SPEAKER_00 0:00

I also want to let you know about an opportunity coming up. It starts on the 24th of September, so a couple weeks out from now. And it's what we call our Foundations class. I'm going to ask Shelley Aleman to come up here and join me. Where's Shelly? She's right. There's right here. And so we have a class called Foundations, and it's it's designed to be more than just a class. It's designed to be an interactive conversation, teaching, uh, but also building community with other people that just want to grow in their relationship with God. And our primary vehicle here for discipleship, and we're going to talk about this more in the coming weeks, is our life groups, getting people in life groups after you hear a teaching on Sunday. How do you actually learn to apply that into your life? And so we want to use that as a primary way. But but Shelly actually has participated in this class a couple times now, several times now. And uh and I'm thankful that that Shelly's up here this morning because this isn't naturally her uh desire to stand up in front of a group of people and talk. Uh but God has done some but God has done some great things in Shelly's life in regards to how he's used foundations as a class to help her grow. And so I I thought it'd be great for you to hear it from her mouth what she has learned through being a part of foundations. So Shelley, why don't you tell people kind of what Foundations has done for you personally in your your walk with Jesus?

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Okay, can you hear me? Yeah, okay. The first thing, um the first way it helped me grow is that uh the Bible for me, every time I would pick it up, um it was like a big book that I would read little chapters of, but I never really understood the whole story. And so um the foundation starts from Genesis all the way to Revelation, so that's extremely helpful, and it gives you study material to go home and really um just kind of dig into God's word. And the second reason why um or how how foundations helped me was um I joined because I I I didn't want to just come to church and hear about Jesus, I wanted to personally know him. And uh one scripture that had stuck out to me was the scripture where it says, not everyone who says Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. And um so and it goes on from there, you probably know the rest. I don't write up. But anyway, so I I wanted Jesus or for God to know me personally. When he comes again, I want him to know Shelly, and I also want to know Christ, and this was the best way for me to do that. Um is Tim still doing the class? Yes, if you guys haven't spent any time with Tim and Susie, they are absolutely amazing, and you're really missing out. So um that's one great thing about it. Tim has a lot to share, and in I don't he's great at discipling. So um but anyway, that was that's the main thing is that I wanted Christ to know me, and I wanted to know him personally. I would didn't want to just hear about him.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Yeah, that's awesome. And I know one of the things you mentioned is just how uh knowing Christ more makes you even more secure that God loves you and that he's for you.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yeah, that was a huge thing for me. I I could see why Christ would love Tim uh Tim or Nick or or uh Jada, but I couldn't see how Christ personally loved me. And so that was huge.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah, well, thanks for sharing that this morning. And I would just say um if you have uh a desire to grow in your faith, uh it's called Foundations, but believe me, it's beyond just the basics because this is this is about what does it mean to be truly Christian? And specifically, we're talking about discipleship over these next few weeks, and this whole year, the theme is discipleship, is go make disciples. Um, this is a great place to start. And for many of you who maybe have been in church a long time, but you still don't feel like you're quite getting the message of the Christian faith, or maybe you're you have a lot of questions about it, this is a great spot for you to interact and to grow and learn. So that starts on the 24th of September, and the class is from 9 to 10.30 on Sunday morning. So before our gathering here, and you can come and be a part of that. Uh you could talk to Tim. Tim, stand up real fast. You can talk to Tim right there, that's who she's referring to. Uh, or you can go back to the connection point after the service today and get connected to that class. And so uh we'd love for for as many of you as possible to do that if that's something that you feel like could be a great next step for you. So thanks so much, Shelly. Appreciate you sharing. Yeah.