The Pilot Episode with Pastor Mando & Pastor Sam

Welcome to the very first episode of The Welcome Home Experience Podcast!

In this powerful pilot episode, we introduce the heart, vision, and purpose behind the podcast and why creating a place where people feel seen, valued, healed, and connected matters more than ever. This conversation is all about living out the life-changing experience that comes from accepting Jesus Christ into our hearts. We explore what it means to close the gap of information vs transformation. We also uncover that living for Christ is meant to be simple, not complicated, and building a new rhythm of life involves learning new behaviors as we learn to live out our newfound faith in Jesus Christ. 

This is Part 1 of a special 2-part series where we begin unpacking the vision behind The Welcome Home Experience and the journey from simply attending church to truly becoming family.

Real conversations. Real people. Real purpose.

Welcome Home.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:23

All right, everybody. How are you doing today? I hope you're having a wonderful day. And we want to welcome you. We want to thank you for joining us on our very first Welcome Home Experience podcast. I'm Pastor Mondo. This is Pastor Sam. And we are here. We're going to be your host for this episode. And today we're going to be getting into some great topics. But before we get into that, Pastor Sam, why don't you introduce yourself and let everybody know who you are?

SPEAKER_04 0:48

Yeah, for sure. Well, everybody, my name's Sam. I'm one of the pastors here at Victory Outreach Whittier. And um I'm really excited about this project because it's not just one that's going to get out. It's it's it's but it has meat, it's substance, it's it's gonna equip the saints. And that's what Pastor Mondo and I, that's that's the mission of the church, yeah, is for us to be able to equip God's people with the tools to be able to serve God and not not for just a season of their life, but to serve God for the rest of their life. Yeah. And that that's the goal in all this is to equip and to inspire people to be able to live out their life the way Christ intended for them to live.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

That's right. You know, uh for maybe you're wondering like, what is the welcome home experience? Well, let me tell you something. Our pastor gave us a challenge uh not too long ago, about almost three years ago, and he challenged me and my wife uh to put our hands in and begin to build uh a ministry that has now become the welcome home experience. Um, Pastor Sam is also a part of all these ministries that are touching lives. Uh, you know, we have come together. Uh, and what we did is our pastor challenged us, and as he challenged us to build these areas of ministry, what he really wanted was he wanted people to be coming into the church and really feel a sense of love, a sense of belonging, a sense of value. He wanted people to feel connected and help get connected so that they could find their place in the church and discover the call of God upon their life. And, you know, little did Pastor Joan know that before he gave me that challenge, six months prior to that, God had given me a specific vision and a plan that I wrote down on paper. And I didn't know what it was for. I've never had served in those particular areas of ministry. And uh one day when Pastor came and talked to me, it's like the light bulb clicked on, and the Lord began to show me this is what I gave you and your wife six months ago. And then at that same time, I think also Pastor Sam was given the challenge of another area of ministry that maybe you want to talk to them a little bit about that, you know, you're doing in the church as well.

SPEAKER_04 2:57

Yeah, so there's there's I look at every opportunity in ministry as you know, growing up in ministry, but it's every opportunity is to see someone else grow. I think as a leader, we've learned that is so you know, I mean and helping in church safety and like you know, a pulpit ministry and every opportunity. So I I think we we've grown mature enough to understand that every point of ministry is an opportunity to help people see people grow.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 3:26

And so yeah, so in everything, in everything that uh that I touch, yeah, I I make sure that it's there's there's somebody being challenged, there's growth happening, there's discipleship taking place.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

So and well, you know, and when God gave us this area of ministry and he gave us this vision, the welcome home experience, what it had to do with is like we said, it's all based and centered around the love of God for people. And one of the things that God showed me and my wife was that um we love Disneyland, first of all. We were just there yesterday. We had a great time. We have passes and we go there quite often. It's a you know place that we just kind of go to escape, you know, for the day, and you know, we have a great time. And while all of this was happening, and God was birthing these areas of ministry in our heart, he reminded me of Disneyland and how when you go to Disneyland, you drive in, and all of a sudden, you know, they're already raising and elevating your expectation, even in the parking. You see Donald Duck, and you see Disney has that, you know, Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, and you know, you have all of these different people. You're you're parking in these sections over here, and then you get in the tram and they uh tell you, you know, welcome, you know, to Disneyland, and they begin to give you, you know, whatever they're saying. And then Disney is so big, it could have like multiple entrances, you know, but they specifically want you to go through that main entrance because they've prepared an experience for you, and they want you to walk through those front gates, they want you to walk down Main Street because they want the very first thing for you to see is that castle that you've seen your whole life and all the movies as a kid growing up, and then you have your choice of all the four lands that they have prepared. Well, the Lord began to speak to me and show me and say, the same way this place has prepared an experience for the people, I have prepared an experience in my church, and and what I want to make sure that people are discovering, not by accident, but on purpose, is my love. And so all these ministries, just going back to your point of what you were saying, is that uh when you go to Disneyland, you know, it doesn't matter if it's the person that's parking you or checking you in at the gate or sweeping, you know, sometimes I don't know if you've seen them, at times they're sweeping on the floor, and when they know they have an audience, they turn that broom around and they dip it in water and they start drawing like Mickey Mouse or something on the floor. Everybody is on and every department is working towards the same goal, which is to make sure you have the best day ever, you know? And so in our church, when you come to Victor Outreach Whittier, that is the same type of concept that we have, whether it's in the parking or at the front door with our safety ministry or in the children's ministry or in I-45 Cafe, no matter where it is that people go, they are going to interact with someone that is ready to showcase the love of Jesus and the care and the consideration that uh our pastors have for their church, you know, which is the love of God, right? You know? Talk a little bit more about that, Sam, because I think that, you know, one of the things that I feel like is this is that, you know, I've been serving the Lord now for 38 years. I've been raised in church for 50 years of my life. I'm 55 since I was five years old. I know you have a very similar background, you know, our whole life, you know, spent in church. But one of the things that I see is that pastors everywhere, you know, they're praying for revival. They're praying for their churches to grow. And one of the things that God has really stirred in my heart is that in this time, we need to begin to see churches pray for a revival of the love of God to come alive in the in the ministries that they have. Because sometimes you can get into a place where you're just doing ministry after ministry, week after week. And before you know it, it becomes about the duty of ministry and not about the people. But there's like a freshness that has hit our church that um, you man, I I I haven't seen that freshness in quite some time, but there's a freshness for people. You know, talk a little bit about that, what you see from your perspective on that.

SPEAKER_04 7:49

No, yeah, for sure. I think one thing that um actually I was thinking about this earlier is that like Pastor Mondo was saying, is that we could get we could get so busy in ministry and that we can forget or even just kind of the busyness overshadows just showing simple love to people. Yeah. And I think in ministry it's easy for that to happen.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:11

And it's not it's not done intentionally, it's just because we're doing stuff sometimes, you know? And but but I think us we're talking about revival and and you know, and it's like a fresh move, and and I believe that people are experiencing God's love in a whole different way, in a whole new way, whether they've been saved for 20 years, 30 years, or they they're just got saved, right? They're experiencing God's love in a whole new way. And now I believe that they're experiencing it, and now they want to show it.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:41

And they want to show it in a way to um, they want to reach people. So when people come in, they're feeling the love from the parking lot. Hey, how are you? You know, the simple simple experiences like that go a long way. Right. You know, I think they say in in church studies that you have, I think, like three to five seconds from the first contact to really, to really kind of um, I don't want to say hook the person, yeah, but that the person can feel some type of connection, you know. And I believe that in in the church, that the church should not be exempt from that. Yeah, like people need to feel God's love from the parking lot, right? From the parking lot to the front door, all the way to their seat, their children coming back after classes, like, man, I really love this church. And you know what's what's a blessing, Pastor Mondo, is that people are leaving the church. When I say leaving the church, they're leaving service. Yeah, and they're really saying, you know, you hear a lot of new people say this. Man, I I don't know what it is, but there's like a peace. There's like, man, everybody, everybody said hi to me. Yeah, you know, um, these people came up to me and greeted me. I even talked to the pastor today. Yeah, and you know, I was able to meet these people, and and that's a blessing. Yeah, especially a church our size. It's it's a blessing to know that we haven't forgotten about the important things of which the main part of being a church, of being a house of worship, of being a community like ours, is that we show and exemplify the love of Christ. Right. And I think that's what we're trying to instill with with the all the leaders, and we're trying to like stir it up, and we're we want to see it, and we're seeing it happen right before our eyes, is that the love of God is being shared. Yeah, and then what is what is God doing with that is he's bringing increase, yeah, bringing more increase, bringing more people, and he's not just bringing one or two people, he's bringing families in. Right, he's bringing families in, and that that right there is a blessing because when we see families, we don't only see a a parent, a child, we see generations, yeah. You know, and I like I said, I I'm I've been saved for 23 years. I've had the opportunity to be born and raised in the ministry. Uh my parents got saved in the late 70s and early 80s. And so I never had to experience the world like a lot of people have. But one thing that one thing that our family, I feel like our family kind of symbolizes is the generations of when you say yes to God and you experience the love of God, my parents coming from gangs and drugs and rough lifestyles, we didn't have to experience that as children.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

Right.

SPEAKER_04 11:16

So me and my siblings, you know, we've all been born and raised in the church. But what what's kept us is is feeling the love of God.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:23

Because we we can go get feelings and all this other stuff everywhere else, but the love of God, I really feel like in the church has really kept us under that under that covering.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

You know what? And I think one of the things that is um something that doesn't get talked about a lot, you know, because when you're talking about church and the love of God, it seems so obvious. But when you get away from it and you start having people positioned in different ministries, that the the duty of ministry has become more important than the people, you know, there's a lot of churches that I have, you know, encountered that the culture of the church has to shift back, you know, and it's not easy to just change a culture, you know. It's not easy to just get people, you know, uh on back on board to really get people focused, you know. In our church, we're a people magnet church, we're a uh a people first, you know, type of church, you know. Um it's something that is said over the pulpit. Our pastors, you know, uh continue to echo and and repeat that. And I believe that our leadership has, you know, has caught that. And, you know, it's it's something that is not by accident, but it's very intentional. You know, it's very intentional. And I think that what is happening is that now is that pastors are starting to recognize this. Churches are recognizing, you know what? Um we need a like a revival in our in our leadership that is serving in these areas of ministry to once again get people focused, you know. You know, we know that there's so many great churches out there, so many great pastors and so many great leaders that actually people that are serving every single week. And it's not, this is not pointing finger, it's not blaming, it's not uh to you know, to bring judgment on any on anybody. It is to say, hey, we've been there before. We understand, you know, that sometimes we can lose our way, but you know, thank God to be under leadership and to be in a church that that is the culture and that we've come into and we've learned and we're growing in it, you know. And I think that that's the purpose of what we're here today to do is not only to inspire those who are looking for something fresh, but also we're here to really talk to the people that have recently joined our family, that are, you know, here and are welcome to the family classes. And, you know, so those of you that are out there that have recently joined are welcome to the family classes. We want to let you know, on behalf of Pastor Joe and Sister Doreen, we send you a tremendous amount of love. And, you know, being Pastor Sam and all along with all the ministers in in our church, all the leaders of our church, we love you. And all of this that we're doing is for you because we want to see you not only be in our church, we want to see you find your place here and also discover the call of God upon you. I think that tonight, one of our focuses is really to help the people that are, you know, there's three categories, let me just say it this way, that we're ministering to. Uh the first ones are the ones that are brand new to salvation, new to the family. Um, and they're just they've given their lives to the Lord recently, and they're new to Christianity and to the walk, you know, that Christ has called us to. Then there's those that have been in the church maybe two, three, four years, five years, and for whatever the reason is, they still haven't found their place, they still haven't really been able to connect, and they're feeling a stirring in their heart, and now they're ready to step out and maybe take the next steps that you know they haven't taken. And then there's a third category in the church of people who have been around for a number of years and they've gone through and they've built and they've been a part of ministry, and something happened on their journey that maybe was a discouragement. And you know, they never left God and they never left church, but you know, they may have disengaged from ministry, but now they're feeling God stirring their heart, you know, as our church is growing into this mega church and the things that God is doing, these people are feeling the stirring, like, you know what, God's not done with me. You know, it's almost that look, Joshua and Caleb give me my mountain experience that they're having. And so, you know, as these are the people that we're ministering to, you know, one of the things is that we are really focusing in on in this time is you know, really understanding that there's a gap between information and transformation. It's one thing to come in every week and you know, even be a part of a class or go to church and hear great sermons, but then how do we actually let the word of God get inside of us and begin to help us live it out, you know, live it out daily. What does that look like? You know, maybe you could talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_04 16:11

Yeah, no, I mean, honestly, that's the I think that's the most important part, which is the application of what we hear. Yeah, you know, because we can hear information all day, we can, you know, we can listen to sermons, we can go to church, we could we can uh we can see teachings, we can do all this stuff, but if we're not allowing it to change our lives, right, to really implement a change in our life and the way of thinking and our lifestyle and what we do and how we talk and how we, you know, even down to I don't want to say how we dress, but all that comes with the transformation that God's doing in our lives, and application is the biggest part because, like I said, information can fill your brain, it can fill you, you know, and we can so we're blue in the face. But if we're not allowing it, or we're not we're not allowing, we're not applying it in our lives, simple as love your neighbor. Yeah, oh yeah, that's cool. If you just hear it, yeah, but when you apply it to your life, it's like I I really gotta love, I gotta love that. Yeah, I gotta exemplify Christ, and I gotta, I gotta love my neighbor. Um, love your enemy. Yeah, yeah. All these all these all these scriptures that if we don't apply, for example, let's look at let's look at the scripture, love your of your enemy, right? If we don't apply that, what are we doing? We're not we're harboring unforgiveness, we're harboring bitterness, hurt, pain, and that's not very godly, right? Yeah, right. God says, I want to go in there and I want to transform all that, yeah, but you need to apply the love your enemy. Yeah, you need to apply other scriptures. I will take your heart of stone, give you a heart of flesh, and that's where the transformation comes from, right? Is in the application, right? And I think that's where um we we can fail at times because we're we're either busy, you know, sometimes we can go to church and we can sit there and be like, okay, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta be somewhere 12, you know, or I gotta, you know, and we don't really take in what's being said. Right now, we can hear it. Now they say there's a difference between hearing and listening, yeah, right. We we can sit there and we can hear the message, but are we really listening to it? You know, I'm I'm always blessed when I hear people say, you know, um, man, let this word find lodging in my heart. That's it's it's a simple prayer, but yet it's an effective prayer because man, God, I pray that every word spoken today, every word I hear, every word I read, uh, you know, let it find lodging in my heart. What does that mean? Is that let it let it not just go in one ear and out the other, right? But let it sit somewhere in my heart and let it marinate. Right. You know, let it marinate and let it bring about a change and let let me remember that we, you know, sometimes we hear messages and maybe it's not it's not for us that day, right? But maybe later on in that week you're like, yeah, that scripture that pastor was talking about on Sunday. Yeah, you know, and because we we remembered it, yeah, right. We're now we're okay, now this is where I can apply it. Yeah, you know, man, I gotta, I gotta forgive. That's right. I gotta, I gotta, um, you know, I gotta look to the heavens where my help comes from. You know, whatever situation you're in, I believe that the Holy Spirit will bring back to remembrance things that we've heard. Yeah. But hearing it and applying it, and applying it.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

You know, it's the Bible says in James 1.22, do not merely listen to the word, but do what it says. It's very clear in Luke 4, uh 6.46, it says, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? So there's a an expectation that immediately that God puts upon our life to say that listen, if you love me, then you need to do the things that I'm teaching you to do, that my word is teaching you to do, that uh your pastors who are who are conveying the word of God are teaching you to do, you know, and excuse me, in that challenge, you know, um, you know, one of the things is that we have to see, you know, because the the enemy of today is selfishness. The enemy of today is uh, you know, I was thinking about this today, um, that the world is working itself towards, you know, autonomous, you know, robots and factories. And as you look at where the world is going, you know, I'm I'm I'm in the uh the industry of you know of car service, and you know, we have a lot of clients. We we serve over 500 clients that we take to different events and different things like that. And the more I drive, I see the Waymos on, you know, on the road, and you know, and I see these people in the cars with no driver, and you know, everything, it seems that it is moving us further and further away from interaction, where eventually we could be living in a world where we the only people that we interact with are the ones who created us or the ones we created, you know, and and before you know it, everybody is just caring about their life and their immediate family and the desire to interact and connect, you know. But the Lord says, you know, do not forsake the assembly of the saints, do not forsake, you know, going to church. And when people come to church, it's important that they are being met with people who have not only been saved, but also have been transformed. People like yourself, you know, people like myself, that you know what? Have we lived perfect lives? No. Have we lived lives without failure? Absolutely not. But have we ever given up? No. We've never left the Lord, you know. We've never said, you know what, this is too hard. I'm gonna go back to the world and I'm gonna. You know, just live the way I want to live because it's better. No, no matter what has happened, we've always said, Lord, you can make a way. You know, I always say this if you it doesn't matter if one day you're soaring, or the next day you're running, or you're walking, or you're even crawling. All that God cares about is that you're moving forward, you know, is that we're continuing to do the things that He wants us to do, you know. So it's really important that we understand this. But also, here's another point that I want you to speak into is that Christianity is not meant to be complicated. Sometimes people think that, you know, in order for me to live out my faith, and you know, there's a bunch of rules and it's a bunch of do this and don't do this and everything like that. But in reality, God has not made it complicated, He's made it very simple. You know, talk a little bit about that, Sam.

SPEAKER_04 22:57

I I think that's one of the biggest um misconceptions of being a quote unquote Christian, right? Is it's a lot of work. It's uh yeah, it is a lot of work because we, you know, in everything there's a lot of work, right? You want to lose weight, there's a lot of work. You wanna you wanna move up the corporate ladder? That's a lot of work. That's right. In everything that that is involved in our lives, it's a lot of work. Now, when we come into the house of God and the things of God, is it a lot of work? Yes, but the benefits of it are far more greater than we we can you know even imagine. Yeah, you know, we're talking about you know, uh eternal life, we're talking about an abundant life, we're talking about you know, things that you know the Bible talks about far beyond that we can even fathom in our minds, the life that God has intended for us. And you know, when we when we think about Christianity and it being, I think sometimes we make it so complicated, yeah, to where it's not tangible for the unbeliever.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:59

And you know, one thing that's been really on my heart lately is I think what the church needs today more than ever is a level of transparency. Okay, I like that. And transparency is so important because now you're making it tangible for the person just like you. Yeah, now you're making Christianity and a relationship with Christ tangible, meaning it's attainable for the person who's just walking in, opposed to the person who's been there for 30, 40 years, 20 years, five years, even it's like, wow, you know what? Uh of course you share, you know, your your stories with wisdom, yeah, you know, but having transparency in the church is so important because you know, I read a statistic by the Barna Institute and they they do studies with churches, and they said why they said that a big majority of people who are leaving the church now, 2026, they're walking away from from not just from the church, but from God in general. And they they said, What was the main reason? Is they said they we just stopped. Yeah, you know, what causes someone to stop believing is maybe uh when you think about, you know, oh, I'm gonna stop going here because I'm not getting results.

SPEAKER_03 25:18

Right.

SPEAKER_04 25:18

But it's usually the results that I want. Yeah. You know, and when we come into the house of God, you know, what would push somebody away from believing? And I'm thinking, okay, maybe, maybe they're the the simple miracles that God's doing in their life are not being talked about. You know, we you know it's not cliche when we say, Man, God woke me up this morning. Right. God graced you with breath in your love this morning, you know. Simple things, you know, simple things that you know, man, you have a family, you have a job, you have different things that you could be grateful for. Yes, that I feel like if there's no level of transparency, like, you know, I could say, Man, you know, Pastor Mondo, God, God bless you with another day. Yeah, you know, God bless, you know, God healed your father.

SPEAKER_03 26:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:01

Now to the to the unbeliever, it's like, oh, is it a coincidence that he was?

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

Is it, oh, what medicine worked? Yeah. But in our eyes, it's like, no, that's a miracle. Right. That's a modern day miracle. Because when when cancer is talked about, sicknesses are talked about, oftentimes the you know, even early on in the stage, the doctors are like, hey, you gotta get your stuff in order.

SPEAKER_03 26:24

Right.

SPEAKER_04 26:24

Yeah, absolutely. Yep. That's the believer, it's like, okay, that's your report, but I'm gonna believe the report of the Lord. Right. And we see God turn things through.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:34

And so to me, when someone hears these things and they hear the stories and they hear the transformation of someone's life, and and they hear how I'm not perfect, but I'm striving. Uh I I may not have it all together, but I'm still here. Right. I think those are the most encouraging stories that I believe that we can kind of cut those statistics down. Yeah. Where people aren't walking away from God or the faith because, you know, I just stopped believing. Right. But that they wouldn't have a reason to stop believing. Right. Because they're seeing miracles right in front of their face. Yeah. They're seeing God's work right in front of them, and they and they'll they'll see God's, they say, handiwork in their life. Right. And I I think that's so important.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

I think that, you know, one of the things that I've always said is that what the church needs more of is they need more leaders that are willing to show their scars. And but sometimes the reason why people can't show their scars is because they're still wounds. They're still not healed from that. And sometimes when we're talking about transformation and serving the Lord and and and you know, and becoming more like him, you know, it's also has to do with not fighting God to touch those areas that he sees need to be touched. And some of those areas that need to be touched, it's very simple. Surrender is very simple to just say, Lord, you know, here, you know, we all did it when we come to the Lord when we gave him our life. We came and we were desperate and we just lifted up our hands and said, Lord, whatever you want to do, do it in me. I give you my heart. But somewhere along the line, it stops. That surrender slows down. That surrender becomes less. You know, some people start getting more confident that they're not doing the things that they used to do. So now they rely on themselves a little bit more. Some of the people uh start to feel that God is asking for areas that they're not really quite ready to give up, you know. But surrender is the key to the simplicity of transformation, you know. And if we can just help people today, look at it, if you're out there today, and maybe there's some things in your life that God is telling you, I need you to surrender this so that I can continue the work. Listen, there is no standing still in Christianity. You know, our founder used to say, the only time someone is going, is coasting is when they're going downhill, you know? And there there's no there's no standing still in Christianity. You're either going forward or you're going backward. And like I said, it doesn't matter if you're running, sprinting, walking, soaring, or even crawling, but the key to going forward is the surrender. And I think that the simplicity of just the same way we gave our life to Jesus is the thing that we cannot lose on a daily basis. If you want to be like some of those people that have served the Lord for many, many years, you can't let your yes to God. My wife is preaching, I mean she's preaching right now a great message, and it's called God Wants Your Yes, you know. And and when she says that to me, it's like every single day, I gotta say yes. You know, I gotta say yes because the Lord has made it so simple. It gets complicated when we start fighting God. It gets complicated when we start caring more about our image and what people think than we actually care about being right before the Lord. You know, we that's the key of losing yourself in Christianity. When all of a sudden you start thinking more about people and what they are concerned or what they how they view you more than you are the Lord, it means that you're forgetting that he's really with you 24 hours a day. You know what I'm saying? This is what we want you to understand is today, is that what God is doing is he's not only, for those of you that are new, he's not only saved you and he's introduced you to his love and his power, his grace, his mercy, and he's brought you to this wonderful church here in Victor Outreach Whittier, but also there's those of you that have been around a while, maybe a couple of years, and you haven't found your place and you're feeling that stirring in your heart to, you know, you need to take the next step of getting involved and start serving, like Pastor Sam was talking about. And then there's those of you that have been around a while and you've been hurt and you've gone through things, or maybe you've just gone through a difficult time. Maybe it had nothing to do with hurt, maybe it just had to do with, you know, taking time away for a family member, or, you know, getting adjusted to a new job. And, you know, one year turned into two and two turned into three. And but you're you're feeling the stirring now. Listen, this is the time to get into a new rhythm. This is the time to take the next step. This is why we're saying you've not only experienced the welcome home experience in our church, but now you've been welcomed to the family, and God is getting you ready to welcome you to the team. And when you become a part of the team, you're that person that is saying, you know what, I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and begin to get involved in helping my pastors build this church. And I want to go.