Say More about Leaning in with Hope

This week we talk about the sermon from June 14th, 2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Welcome to the Seymour podcast. We are here at Fullerton Free Church, which is in North Orange County, California, which is in the United States of America, which is on planet Earth, the third rock from the sun. It's so good to be here today. And it was uh given to us by our very own Scott Balan, who is here today. Scott! Hey, the crowd.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

They were cheering. They go wild.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

And also joining us today because he's here is uh one of our other staff members. He was on stage on Sunday as well. He wasn't. He wasn't. He was not there on Sunday. He was someone none of you have ever seen or heard of before. His name is Connor. Connor Faf.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Connor Faf, ladies and gentlemen. It feels like it was an even bigger cheer for me than it was for Scott.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

It was huge. You know what's crazy is I noticed from across the room that you weren't on stage. And I feel like so often, I mean, I don't know the last time you weren't on stage.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

It's it's maybe once, it's maybe twice a year, three times a year. Yeah, well, what was going on? They just they just didn't need me to. I was teaching in new community during second hour, and Christina had the band covered, so I said, I'll set this one out. That's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

That's awesome. It was great. How did your teaching in new community go?

SPEAKER_01 1:55

You'd have to ask them, but I think it went, I think it went pretty well.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yeah. Well, I know you had a foam finger in the crowd when I was up there teaching. You were like we were number one. I heard it the whole time. That was really kind of you though to me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

The support that exists here is just beautiful. Oh, my name's Kyle. Um, and I'm one of the hosts of our show. Katie is not here today. Yeah. Um sad. And I think that that's worth looking into um what happened and why she didn't. So if anyone knows where Katie is, let us know. Our first question today is where is Katie? Where did Katie go? Uh Scott, you shared and you kind of uh you were in Ephesians 3. And why don't you give us a good little recap of what Sunday was about? I know it was a shorter time. Yeah. So maybe just start at the beginning, do the whole thing. Go for it.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Yeah. So the recap, I guess, would start with the fact that we brought uh Mel Howell up there, who Mel shared from an elder's perspective, just um some of the hope and you know, vision for the future that he has as an elder. Not only a guy who's currently on our elder board team, but a guy that's been on our staff for uh who was on our staff for almost 40 years and has been at our church for what did he say, 55 years? It's crazy. I didn't even know he was that old, so it was impressive. But but it was really cool to hear from Mel and hear his passion about um just what God has done in previous transitions in our church and the way that he's worked and how faithful he is, and then kind of this call to the way that we treat each other, the way we love each other, the way we support each other, all that kind of stuff. So that was cool. And then they asked if I would come up and just share kind of a brief devotional kind of seven-minute, eight-minute um little nugget from something that I would argue is kind of hope for our future as well. So I talked out of Ephesians three. They were talking mostly out of Colossians for the morning, um, but I just kept walking around the neighborhood over the course of the weeks prior and felt like I kept going back to Ephesians three and Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus. Um, and in that, kind of these three nuggets, or these are kind of the main points, is that I think in the midst of seasons like this, Paul's reminder to the church where he was imprisoned at the time and he was writing a letter to them is to be encouraged with who they are, to be encouraged with the real reality of the fact that the Holy Spirit um gives them power and is dwelling in them, which is huge. He encourages them along, he says, along with the Lord's, all the Lord's holy people, um, to be reminded of God's love and how uncomprehensible it is, I guess, and the re in the reality of the fact that like we can't fully fathom it, but that God loves us so deeply uh that we get to experience that love and then get to kind of pass that love along. But then thirdly, the fact that God's able to do so much more than we can ever ask or imagine, and that he words in that same passage the fact that he um that according to his power, he gives us the ability to do that, right? He invites us to join him in that. And so this idea of leaning into the Holy Spirit and dependency on the Holy Spirit, this idea of leaning into community and recognizing the fact that it's through our love from God and to each other that sustains us, and then the fact that God invites us to be really participants and not spectators in this journey and kind of walk with him through the gospel, which is so cool. So awesome, awesome, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Yeah, it was great, and like I know it was a shorter time than you usually teach when someone teaches, but felt like it was there, right? Like it was like this is the thing that we need to know. So I would love to teach seven minutes every time. I kind of feel that too.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Like I love one story, yeah, one point, yeah. Great.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

Yeah, I'm like prepping for when I teach next, and I'm like, oh my gosh, how many but like full chapters of the Bible can I read to fill 30 minutes? You know, I'm like if I only want to talk for four myself, that's 26 minutes of reading. How do I do this the right way? I feel that. Um well, we um, as has been a trend as of recent, did not get any questions this week. Um, but we have some of our own questions. And so, as uh as a part of being part of one of the communities here at Fullerton Free, we have our uh kind of community sermon discussion questions that get sent out to those groups. Um, and so we were just gonna kind of walk through those a little bit. Um, so my encouragement to us is like, let's be a little three-person community right now, you know, like uh and we're just kind of giving you like a you're listening to us as we kind of go through what uh these groups are going through in the same sort of time. So I'll read that first question. In what ways can we lean into the Holy Spirit in this season for the strength and stability that we need as a church? How might God be calling us to slow down and refocus our dependency upon him now and in the months to come?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

I could jump in. Great. Um, first of all, I wanted to say it was iconic. It's always iconic, Scott, when you keep the sunglasses on the back of your head while you're teaching. I don't even think about it.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

I know, I'm sure I know it's I don't even I don't realize they're there. I wish someone would tell me before I go up on stage.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

When you walked out, Alley, my wife turned to me and she was like, Scott is gonna be buried with those sunglasses on the back of his head. So true. Um, but yeah, when I think about what it looks like to lean into the Holy Spirit for strength and stability in this season, I mean it's a simple answer, but it's the one that comes to mind is is prayer. Like I think it's really easy in a season like this to do a lot of like scheming and strategizing, both as staff and just as congregants, like in terms of what do we need, what what is what does our church need to look like, or um what are the changes we need to make, or things like that. But I don't know, I think I'm just reminded to begin with prayer, and that if we want to see God do something in our church, if you want to see God unify and strengthen our church, then it starts with prayer and coming to him every day, and uh you know, Joel's encouragement at the end of the service with that prayer card that he you know kind of encouraged us to pray for those things throughout the summer. Um, I just think that's huge to to begin with dependency on the Lord and and coming to him in prayer.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Yeah, I love uh yeah, the idea of dependency is awesome. I guess I kind of have a follow-up question to the dependency uh question because I think that we hear dependency talked about in the church all the time of like dependency on the Lord is good. Define the difference between dependency and like passivity or laziness, like uh how do we show dependency without being like, yeah, by I just don't do nothing and I don't uh sure I don't think about it, I don't bother with it, I'm I'm apathetic towards it. It's uh I'm just not gonna worry about it, it's not for me to deal with. That's not dependency, but how what is it like? How do we yeah, describe dependency in a proper church environment or in a proper Christian environment, you know, as a as opposed to yeah, lazy.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Well, it's a good question. I think this is where I really wrestle and honestly has been part of the journey. I think since my sabbatical a few years ago, I'm continuing to try to learn this because I'm a doer to the core, right? I want to just get stuff done, I want to tackle things, I want to I want a list of things to go through and I want to check them off. And I I like laziness drives me berserk. It's like one of my big pet peeves. Um and I think somewhere in there can be this sometimes in my own life, a lack of slowing down enough to let the Holy Spirit be the one driving it, and instead Scott just driving it, right? I can be running full speed ahead, I can be doing the things that I'm feeling passionate about or feel like God's calling me to do, but maybe haven't taken the time to sit and be quiet and actually listen. And so I think that might be part of the dependency piece that I kind of see is this practice of listening to God. And I'm again not great at this because I don't like solitude, I don't like uh quiet. I have to really work at that. That's like a hard discipline in my spiritual journey because I'm wired to be around people all the time and I'm extrovert to the core, and I just like activity. And so I learned during sabbatical, like I have to be on a paddle board in order to be quiet with God. Like it's I gotta be active. Yeah. Um, but there's something about the dependency piece that I go, what does it look like to not necessarily move? Sometimes maybe until we hear the nudge of the spirit, right? This reality to go, like we're gonna listen quietly and long enough, like and intentionally enough, um, to feel like we're unified together to move forward. And that's that's hard for me. That's scary for me sometimes, but I think it's part of the practice of really leaning in to go, is this God's thing that he's telling us to do? Or is it just you know, us running because we feel excited about something? Does that make sense? Totally.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah, listening to the Lord before we act. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

I know when I was up at uh Hume Fray all this year, then I was uh kind of running that Wildwood program, which is like the high school leadership camp, we would do different themes each year. And I'm one of the four-year cycle was like a spiritual disciplines theme. And I remember doing the like solitude time, um, and we would do it was like an hour every day, but then one day we would do like a four-hour time. Um and I found that like at four hours, I kind of ran out of things to say at like 3 45 into it. Like uh, I am so bad at being quiet. Um, that like and then in that last like 15 minutes, I'd like finally start to hear some things, and I was like, but I wasted all this time being like sharing and being loud. And it it is when you are a person who is built that way, it is really hard to get quiet enough. I I know that um I had to start creating a practice for me. It was when I was up in Sacramento, and there's this passage in uh Genesis chapter 32, um, where Jacob goes like across the river and meets with God and wrestles with him and then comes back across. But there's you know, Sacramento, we got some rivers, and so there was literally a river that I would go over to go sit by the river on the other side where I was like, I'm dropping off all of my life things right now so that I can like go be alone with God and then I can like go pick them back up. But I had to make such an intentionality about it because same thing, like it's so hard to be dependent and be quiet and like not just do more, you know?

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're so obsessed as a culture with efficiency, and prayer feels very inefficient. Yeah, prayer is like purposefully stopping being quote unquote productive. Right. There's a a phrase that I think I picked up from some devotional I did, but it's intimacy over efficiency. And I think that's for me a guiding kind of principle, like the focus on intimacy with God. And you know, it's John 15 5, like Jesus saying, apart from me, you can do nothing. And you know, if we aren't clinging to him and folk prioritizing connection and intimacy with him, I just think it's a dangerous place to try to do anything from.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Totally okay. Question two What are some practical ways that we can lean in and link arms as a community? How might our unity in this season give us a bigger picture, an experience of God's deep love for us? Scott, what were your thoughts on that one?

SPEAKER_00 13:03

As you uh Yeah, I mean, I one of the things I was thinking is it feels like any time, and not that we're going through this terrible time in any way, shape, or form, it's just transition, but I think of like times in our country or times in our lives when we go through difficulty or hardship. And it's like for whatever reason, everyone gets brought together, right? The things that used to be dividing or separating or whatever, the things that maybe weren't the most important thing kind of get put on the on the back burner, and you suddenly get to be um reminded of what's most important, and you get to kind of go, gosh, let's let all that other stuff fall aside because we want to unify together as a country or as a whatever, whatever the environment is that you're in. I kind of view that as the church and I go, man, if we can sit in a season like this and recognize God's love for us and what he's done and what he's called us to, um maybe we can let some of the other stuff that's just become distractions for us in our relationships or things that have been hindering for us in creating dividing walls. This is kind of where where Mel went, even in his you know, note from Paul to the uh Colossian church. But I just think it takes our effort for us to go. Let's think about what's most important, let's be reminded about this thing that God has done, uh, his deep, unending love for us that he calls us to live out on our side as well. And then maybe, just maybe this is a season where unity happens in ways we couldn't even imagine and we weren't expecting because you're like, it's transition, it's gonna be hard. And you go, it is hard. Yeah, but it can also be really beautiful because we go, we know what we're about and we know what's most important in this place, and we don't need to be distracted by the other stuff. So um, I think that's kind of my heart in it as I was sitting in the passage and continually being reminded of how vital looking at it across the table or in the seat next to you in the sanctuary, whatever, to see people face to face and go, I see you and I'm in this with you. Like God's called us all together as his holy people to walk this journey together, you know. So um, yeah, that's kind of what I hope for, I guess. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

For some reason, the phrase lean in and link arms was making me think of like doing the hooky pokey. Perfect. I don't know why we don't do that more. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Honestly, it could be really powerful if we just spent this whole service like you put your whole self in and you shake it all around. Uh-huh. Yeah. I mean, is there a better gospel message than each sentence?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Your whole self in. But the cool part is you start with one piece at a time, right? You only start with the foot. You can't jump all the way in the first time. People are too uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

Oh, that's that's too quick. That's not that's not a good, that's just a pokey. There's no pokey involved there. I mean, I get that.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Yeah. But for what it's worth, Connor, you play a major role in helping plan those services. So if you want to figure out a way to drop that in, you could.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Yeah, I think we could do that. I think there could be something there. Um, I think when I on a more semi-serious note, but not that serious, don't worry. Okay, good. Not this isn't a funeral. Um my gosh. I lost my train of thought. Kyle, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Pokey, pokey, pokey. I mean, unity is I just don't know that there's in many things that are more important than it. Um I think that the hard spot is the question of like, well, how do we stay in unity and not only find unity when there's a trouble against us? And like, and and that's like the the spot that I know that people like feel when there's big transitions of like, oh my gosh, I've wanted this for so long. And like it's good that we're seeking unity now, but why couldn't you do it before? You know, and like uh and I think that there is for me, what I'm finding is like a need to be happy when God's doing work in people's life when he's doing it, and not mad because it didn't happen at a different time. And uh, that is a huge thing that I'm slow to learn because uh I can be really frustrated by things that I'm like, why do we have to go through this? We didn't have to. Why do we have to in any struggles in life? And like uh, and then be like, okay, aren't you excited that people are learning this? Aren't you happy for their journey? Aren't you like don't be so small-minded as to think that not only is the work of God important, but your timeline for it is important. Like, there is a freedom that starts with dependency in that first question. That like when we recognize that it's not our thing, then unity can be more generous, and like unity can be bigger, and like and not yeah, I I I know that there are as we are going through big transition in our church, which happens every this is not your first one on staff, you know. But like it is a big moment uh in a church, and and there's people who are always excited about change and people who are angry about change, and yeah, I just yeah, I I value uh what the purpose of that was.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think there's also something powerful about like I've I've heard from a lot of people in this season who are like, I know this is a challenging season for our church, like point me in the direction of where I can run, like what can I do? How can I help? And I think that attitude of just like wanting to participate. I guess this is maybe getting into the third question a little bit, but that attitude of wanting to participate and wanting to be a part of something and wanting to help and be be a family together, uh that I think that's like the best way we can unify is like working together side by side, you know?

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Yeah. Which speaking of that third question, is God calling you to become more of a participant than a spectator? What are some unique ways He has gifted you personally or as a community that might be an invitation for participation in the gospel and in the church as a whole? I think with that question, even like I know that we've had a lot of cool stuff happening and we have a lot of cool stuff coming up. Like, what are some of those things that people could get more involved in or that they've missed out on because they weren't involved in before, and we're like, here, celebrate this and don't miss it next year, or whatever. Like, what are some of those cool things that we have coming up that we have uh yeah? How do people do this?

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Yeah, that's great. You want me to start? You go ahead. Man, I mean, we're two weeks into summer and there's already a lot of things that are going on. We've got uh, I mean, we got a team that's driving home today from a trip called Riverside, which is a whitewater rafting trip, speaking of rivers um up in the Sacramento area. Which, which, which uh I don't know. I can tell you if I knew, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

North Fork American River is the answer. I don't know where they're at, but it's the North Fork of the American River River near Stockton.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

Oh yeah, that's American River. Um, yeah. Stockton's great. Anyway, that's going on.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

We've had two weeks of college ministry that launched this summer, which has been fantastic. Just a cool they call it the yard. It's in a backyard, and it's just a gathering of these college-age students that are coming out of the woodworks, which is so fun to watch. Um, man, our youth ministry has been kind of running at full speed. We've got a thing called Slice the Summer that's happening right now in our kids' ministry, our fourth and fifth ministry, which is all week long. Last night they had a survivor night, which is pretty sweet. So they flew to Fiji and that was pretty cool. It's a good deal. I mean, I think it was like seven bucks.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Yeah, budget's looking good.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Yeah, yeah. Um, but honestly, so much happening already. And then we've got men's events that are coming up. We've got uh Rainbow Express, which we know is a big opportunity to participate in and uh to be a part of serving. We got VBS on the horizon. We've got this coming week, we're going to Hume Lake, and so we've got a bunch of our uh students, 200-ish students going to camp, but we've got a ton of leaders that are going to be counselors, and so things like that are everywhere in our church. Yeah, not to mention that there's just areas that we haven't even maybe scratched the itch yet, but that someone's got a passion for that we're just waiting for them to tell us what they're passionate about, you know?

SPEAKER_01 21:01

So yeah. I always think it's so cool to see people who um maybe are semi-connected to our church and then they find a ministry to serve in. I have a friend who uh he was asking me about different ways he could serve, and I'm like, dude, you're you're like the most welcoming guy I know. You should join the welcome team on Sundays. And just doing that a couple of times a month, like seeing the ownership that he has, uh, of being a part of that and the like deeper sense of connection that he has to our church. So cool. I think that is really what what church is designed for, like that we we get connected by like participating and serving, you know, um, in addition to things like you know, community groups and other places like that. But I just think especially in this season, it's a cool moment for people to think about like where where might God be calling me to like step in and to serve.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

I this is I'm putting you guys on the spot on this one a little bit, but I'm just gonna do it. Um do you have like a dream? Ministry that you would love to start here if you had the right, like uh person. If you're like, if I had the right volunteer, here's something that I wish that we could do. I I'll I'll share mine as like the the stall to it. I um obviously we have our food pantry and clothes closet, and hey, I want to start with all y'all who've volunteered to start helping in there. We are in the process, and I'm so excited because that was so many more people than I ever could have imagined, um, which is just awesome. And we are getting daily people who come in and our local unhoused community as I've got to get to know a lot of them more. I have found that there's one kind of specific need that a lot of them have, and it is bikes. And if uh if I had one person or two people who were like, you know what I love is taking old bikes and making them work again. Um, that would be the coolest ministry to start at this church, where we would have our own little bike shop and we could get from y'all who have multiple spare broken bikes sitting in your backyard right now, you could drop them off, and then we would have these people who could fix them up and we could give them to our unhoused community so that they could go to the different resources that are in the area um at a much better pace. Like that would be amazing. Um, but I don't have the bike people yet. And uh, and so if you are a bike person who's like, hey, I want to figure this out, great, let's figure this out. That's my like dream startup new ministry. Do you guys have anything like that that you're like, this would be so cool? I I know, really on the spot. But that one was that one was tugging at me this time. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Uh-huh. I like that one. Um, okay, two come two that come to mind. One, I feel like something Christina and I have thought about at different times is like it'd be cool to like put together, you know, back in the day, churches would put together like CDs and then they give me out to their church and you can listen to like your church's version of songs or whatever, you know. So I think it that would be a cool thing, not on CDs, probably on you know, the internet. Oh, I thought you were using laser disc. It was like vinyl tracks, yeah, yeah. You could hand out cassette tapes, or just we do vinyl only. Oh perfect, photon free on vinyl. Vinyl print? Uh-huh. Yeah, that'd be sweet. Yeah. Um, yeah. So someone who if there was someone who was really excited about like producing music and wanted to do it and then wanted to put on vinyl just just for the vibes, that'd be cool. But also a ministry that's close to my heart as spiritual direction. Like I went to Talbot and got trained as a spiritual director, which is like a one-on-one form of pastoral care. And that's like a dream that I have at some point is to that there would be a spiritual direction ministry at our church. I love that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

I've got two also. One of them's not super practical, but it's kind of been my big picture dream forever. I love that. Is I I've always dreamed of having a wakeboarding ministry where you're just on the water, you get people out of their comfort zones, they're experiencing God's creation, you get to teach them how to wake board or wake surf or ski or whatever their thing is, and then you just have these evenings of like, you know, good meals. So you have people who are coming to cook meals, people who are coming to drive boats, people who are coming just to be spiritual encouragement, like all of those pieces of the puzzle to make this retreat center someday. Um that's not immediate. That's not the whatever, but we'll get there.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Why, why, why put limits on everything? That's fair. That's fair.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Okay, we'll have this space now.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Let me know tomorrow. We'll make this happen. Uh-huh. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

I love that. Um, but practically locally here, I and I think maybe living in the facilities world a bit now, I can kind of have more of a heart for this. But like, I just want a team of handy men that see our campus and go, I see that. I'm good at that. Like, I'm an electrician.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Let me just dive into that sucker tomorrow. Or, man, that fence is a little bit wonky. Let me just go repair that fence. Or hey, I have this idea of how we could build this thing that would make this area so much more effective. And so having guys, and we have some of this. I mean, I'll I'll put his name out there, but you know, Jim Arnold messaged me this week and is like, I'm retired now, put me to work. And it's like my dream because guys who have skills and handiwork to be able to go, like, how do I make much of this place that God's given us? And I mean, we just don't have the hands and facilities to tackle all the things we want to do, but there's so much opportunity that I go, gosh, if I had a team of men and women who are gifted at this, I mean, give me some green thumbs in there. Yeah, dude. Love to turn what looks like a patchy area into a beautiful green, lush, you know, that would be my dream.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

So I even to echo on that one, our wood shop is so cool. Yeah, and so underused. And like uh, I know that there's one like college-age guy who he's like, hey, uh, because I used to, I was, you know, a carpenter for years. He's like, this summer, can you teach me how to like use tools? And I'm like, this is awesome. So he and I can hang out in there and do a little bit, but I'm like, why don't we have that as like a ministry opportunity? Well, I know that we have some woodworkers here. Like, yep, dude, create a we if you're interested in this, we'll help you. Like, we'll we'll set up the times for you to do like a let call it a Christmas gift making group, and like you're gonna make a cutting board and uh whatever, and you're gonna get 10 dudes who want to like learn how to do this, and you get to sit and spend that time together every like that's amazing. And uh super fun. I love our campus and uh and the amount of stuff that could be done here. Like, it is just it's so cool. I know that the reason why we have now our weekly food pantry, closed closet, like donation mobile sitting out front, new name pending, um, uh, is because some Pete the pilot had some free time this year and was like, Hey, thank you, Pete. What can I do? And I was like, uh, didn't you have to go to mechanics school to be a pilot? He's like, I did. I was like, Can you make this golf cart run again after 15 years? He's like, I sure can. And so, like, because he put that time in, yep, now we have more people who get the food that you donate every week. Like, that is what this is. Like, your efforts are beneficial to so we just love that. Like, that's cool. This is your chance to step in. So there it is. We're throwing it out there. Reach out, uh be a participant. Yeah, we want to be together. So that's it. Hey, beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Thank you guys. Thank you. Hey, good to be together. You guys are the two fastest walking people on our staff.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

That is that is an accurate statement. I definitely the only time I've ever had to speed up to catch someone is when Scott's walking, and I'm like, oh, I have something to go. It's like get out of the way. We got something to do.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

So we'll practice on not being as efficient. That's big.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

I respect that.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

All right, thanks everyone. Peace. We know all the words.