What's It Like To Be A Lay Elder?

Hear from our Lay Elders, Jordan Granger & Jim Green, as they talk through what their role looks like to minister, care for, and help shepherd the Fields Church. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to this week's episode of Fields Notes, where we take a deeper dive into sermon text, discuss matters of life and faith, and enjoy conversations around the table with fellow friends from the fields.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Well, Fields Notes listeners, welcome back. This is Joe speaking. Most of the time on the Fields Notes podcast, it is me sitting talking with two of my pastors from the Fields Church. That is also true today as well, that I'm sitting here with two of my pastors, but I'm not with Jeff and Jordan today. No, no, no. Oh no, I've already messed up. I'm not with Jeff and Braden. I'm with Jim and Jordan, uh, two of our lay elders, lay pastors at the Fields Church. Jim and Jordan, say hello.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Hello, Joe. Thanks for having us. It's such a joy to be here with you.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Hey, Joe. Good to be here. The joy is all mine. Um, we're so thankful for you guys. If you're uh listening, you probably saw the title to this. The we're we're calling this podcast, What's It Like to Be a Lay Elder? So, Jim and Jordan are our um two of our four pastor elders uh at our church, and uh they're our lay elders. They don't get paid by the church, they um serve as pastors, as elders in our church um in the time that they have in that. So we're so thankful for you guys. Uh Jim and Jordan, just uh briefly, a lot of people in our church know you, but um, yeah, briefly tell us a little bit about yourselves, your families, your jobs, um, how long you've been lay elders for, maybe a fun fact about you. Anything else you want to throw in as well?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

So uh this is Jim. I uh married to my wife, my wonderful wife Nancy, and uh we have four children. It's it's kind of strange to call them children because uh some of them are adults at this point, and I guess adult children, half of them anyway. Um, so uh four boy, four kids, two boys, two girls, boys on they book in the girls. So Alex is um graduated from college and in his own apartment, and Annabelle is at Taylor University. Uh Eleanor and Peter are in high school and they're in their teens, and Eleanor will soon be going to college, uh little.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Which is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yeah. Jim, what do you do for work? Um, I work at a bank. That's the easiest way to explain it.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Jim runs the merchant's capital realm, is what I tell people. Jim's in charge at Merchants Capital. I know there's other things to do.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

I wish. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Very cool. Maybe a fun fact about you, Jim.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Uh fun fact. So we were bouncing these ideas around. Um facts are always hard to the dinner table. Right. Yeah, there's so many, right? Um, I don't know that I have too many fun facts. Mine are usually just boring facts. Um, I'll switch uh the one that I kind of landed on was that um I have a bit of a sweet tooth. Um I'm very grateful for my wife who loves to bake and fills our house with all sorts of wonderful sweet treats to enjoy. Um, so I have to exercise a lot of um of discipline and not filling myself with all of those. But um early on in our marriage, um, when I would go out to mother yard, a lot of times like I was addicted to those little vanilla wafer cookies, kind of like Oreos, but they're vanilla. Uh-huh. And I would eat like entire sleeves of those. Um, and um, so sometimes when I'd go out to mother yard, I'd fill a pocket with those cookies, and just as I'm going around mowing the yard, I would reach in and grab a cookie and uh and enjoy it. And uh yeah, just a nice sweet treat. And uh my kids like to make fun of me for doing that.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

I did not know that. Jim, the the cookie eating lawn mowing guy. That's that's great.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

I've since moved on from that, so I don't I don't stuff my pockets with cookies anymore.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

You might have inspired me. I might have to add that to my routine. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Every once in a while I might show up at a uh basketball game with a pocket full of Skittles. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Yeah. We'll we'll be checking. Jim, how long have you been a lay elder for? Both both at uh Castleview, your previous church, and at the Fields, if you can do some math. I don't know if how quick you can think of that.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Yeah, so to Fields Church, I think we're going uh we're just past three years as lay elders um at Castleview. Um, I'm just guessing here, somewhere around 13 or 14 years.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Okay. Wow. So yeah. Jim, thanks. Jordan, how about you? Uh Jordan, you've got too many kids to count anymore. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

We got them all over the place. Uh so Kate and I have been married 18 years this May, 23rd. Um, and we have six children from 15 down to uh two months old. Uh I work in the public sector. I've been a lay elder combined. Uh I I think I'm in my 12th year. Um, and a fun fact about me uh Kate and I have actually been married twice without getting divorced. What? Without any annulments or anything like that. Uh do tell. Follow-up story maybe for another time in its fullness, but uh we have to just come up to you and ask you this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll share the story. But uh so uh sometimes I call her my second wife. Wow. Yeah, and she is my second wife and my first.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

I'm very curious. I'm very curious about this. I don't know if I won't be able to focus the rest. Well, it'll be all right. Jim Jordan, thanks guys for being here. Uh maybe briefly, and I kind of uh talked a little bit in the intro. We really in our tree church use uh elder and pastor interchangeably. Sometimes it's helpful uh that we use the word pastor for uh on staff pastors who are paid and lay elder for elders who are not on staff. Really, we they're they're interchangeable in in our eyes. But maybe if you guys should share briefly, what do elders and pastors do? How do you see your job, your role in our church?

SPEAKER_03 5:34

Well, um, three words are used in the New Testament to capture what elders do. Uh the first word is presbyteros, which we translate to be elder. It doesn't necessarily mean an old man, uh, but a mature Christian man, a seasoned man uh who's not a new convert. Um episcopas is another one, the word that we translate that to is overseer. So think authority, supervisor, uh, one who provides guidance, um supervision, and then uh the last one is poimain, which is shepherd uh or pastor. Pastor is just a fancy word for shepherd, uh, which captures the the component of care, nourishment, feeding, protecting, um, guidance as well, but uh done with tenderness and gentleness and great love and affection, uh, sacrifice, discomfort. Uh so the thing is about that, to answer your question, is that all three of these words are used interchangeably in different places in the New Testament. Um so Acts 20, Paul calls the elders of the church to come to him, and then he says that the Holy Spirit has made them overseers uh in order to shepherd the church of God. So he got all three of those words about the same office. Uh Titus 1, um five through seven, the Apostle Paul uh says to Titus to appoint elders in every city, and referring to these, he he then calls them in verse seven overseers. And then I think first Peter five is probably the clearest example of this where uh Peter is calling himself an elder who is writing to elders, and he says, I exhort you elders to shepherd, and then he says, serving as overseers. So you have all three of those words in one sentence used. Uh so an elder is very simply just a pastor, shepherd, overseer. Um the overseeing and the shepherding is done by uh these elders, these um mature Christian men, not perfect, but um mature Christian men. So this means that a team of elders should not be the nicest guys in the room who know everybody or uh the most wealthy or the most um prominently educated. Uh they're they're not Christian influencers or the uh the most affluent, but um they're mature Christian men who work together on a team um for the oversight and the care for God's people using the word of God in prayer as the means for how they do that.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Thanks, Jordan.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Do you have anything to add to that?

SPEAKER_00 8:02

I realize that I should have gone first.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

Um Hey, try, yeah, I'm welcome to my world.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

You're not gonna get the uh the Latin uh interpretation from me, but um yeah, just shepherd in and I think one thing that that I often remind myself is it's not my sheep that I'm caring for. It's somebody else's sheep. So as I'm shepherding them, I'm careful that that, hey, I've got to give an account for what what I'm doing here and how I'm caring for his sheep.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

I get to see somehow you you guys care intentionally for uh us members of the field. So I'm so thankful for the way you guys do that. You um protect, you teach, you have authority. So we're um so thankful for that. Um a little bit, Jim and Jordan. Um I do think uh in large part, I'll I'll just speak for you guys. I think you guys are elders because the churches you've been in have recognized that you guys are are doing those things that you said. But maybe for your own um just in your own lives, what what maybe were some desires you had or or um why why did you maybe even want to be elders to pursue being pastors both at Castleview and here at the fields?

SPEAKER_00 9:14

In in some ways I kind of fell into it in the sense that um I was digging, I was a new Christian because I became a Christian much later in my life, and um started attending Castleview and was reached out by the senior pastor there to do a study of systematic theology. And we did that over a year and a half. And um, as a new Christian, I was I was drinking this Kool-Aid in a sense, like freshly. Like I didn't have to unlearn any bad theology. I just had no theology at all. And so this was all new, and I was hungry, and I was reading and just drinking deeply of all of this good theology that I was learning. Um, and it caused me, it caused me to have just an intense hunger for God's word and learning it and trying to catch up on learning all I could about him. Um, and then I had a desire to tell others about him and to teach. And um it wasn't enough just to talk about him, but it was like I really had a desire to explain God's word. Um, I think one of the ways in which it has um has changed for me over the years is and I heard recently um uh John Piper said this at our at our pastor's conference we were at recently, that he says, I don't want to teach, I want to herald the word of God. Um, and I find myself just just having such a joy in heralding God's word. Um where maybe I didn't have it back then earlier early in my Christian walk, it was it was more so just digging deeply into his word and learning from it. And now I just I want to proclaim it and herald his word um to the people and to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

Jordan?

SPEAKER_03 10:48

Amen. I see a development and just in my own life where uh for me it began in high school. I had a faithful pastor who I really looked up to and learned a lot from. And um, I just had a general idea of what pastoral ministry was at the time. And I I wanted to do what I saw him doing preaching, teaching, discipling, counseling, uh, helping the sheep, helping to feed the sheep with God's word. Um and um after high school, he affirmed me and said, Hey, I I see gifts and graces in your life. What does it look like over the course of your life to uh to feed this and to develop this desire that you have for pastoral ministry? I think probably 15 years ago in the years leading up to um serving as an elder at Castleview, I I had a more developed uh desire that I wanted to um give of myself and sacrifice of myself to feed Christ's sheep with his word uh to protect them from false teaching and um those that would harm them. Uh and then I think since then uh the time that I was at Castleview, I really grew and my understanding of pastoral ministry really deepened uh to a point where I I was able to focus on um the reality that God is the one who is the shepherd and he has made these glorious promises and he has broken into um history and finished his work of salvation through Jesus' death and resurrection. Um and there are many other promises that he is keeping now and has yet to fulfill, and he will do that, and he will care for his people and sanctify them as he brings them through this very short life into the one that is to come. Uh, he is the shepherd. These are, as Jim said, his sheep. Uh and yet what a glorious and amazing thing he has under shepherds that he wants to be entrusted with this task. Uh so just just really growing and deepening in my desire to serve in that way has really helped me have a perspective that I think is appropriate and just led to just an obsession um about care for Christ's sheep. That's all that matters. And um I'm determined to care for them, whatever the cost. Um, and that's all that matters to me. I love Christ, I love his bride, I want to care for her, I want to see her finish well, and I look forward to that day when uh she is presented to him in perfect um condition uh in robes of white. Uh and uh that's that is I I want to do that well.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Well, just to speak for our members of the church, we're so thankful for you guys and your desire to to to do that to care for us in in those ways. Um, maybe a little bit uh uh in line with the title of this podcast, maybe if you guys could give us a little bit of a behind the scenes of what's it really like to be a lay elder of a church? That sometimes we can picture maybe what it's like for uh Jeff and Braden that they their vocational hours that they spend are uh doing ministry training and uh teaching and those sorts of things. You guys have full-time jobs, families, lots of obligations, and yet you're still pastoring, shepherding uh uh our church. Um so maybe talk a little bit about uh what kind of logistics that might look like for you guys in your life, um, what kind of time commitments that look like in some ways too. Um, and then maybe how that even shapes your interactions with our church um being lay elders, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

I can explain better too. Yeah, absolutely. Uh so there's a book called The Vine Project by uh Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, where um they talk about how Christian ministry is using God's word to help people take what they call a step to the right or a step toward Christ, meeting people where they're at to engage them if they're uncontacted, to evangelize them if they're unbelievers, establish them as early believers, or to equip them as mature believers. And um, that is what we do. We preach, we teach, uh, we evangelize, pray, we visit the sick. Uh, but I would say the biggest difference logistically of what we do is we do that without as heavy as a load of administrative um activity. Uh so in general, our staff elders do a lot more formal events, meetings, planning, and these things are necessary and good, um, which our lay elders really can't get to because of we've got these other full-time jobs that we have to be engrossed in during the day. So we can't be at these uh like service review meetings or staff meetings or planning meetings or events that occur throughout the week. Um and our full-time staff elders uh do an amazing job with that, and not just our full-time uh staff elders, but our staff like you, Joe. Thanks, Joe. Yeah, we've got others on staff that just do an incredible job, and um, lay elders are not uh as available for these things, and I guarantee that um we are probably limited to fewer coffee times and meetups early in the morning than our full-time uh staff elders. Our full-time guys, they they really are full-time. These guys are tireless, they're dedicated and devoted. I mean, they're just moving nonstop. Uh, they're showing up and having early coffees with guys and then meetings all day, sermon prep, um, and then meeting and doing events in the evening. It's just nonstop um in a way that really lay elders are more early morning coffees, evenings, weekends, and sometimes during the job, taking taking calls, emails, and so forth. But um that's me. Jim is actually an elder extraordinaire who does Jim, Elder Extraordinaire. He does a ton of administrative work, a ton. Um, and he doesn't necessarily get to all the meetings, but he does a ton of uh administrative work that I could never do. And on top of that, he's doing all the dynamic work. His home is like a hospital of the Fields Church, just constantly with a revolving door of people coming in, sitting around his table, uh, that that he and his family minister to with the word of God, people receive strength and comfort. Um, so I'm I'm really just talking about myself. I'm the one with limits here. Jim's Superman.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Yeah, I completely disagree with that. I um I I'm certainly not a Superman. Um and I think there's ways in in which you're doing amazing things, Jordan. Um, with with the little time in the day, you seem to maximize it very well. Um, I I think I'm doing more eldering here at the fields than I did at the at Castleview, at Castleview as the as the chairman of elders. Um, I was putting together meetings, agendas, and and things of that nature. There was just a lot going on that was administrative. Um it's been such a joy to be at the Fields Church. And I've spent more one-on-one time with members uh than I did, you know, at the previous position. And so um I have more time to spend with people and and and help them and to dig into God's word and and to see what it says about whatever they may be going through or or ways to encourage them. I get to connect with people and I and I and I absolutely love that. Um so yeah, you know, I I I remember uh a guy who um was a former elder at Castleview and he retired and he stepped down and he said, uh, and I asked, you know, how's his life going? You know, what's going on as a Christian, but but not an elder. And he says, I'm doing more more eldering now than I did when I was an elder. And that resonated with me in the sense that, yeah, it's not so much what he did was um was administrative, and now he just gets to care for the sheep. Um and I love that. And that's the thing that I love so much about being an elder is just just to get to care for the sheep and and smell like the sheep and be amongst the sheep and and have the sheep over to our dinner table and and uh to the hospital that is the greenhouse.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

I like that. So sick people like Callie and I can come in and have some of that cheesecake or whatever the the cake is that we've had from Nancy Nets. So um uh thanks guys for for that. I think it's helpful to even picture what life is like for you guys uh in a sense in this uh lay elder role. Uh you I've some in some ways you've answered this question, I think, but maybe just a more specific, I think people would want to hear the answer to this. What is your guys' uh what's the biggest joy of being a lay elder? And also with that, what maybe is the most difficult part about being a lay elder?

SPEAKER_00 19:06

I I think it's the same answer to both those questions, and that is um caring for God's sheep and caring for his people. Um it's such a joy, and it's very humbling to have people come to you with their pro with significant problems and and um and ask for help and and ask for prayer. Um, and having the opportunity to pray for them in those moments is is both sweet, but it's also hard. Um, and that they trust you to walk through those deep valleys uh with them and help them through it. Um in you know, Jordan and I have been elders together for a long time, and we've kind of we've spent nights in the same foxholes and just dealing with some hard things sometimes. And and you're walking with people, sometimes they're walking with you, sometimes they're they're pulling against you, and um and you as elders have to lock arms. Um those are sometimes difficult times. Um or or when you know they wanted help from you, but the help that they wanted from you is not necessarily the help that they're getting from you, and it, you know, they were looking for something different. Um and you know, we have to stick close to God's word. And um, and so when we're giving direction um or or uh uh counsel from God's word, and it doesn't align with what they expect, you know, sometimes the the the uh the sheep will bite um and you have to take those bites and and move on and and continue to care for them as well as you possibly can. Thanks, Jim. Jordan?

SPEAKER_03 20:41

Yeah, that's really well said. Uh there's a theme of death and resurrection in the scriptures that we know, and that's also a theme of the Christian life, and it's a theme of pastoral ministry, um, full-time and and lay. Um and so I think the hardest part would be some of the themes of death that we see, uh the destruction that we see in people's lives um when they are living in sin or unbelief, uh, people who can receive so much uh Christian teaching and discipling and uh so much hospitality uh and investment into their lives from others, and then um just turn their back on the church or um abandon their spouse. Um these are things that we've seen again and again that are just so sad and heartbreaking uh for us. Those those things are hard. Um and and then the resurrection part I would say is is the most uh joyful part, uh seeing God the shepherd do his work uh where we know that that um God is always at work in the lives of his people, always. Um he doesn't sleep or slumber, even when we're not thinking about him, he's working in our lives by his providence, by his word, his spirit. Uh even when we're not aware of what his word is doing in us, um, his spirit is is working in us, and yet we have key times as elders where we can. Can suddenly see fruit in someone's life when they're going through something, they're locking horns with sin and they they understand the gospel in a new way, or um we see God's grace take root in their life uh in a new powerful way, and and then maybe they'll fall back down again. But that's okay. We know that God is real, he rewards those who come to him, he's working, he's the shepherd of the church, he's faithful, and he will he will do his work. Uh so those are the moments when it's such a joy for us, um, especially in times of of affliction um and adversity for God's people. Um there's a sanctifying effect to it, kind of like a pastor that sits down week in and week out, uh, is sanctified by the scriptures that he is studying and then preaching. Well, in a way, for us as pastors, as we are meeting with Christians in our church and helping them uh grow in the knowledge of God and and um and and their practice of godliness, when when we see that, when we have somebody that's going through grief or loss or another miscarriage, uh, and they look at us with those tear-filled eyes and they say, I trust God. I will follow Jesus Christ, I will obey him. Oh, we we walk away blessed. I walk away with with example after example after example. This is what the Christian life looks like. Jordan, walk in this way. I don't know who I would be if I had never become a pastor with all these examples of members dying, members going through hardship and difficulty, sickness, struggle with sin. Um it's an amazing thing. So just to receive all the life and sanctification that comes from that is uh is truly an unspeakable joy. And if I could say one last thing, those cases of death when people do walk away, they come back sometimes. Um and that's another moment of resurrection where we realize, oh my goodness, all those late nights that we as elders were praying for these people with tears in our eyes. Two years later we find out they come back and they they join the church or they join somewhere else and um praise God. So that makes those discouraging times a little less discouraging to know, hey, you know what? God is a shepherd. This person seems long gone. We don't know what God's gonna do. Uh He might bring this person back. Maybe we'll see it, maybe we won't, but we'll trust God. It makes those hard times not as soul crushing, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Yeah, thank you guys for that. Um, I I do think maybe just as I as I hear you guys talk, a theme that I think I even feel in this conversation is there really is a a weightiness to the the office of pastor or elder that um uh you guys take seriously. And I really appreciate that a lot, that you do not take your your jobs as pastors lightly. So thank you guys for that. I think there might be a uh temptation to for us to think like, oh, we look at Jim and Jordan and maybe even Jeff and Braden too, of oh yeah, they're pastors. That's kind of a fun thing to do. Um there's a real weight that you guys feel in um being accountable for the souls of your people. And so uh I'm yeah, we're I I think I've said this many times, so thankful for the way you guys bear that. Um maybe a note to uh maybe guys who are listening, who they themselves, the thought of being either a pastor or a lay elder, uh, sounds appealing to them. Like that might be an office that I would aspire to. What would you guys tell to maybe younger guys, maybe older guys uh who would aspire to the office of pastor? What are some things that you would tell them as yourself, you guys self-being lay elders, um, to encourage them, to things for them to consider, uh things for them to do, maybe even now?

SPEAKER_03 25:35

I think I'd say awesome. You desire something noble, as the apostle Paul said. Um, Jesus Christ is totally worth it. Uh, and don't be embarrassed of that. Develop it, cultivate it, uh, expect to grow in your understanding of it. Talk about it with your loved ones, talk about it with your pastors. Uh, don't be embarrassed about it. This is a good thing. You wanting to be a pastor doesn't mean that you think that you're all that or uh that you're perfect or that you're better than anybody else. It just means that you recognize God is a shepherd, he's he's got his shepherding work that he is doing, he's got under-shepherds, and and you want to be one of them. Um and just start start pushing that way. I mean, I'd start there.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Yeah, and I would say um go to First Timothy three, first Timothy chapter three, um, and start digging into those qualifications and just thinking through and um start living your life that way. Um the the quickest, easiest way for us to recognize other other men who um maybe you know have a desire to be to be a shepherd, um, and that that we may start to pour into to become become shepherds are are moving that way already. They're acting that way already. I I like to call it moving without the ball in a sense, but it's kind of like moving without the title. You're you're you're just you're doing the motions without having that that formal title of elder. Um, you're eldering already in a sense. Um, and that is one way that we would that we recognize that uh in in some men, um, even now uh at the church that we see some guys that are that are doing that, that don't have the necessarily the task or responsibility to do so, but I mean they do as as members of the church, but they're doing it exceptionally well, and they're digging in even deeper and uh seeking to counsel people and really help them because they have a desire to care and shepherd for God's sheep. And it's like, yeah, that that guy is a first Timothy three guy already. Why don't why don't we recognize that?

SPEAKER_03 27:30

Yeah, and that's that is something that we see in the scriptures in um 1 Timothy 3 and um in Titus 1, Paul is talking about what elders must be. Uh they must be this, or in Titus he says that um elders must be able to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it. This isn't something that these guys begin doing once they are recognized as elders. They're they're already these men that are doing this. Uh so for men who who should be in ministry, this what Jim just talked about should be a comfort. Uh and I remember I remember that being a great comfort to me when I was in college, and my pastor said, Hey, I I see gifts and graces in you, let's develop those. And I remember thinking, well, why do I want to be a pastor? And I don't need to wait to do all those things. And I thought about what all those things looked like that I wanted to do someday as a pastor, and I realized I can do all those things right now. And and I just felt so free to begin doing those things. And I was, I, I was uh doing the things that a pastor was doing in a very immature way, but uh that should be a comfort for those guys. Uh, and enter into a conversation with your pastors uh that that begins. And if they if these men who are interested end up becoming pastors, you really enter into a conversation that that never ends. Um there's some good books out there. There's one by Southern Seminary called Am I Called to Ministry? I remember going through that booklet or that book with Eric Bancroft. Um, there's another really good book called The Path to Being a Pastor by Bobby Jameson. It'd be an incredible book to go through with a pastor. But um I remember being um mentored by Jim at Castleview before I went into that um elder role. But the thing is, these conversations that we began where they're they're speaking into my life, they're asking me questions. I'm being stretched, I'm being corrected or rebuked, um, I'm growing in my understanding, but also in my life. Uh, these are things that never end. I mean, I I never lost that with Jim and Eric Bancroft. I I just gained that with the other Castleview elders. And I gained it when I came here with Jeff and Braden. Uh Braden was giving me some incredible feedback the other day on a sermon. We sat down and I was I was growing uh in my understanding and um being humbled by some things. Well, that that's what we want. That'll never end. So I would say, hey, to those guys that are interested, join that process now uh and begin growing. It will it will only help you regardless of whether you become a pastor or not.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

Great call to us. Uh well, Jordan and Jim, thank you guys so much for being on the podcast today. Um, if I could maybe even just speak on behalf of our of our church. And uh for those of us in at the Fields Church, I'm uh we we might not understand how blessed we are to have you guys as lay elders. As I have conversations with people at other churches, even sometimes I read books about um elders, lay elders in particular. It's just not uncommon for lay elders to maybe not be as theologically sharp, uh to not be as uh motivated, to not um to be all in like you guys are. And you guys are such a gift to our church in that way. Uh I I often come home and tell Callie, man, we we would not have made it if it weren't for the Lord sending Jordan and Jim with us and their families. So uh you guys have been such a such a gift to the Fields Church, such a gift to me, an encouragement to me that you guys are my pastors. Uh, and I know many in our church would say the same thing in that. So, yes, thank you for your time here today, but thank you for all the time that you put into uh caring. And I think I I hope that people listening to this podcast recognize the the the effort and the the seriousness and the um the weight that you guys really, the the importance you put on your role um to protect us, to care for us, to teach us. Uh, we are blessed to have you guys. So, Jim and Jordan, thank you guys so much.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

Thank you, and thank you, um, Castleview uh members and elders and uh also members at the Fields Church just for the indescribable privilege that um you have given to us as serving as your elders. Um we love every one of you. We would give our lives for you and um just a joy to walk alongside you in this short life uh to the life to come.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Yeah, amen. Thank you, Joe. Um thank you to the Fields Church as well. Um, that we have the joy of caring for them. Along I get to do it alongside Jordan and you, Joe, and Jeff and Braden. It's it's such a joy. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Praise the Lord. Fields notes listeners. That's our episode for today on what it's like to be a lay elder. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.