsh word, don't you think? I mean, we're not really canceling church if you're deploying over 500 people out into the community to be the hands and feet of Jesus. It's just instead of them all staring at me and me preaching to them, they're actually going out and being Jesus to our community. Amen. And so I always try to encourage pastors to jump on board. Like, do this at your church. I could never do this at my church. Well, how do you know? You've never tried. Try and see what could possibly happen. And I'm so excited that this morning our friends at First Lutheran and Alginac are streaming in. They're watching this service, uh, but they too this year jumped on the bandwagon with us and they went and served in their local community. In fact, they served breakfast to all of the veterans in Alginac and had a great turnout. So can we praise God for what they did as well? I do hope more and more as the years go on that there'll be there will be churches that will want to be part of this and we can be a resource in helping them develop something to this magnitude. But if you're wondering the why, why do we do this? I'm gonna take us to a passage of scripture, 10 verses, Ephesians chapter 2. And it's really the hallmark of our faith. And for us and the network of churches that we're a part of, I mean, these are the crucial scriptures that we point to over and over again. And so it really shows you the heartbeat behind our God, and it shows you the heartbeat behind our church and why it is that we feel so compelled to do this each and every year. And so there's a guy named Paul that wrote this letter, and he's writing it to a church. He happens to be in prison. Think about this. He's he's writing this while he's in prison to encourage the church and to remind them who they are in Christ. And so in chapter two, he starts this way: You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which, look at what it says, you once walked. Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work, and the sons of disobedience. Now, there's a lot there, it's really wordy. But here's what's really crucial about this passage is he's telling all of us, he's leveling the playing field that we're all sinners before God. We're born into sin and we struggle with sin each and every day of our lives. And then he tells us there's these factors that constantly pull us away from doing the will of God. The first one here is the world. The world has a lot of things for us to do. Did you know that? There are a lot of distractions out there. In fact, some of you probably stayed up last night to watch the NBA finals. Anybody stay up late last to watch the NBA finals? My wife asked yesterday, she said, are we still watching basketball? I thought that ended back in March. You know? And then it's like, oh no, but there's hockey tonight. And they're like, hockey, it's it's the summer. People shouldn't be playing hockey in the summer. That's a winter sport, amen? And now we have soccer to distract us because we gotta watch the USA win the World Cup, right? I mean, we gotta do all these things that are constantly vying for our attention. And it's not that any of those things in and of themselves are bad. It's just that the world is constantly drawing us away from the purpose that God has for us, which is to serve our neighbor. Of course, we know the devil is real. That's what this second part of this is talking about. A devil that wants nothing more than to kill, steal, and destroy you and your marriage and your family. And so we have to resist him. We have to be aware of his workings and make sure that we're not falling into the traps that he set. And the third one, let's just be honest, this third one is about our own human flesh. That we constantly are drawn to be selfish, to go our own way, to do our own thing, and it's counterculture to live as a person that wants to go out and to bless others, to serve others, to be a part of what it is that God could do in and through us as his conduit to reach people for Jesus. So he goes on to say this among you, we all once lived in the passions of our flesh. We're all guilty of sin. All of us know the sins that we have committed. Carrying out not just the desires that we've committed with our flesh, but also the things that we've had in our mind. We are by nature children of wrath, just like all of mankind. We all deserve hell. We all deserve the penalty of our sins, but he doesn't stop there because he says, God, God is the one who is rich in mercy, God is the one who has great love for us, God is the one who loved us first, that even when we were dead and caught in our sinful ways and our sinful patterns, he came to us and he awakened our hearts and he put faith in our hearts and our lives, and he does this through the person and work of Jesus Christ. The price that was paid on the cross for you and for me. And he takes our sins away, and instead, he fills us with his Holy Spirit. And when he fills us with his Holy Spirit, he fills us with purpose, he fills us with hope, he fills us with a future that we can't even imagine when we walk in the way in which he has asked us to walk. Amen. By grace you have been saved. Gets even better. Because he said God raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So that in the coming ages, this is future talk, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Paul, what are you saying here? What he is saying is that we haven't fully experienced the mercy and grace of our God. We haven't actually seen it yet, fully laid out with our own eyes. And we actually won't fully see this until our time on this earth comes to an end. When we close our eyes in this life and we open them in the next, we will see Jesus face to face. And the ultimate mercy and grace that you and I receive is to be in his presence for all eternity. Have you ever thought about how you might respond in that moment? When you see Jesus for the first time? Will your hands go up? Will you just run and just want to hug Jesus? It's always fascinating when you read the gospels and you see how different personalities and different people responded to Jesus. What is he doing in this passage? He's telling us to keep an eternal perspective that this life, the here and now, is not what we're to fixate ourselves on. And so often that's what we do. We get so fixated on our financial portfolios, on making our lives beautiful, on all of these things that we think are what's actually going to bring us joy. And no true joy comes from anything outside of a relationship with Jesus and walking in the way that he has called us to walk. Now, these next few verses, if you have any connection to church, maybe you grew up in church, uh, you're probably gonna know these verses. These verses get used a lot. These are like the key verses because it says this for by grace you have been saved through faith. For by grace you have been saved through faith. God came to you, God moved toward you. This is not your own doing, it is a gift that God presents to you. And what's so cool is that you got to see that happen today in the waters of baptism for Charlotte. You literally got to see God at work perform a miracle. He came toward her, he claimed her as his own, just as he claimed you as your own, as his own in your baptism, or when the Holy Spirit took root in your heart and in your life and produced that faith. God does all of the work for us. And look at what it says. It's not a result of works, so that no one can boast. You can't educate yourself into a relationship with God. You can't study God enough and then on your own human reasoning, all of a sudden come to this point of, oh, well, now that I've studied all the world religions and now that I've read all these books, now I know what I believe, and so I'm gonna put my faith in this particular religion or God. No, God is the one that works on our behalf. Or don't make the mistake of, well, if I just do all of these serving projects, or if I just go and say these prayers, or I just, you know, follow this list of things that I think I'm supposed to do, or I have perfect church attendance, or whatever system or or metrics that you can come up with, none of those will actually get you to where you need to be. The only thing that gets you right with the Lord is when the Holy Spirit moves in your heart and claims you as his own. Amen? And we love this. We love this verse. Camden's with me this morning. I love it. We love this verse because this is what we cling to as we should. But I would submit to you this morning, oftentimes we just stop right at verse 9. And we kind of push verse 10 out of the picture. And sometimes as Christians, even, we come to church and we check it off the box, and we what we would say is sit, listen, and leave. We sit, listen and leave, we sit, listen and leave, we sit, listen, and leave, but we're never actually activated beyond the salvation that God has produced in our hearts to then go out and to be the people that God has called us to be. I don't know if you know this, but our mission in life is not to be so financially successful that we can retire and live in the villages of Florida for the rest of our lives. Did you know that? Like some people, that's that's what it is. Like all of a sudden now I've made it and I've been or I've seen pictures of the villages on my TikTok. And I'm like, that looks like a really cool place to go. Those people party 24-7. But that is not heaven. That is not walking in the in the in the in the calling that God has placed on your life. You have so much more in the vocation that God has for you and for your family. And so I want you to lean into verse 10 this morning in particular. Verse 10 is awesome. Verse 10 is just, it just really helps us understand what this is all about. Because it says, we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for what? Good works. What are good works? What is that? Do you know it's every facet of vocation in your life? You're a husband, you're a wife, you're a mother, you're a father, you're a grandparent, you're a worker, you're a boss, you're an employee, you're a supervisor, you're a neighbor, you're a church member. Every single thing, every single role, aunt, uncle, whatever you can come up with, all falls within this category. And when you have a church that's deployed out into a community to go and to bless people that may never step foot inside of this church, those are good works. And we don't do those good works to earn our salvation. Our salvation, remember, in the previous verses, has already been secured in the person and work of Jesus. This now is the outflow, it's the output, it's the result, it's a response to what it is that God has done for us through his Son, Jesus Christ. And not only does he call us to do these good works, he's actually prepared us for them. He's equipped us for them. He's put the Holy Spirit inside of us to be able to go and to bless others in our community. One of the phrases that we love to say is that God actually doesn't need your good works. Did you know that? God doesn't need your good works, but who does? Your neighbor. And you're gonna see that in the video at the end here. You're gonna see a lot of homes where, man, people needed, not a handout, they needed a hand up. They needed someone to come and to bless them, someone to help them in a practical way that maybe just maybe would open the door for a spiritual conversation. And then how does he end this? What does he say? That we should walk in them. What did we do? We walked in sin. We got ourselves ensnared in all sorts of things in the past. And God comes and he wipes us clean, and now he tells us to walk in faith, and to walk across the street, and to walk across our places of work, and to engage in conversations with the people that are now currently living in our lives and in our sphere of influence. You know what's amazing about this whole idea of walking? You know why it's so hard? Because you actually have to get out of your lazy boy. Isn't it funny that it's called a lazy boy? Is it still called a lazy boy? You have to get off your couch. You actually have to put pants on. Shirts, and like go out your front door. Take deep breaths. Go and interact with your neighbors, go and interact with the people at the grocery store, go and interact with people at your school, wherever God allows you to walk in for your feet, wherever they may take you. There's probably somebody that needs a smile and needs a listening ear and needs somebody to bring the presence of Jesus to them. See, that's why our mission here at Shepherd's Gate is to impact the world with the love of Jesus. Honestly, every church should have a mission statement to this regard because all it is is a rephrasing of Matthew 28, 19 and 20, which I just quoted in the baptism. This is what Jesus told the disciples to do, which means he's telling us to do this. Our mission is to impact the world, and you can't impact the world if we're not willing to leave our homes and our churches. Now, every church has a unique expression of how they feel God is leading them to accomplish the mission of the church. And our vision here at Shepherd's Gate is this, and I want us to say this together. Let's say this together. We will value everyone we meet, we will influence everywhere we go, and we will live generously with everything we have. And if you're new, this might be the first time that you're hearing this. Why are these words in brackets? Well, they're a play on words because everyone means that every person that calls Shepherd's Gate home is gonna value everyone that they meet. Whether they look like us, talk like us, believe like us, behave like us, it doesn't matter. God has called us to love those that He has placed in our lives. It also means collectively, as a church, we're gonna do this. When guests come to our worship services, when we go out and serve, even if we're at sites and we're kind of scratching our head going, you know, I don't know if we should be at this site. I think the leadership team must have screwed up or there must be something off. We should be some helping somebody else. We're not gonna have that attitude or that mindset. We are going to serve people that God has placed in our lives regardless on if we agree with them or not. Amen? Now, local now the next one's kind of simple. It just means that we're actually gonna influence on a local level, which all of us constantly, all day, are in our community. But we're gonna seek out people that are that are hurting, that may be down on life, that maybe have had a tragedy happen, that we can then go because we know that that the soil's been cultivated, and maybe there's an opportunity for us to go and to speak words of peace and comfort. Because of who Jesus is into their lives. Global missions. We haven't really talked about that yet this year. We've talked about it in the past. And I don't know if Ken did Kendall Niza sneak into the service. Is she here this morning? She just got back Friday. She's one of our missionaries here at Shepherd's Gate. She grew up going to church here. Any of you know Kendall Niza? She's been over-serving in Indonesia. I mean, she literally grew up from Charlotte's age, from an infant, all the way up, and she's in a predominantly Muslim country. She's serving as a school teacher because they feel like that's a way that they can then open the door to talk to people about Jesus. And so hopefully over the next couple of weeks we'll be able to introduce you to her. It's why we send out mission teams. We believe that the words of Jesus, when he said, go and give this message to the whole world, he actually meant the whole world. And then this last one is the one that I would say is the one that we really key on here at Shepherd's Gate. That everything actually starts with us physically going. In fact, we tell all of the people that become new members here at the church, our first goal for you is to go out and to serve in the community. Don't sign up to usher, don't sign up to greet, don't sign up to make coffee. We would rather you go out and give up your most precious resource, your time, and go and serve somebody else outside the walls of our church. And of course, there's a financial aspect in all of this. Think of this. 532 unique people from Shepherd's Gate gave up a portion of their weekend to be part of this. And now hear me, those of you with kids, those of you with kids, and you signed your kids up for step out and serve. Can I just tell you this? Way to go. Some of you I know you were very apprehensive. I just talked to a young family after the 9 o'clock service. I was very apprehensive about taking their kids. They're like, you don't understand our kids. Our kids are crazy. We're not going to get anything done. In fact, they will undo anything that everybody else is doing. And I said, this is the beautiful part of our church, is they all understand this. I don't care if your kid goes and spills a can of paint or takes all of the wood chips and moves them to the other side of the yard. What you are teaching that kid in that moment is priceless. You are showing them, you are modeling for them Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10. That they too are God's workmanship, that they are God's masterpiece, and that they have a purpose and a plan, and they will grow up in that in serving and helping others. So, parents, don't ever, ever think that your kids can't sign up and be an influence and be the hands and feet of Jesus. Amen? Now, let me break it this way, okay? The physical aspect. Christ is the one who frees us. This is what the Ephesians passage says. He frees us from our selfishness so that we can go and serve others. And then we know that by doing these physical acts, it's not just so that people have nice landscaping. It's not so that people that maybe uh fell on hard times and couldn't take care of their lawn, that now all of a sudden their yard is fixed. Every single thing that we do is to open doors to share the gospel. When we go to these nonprofits, what we say to these nonprofits is we want to partner with you. We want you to know that we are behind you and we are praying and believing that your ministry is going to open hearts and lives for Jesus. And when we talk about financial, of course, Christ is the one that frees us from greed. Do you know he's the only one that can do this? Let's just be honest. If it was up to us, we would hoard all of our money. No amends on that one. Some of us were so fixated on our portfolio. Some of you, you get like a hundred alerts and text messages every day about the stock market and your bank accounts. Is that really living? Is that really what God has called you to do? No, He's got so much more for you. There's so much greater joy that comes from being out and interacting with people and watching God at work. And the fact that our giving, when we give to a church like Shepherd's Gate, and a portion of that goes out and helps us do what we did last weekend and goes to people, again, who may never step foot inside of our doors, it's living sacrificially at a whole nother level. And what an opportunity we have to use those resources to bless people. Amen. So, does this have to be a one once a year or a one-time event every year? Some of you, do you want to like just switch to doing this once every five years? Like, once a year is kind of a lot, Tim. My back's still sore. I'm talking about my back. Anybody else's back still sore? My I'm still, you know, I got scrapes on my arms from the trees and the weeds and all of that. I'm still, still, still suffering. But the joy that comes from doing that and what it is that God does in and through us. About five years ago, we've been doing step out and serve for 17 years, and about five years ago, we started having something called Step Out and Serve 365. And this was our church's answer of going out and being more proactive all throughout the year. And we said, well, let's give this a shot and see if this is something that we could do and be more intentional about as a church. We value everyone. We're going to collectively do this more often. And I showed this chart a few weeks ago, and I got so much response from it. I wanted to show it again because I think it really helps people see the rhythms that we have here as a congregation. And so this has really been our schedule. That in January we we receive groceries for one of our local mission partners, Samaritan House. But in February, we take a break. In March, we do some type of local mission project together, but then we take a break. May and June really is all focused on getting us ready for the one weekend immersion of serving. And when you know July, which in my opinion is the greatest month of the year when you're a Michigander, what does it say? Break. That there's a rhythm to this. August is when we have our serving fair to fill the spots that we have for serving here at Shepherd's Gate, which we need to do that as well. Back into a break, back into a local missions project, back into a break, back into a Christmas uh blessing event. And it's fun to switch up and partner with different organizations in that way. But none of this would be possible without leadership, without people in the church that are willing to step up and lead. And so you got to meet Matthew at the beginning, who is in charge of our weekend experience. Um, I want to bring up Scott and Beth Ann Cote, who have been leading our Step Out and Serve 365 for the last two years. So will you please give them a hand as they come at this time? Coming up this side on me. I know many of you know uh Scott and Beth Ann because you've worked with them. We've done so much ministry together, and uh, you know, they tried to retire. So they tried to retire a couple years ago, and then I heavily recruited them and convinced them to keep working, but this time you're working for Jesus, right? Uh and so now they really want to retire, retire. They have some plans, some things that that they have uh set to do. And so in 2024, when they started, there was about 421 people. Now, keep in mind, I'm a numbers guy, so I track this stuff because I want to make sure it's just not just 30 people from our church that just keep going and doing all the mission projects throughout the year. Like, are we actually empowering and seeing people in our church serve? And so in 2024 it was 421, but in 2025, over 150 more people signed up to serve outside of the Step Out and Serve weekend, which made it 575 because of these two. And those of you that are good with math, you know what percentage that is? That's 37% growth. Imagine your stock having 37% growth. I mean, that's incredible. Can we give them a hand? And so today, as they retire, retire, Kelly's got some gifts for them. So we have some flowers for Beth Ann, and we have a little toolbox for Scott so that he can be on the beach and build a sand castle and he can retire, retire. So we love you guys, we appreciate you guys. Thank you for being willing to be the vessels that God worked through living out Ephesians 2.10 and uh really being a huge and incredible blessing to our church. Love you guys. Can we give them a huge hand? Which means whenever we have a change in leadership, just so you know, it does not fall back on me. So we are grateful today to introduce to you our new Step Out and Serve 365 Coordinator. Will you please uh have a round of applause for David Carter, my good friend, as he comes at this time. Dave's been serving for the last couple of months. He's been shadowing Scott and Beth Ann, and we are just already amazed at what God is doing in and through you. So uh maybe introduce yourself and explain a little bit about what you put together for today.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

Yes, absolutely. Good morning, everyone. Welcome. I'm I want to say I'm sad that it's raining now, but not today. I'm glad it's raining because that means everyone's gonna want to stay and come over to our expo. Um yeah. Otherwise, this sounds good. Uh yes, I'm still sore. I am a little bit sunburned. Honestly, it's it's been worth it. Uh I was able to help out a friend. Doctor needed some help at their house. We did an amazing job last weekend with the step open serve. But as Tim mentioned, for those of you who might not know, uh, it doesn't end with just the weekend. Um there's needs throughout the year and hence the 365 of all that. Uh the idea being that we might get a request for something in October or March sometime that's not during the Step Open Serve weekend. So, what's been in place for several years now uh is the Step Out and Serve 365. Um I was able to go on a bus tour a couple months back through the LCMS where they had a tour through a bunch of different charitable groups of ministries that we're partnered with throughout the Metro Detroit area. And I was just astonished at the things that are out there that frankly I wasn't even aware of. And I thought I knew quite a bit from stuff we've done in the past. And um, I kept thinking while I'm on this bus going from place to place to place, I'm like, how in the world am I gonna explain this to all of you all and try to remember all of it, try to remember the highlights, etc. And I thought, well, who better than the people that run the ministry to come to the church and explain it to you directly? So when Tim and I talked about it and then uh he surprised me with, let's do it on the 13th or 14th. I'm like, oh, okay, we'll make that happen. Uh, anyways, we put that all together. We actually have uh 16 ministry partners in our former worship center that are already all there ready to meet with all of you to talk about what they do. And just so you're aware, too, but this is just scratching the surface of what's out there. The need in the area is just massive. I think it's probably twice as many that we work with as well. Many of them you may have probably heard of from things we've done in the past. Um, some of them you may not have heard of because they were new to the uh the bus tour that we did through the LCMS. The two things that I would ask from everyone as you go over to the expo in a little bit here. Um the first thing is just get engaged with the folks that are there. You know, they've taken up time to be here, which I think is great. They're very excited that they've got people here. They we had this after the nine o'clock service as well. And I I was just observing from the back, and it was so cool to watch people talking, getting engaged, etc. So when you go over, make sure you talk to the people and talk to them about what they do and then how we might already be helping them or how we can help them in new ways. The other thing, too, and this is kind of my ask because I didn't say this in the first service, but uh if if Tim thinks he's a spreadsheet guy, um I that's me on steroids. I used to be a finance guy and I'm in Excel and all that all the time. So my hope was as I explained this to Tim that we can create what I'm calling a database for lack of a better church word, I guess. Um there's a survey that you can fill out. There's a QR code that likes to help me put together. When you go over, if you can scan this through your phone through the Church Center app, there's gonna be a survey that you can fill out. And what's on there is the first part is the survey of what are your giftings, what's God giving you the ability to do? What are you what are you excited about? Do you like to paint? Do you like to landscape? Do you like to do plumbing, etc.? Uh the other half of the survey is what ministries did you see over there that you think. Oh, you know what? I really that really struck a nerve with me. I feel like that's something I really feel God calling me to be a part of. But make sure you check that box as well. And it's okay to check more than one, but frankly, if you check them all, that's great because that makes me uh calling people or reaching out to people for help a lot easier. Um but the other thing, too, again, I was remiss in pointing it out at the prior service. If there's things that you don't see on the survey, feel free to write them in or come and see me because there might be things out there we don't even realize there's a need for. And we want to make sure we capture as much as we can. Because frankly, I have some huge shoes to fill with Bethany and Scott with all the great work that they've done over the last couple of years, and they've done a phenomenal job onboarding me as well. So thank you both. And then more importantly, for all you all, because I spent a little bit here, there's food and coffee over there as well. Uh Wendy and her team have done a great job putting together some great snacks, and there's some protein, we got cheese and and uh beef sticks, I think, too. So great stuff. I'm excited to see all of you over there. Um, and again, I'll be over there as well. So please come see me if you have any questions. But the team that's over there, they're just really excited about being here and sharing their ministries and how we can help them. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

Well, can we give David another round of applause?

SPEAKER_01 35:34

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