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From Apostles to Elders and Deacons | Group Bible Study
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From Apostles to Elders and Deacons | Group Bible Study
Series: Acts: The Story Continues....
We're staying in the book of Acts, and this morning I wanted to stay, actually, before we move on, Sunday we're going to move on to verse 8 and finish chapter 6, but this morning I wanted to stay just a little bit longer in this section of chapter 6, verses 1 through 7. And the reason is there's something that happens in this passage that I didn't want to just pass up. Last week we really focused on how God calls every member of the body to participate in the life of the body, in the ministry, in the church. That none of us are called to be spectators, that all of us are called to be participants in what God is doing on the earth. But this week, what I want to check, what I want to look into is how did Christ intend his church to function? So I want to look more specifically into how a lot of people think about this passage traditionally, which is really the institution of the office or ministry of the deacons. So I'm going to put my phone on Do Not Disturb, and then all the phone calls will stop. Alright. So let's read through the passage one more time, and then we'll get into the study. In Acts chapter 6, verse 1, it starts out by saying, In these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, It's not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. And what they said pleased the whole gathering. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip and Procurus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenus, and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch. And these they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them, and the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. So the question, um, we'll get through this part quickly. Some of this is a little bit of review here, okay? So don't get mad at me. Before Acts 6, who appears to be carrying most of the responsibility for leadership and ministry within the church?
SPEAKER_05The disciple of them.
SPEAKER_01Who? The leadership. Yeah, the apostles, yeah. Yeah, the apostles. Um they were the ones that were doing the teaching and the preaching, and you know. The mere I know, well, it's it that's I do too. But it's because in the gospels, you know, we we read about the disciples, you know. But then later on they became Christ's apostles and he commissioned them. Um, and so yeah, they were doing kind of everything, you know, they were doing the teaching, they were running the distribution ministry, they were doing everything all by themselves. What kinds of ministry do we see the apostles performing? Uh, I just said, told you. What seems to be changing in Acts 6?
SPEAKER_05The church is growing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the church is growing, yeah.
SPEAKER_05More needs.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. More me more needs.
SPEAKER_06Need for more leaders.
SPEAKER_01Right. There's a need for more leaders there. The discussion thought I put here, Acts 6 represents a significant transition. The ministry that had largely been concentrated in the apostles begins spreading outward to other qualified disciples. I want to read again verses 3 through 4. Therefore, brothers, pick from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.
SPEAKER_04So, what specific instructions to the Apostles in the congregation to pick men that are a good repute, full of the Spirit and the Wisdom.
SPEAKER_01And then what responsibilities to the Apostles intend to remain devoted to? And prayer. Prayer and the ministry of the word, they said, right? Good morning, Lynn. Good morning, Sophia. Okay. And what responsibilities are being entrusted to others. In verse 3, it said, Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit, full of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. So I put here the apostles are not abandoning ministry, they're multiplying it. Rather than doing everything themselves, they're raising up others to share in their work. Okay? So what qualifications were required of the seven? You already said, right?
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_01Full of the spirit, full of wisdom, and good reputation. So they are people who talk the talk and walk the walk. They've got a good track record of being faithful. Is there any of these qualifications that surprise you considering the duty they were appointing them to? Why do you think spiritual maturity was required for what appears to be a practical ministry? What does this teach us about the nature of service within the church? Is there a distinction between the spiritual and just the practical in terms of work within the church? Yeah. Who's just got the practical skills of organization and they can, you know, just take this and run with it, right? And you could just pick anybody. Like, well, she's not a Christian, but you know, she works over here and you know, and she's really good at this, and so let's put her in this position, or, you know. Um, but they didn't just go with who had the practical ability. They looked for people who had spiritual maturity, you know, um, a good reputation as a solid Christian who is stable in their faith, you know. Um, and then the discussion thought I put here was that the church does not separate ministry into important spiritual work and more or less important practical work, that all of ministry belongs to Christ. And different people simply fulfill different functions within the body. Okay. Um then I wanted to go to a different section forward in the book of Acts. We'll come to that this in probably a month or so. But in Acts 14, verse 21, when they had preached the gospel to that city, this is talking about Paul, when they had preached the gospel to that city, had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. Okay. What did Paul and Barnabas do in the churches they planted? So, what I'm doing here, just so you know, is I'm showing you that this pattern that was begun even here in Acts 6, that this is a pattern that continues throughout church history. Okay, so what did Paul and Barnabas do in the churches that they planted? Let's think about the process. When they went into a city, what did they do?
SPEAKER_05They appointed elders.
SPEAKER_01Sure. What's the first thing they did when they went into a city?
unknownPreaching preaching?
SPEAKER_01They did, they were, they preached, right? They went in and it was kind of like evangelizing at that point. Okay. Then people would respond to the gospel, and then they would begin to do what? So first was probably like you could say evangelism first, okay? Let's just classify it like that. Yeah, so then they would begin to do what after they evangelized them.
SPEAKER_05Disciple them too. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_05Disciple. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. They began to disciple them through, you know, teaching, preaching, and probably participation in what was happening, you know. So not just hey, sit there and listen and learn and we'll do it all. But they immediately began training them, okay? What leadership role did they establish in each church according to that passage? They appointed elders, right. In every church. Why do you think that they appointed elders before moving on? Okay, well there's the in-charge factor, yeah. Would there be any other reasons? Yeah, I mean the things that the elders did would have been the things that the apostles had been doing before they left, correct?
SPEAKER_05Somebody accountable for that journey.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and so what does this tell us about Christ's design for the local church?
SPEAKER_06It's orderly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay, it's orderly. So there's it's not just whatever goes, right? So there is some sort of, you know, think about how our bodies are made. You know, there's a spine and there's a skeleton, and then there's, you know, the tendons and the, you know, then there's the muscle, and then there's the organs, and there's the vascular structure, and you know, so there's an order and there's a structure to how he has built his church as well, right? Okay. And so he's designed it to work and function in a specific way. Amen, Lynn. Yeah, for structure, she said. Yeah. Um the apostles couldn't remain everywhere. So the the apostles are kind of unique in the fact that they, especially in this section that we're in in Acts 6, they're really functioning and they're kind of handling all the rules at first. They're doing the evangelism, they're doing the pastoring, they're doing the teaching, you know, they're functioning as prophets at times. You know, God would give them a word and they would just speak it out. You know, they're building the foundation of the church. God's doing all the signs and wonders through them. Okay, then in the section that we're in, they start to establish other leaders that can begin to fulfill some of those roles. So when they go later on in church history, they go into an area, and the apostles, again, they go in and they do all the original things. They start the same way. They do the evangelism, they're doing the preaching and teaching, but eventually their desire is to raise up others that can begin to carry those, you know, roles, and then they move on. Um, in verse Titus chapter 1, verses 5 through 9, it says, This is why, this is Paul writing to Titus. This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained in order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his wife his children are believers, and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick tempered, or a drunkard or violent, or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may Paul leave Titus and Crete. Appoint elders in every town. Yeah. Appoint elders in every town as I directed you. And then he starts giving what he expects of them. Okay, there, these are the qualifications. They have to be people who are spiritually mature and stable in their own faith. You know, they manage their own families well. They have a good reputation. There's no one that can come out and say, uh, he seems good, but actually I know him behind closed doors, and he's a whole other person. Okay, um, you can't be um arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy or so it starts getting qualifications.
SPEAKER_03I like this one about his children are believers.
SPEAKER_01His children are believers, yeah. But there's a certain point in life when you can't really control that anymore, right?
SPEAKER_03And the hook of one wife. Wasn't it the custom to have more than one wife?
SPEAKER_01Um, well, in Old Testament times, but I think by this time in church history, that was not something that was Mark Abraham? Yeah, that would have been where you could give your handmaiden. That would have been bad, yeah, back in the day.
SPEAKER_03But we can see that more than one wife today, right?
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_01What responsibility seemed to belong to elders? Yeah, the end one here, he may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradict it. That's this is one of one of the important parts about discipleship, is that we understand the word. Because if we don't, so if the apostles had said, you know what, it's pretty important that we keep feeding them, and so we're gonna keep trying to do this ourselves. And so we're gonna continue to administer the distribution to the to the widows, and we're gonna keep doing this all ourselves, and we're gonna try to hold on to the ministry of the word, what would have maybe started happening? So it would begin to affect the teaching of the word, right? And Lynn said the spiritual growth of the people would be Yeah, that that's really what it is. So the apostles, and really even them more so, they had the responsibility of establishing doctrine. You know, and if they're suddenly so busy that they can't spend five minutes to pray, and then oh, I've got to teach again, it's already, you know, Sunday again, it's already time for the Thursday morning Bible study again, and you know, and every time, and they're trying to, you know, do five billion things and run the whole ministry themselves, and then their teaching starts to fail because they haven't had the time to focus and be in the word and be in prayer. Okay, so that that would have been particularly dangerous at that time because these are also the men who wrote the New Testament. But it's also equally dangerous in our time. That's how you get cults. That's how, you know, when I was at another church, we had, um we didn't realize it, but it was a cult that came in. It was a South Korean cult, and they just presented themselves like they were Christians, but it's called Shinshonji. And they they seemed like Christians and they talked like Christians, and they came in and they rented our facility from us, and then we were like, oh, how great, you know, we have another Christian ministry here, we're gonna celebrate them. So they went to do their first service, and we went in, and and um, we we were gonna go in and just the pastors, you know, the three pastors were gonna come support them. And they go, oh no, that's okay. That's okay. We're that's okay. And then they didn't want our guys running the audio and the and the visual and all that stuff. They wanted us to train them and they do it. And then we started to notice that to get in, their members had to present this card in order to get in the door. They had to have attained this entry card, you know, and then they'd get these beamed-in videos from Korea. Well, when all that started to happen, I started looking into it and I realized there was this Korean cult called Shinshun-ji, and they believe the Messiah has returned, and he's South Korean, and they interpret revelation all around that, and their literal MO is to go into infiltrate churches and they start peeling away disciples. But if you don't know the word and you don't know doctrine, you don't understand theology, you don't understand what the gospel says, then somebody can come in and they can deceive you, or they can deceive your followers, the followers of Christ that are in your church. And so one of the elders' primary responsibilities is the spiritual care and oversight of the church and making sure that the church is on solid ground with the word spiritually, so that they can't be swayed by every wind of doctrine that comes along. So what did you do? Back a beliefs? Yeah, we kicked them out. Because they came under false pretenses. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Were they kicking and screaming and kicking them out?
SPEAKER_01No, and we were kind about it. We weren't like mean about it or anything, but still it it we yeah, we couldn't we couldn't support that. All right. Now I want to go, let's go down to the part six, which is deacons. Um, first Timothy 3, verses 8 through 13. Now it talks about deacons. Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience, and let them also be tested first. Then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Their wives or spouses likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober minded, faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well, for those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves, and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. Now, what qualifications stand out for you for deacons? Yeah, and why is that? Why is that?
SPEAKER_06Because they're gonna become elders someday. No, because if they're gonna serve in the church, then these are the things that need to be helpful in whatever capacity.
SPEAKER_01You notice in Acts 6, like I said on Sunday, the apostles didn't say, you know what, this is getting a little bit much, and we really need to focus on the word and prayer, and so we're just gonna cancel the daily distribution to the widows of the church. They didn't say that, did they? No, they said, let wise people, full of wisdom, full of the spirit, that are proven and of a good reputation, let them be appointed, and they can oversee this ministry while we devote ourselves to the primary ministry God's given to us, which is the ministry of prayer and the word. But that both are ministry. Both are spiritual, right? Both serve the body of Christ. What kinds of practical ministry might deacons oversee? Kind of skipped. Let me let me go back one second. We kind of skipped this little list of elders' responses. As the church matured, elders became responsible for spiritual oversight, shepherding, discipleship, guarding sound doctrine, caring from the flock for the flock. Pastors and teachers function within this ministry of shepherding and teaching. Pastors and teachers are basically teaching elders. These are the roles and responsibilities of elders. What kinds of practical ministry might deacons oversee? Okay. There's mission, that's true. Does mission a mission sort of has the connotation of outward, you know, like outside the church? But what about inside the church? Because this ministry here in Acts 6 was inside the church.
SPEAKER_03Responsible for making the whip not fall in practical things.
SPEAKER_01I think that's correct too. So yeah, I think, you know, like let's put it, let's just put it, it's easier if we think about it in terms of here, I think. Okay, so let's just say here. How would you divide the responsibilities between the what we see the elders are called to do and the deacons are called to do?
SPEAKER_03The deacons do the word. There's something wrong with this picture.
SPEAKER_01Okay, but wait a minute, wait a minute. Is prayer and the word not work? You know? I know a lot of pastors spend 30, 35 hours a week on studying for their teaching. You know? Is that not work?
SPEAKER_03It's a big time work.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So, so here, okay, what if we okay, what if we have our movie night coming up? I think we might do that on the 20th, by the way. We're figuring that out. Okay. So we have our movie night coming up, okay. Now, typically, in my experience, I would run around getting the projector, the screen, the popcorn thing going up, go buy the candy, go buy the soda, set up the tables, you know, the bottled waters, whatever we're doing, I would run around, I would grab all that, I would set it all up, I would run extension cords, um, I would advertise it, I'd make the banners, I'd put all that up, and maybe I will do that. But, and I'm not I'm not saying this to complain. I'm trying to give how if we were, you know, trying to fit into this and we had a larger congregation with younger, you know, stronger people, okay, that could do more physical stuff. Okay, in an ideal world, how would we divide up the work of these kinds of things?
SPEAKER_03I think that those of us who've been around here a long time knew what the difference was between a deacon and an elder. Yeah. Yeah, when we used to have a larger congregation. Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you had that, right?
SPEAKER_03So the elders have assumed. Right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, everything.
SPEAKER_03Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah. And again, this is not a critique of faith church. I'm just trying to, I was I I just had a thought. Maybe I should pull it out of this first century context and put it into our context and start to try to see practically.
SPEAKER_03Um I think the word you use just use practical.
SPEAKER_01Just practical things, right?
SPEAKER_03Practical significant.
SPEAKER_01It could be setting up the sanctuary for the particular service that we have. Right? It's just that. It's it's nothing crazy.
SPEAKER_03You need to empty the trash. Making coffee.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Right. Making coffee, right. Teresa was doing the deacon ministry this morning for us. Oh no, Tom.
SPEAKER_03Let's find the deacon to go fill it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, let's, yeah, we're gonna have to appoint some deacons then. No, but it, you know, I thought, you know, it could be the people that set up the communion table on a, you know, before a Sunday morning. It's just that's the practical things of the church. Deacons help ensure.
SPEAKER_06The um the logo, if you want to call it, or the image for the for the office of deacon, has been traditionally in in the Protestant church anyway. The the towel and the basin.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Jesus washing the stuff.
SPEAKER_06So I would see that, I guess, more as care, although you have care down here for the elders. Yeah, but I think he's not when I think of a deacon, I think of visiting the shouldins, uh, taking food when you know someone's recovering from surgery or something. Yeah, I agree with you. That that's the kind of service that uh I agree with you. When when you're talking about service within within the body.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's to the saints.
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_01And then when you had so at our at the last church that I was a pastor in, when we had someone come to the church with a need, even if they were not a member or something, they'd come to the church and say, I'm hungry. We would have the deacons, would we call the deacons. The deacons would come and they would, you know, we had already, you know, grocery gift cards, and we had things like that that we already had on hand, and the deacons, especially the head deacon, was in charge of administrating administering those. Exactly. And so that would be the mission side of it. So it was ministry both inside and outside. Um, but uh, but yeah, that the point was that it's both, and it is to the practical care and minute, you know, that side of things. And that's what this was in Acts 6. This was care for widows, for people who were hungry. So that's good. Why didn't why didn't Jesus intend for the apostles to do everything themselves? This is so redundant, isn't it? But that's okay. That's how people burn out. That's how people just burn out.
SPEAKER_06Some people will be misleading.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, and it might not have been intentional. It could have just been there was too much going on and you just couldn't juggle it all. You know, I drop things all the time. And you know, it it just that's what happens. We get busy and I do it at work, I do it here. We just you get really busy and you can't handle it all. So what happens when uh I already answered that. But what happens on the contrary when mature disciples are developed and entrusted with leadership? Yeah. Yeah, and then and there's a there's a layer deeper here too that I don't think I got into here, but I was thinking through as I was writing this, was Sunday we talked about it, that um discipleship isn't just book learning. And I think we think about it that way. The discipleship is primarily learning doctrine and theology and and what it means to be a believer. And it's not just though intellectual. Discipleship and growing as a believer is also done in practice, and so it's our learning and our practice. There's there's growth in both of those things. And I think if you only have one of them, it becomes lopsided. And so, one of the important parts about having spiritually mature leaders as elders and as deacons is that discipleship happens with both. And so both of these are part of that. Training up the disciples, equipping the saints for the work of ministry, edifying the body of Christ. And this is something that multiplication is something that either happens or we die. There is no other option because we just all of us are on a time clock. It doesn't matter how much we have left, I'm not guaranteed to not walk out the door and get hit by a bus. Okay, so all of us on a time clock, I'm not guaranteed a certain number of years that I get to be here and serve. And so it's important for me to immediately start trying to develop others who can just step in and take my place when the Lord takes me. And if you don't do that, then the church just falls apart. But I think what happens over generations in churches is that we start out, there is a life cycle to churches, and and what often starts out is we start out doing these things that it says here because we have to. Because you don't have a choice. And so you get a small team together, like what happened here in 1949, and you get a small team together, a little consistory, and we all start and we all, you know, take up our crosses and we we all push together. We put our shoulder to the plow and we go, and we're all doing ministry, and then the Lord grows the church, and it's like he's multiplying it, and it's it's doing something healthy and wonderful. Disciples are being multiplied, and then what happens is over time that that grows, this same thing happens that happened in Acts 6. And what happens is we hire staff and we do things like that instead of developing disciples to begin to step into what God's called them and gifted them to do. And then everything still remains centered on pastor or leader or whoever the dynamic person is that's trying to, you know, do all this thing. And so what's happening is pastor stays in this thing, and we think of, oh, he went into the ministry. She went into the ministry. No, everything is ministry, and all of us are called to ministry. And just because someone stands behind a pulpit and preaches doesn't mean they're the one doing the ministry. Because also the one washing the feet and giving out the grocery cards and making sure that the whatever, the pews are vacuumed is doing ministry. Andy was working really hard this week.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_01Vacuuming those pews, and you don't even want to know what came out of them.
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_01Lynn says, every time I join your Bible study, my internet goes in and out. Spiritual warfare.
SPEAKER_05That's it. That's not that we have bad internet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05What are you doing here?
SPEAKER_01We're gonna get that worked on. Hopefully it's fit on our end, Lynn. We're we're working on that, actively working on it. So we'll try to improve that. Um Acts chapter 6, verse 7 is the result, and the word of God continued to increase, the number of disciples multiplied greatly. What was the result of the leadership transition? We just read it.
SPEAKER_05Increase. Numbers of disciples.
SPEAKER_01How does healthy leadership contribute to gospel growth? That's true. Yeah. And I wanted to give you an example real quick, too. I had an employee at one point in the history of my company that um I had assigned to the task of leadership and asked him to please watch over my employees, make sure that they're working well, make sure that they are trained and understand what they need to do. And the things that I teach you, I would like you to teach them as well, because I want each of my employees to know how to do all the things we do. I don't want to have a specialist in this and a specialist in this. Everybody should at least have a basic understanding of all the things that we do. What I found out was happening later is that he was really hoarding all that information to himself to protect his position and to protect himself. He was scared someone else is gonna come take his place and he's gonna lose his position. And I think that happens in churches. I think that happens in ministries too. That we get protective of our position and our place, and so we don't want to give out or train somebody else because they might be better than us. I feel exactly the opposite. Like if God raised up a young person that could come and step in and was better than me, by all means, you know, whatever advances the gospel. Whatever God wants to do, and and by and and it'll be better because in the long term they have a longer run than me. They can they can go further than I can. And I can just support that, then praise God. And maybe God will put me somewhere else or give me another teaching role somewhere. That's okay. But the the thing is, is this there's this idea that we can last forever, but when we get protective or we're trying to hold on to our thing, I don't think anybody here is doing that. I'm just saying that I think this, these, these are the dynamics that work in churches right now in our culture and maybe for generations and generations, that we get to a certain point and then we start kind of protecting the entity, and it becomes this self-serving thing. And and really what serves our role and the salaries and all that kind of stuff is that we have people sitting in pews and they're paving paying tithes and all these things, but that's not the goal. The goal is to raise up disciples and trust God to handle all the rest. Amen, Lynn. She said that happens all the time. When Christ's church functions according to his design, leaders can focus on their primary calling, on their primary area of giftedness. Ministry gets multiplied. If there's a whole bunch of the leaders, you know, you're multiplying leaders, and all those leaders are able to multiply disciples, then the growth of the church is exponential. Because it's not just one person preaching and then, you know, things, believers get added. Now it's multiple people who are discipling people, and and and now the church is multiplying. Hank, you're a numbers guy. Is multiplication better than addition?
SPEAKER_04Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01When Christ Church functions according to his design, disciples mature. The church remains healthy and the gospel advances. And then I took the time to write out a little visual summary. Um, you guys are all very intelligent, so I'm sure you already get it. Jesus trained up and passed on leadership to the apostles, and as the church grows, the apostles raised up and passed leadership to elders, pastors, and teachers. Elders, pastors, and teachers raise up deacons. And deacons continue even in their ministry of discipleship to the body as well. And members of the body, even if they don't stand in one of those offices, also are matured and they raise up disciples. That's the way Christ designed the church. So Acts 6 isn't just about solving a practical problem in the first century. It shows us Christ preparing a church for the future. The ministry that was once concentrated in the apostles would be multiplied through elders, pastors, teachers, deacons, and mature disciples throughout the church. This is how Christ designed his church to function. This is how disciples are formed, and this is how the mission continues from one generation to the next. We need to learn how to do this. We need to teach the next generation how to do this, and then when we're with the Lord, they'll continue to teach the next generations to do the same. So that's the goal. Yeah. Any other comments? I know Tom needs coffee. I know that for sure. All right, let's go ahead and finish then in prayer.