November 7, 2025 • 17 mins
This week's For People is based off of Bishop Wright's opening worship sermon given on November 7, 2025 at the 119th Annual Council of the Diocese of Atlanta.
What if success isn’t about wins on paper but trust put into practice? Luke 10 teaches us how Jesus sends people out light on gear but heavy on purpose and asks us to measure progress by reliance, integrity, and the peace we carry into real places. The kingdom isn’t far off; it’s near and asking for a public life that heals, feeds, and invites—even when doors close and welcome is thin.
In this episode Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation about an uncommon success. They unpack peace as shalom instead of silence: not keeping the powerful comfortable, but seeking wholeness, equity, and purpose that challenges harmful norms. That peace moves toward cities where people should flourish, not just scrape by. From there, they discuss scale. Jesus grows the team from twelve to seventy, and we take the cue: faith and data can be partners. They talk targeting new congregations in the poorest areas, gathering facts on health and education gaps, and budgeting for ministry that brings hope to “fingernail dirty” places. All of it leads back to one audit question: do we trust Jesus more today than yesterday, and more tomorrow than today? Listen in for the full conversation.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bishop Wright (00:00):
So ministry day to day is full of hows, but the
dynamite, the nitroglycerin,right, is the why.
And he says, tell them, do allthis, uh, you know, encounter
all these hardships,inconveniences, because people
need to hear that the kingdom isnear.
In fact, the kingdom is here.
So I want to remind our folksthat what are we fighting for
(00:22):
anyway?
We're fighting for Jesus'vision of the world.
We're participating in Jesus'vision of the world.
That's what we're fighting for.
Welcome to Four People withBishop Rob Wright.
I'm Melissa Rau, your host, andthis is a conversation inspired
(00:46):
by For Faith, a weekly devotionsent out every Friday.
You can find a link to thisweek's For Faith and a link to
subscribe in the episode'sdescription.
Our devotion this week is anexcerpt from Bishop's annual
council sermon inspired by Lukechapter 10, verses 1 through 9.
Bishop?
(01:07):
So when the church gets together, there's
always big questions in theroom.
Questions like, what does itmean to be a follower of Jesus
right now?
Questions like, what does thegospel offer that secular
humanism doesn't?
And my favorite question,Bishop, exactly what are we
(01:28):
fighting for anyway?
Those are hard but fairquestions.
And each question to my mind islonging to understand what
success looks like for followersof Jesus.
Jesus never promisesconventional notions of success,
that's first.
He doesn't promise wealth,doesn't promise promotions or
(01:49):
prominence.
What he promises is a life ofmeaning.
What he promises is that you,that if you have a harvest heart
and harvest hands, there'splenty of work to do.
What he promises is to placeyou in the largest idea of
family that you can imagine.
What he promises is that we canrely on him as we join him in
(02:14):
his adventure.
What he offers is a journeytoward a new depth of integrity.
Success for us in every seasonand in all situations is staying
connected to Jesus' purpose, tohis why.
So the definition of successfor those sent by Jesus is
measured in reliance, relianceon his words and reliance on his
(02:39):
ways.
Melissa (02:41):
Bishop, thank you.
And so this is one of myfavorite gospel passages where
Jesus sends 70-ish followers totravel with nothing but the
barest of provisions.
And you called this expert uhexcerpt an uncommon success.
And to me, that was like aleap.
(03:02):
And so it's like I focus on onething, I know.
And so I really would love foryou to share how you got there
and why this passage matters foryour people, the Diocese of
Atlanta, the largest gatheringthat you have every year.
So tell me.
Bishop Wright (03:19):
Well, yeah, we'll be gathered about 600 of us uh
for worship and to do some uhsome good work of the church to
pass a budget that funds ourministry in Middle North
Georgia.
Um, we'll be there to encourageone another, to take heart, to
uh, you know, to name some milemarkers on the journey of
serving Jesus right now in theworld.
So it's uh it's our Super Bowl,so to speak.
(03:41):
And um, you know, as far as Ican tell, there's nothing better
uh at this time for the church,Christ Church all over the
world, is to be refreshed byJesus' clear purpose.
Purpose is what helps us uh tonot get broken in the midst of
breaking news, right?
Purpose is not temporal,purpose is eternal, purpose
(04:04):
holds us no matter who's in theWhite House.
Uh, temporal uh, you know,ideas of you know accomplishment
won't really hold us, won'treally satisfy us the way
staying connected to Jesus'purpose does.
And so I wanted to just remind,you know, uh the followers, us
followers, those who are tryingto stumble forward to follow
(04:25):
Jesus, you know, what's thecenter of us?
And the center of us is notgimmicks, it's not uh, you know,
jingos, it's not slogans.
The center of us is to joinJesus in his very clear purposes
as laid out in Matthew, Mark,Luke, and John.
Now, in Luke, the 10th chapter,one and nine, uh, the ninth
(04:47):
chapter, Jesus describes allthese hills and valleys, this
sort of tumultuous sort of uh,you know, these events.
He laments his ownhomelessness.
He talks about the disciples'reluctance uh to feed the five
thousand.
Um, he laments the fact thatthe disciples uh want to build
things, you know, constructionrather than sort of what he
(05:09):
calls valley vocation, right?
Um, you know, and on and on andon.
But what's interesting aboutthe 10th chapter is that to all
of the vicissitudes of life,Jesus reasserts the purpose,
right?
And he tells us how we shouldgo two by two, he tells us how
we should pack, pack light.
Uh, he tells us to go and bemoral examples, to go and be
(05:34):
adaptive change uh agents, uh,to go and be community healers.
He tells us all the hows,right?
And so ministry uh day to dayis full of hows.
But the dynamite, thenitroglycerin, right, is the
why.
And he says, tell them, uh doall this, uh, you know,
encounter all these hardships,inconveniences, because people
(05:56):
need to hear that the kingdom isnear.
In fact, the kingdom is here.
So I want to remind our folksthat what are we fighting for
anyway?
Well, we're fighting for Jesus'vision of the world.
We're participating in Jesus'vision of the world, we're
joining Jesus on his adventure.
Uh, that's what we're fightingfor.
(06:19):
What is peace anyway?
(06:41):
And because it's not so muchabout the what, but I feel like
Jesus was very specific aboutthe how.
Well, Jesus says, uh, you know, when you when you
go to places, you know, uh saypeace.
Uh, but if there's no peacethere, you know, keep moving,
right?
So I mean, he he makes surethat what we have is uh is our
(07:01):
words and a vision that mobilizeus over communities.
Um now remember, we're tryingto take a movement and put it
into a denomination, right?
So Jesus had a little fledglingmovement, and you know, most
churches have denominations oruh congregations, et cetera.
And so uh there has to be someaccounting for um, you know,
(07:22):
sort of the itinerant peace ofJesus' work in our work.
But nevertheless, we are to beable to sort of say something
about the peace that we find inJesus.
And the peace that we find inJesus is not kumbaya, the peace
that we find in Jesus is, youknow, shalom, well-being,
clarity of purpose, right?
So the fact that I know that Iknow that I know that I am uh,
(07:46):
you know, living out whatfidelity invites me to live out
is how I get peace, right?
Because he doesn't promise arose garden, right?
The truth of the matter is thathistory is littered with
examples of men and women whowanted to lead nonviolent
movements who were killed,right?
And so we should, we should beclear that Jesus is peace,
(08:07):
right?
That Jesus wanting people tohave equity and health and
nutrition and opportunity and umsafety uh threatens the
prevailing status quo notion ofwhat peace is, right?
So peace uh in popularimagination is uh leave the rich
people and the abusive peopleand the people of power alone
(08:30):
and let them do whatever theywant to do with you know
whomever they want to do it withand say nothing about it,
right?
That's not Jesus' idea ofpeace.
Jesus's peace is aboutengagement of status quo.
It's interesting to remember inthis stuff in this wonderful
story that Jesus sends people tothe city, right?
(08:51):
He sends people to where thewhere the you know where the
people are.
And uh, and we know that thecities are supposed to uh you
know provide for the folks.
You shouldn't just survive, youshould flourish.
Um Aristotle talked about thepolis, you know, this is this is
where we get the wordpolitical.
And Jesus's politics arereally, you know, as I've said
before, uh not progressive orconservative, not left or right,
(09:14):
not red or blue, right?
Jesus' politics are verticaland horizontal, uh vertical in
devotion to God and horizontalinto love of neighbor.
And so if that is your peace,right, to live out that and to
help co-create that with God,when you take that places where
there is not that kind of peace,uh, we shouldn't be surprised
when that is not welcome.
(09:35):
But what he doesn't say to thedisciples is give up, right?
He says, you know, it's aboutscale.
Let's keep the conversationgoing, let's go as broadly as we
can, and let's go as deeply aswe can.
And I would say that in Jesussaying that uh you may go some
places where the peace doesn'treturn to you, Jesus realizes
(09:55):
that our job is not to fixanybody.
Our job is to proclaim apossibility, to invite people to
uh enjoy this possibility,learn of it, uh bring it into
their own ways and their ownworld.
Um, but it's not to badge orobligate or condemn or shame
anybody, it is to make anoffering and to keep moving.
(10:17):
And uh so he appoints and hesends 70.
Uh, interestingly enough, um hehad 12 in the chapter before.
Now he has 70.
Uh, you know, that represents a483.33% increase, right?
In in disciples.
He's taking the movement toscale.
Melissa (10:38):
That's right.
I love that you did the math onthat, Bishop.
Bishop Wright (10:42):
Well, I'm only look, you know, um, we should
remember that uh as part of lifewith with God is not just sort
of eloquence or or or catchywords or fine-sounding words.
I mean, it's faithful,data-driven work.
Right?
I mean, faith and data arepartners in ministry.
(11:03):
And uh, and so some people uhwant a faith life that doesn't
have any data.
No, uh, Jesus invites us into ameasurable reconfiguration of
life.
Melissa (11:12):
Okay, so then what are we counting?
Bishop Wright (11:16):
Oh, we're counting lots of things.
I think what we're countingthat can be counted is how many
experiments are we running uh toengage people, uh, you know,
that fidelity prompts and dataprompts.
In the Diocese of Atlanta rightnow, um, our deacons, our
wonderful deacons, are gonnabring a resolution, a proposal
to uh to the full body uh sayingthat we should raise some money
(11:41):
and figure out how to get somecongregations started in the
poorest of our uh areas of ourdiocese.
That's data driven, right?
That's not just say, hey, weought to start some stuff.
That's saying, hey, we ought tobe targeted.
And so we need some factoids.
We need to know who are, youknow, what are the poorest
counties among us?
Uh, what are the needs in thatplace?
(12:01):
Um, you know, what's it gonnacost to get that ministry off
the ground?
I mean, all of that is, youknow, not terribly sexy to some
people, but that's the work.
That's the work is to find outhow we bring, so to speak, the
best, right, uh, to what I callthe fingernail dirty places or
the worst.
And so I think that uh, youknow, that is part of the work.
(12:23):
Um, William Barber, BishopWilliam Barber, who's uh famous
for starting Moral Mondays outof North Carolina that has
really become a nationalmovement, you know, he he's he
observed that people havestopped talking about the poor.
And so, how do we talk aboutthe poor without data?
We need to talk about it.
We need to talk about healthoutcomes, we need to talk about
educational outcomes, we need totalk about uh vulnerability
(12:46):
with our seniors.
Um, you know, recently now inthe national conversation, we're
talking about SNAP benefits.
We're talking aboutsupplemental, supplemental
nutrition, uh, you know, uhbeing uh withheld uh by some uh
as a political ploy.
Um we need the data, we need toknow how many families that's
(13:06):
going to adversely affect sothat you know other entities um,
you know, can find a way torespond and meet needs.
Yeah.
Melissa (13:14):
Yeah.
So Bishop, to kind of pull thisall together, how might you uh
juxtapose Jesus' uncommonsuccess with what you think uh
society today defines assuccess?
How is the church to bedifferent?
Bishop Wright (13:34):
Well, yeah, so that's interesting, isn't it?
Because uh, you know, so thelast point of the sermon really
is to answer those questions,right?
So the questions that I'veheard over now 14th year 14
years of being bishop and uh 28years of being a clergy person,
and my own personal questionsabout what does success look
(13:54):
like as a follower of Jesus?
And, you know, yes, it lookslike um throwing good seed, you
know, the parable of the sower.
Uh, and yes, it looks likegoing to the most vulnerable and
the least and measuring that.
Yes, it looks like feeding andclothing and visiting the sick
and visiting the incarcerated.
How many times do we do that?
(14:14):
Do we do that at all?
Uh are we leaving numbers ofpeople without a visit and
without um, you know,consolation and encouragement?
So that's one measurement.
But if you go upstream of allthat, it is the measurement is
reliance on Jesus, right?
Are we using Jesus' words andways uh to drive us into places
(14:37):
and to work that is you knowmeasurable on a spreadsheet?
Uh and so there's only onespreadsheet for the soul, and
that is, are we relying onJesus?
And so, you know, the questionthat I ask in the sermon is uh,
do you trust Jesus today morethan you did yesterday?
(14:57):
And will you trust him moretomorrow than you do today?
So that's the measurement forus.
And when you do that, when youwork through that, when you
interrogate that, when you do anintegrity audit about all that,
then there's lots of wonderfulmeasurements that show up
downstream of that.
I believe, still believe, afterall these years, that faithful
(15:20):
people trusting in God canproduce the most audacious
results.
And sometimes, you know, it'san agrarian kind of economy.
Sometimes it takes things aslow amount of time to sort of
pop up and to bloom and to bud.
Uh, but nevertheless, you know,what this is about is not
losing our souls.
Our souls rest in reliance onGod.
(15:43):
And so what we don't want to dois lose our souls or be beaten
down and be crestfallen, as theworld would want us to have.
Jesus does all this, heappoints to 70 in response to
the bad news of the previouschapter.
So, you know, here we have, youknow, that's that's phenomenal
to me as we think about howtumultuous the world is right
(16:05):
now.
So, you know, take heart, as wesay.
So we take heart, right?
And if we do, if if if it'strue for us that uh our heart is
flagging in faith or zeal orclarity, then you're not left to
your own devices.
We have each other, and we haveour resource in the gospel.
Um, you know, we have aresource in pastoral counseling
(16:27):
and care.
I mean, we're not hopeless,right?
There's no need to despair,which is the absence of hope.
There's good reason to hope.
God, you know, as I like tosay, there is nothing too hard
for God.
Melissa (16:41):
Amen.
Well, Bishop, I'm gonna takeheart and the peace of the Lord
be always with you.
Bishop Wright (16:47):
And also with y'all.
Melissa (16:50):
Thank you, listeners, for listening to For People.
You can follow us on Instagramand Facebook at Bishop Rob
Wright or by visitingwww.forpeople.digital.
Please subscribe, leave areview, and we'll be back with
you next week.
So ministry day to day is full of hows, but the
dynamite, the nitroglycerin,right, is the why.
And he says, tell them, do allthis, uh, you know, encounter
all these hardships,inconveniences, because people
need to hear that the kingdom isnear.
In fact, the kingdom is here.
So I want to remind our folksthat what are we fighting for
(00:22):
anyway?
We're fighting for Jesus'vision of the world.
We're participating in Jesus'vision of the world.
That's what we're fighting for.
Welcome to Four People withBishop Rob Wright.
I'm Melissa Rau, your host, andthis is a conversation inspired
(00:46):
by For Faith, a weekly devotionsent out every Friday.
You can find a link to thisweek's For Faith and a link to
subscribe in the episode'sdescription.
Our devotion this week is anexcerpt from Bishop's annual
council sermon inspired by Lukechapter 10, verses 1 through 9.
Bishop?
(01:07):
So when the church gets together, there's
always big questions in theroom.
Questions like, what does itmean to be a follower of Jesus
right now?
Questions like, what does thegospel offer that secular
humanism doesn't?
And my favorite question,Bishop, exactly what are we
(01:28):
fighting for anyway?
Those are hard but fairquestions.
And each question to my mind islonging to understand what
success looks like for followersof Jesus.
Jesus never promisesconventional notions of success,
that's first.
He doesn't promise wealth,doesn't promise promotions or
(01:49):
prominence.
What he promises is a life ofmeaning.
What he promises is that you,that if you have a harvest heart
and harvest hands, there'splenty of work to do.
What he promises is to placeyou in the largest idea of
family that you can imagine.
What he promises is that we canrely on him as we join him in
(02:14):
his adventure.
What he offers is a journeytoward a new depth of integrity.
Success for us in every seasonand in all situations is staying
connected to Jesus' purpose, tohis why.
So the definition of successfor those sent by Jesus is
measured in reliance, relianceon his words and reliance on his
(02:39):
ways.
Melissa (02:41):
Bishop, thank you.
And so this is one of myfavorite gospel passages where
Jesus sends 70-ish followers totravel with nothing but the
barest of provisions.
And you called this expert uhexcerpt an uncommon success.
And to me, that was like aleap.
(03:02):
And so it's like I focus on onething, I know.
And so I really would love foryou to share how you got there
and why this passage matters foryour people, the Diocese of
Atlanta, the largest gatheringthat you have every year.
So tell me.
Bishop Wright (03:19):
Well, yeah, we'll be gathered about 600 of us uh
for worship and to do some uhsome good work of the church to
pass a budget that funds ourministry in Middle North
Georgia.
Um, we'll be there to encourageone another, to take heart, to
uh, you know, to name some milemarkers on the journey of
serving Jesus right now in theworld.
So it's uh it's our Super Bowl,so to speak.
(03:41):
And um, you know, as far as Ican tell, there's nothing better
uh at this time for the church,Christ Church all over the
world, is to be refreshed byJesus' clear purpose.
Purpose is what helps us uh tonot get broken in the midst of
breaking news, right?
Purpose is not temporal,purpose is eternal, purpose
(04:04):
holds us no matter who's in theWhite House.
Uh, temporal uh, you know,ideas of you know accomplishment
won't really hold us, won'treally satisfy us the way
staying connected to Jesus'purpose does.
And so I wanted to just remind,you know, uh the followers, us
followers, those who are tryingto stumble forward to follow
(04:25):
Jesus, you know, what's thecenter of us?
And the center of us is notgimmicks, it's not uh, you know,
jingos, it's not slogans.
The center of us is to joinJesus in his very clear purposes
as laid out in Matthew, Mark,Luke, and John.
Now, in Luke, the 10th chapter,one and nine, uh, the ninth
(04:47):
chapter, Jesus describes allthese hills and valleys, this
sort of tumultuous sort of uh,you know, these events.
He laments his ownhomelessness.
He talks about the disciples'reluctance uh to feed the five
thousand.
Um, he laments the fact thatthe disciples uh want to build
things, you know, constructionrather than sort of what he
(05:09):
calls valley vocation, right?
Um, you know, and on and on andon.
But what's interesting aboutthe 10th chapter is that to all
of the vicissitudes of life,Jesus reasserts the purpose,
right?
And he tells us how we shouldgo two by two, he tells us how
we should pack, pack light.
Uh, he tells us to go and bemoral examples, to go and be
(05:34):
adaptive change uh agents, uh,to go and be community healers.
He tells us all the hows,right?
And so ministry uh day to dayis full of hows.
But the dynamite, thenitroglycerin, right, is the
why.
And he says, tell them, uh doall this, uh, you know,
encounter all these hardships,inconveniences, because people
(05:56):
need to hear that the kingdom isnear.
In fact, the kingdom is here.
So I want to remind our folksthat what are we fighting for
anyway?
Well, we're fighting for Jesus'vision of the world.
We're participating in Jesus'vision of the world, we're
joining Jesus on his adventure.
Uh, that's what we're fightingfor.
(06:19):
What is peace anyway?
(06:41):
And because it's not so muchabout the what, but I feel like
Jesus was very specific aboutthe how.
Well, Jesus says, uh, you know, when you when you
go to places, you know, uh saypeace.
Uh, but if there's no peacethere, you know, keep moving,
right?
So I mean, he he makes surethat what we have is uh is our
(07:01):
words and a vision that mobilizeus over communities.
Um now remember, we're tryingto take a movement and put it
into a denomination, right?
So Jesus had a little fledglingmovement, and you know, most
churches have denominations oruh congregations, et cetera.
And so uh there has to be someaccounting for um, you know,
(07:22):
sort of the itinerant peace ofJesus' work in our work.
But nevertheless, we are to beable to sort of say something
about the peace that we find inJesus.
And the peace that we find inJesus is not kumbaya, the peace
that we find in Jesus is, youknow, shalom, well-being,
clarity of purpose, right?
So the fact that I know that Iknow that I know that I am uh,
(07:46):
you know, living out whatfidelity invites me to live out
is how I get peace, right?
Because he doesn't promise arose garden, right?
The truth of the matter is thathistory is littered with
examples of men and women whowanted to lead nonviolent
movements who were killed,right?
And so we should, we should beclear that Jesus is peace,
(08:07):
right?
That Jesus wanting people tohave equity and health and
nutrition and opportunity and umsafety uh threatens the
prevailing status quo notion ofwhat peace is, right?
So peace uh in popularimagination is uh leave the rich
people and the abusive peopleand the people of power alone
(08:30):
and let them do whatever theywant to do with you know
whomever they want to do it withand say nothing about it,
right?
That's not Jesus' idea ofpeace.
Jesus's peace is aboutengagement of status quo.
It's interesting to remember inthis stuff in this wonderful
story that Jesus sends people tothe city, right?
(08:51):
He sends people to where thewhere the you know where the
people are.
And uh, and we know that thecities are supposed to uh you
know provide for the folks.
You shouldn't just survive, youshould flourish.
Um Aristotle talked about thepolis, you know, this is this is
where we get the wordpolitical.
And Jesus's politics arereally, you know, as I've said
before, uh not progressive orconservative, not left or right,
(09:14):
not red or blue, right?
Jesus' politics are verticaland horizontal, uh vertical in
devotion to God and horizontalinto love of neighbor.
And so if that is your peace,right, to live out that and to
help co-create that with God,when you take that places where
there is not that kind of peace,uh, we shouldn't be surprised
when that is not welcome.
(09:35):
But what he doesn't say to thedisciples is give up, right?
He says, you know, it's aboutscale.
Let's keep the conversationgoing, let's go as broadly as we
can, and let's go as deeply aswe can.
And I would say that in Jesussaying that uh you may go some
places where the peace doesn'treturn to you, Jesus realizes
(09:55):
that our job is not to fixanybody.
Our job is to proclaim apossibility, to invite people to
uh enjoy this possibility,learn of it, uh bring it into
their own ways and their ownworld.
Um, but it's not to badge orobligate or condemn or shame
anybody, it is to make anoffering and to keep moving.
(10:17):
And uh so he appoints and hesends 70.
Uh, interestingly enough, um hehad 12 in the chapter before.
Now he has 70.
Uh, you know, that represents a483.33% increase, right?
In in disciples.
He's taking the movement toscale.
Melissa (10:38):
That's right.
I love that you did the math onthat, Bishop.
Bishop Wright (10:42):
Well, I'm only look, you know, um, we should
remember that uh as part of lifewith with God is not just sort
of eloquence or or or catchywords or fine-sounding words.
I mean, it's faithful,data-driven work.
Right?
I mean, faith and data arepartners in ministry.
(11:03):
And uh, and so some people uhwant a faith life that doesn't
have any data.
No, uh, Jesus invites us into ameasurable reconfiguration of
life.
Melissa (11:12):
Okay, so then what are we counting?
Bishop Wright (11:16):
Oh, we're counting lots of things.
I think what we're countingthat can be counted is how many
experiments are we running uh toengage people, uh, you know,
that fidelity prompts and dataprompts.
In the Diocese of Atlanta rightnow, um, our deacons, our
wonderful deacons, are gonnabring a resolution, a proposal
to uh to the full body uh sayingthat we should raise some money
(11:41):
and figure out how to get somecongregations started in the
poorest of our uh areas of ourdiocese.
That's data driven, right?
That's not just say, hey, weought to start some stuff.
That's saying, hey, we ought tobe targeted.
And so we need some factoids.
We need to know who are, youknow, what are the poorest
counties among us?
Uh, what are the needs in thatplace?
(12:01):
Um, you know, what's it gonnacost to get that ministry off
the ground?
I mean, all of that is, youknow, not terribly sexy to some
people, but that's the work.
That's the work is to find outhow we bring, so to speak, the
best, right, uh, to what I callthe fingernail dirty places or
the worst.
And so I think that uh, youknow, that is part of the work.
(12:23):
Um, William Barber, BishopWilliam Barber, who's uh famous
for starting Moral Mondays outof North Carolina that has
really become a nationalmovement, you know, he he's he
observed that people havestopped talking about the poor.
And so, how do we talk aboutthe poor without data?
We need to talk about it.
We need to talk about healthoutcomes, we need to talk about
educational outcomes, we need totalk about uh vulnerability
(12:46):
with our seniors.
Um, you know, recently now inthe national conversation, we're
talking about SNAP benefits.
We're talking aboutsupplemental, supplemental
nutrition, uh, you know, uhbeing uh withheld uh by some uh
as a political ploy.
Um we need the data, we need toknow how many families that's
(13:06):
going to adversely affect sothat you know other entities um,
you know, can find a way torespond and meet needs.
Yeah.
Melissa (13:14):
Yeah.
So Bishop, to kind of pull thisall together, how might you uh
juxtapose Jesus' uncommonsuccess with what you think uh
society today defines assuccess?
How is the church to bedifferent?
Bishop Wright (13:34):
Well, yeah, so that's interesting, isn't it?
Because uh, you know, so thelast point of the sermon really
is to answer those questions,right?
So the questions that I'veheard over now 14th year 14
years of being bishop and uh 28years of being a clergy person,
and my own personal questionsabout what does success look
(13:54):
like as a follower of Jesus?
And, you know, yes, it lookslike um throwing good seed, you
know, the parable of the sower.
Uh, and yes, it looks likegoing to the most vulnerable and
the least and measuring that.
Yes, it looks like feeding andclothing and visiting the sick
and visiting the incarcerated.
How many times do we do that?
(14:14):
Do we do that at all?
Uh are we leaving numbers ofpeople without a visit and
without um, you know,consolation and encouragement?
So that's one measurement.
But if you go upstream of allthat, it is the measurement is
reliance on Jesus, right?
Are we using Jesus' words andways uh to drive us into places
(14:37):
and to work that is you knowmeasurable on a spreadsheet?
Uh and so there's only onespreadsheet for the soul, and
that is, are we relying onJesus?
And so, you know, the questionthat I ask in the sermon is uh,
do you trust Jesus today morethan you did yesterday?
(14:57):
And will you trust him moretomorrow than you do today?
So that's the measurement forus.
And when you do that, when youwork through that, when you
interrogate that, when you do anintegrity audit about all that,
then there's lots of wonderfulmeasurements that show up
downstream of that.
I believe, still believe, afterall these years, that faithful
(15:20):
people trusting in God canproduce the most audacious
results.
And sometimes, you know, it'san agrarian kind of economy.
Sometimes it takes things aslow amount of time to sort of
pop up and to bloom and to bud.
Uh, but nevertheless, you know,what this is about is not
losing our souls.
Our souls rest in reliance onGod.
(15:43):
And so what we don't want to dois lose our souls or be beaten
down and be crestfallen, as theworld would want us to have.
Jesus does all this, heappoints to 70 in response to
the bad news of the previouschapter.
So, you know, here we have, youknow, that's that's phenomenal
to me as we think about howtumultuous the world is right
(16:05):
now.
So, you know, take heart, as wesay.
So we take heart, right?
And if we do, if if if it'strue for us that uh our heart is
flagging in faith or zeal orclarity, then you're not left to
your own devices.
We have each other, and we haveour resource in the gospel.
Um, you know, we have aresource in pastoral counseling
(16:27):
and care.
I mean, we're not hopeless,right?
There's no need to despair,which is the absence of hope.
There's good reason to hope.
God, you know, as I like tosay, there is nothing too hard
for God.
Melissa (16:41):
Amen.
Well, Bishop, I'm gonna takeheart and the peace of the Lord
be always with you.
Bishop Wright (16:47):
And also with y'all.
Melissa (16:50):
Thank you, listeners, for listening to For People.
You can follow us on Instagramand Facebook at Bishop Rob
Wright or by visitingwww.forpeople.digital.
Please subscribe, leave areview, and we'll be back with
you next week.
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