"Unplugged Faith: Candid Chats About Trusting God in Chaos"

Episode Transcript
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Pastor Joe Liles (00:00):
Right? It's great. Oh, welcome to the TNC

(00:04):
podcast. We are recorded instudio, which I, you know, I
just really want to stay live instudio, but we're not, we're
definitely recorded in studio,even a studio. No, it's not a
studio. It's the worship center.
You know, don't, don't take medown. Don't take me down. Yet,
we got to build this up,

Tom Helmich (00:16):
right? You know what I wonder, like, why do we
get the worship center and notsanctuary? Like when we lose
that

is Tom, I love your tradition. I love your
traditional nature. I like whenpeople like, so does Tom serve
here for like, no Tom, you know,is it st, Luke every you know
he's there's three Sundays outof the month, right? Comes here
Wednesday. And I realize, like,Oh, Tom, Tom loves st, Luke. And
I was like, Tom's nature is St.
I was like, That feeds Tom'ssoul. And I make sure that's
very clear to people. We could,we

could do it here, but it would look way. It

would look the way it

wouldn't write it like, yeah, that's not the
that's not the TNC personality,the culture. You are 100%

and you know what's funny about that is that
you say sanctuary for thisbuilding, we call it the worship
center, right? Because we had todistinguish between the gather
building, the Worship Center,little neighbors, preschool,
great. But actually, like wordslike, sanctuary. I thought about
for like, the barn redo. Like,if we ever do, like, a modern
kind of traditional

expression, right?
You mean, like, if we tear downthe thing, it's falling

down, where are you? How dare you? But if

Unknown (01:11):
you rebuilt it, we could people,

maybe some bells, right? So, yeah, way off.
Yeah, we got, we have.

Roseann Bowlin (01:18):
Okay, let's don't call that the sanctuary,

the sanctuary, which would be really great.
Make it look cool nonprofits.
It's

amazing, okay?
And you have to have a narthexif you have a sanctuary.

What's in narthex? Rosa, I don't even,
wow, I don't know the speak thatyou speak what? I'm sorry. The

narthex was the area outside of the sanctuary. I
100%

know what it is, but I was just like, I love
that you guys, you've been in.
Look, I started ministry in thenarthex like I was remember,
don't forget, this in thenarthex is where I became the
lead lemonade cup pyramidbuilder, like I remember
distinctly showing up on Sundaysgoing the pyramid that I'm going
to build today is going to rock.

(01:58):
I used to stack, like, hundredsof cups in a pyramid, just to
have fun with what the look wasnext to the lemonade stand. It
was great. That trophy. You wantto see it, they should have best
lemonade. Instead, we shouldhave lemonade Sunday. We're
gonna have lemonade on Sunday,but it'd be

beautiful if you do call it the that to the
sanctuary, and we could callthis the narthex, and we could
make the gather building therefectory.

Oh, wow, factory, Tom, what's a
refectory? It's where you eat.
Feel like that's a traditionalplace where you go to the
bathroom in the

church. The bathroom in the church. What's
the common area at Wartburg? Oh,yeah, it's a lunch room. Yeah,
it's beautiful. I love

that. All right. Well, let's introduce our
host. Now that you've heard usall talking to the podcast,
let's figure out who we are. Imyself, Joe Liles, a pastor at
the neighborhood church, helpingto host the podcast. We have two
other hosts that join usregularly on the podcast. To my
left is the wonderful directorof operations, the one, the only
Roseanne bowling. Roseannebowling, she has a segment Tom,

(02:51):
what's her segment called here,Roseanne notes. Roseanne notes,
we got a Roseanne no singingyour department. Yeah, I know
it's either

you know that in the title of director of
operations or or just a HighPriestess of the neighborhood
church.

Yeah, she did call herself at one point the
High Priestess. It's not you,did you? I was in the meeting, I
was in the women's groupmeeting, when you called
yourself the High Priestess. Ican name, I can look at it right
now. Where you're sitting,you're sitting in the back,
back, facing those two doors,and you're like, I'm really the
HPO, and it's high priestess ofoperations.

I said the goddess of

operations.
Oh, wow, that's pagan all day.
We got to watch out for that too

much. So, yeah, there was high

priestess.
Okay, that's correct. Yeah, it'sa thing now, yeah,
unfortunately, yeah, it's stuck.
You're in now. You're ready togo

with your, with your it's a tall order to me. I
have to do a lot of things toyou. Do meet the standard.

That's why we keep on taking that other duties
as a sign, adding more belowthat. Yeah, yeah. I think that's
a discussion. Yeah, don't worry.
I think that

donut, a donut earring she's wearing, helps
along.

That though you had donut earrings on today,
that's fantastic. Sprinkles withsprinkles. Is it true? Yes. So
yeah, we do have a recording ofthe podcast, right so you can
actually, man, if we had someonebehind the camera right now, we
would zoom in on your earrings,just to get that. It's, yeah, we
got some donut sprinkles. Yeah,it's beautiful. I love

it serves as a warning. What's the donut
earring warning? Donut mess withme. This

is great. I never would have known the
kindness in the preschool thatRoseanne, you walk by and, oh,
she's got a donut earrings ontoday. Like, is that if you put
those earrings on on specialdays and you're like, Don't come
near me today. No, no, youdon't. Okay, that's great.
Approachable. You're alwaysapproachable. You know why? It's
because you have suckers in youroffice for the kids. That's,
that's cheap tricks. You knowwhat you would you, and not just

(04:42):
you and Andrew, I'm sitting overthere trying to high five kids
and create relationship, andthey all run into your office,
like, Can I have a sucker? AndI'm like, Oh, it's just bribery.
That's how you're loving thesekids. It's just bribery, not
just for the kids. It's not,yeah, that's right. Oh, did you
have some suckers, too? Do youget some suckers? I know they're
in there. You know they're Iactually. Going to Andrew I read
Andrews for pretty much everyother day. I would say, every

(05:03):
day, right? Her fridge, either aDiet Coke, which I love, Diet
Coke. I had a glass of Diet Cokelast night. I had three glasses
of Diet Coke last night withice, right? And I was delighted.
I don't even want to lessen it,I was delighted. Like, I that
hit my lips, and I was like, Iam so happy, right? Cold Diet

(05:25):
Coke with the glass of ice. Idon't know what it is. It's got
to come from the can. It's gotto be poured over ice. You got
to let all the bubbles kids outand they got it reported. Yeah,
I

can totally different. Oh, cancel, later.
Bottle, the plastic bottle soda.
No,

I watched a video the other day. Sorry for
the tangent. Everybody that'slistening right now. But this is
important. This is what we do. Iwatched it. Do. I watched a
video the other day, which is alady that had a behind a
blindfold, right? So blind tastetest. They had the McDonald's
diet coke, right? They hadcanned Diet Coke, they had
bottled Diet Coke. They hadChick fil A Diet Coke, and then

(05:59):
they had one other kind of DietCoke, and I don't remember which
kind of was, but, oh, the glassbottle Diet Coke, right? She
nailed them all. Now I'm notthat level of Diet Coke, like, I
just get the can and I'm good togo. I don't know the different
tastes and everything else likethat, right? But she nailed
every one of them. And I waslike, dang, that person is
committed to Diet Coke. Is aconnoisseur. That is a

(06:21):
connoisseur Diet Coke. I don'tdo

Diet Coke with a regular sugared Coke, still,
every once in a while, andMcDonald's coke hits different

Oh, McDonald's Sprite. I will drink a
McDonald's sprite all day. Theycall it electric Sprite from
McDonald's. Yeah. Really, it hasa different flavor profile, and
it's supposed to be just likewhen it tingles on your tongue,
like it's electric, right? Andso, yeah, try to write

carbonation that it's got a baby or something,
chemicals in it.

No, no, that's, well, they're good. It's
chemical. I love the chemicals.
Yeah, yeah. I'll definitely do asprite. I try to get all coke
zeros now, Coke Zero spritezeros, like, whatever we can,
right? And make sure we'rethere. So all right, to my
right, joining us on the podcasttoday as a regular host, the one
the only pastor of care andeducation at the neighborhood
church.

It is Tom Tom, and I like when you throw out the
Pastor Park, I did

give you that you are struggling with that.
Can we pause for a moment?
Roseanne, I know you renamedyourself immediately the High
Priestess, and that was okay. Imean, I took that right, and
it's great. You're the directorof operations. It seemed that
you assumed that title verywell. Director of Operations.
This is what I do. I'm ready togo. Pastor Tom, you're having a
lot of struggle. We're fourweeks in four weeks in we're
four weeks in four weeks in theone month into your role here at

(07:34):
the neighborhood church, andyou're struggling with, Pastor

Tom, I'm still, I'm still warming up to that. Okay,
why? Kind of I put past, youknow, pastors, like, on a
pedestal. And I'm like, Oh,interesting. So there's, like,
identity there. I mean, it's,it's, it's different. I got used
to wearing the collar when I dothe more formal stuff, the Yeah,
I'm doing visitations, and I wascomfortable with vicar,

okay, comfortable. I mean, here's your
traditional all the way I

did it for a year.
Yeah? So, okay, so I'm like, I'mgetting there. Okay, getting
like, I've made the signatureline. Oh, my email. It's Pastor
Tom. Now, Pastor, not just Tom.

Do you put Pastor Tom? Karen, education,
pastor of care in education, sopeople know what it Okay, that's
great. And then with that, are,is it easier for you to do in a
traditional setting, like StLuke to be called Pastor Tom?
Yeah. Oh, so, okay, so it's,it's regarding the environment.

No, I think part is there. I'm like, I'm the only
pastoral presence there, yeah,sure. I've been here at the
neighborhood for 10 years, yeah,correct, and I've been pastor
here for four weeks,

yeah? But I love it. I think it's, I love
that your time here, I love whatwe're engaging as we kind of
continue to move through yournew work, right? Stevens
ministry here at the church,which is a care program, right,
that people can get involved inand help go out and care for the
people that are in hospitals andpastoral care areas. Great

program. It's just expensive to get started, but
it's a great program,

yeah, and it's something that we want to invest
in in our fall campaign, sowe're investing in that to help
you lead that. And there'salready people in the
congregation

that are Stevens ministers, yep, we just gotta
get set up with them, becausethere's great continuing ed, and
there's that's the nice thingis, you're not just throwing
people at it and doingwhatever's going to happen
that's great a method to trainthem and to get the skills
needed to do it, do it wellwithout inadvertently, you know,
being problematic was, yeah,pastoral care, because it's a
sensitive topic to be able todo, you need to do it well.

Oh, absolutely. And everything
starting with training is thebest way, right? Some of the
program differences we're goingto make coming into the fall is
that we're going to lean intothe training aspect of things,
so that way, when people comein, they're equipped for the
work of the ministry, and theyfeel that they have a path to
get into that. So I love thatyou're leading that area, in
addition that you're helping outwith life groups and that
curriculum, right? I didannounce slightly on Sunday,

(09:41):
that there might be a toga partyattached to the launch of a
study in the life of Romans,right, you know? And so gotta
have, why not have fun? Why nothave fun? It's great. It's
great. And so we're talkingabout the September 5, I think,
is that date which is gonna begreat. So Life Group launch is
incredible. I just listened to apodcast this morning while I was
running, and. It was someone whowas talking about that 95% of

(10:02):
their 7500 person church isinvolved in small groups. He
said they have taken awayeverything else to focus on
small groups. He said men'sgroups, women's groups, took
them away to focus on smallgroups, right? And I was like,
wow, that's really profound. Buthe said it's so important for
people to create intimacy inthese smaller the

relational aspect, relational aspect, right? Hard
part is just doing it well,where we we properly equip the
people to be able to lead it?
Yeah, you know, we're because, Imean, it's an area that some, a
lot of people have questions andaren't always well, confident in
leading. So being able toempower them to lead with good
content, you know, I think is anarea that we can, we can focus a
lot on to be, to be helpful withfolks. And I think it'd be great

(10:40):
have a cover photo of you in atoga and, like, the Laurel
thing, like on a side, leaningon a couch, and like, maybe
Roseanne fanning you and meholding grapes over here.

Like, we can shoot that video all day long.
This is gonna be fantastic,

you know. And just put some of the kids stuff in
the background. Just make it youknow. We gotta make it fun.

Tell me. Tell me about how you're going to
equip leaders, because I thinkyou're exactly right. Like the
leadership in that area, youdon't I love it, so, like, one
of the things I do is I work onthe morning f3 and they said
it's peer led in a rotatingprofessional in a rotating
fashion, not done by aprofessional. I love that
language, because it means like,Hey, I might get a workout
today, if it's not the best ofworkouts. But it's led by a

(11:20):
peer, and it's led by someonewho's passionate to lead in this
group, right? And is going toshare their context and their
history and their experience,and they're going to walk us
through a story, which is great,right? I think the same thing
about life groups, right, thatwe have this. So can you tell me
a little bit about yourleadership style and just kind
of an aside to the podcast, whatare you looking at to equip your
leaders so that they feel likethey're ready to go?

So getting all the content out as early as possible
is kind of a main priority forme right now. And trying to
meet, I'm going to be sendingsome emails out to try to meet
with the different life groupleaders, you know, have a two
potential dates for it to to beable get the information to
them, and then in a platformthat's easy for them to present,
but it's not like detail heavyin the content, like overview,
because honestly, this theareas. I mean, I've done a lot

(12:02):
of that before, but it was withother seminary students, other
people's working on a Masters ofdivinity, and so putting the
structure there, and thenallowing them to lead it to
where their group has questions.
Because each, you know, eachgroup has their own kind of
personality. Because there aredifferent, you know, I love that
different seasons of life, youknow, there's, there's groups
that fit different, differentseasons of life for people. And
so each of their their groups isgoing to have a different area

(12:23):
they're most interested in it.
Mm, hmm.

So having it life groups up with a skeleton,
and then they put the meat, kind

of, you'll have have the stuff, the meat there,
but just, I thought that wasmore of a buffet, like, here's a
bunch of the stuff, but you cankind of pick which route you
want to go, where areas you wantto look at, how deep you want to
go into it, and then, because wekind of have to react to them
and see what their questionsare. So it'll, it'll have all
the content built out, you know,outlines and stuff like that.
But then each one will probablygo a slightly different
direction, which is why I thinkthat having those times that we

(12:53):
bring everybody together for onebig group, one, you know, large
group of IT help will helpeverybody keep on kind of the
same track. Yeah, that's all.
And I'm looking at trying tobuild in as much as it drives me
nuts to say this, that I'mtrying to actually build it out
within a tech, a technologysetup, you know, within the
Bible app, because it worksreally well for those kinds of
studies. You can build it outpretty, pretty heavy in there.

(13:14):
So

that's great.
I just want to say that I'venever heard life groups
disguised as described as askeleton format that you're
putting meat on, which then ledme to this image of a skeleton
then getting meat, and, youknow, tissues and tendons and
then skin. And I had this verykind of visceral image when you
said that Roseanne, and then yousaid, No, it's more like a
buffet, which then took mestraight to cannibalism. And I

(13:37):
was like, in my ADHD handle that

garbage. Us, a human sky, yeah, or something,
yeah? I mean, oh

my gosh, I was gone. It was like, what is
happening?

It's a just throw.
It's a great but it's a greatbook. It's not one that you're
gonna read to make you feelhappy, but it's a good way of
historical fashion. It's astudy. It's historical, but it's
a story format study. So it'sallowing you to read and get
into a little bit of the cultureand the reality of life in that
time, which hopefully will giveeverybody a better lens to in
the spring, do a study of thebook of Romans with a better

(14:12):
understanding of the words onthe page in the Bible.

Yeah, that's great. So that's great. So I
love that. I mean equippingleaders is huge, right? And we
have our life group leaders thatwalk alongside eight to 12 other
members of the Church, right? Asmore people come in, right? It's
a wonderful example of like, theidentity of church, because
you're having people come intolife groups that don't
necessarily know everyone. Theselife groups are embracing new
people, right? And as theyembrace new people, it's just

(14:37):
like a church on a Sundaymorning, right? Like new people
are coming in. They want tolearn. Their yearning for the
word they desire to dig deepand, and we're providing these
Life Group scenarios so thatthey can and

do it comfortably.
Because, I mean, we're gettingbig enough on Sundays, it's a
little intimidating for somepeople.

Oh, absolutely right. They still love the
intimacy of a smaller group and,and I think those conversations
over years can form really well.
I. There was a really neat modelon this podcast about how they
led into life groups. They didwhat they called discipleship
sprints. And what they would dois they take the life group
model, which is always running,and everyone's there, but then
in mind you, this is a staff ofmany pastors, so let's just take

(15:13):
that into account for a second.
But what they would do is theywould take a study, right? So
they would do a legit study onsomething, a men's study or
women's study, or a studythrough Romans or how to read
the Bible. And they would do adiscipleship moment of getting
deeper in your relationship withGod in this way. And it was a
straight five week sprint. Wehave five weeks, five meetings
ready to go. But every nightthey emphasize that this is a

(15:35):
discipleship sprint. In order toget you into a life group, if
you enjoy this, you should begetting into a live group. And
they use this four timesthroughout the year to get
people into life groups, rightas they kind of lean in, and
they use the tables wherethey're sitting, because they
said, it's a 7500 person church,and they have 1000 people that
attend this. But at the sametime, they said, hey, if you've
enjoyed these five weeks andyou've enjoyed the six people

(15:58):
around your table, that's thejoy of a life group. You

know, if they're a 7500 person church, and I get
church, and they're getting 1000people to attend, I think if
you're looking at percentagewise, we're probably killing it.
Yeah, percentage of involved,

right? Yeah, nice time. Way to bring it in.
That was really good. That wasreally good. So, yeah. So a lot
of great roles happening here asyou come on the staff. And kind
of met through that, and thenand Roseanne to Director of
Operations. I mean, as we comeinto the fall, all of our
rentals are coming back in.
Freedom seekers was here lastweek. Freedom seekers ministries
was in the building on Sunday,which I was so excited for. We
met one of their individualslast week came in as we were

(16:33):
meeting with the band, and as wemet with the band, they said
they're looking for a person.
And I said, Oh, you're probablywith freedom and they were
meeting over in our gatherbuilding. So I walk them over
freedom. Freedom seekersministry is an incredible
ministry that serves whoRoseanne, can you share just a
little bit? Because you're thefirst people to meet them. Walk
them through our site. Who arethey?

Right? Yeah. So they work with people who are in
transition from jail, time,prison, addiction, any anything
in society that kind of getspeople down and out, yeah? And
they help them step up. That'sbeautiful, and they hold them

(17:13):
accountable, yeah? And so it's awonderful ministry. The Holy
Spirit is working in thatministry like crazy. Yeah. So I
love seeing that. I love seeingthem here to Oh, it's great with
us. It's great. Really enjoyedit.

Oh, and if you walk over on a Sunday night to
their worship, which is where Iembrace them. We had a Sunday
night band meeting, and so Iwalked over and, man, they're on
the basketball court playingbasketball. People are out
front. They're sitting by ourfire pit right and sitting on
the Adirondack chairs right? Andthen inside they had worship
music playing. They had foodbecause he, unknown to me, he
used to be a chef. He was a chefknown a restaurant, yeah, for

(17:53):
many years. And so he's like,cooking not a thing to me. He's
like, I love to cook right andget it going. So he's setting up
food. But he's like, Hey, we'remaking it work. Like we know
food brings people in, like, wewant to make sure they have a
meal here as they come, and thenthey worship, and they pray over
each other, right? Which isreally incredible. And so we got
done meeting, and I kind ofbroke through that wall a little
bit, because I walked in fullPastor Joe, right? I had the
neighbor church polo on, and Iwas walking, I was, I was just,

(18:15):
I was just in a space wherethey're like, one of these is
not like the other. And I was, Iwas, that was not like the other
and so, but I was coming in,just meeting everyone's, hey,
what's going on, right? And justwalking through, and I finally
said, Hey, I'm the pastor here,different things like that.
Like, Oh, great. And then peoplestarted coming over talking, and
finally, Pastor Ron comes over,and he's like, Man, this is
great. He's like, I love thisrelationship. I love what's
happening. I said, Yeah. I said,I'm gonna love to come on

(18:36):
Thursday night, hang with youguys during prayer time. I said,
I'd love to come over here onSunday, you know, be with you.
He goes, You know what? We'recoming Sunday. And I was like,
great, you know, it's awesome.
I've had many people say they'recoming Sunday, right? To be
honest, many people have saidthey're coming Sunday. Many
people have had other plans onSunday, and that's okay, right?
So I was like, I would love thatif you want to bring a couple
people over, awesome. I said,we'll make room for you. We'll

(18:56):
celebrate you guys 40. Theybrought 40 people, which what I
love even more at the same timethey because our worship was the
1045 they came to secondservice. They all showed up at
10, right? So our worship didn'tget out. So like 1020 1025 and
which is normal, Tom, don't sayanything. And so it's super
normal, sir. Another one. Butdoes boom, boom. So anyways,

(19:20):
they were waiting the parkinglot because they all showed up
early. And Pastor Ron's, like,we can't walk in yet. Like, wait
till the people start to leave,and then we'll come. So we
started leaving, like, 1025which is about 25 minutes to our
next service, and 40 peoplewalked in. And it was awesome.
It was so good. I mean, theyhave a heart for God. They feel
the Spirit on this property, thelanguage they speak about our

(19:44):
property in the presence of Godhere is beautiful, like the
moment we came here. We knew it.
And it reminded me, you know,seven years ago when we when I
stepped onto this property, andI stood in the middle of all
these buildings, and I stoodnext to a tire that had horses
that would walk around, I waslike, oh. This is where I
remember that, oh yeah. This iswhere God's calling us. I
remember that moment of like, ohyeah. I can see now, I didn't

(20:07):
know what has become this, but Ido remember God very clearly
speaking, this is where theneighborhood needs to be. And it
was a beautiful moment then,too. So freedom seekers,
awesome. So you get the joy. Wegot the Tamil group coming back
in right? That teaches the Tamillanguage. So they're coming back
in early August. They teach like100 kids, and 100 kids and
taking over all of littleneighbors. Hopefully, when they
come back in, they're trying toget registrations right now. So,

(20:28):
really awesome. So just a lot ofgood staff move. But we are
missing one of our people today.
So on Sunday, was our sendingfor table, not officially gone,
but unofficially, kind of stillhere, because he's running
Wednesday night youth lastworship. This one is

coming in as well.
He's definitely got a heart forand he's like, Yeah, it'd be
after it. I don't mindvolunteering.

Yeah. He's like, I'm in, which is a
beautiful heart, beautifulheart. And so, so table, if
you're listening, we're prayingfor you, right? We love you. We
miss you on this podcast, right?
That presence has been awonderful presence for the last
two years on this podcast andthree years here in the church.
So we had a wonderful sending onSunday, and I did think it was
really wonderful. And Kaylee, mydaughter, even commented, she
goes, but she was, she was, man,I expected it to be this, like

(21:08):
overly emotional kind ofsending, and she goes, but then
we played these videos from allof his time here with us, and it
really became a celebration ofhis time here, not just an
emotional sending, right? I

wasn't here. I was in Fort Smith, right? Did you do
the table Swift? 100% I was

hoping, when I presented table Swift, and it
was so, so good. Yeah, it wasawesome. And, and, yeah, I let
that video play the longest. Sothat was like a two minute video
that I let play, and I playedthe whole thing. He's

never living that down. No, I'm gonna keep that
picture forever so I can showhope. Yeah, we're

just gonna put it in the back. You know, they
have pictures like band memberswho are here, right? We're gonna
put Taylor Swift in the backroom, in the band

room, like the wall, like a collage of band Oh,

great. That was one of the ideas I had for
the green room, is that we wouldactually do the whole wall is
just like photo members of

the conference room, the green conference room.

That's great.
That's so good. Okay, so what wegot going on is that we had
wonderful sending right? It wasalso the last part of our
series, and we're talking aboutdaily rhythms with God, right?
And I think one of the things Isaid in First service too, which
was really important, is that aswe talk through these daily
rhythms with God, that there'salso seasons with God. And you
can talk about, you know, howyou start your day, what

(22:24):
Scripture calls your going insand your coming outs. You can
talk about how you go into theday now you come out of the day,
how you start the day and howyou end the day. I think that's
true of seasons, too. And Ithought it was really poignant
message from Scripture aboutthese seasons, especially in
light of table, right? That,yeah, there are times when we go
into a season, there's timeswhen we come out. It doesn't
mean our ministry is done. Itdoesn't mean tables ministry is

(22:46):
done. He is a beautiful ministryahead of him, right? And there
will be many churches and manydifferent ministries and
organizations blessed by him andKara and baby hope. And we have
a lot of great relationshipshere, and those relationships
aren't done, right? We hung outon Sunday night afterwards,
right? And we all had the bandover and everything. It was
beautiful. And so the beauty isthat God stays in the midst of
those relationships. And that'swhat we're beginning to talk

(23:08):
about in this message, right?
The message was about, how do Igo to sleep in peace? How do I
find this daily rhythm with God?
And so what we really startedwith was the identity of, like,
what's your morning routine? Howdoes it begin and ask, you know,
asked a very divisive questionright out of the gate. I said,
Are you morning person or not amorning person? And so I just
divided the church right away,right away. I thought that'd be

(23:30):
a great start to the message.
Just divide everyone into it. SoI want to ask you guys, Tom, you
weren't here, so you didn't knowthat, but Roseanne, are you a
morning person? I am not amorning person. You're not.
That's that tells me so much andhelps me understand the last
seven months of our workingrelationship together. So that's
really good. What time? Whattime? Generally would you say
that like you're approachable inthe morning, after my first

(23:53):
coffee, after your first coffee,when does that happen?

Well, now, with my routine, I get up, get ready
and have breakfast and mycoffee, and my sister and I do a
little devotional. And becauseof Sunday's message, I started

(24:17):
going back and reading thesection of the Bible that the
the message came from, and andthen we talk about it, and we do
a little devotion. I can'tremember the name of it, but,
and it's always, it is alwayshits with us, like, Wow, holy

(24:38):
spirit. Okay, got that point,that's great. So, yeah, that's
our routine, and that's myfavorite part of the day. I
think,

Oh, wow. So you're not a morning person, but
it's your favorite part of the

day. Yes, that that is part that's my favorite
part of the day. Is just thatdevotion and reading the Bible.
And just kind of talking andusually end up laughing. I love
that. So that's really good.
Yeah, just that community. Yeah,absolutely okay. Tom

What about you? Are you a morning person? I
am now. You are now. Didn't usedto be okay

as a teen, I was I didn't want anything before
noon. Was like, wow. Why? Unlesswe're hunting or fishing, wow.
Before noon, oh, man, I wantedto sleep all the time when I was
young, and then I became a cop,and it was, it was, you know,
and different because we rotatedshifts. I didn't really know
when was, you know, it was. Itchanged all time. And since I've
retired after going through thatrotating shifts, I have quite

(25:35):
easily adapted to going to bedat like, nine o'clock at night
and getting up at six or sevenin the morning, okay? And get
six or seven. My best is if Iget to go to bed by about nine
o'clock and get up at six, get asolid nine hours of sleep. Wow,
it's just glorious. That'sbeautiful. And it's quiet. Of
course. I used to appreciate thequiet when the kids were teens

(25:56):
living at home, because it wasonly time in the house, things
were quiet and peaceful, right?
Yeah. Well, now we're basicallyempty nesters, you know, coming
up to that couple weeks, Connormoves to Conway, yeah, you are.
And so, like, there's moreopportunity for that. But still,
first thing in the morning, it'snot hot outside. The day's
fresh, you know, my mind'sfresh. I can just kind of there
all kinds of potential for theday to get started, and then it,

(26:16):
you know, it derails from there,of course, you know what the
hopes are, but ideal day for me.
At, you know, get up in themorning. Amy and I have coffee
together, sitting in ourrecliners, and I can, it's
great. Oh, kind of in my mind,start my, you know, my prayers
for the day, and then drink mycoffee and get a plan. And, you
know, get get a good start on onthe day. Yeah, do

you and Amy typically do that together,
like, when you're kind ofthinking through your plan, and
like thinking through Scripture.
And like, what are your prayersare? Do you guys do that
together?

Sometimes, like, praying together usually happens
in the evening, and when that,when that happens, sometimes the
plan of like, Hey, what's goingon today? Make sure that we're
on track with stuff. Ideally, wedon't, because that's like, add
stress first thing in themorning. Oh, interesting. Say
more, you know, like, what ifwe're talking about, all the
stuff we got to do that day,then we're just kind of, like,
starting to get ramped up about,yeah. So the the best is that

(27:06):
peaceful just, kind of justsitting together drinking coffee
and just, you know, just get tobe there for a little bit and
enjoy some peace before we startworrying about everything going
on.

Yeah? Yeah.
That's makes sense, the routinewith loved ones in the morning,
right? Sister here, right, wifeover here, and empty nester
that. I mean, that's changingtoo, right? As I wake up in the
morning now. I mean, I preachedon Sunday how important it is
that not only it's the morningroutine, but the evening
routine, right? And I said, Istruggle with sleep and I
struggle with, you know, theidentity of working towards

(27:36):
exhaustion, to earn rest, or tofind permission to rest and

everything. Yeah, that's, that's your part of your
personality. Oh, is 100%

all After Burner. Yeah, full confession,
still fully in it, like Jess isgone right now, I don't sleep at
all when Jess is gone. Like,really hard for me to sleep. I
just, I'm just on the move andthinking about the next thing.
And, you know, I got to get thekids here. So last night, my ice
maker broke. Man, I tell you,there's a convenience line to
ice. And I just, I gotfrustrated. I'm not gonna lie, I

(28:10):
wanted to die coke with ice. Ididn't have any ice. And went to
buy ice at Walmart, and they Ibought the large bag. Landon
came back with a small bag. Isent him back. He came back with
another small bag, which Ithought we were having a
miscommunication. I was like,Landon, get the large bag to
which then the very nice lady atWalmart, Linda, and she goes, we
are sold out of large bags. Wedon't have any. And I was like,
Well, I just paid for a largebag. And I was like, I am done

(28:32):
with the ice scenario, right?
And I was like, this is over.
And so I went and bought afridge. Wow, just is gone. I
just, I've bought it. Picked itup yesterday. Got it. It's a
heavy fridge. Both of my bicepsare bruised. I don't know if you
can see this right to see thebruises on my biceps, because I
had to pull in the fridge, andit was resting on my biceps on
the dolly, and I installed itlast night, and then I had to

(28:54):
wait for it to cool down inorder to get all the food out.
But I had to unplug the onefridge and plug in the other
one, and then I didn't have along enough cable, so I had to
run to Lowe's at 930 to Lowe'sat 930 at night to get a long
enough braided cable, and theyget a new water filter, and do
all those things. So 1045 kidsgo down, right? Because we they
cleaned all the fridge, and thenI put them to bed, and I'm

(29:15):
waiting for the fridge to coolso I can get all the food in so
it doesn't go bad. Midnight, 10,guess what? I'm moving food. I'm
getting I'm like, I preached onthis, literally yesterday,

about leave the new fridge in the garage. I

was guilty as all and I just preached on
rhythm. I just, I mean, I'mliterally in myself, going, how
dare you? How dare you preachthese words and do this the next
night. Old habits die hard. I'mtelling you. I'm telling you.
And it wasn't even like apermission to rest. It was just
I was very proud of myself,though, because I tend to start
projects, and once they start,like, awesome, it's up, right?

(29:52):
And then I'm like, cool, and Idon't need to finish like, that
fridge will sit in the livingroom, the secondary fridge for
weeks if I don't deal with it.
Yeah. And and so I was like, Youknow what, I'm gonna stay on
task. And part of my hyper focuswas I was not going to sleep
until I finished that task. And

if Amy is on the podcast, she could tell you so
many stories my pending project.
Oh

yeah, yeah, I'm in it. And so I was like,
I'm gonna finish it. And Iliterally, Jess is two hours
behind. So it was like, 1230 was1030 her time, right? And I sent
her a picture of the finishedfridge, and I said, boom, I am
proud of myself, is what I put.
I just put a beard. And shecalled me, right? And she's
like, I am proud of you, too.
Yeah. I was like, thank you somuch. I appreciate that. But I

(30:34):
mean the morning and eveningroutine, right? Is where this
kind of started. And the notethat I gave is that the first
point of the message was thatyour relationship with God does
not mean you have to rise earlyevery day. It means that you
have to honor God first

every day. Yeah, first and last, first and last,
right? First Book and yeah,right. I mean,

this is the important part about a
relationship with God. What doesit mean to honor God when you
wake up? It's funny. I waspreaching on this yesterday.
Too. Nice. What did? Well, okay,well, take us through a little
bit

where you went yesterday. We were in Luke 11,
the short version of the Lord'sPrayer. Yeah, great. And so
we're breaking down like thedifferent petitions in the
Lord's Prayer is like a formatfor prayer. Mm, hmm. And talked
about the Luther SmallCatechism, yeah, where his his
guide in there for how to, howto pray. And it starts with a
prayer first thing in themorning, yep, with the Lord's

(31:21):
Prayer, right? And he gave alittle sample format of like,
another little prayer you coulddo. And then the last thing
before you go to bed, yeah, assoon as you wake up and get out
of bed. And the last thing youdo before you go to bed, it's
starting your day orientedtowards God. That's great. And
it's ending your day orientedtowards God. And that doesn't
count even all the other timesthat you try to intentionally
turn to God throughout the dayin prayer, yeah, but you start
and end and bookmark your daywith trying to turn, keep

(31:44):
yourself turned to God.

That's beautiful. That's beautiful.
Well, let's, let's, let's talkthrough this. So I think one
scripture can norm us in a realway. So let's read some
scripture. I had threescriptures on Sunday that we're
talking through kind of thebeginning of the day, right? And
talking through. Jesus went awaywhen it was still early and very
dark, and he went away to pray.
And after that, which I didn'tshare in the message, the
disciples hunted for him, right?
This is kind of life coming backfor us. Is

that kind of like when you're trying to have a
moment's peace to pray and yourkids are coming looking for

you? Oh, man, anytime. And you know, in an
adult I feel bad because I'mlike, Stop touching me, stop
talking to me. I need to do thisreal quick, you know, as I just
let me have this moment, please.
And they're like, I didn't knowyou do anything. I was like, I
know. I like, I know I didn'tcommunicate well, but I don't
want you interacting with me,right? It's like, I just need a
moment, right? And Landon keyson that he knows when I need a
moment, because he gets moreclingy and like, in my face,

(32:32):
like, and he'll just rub hishead across my body. And I'm
like, dude, dude, I cannotconcentrate. The other day when
I was praying, he rubbed theback of my neck. I could not
concentrate. It was in a group,and we were all praying
together, and I was praying foreveryone, and he's just up there
fiddling with the back of myneck, and he's doing it
compassionately. And as a sonwould if you've ever done

(32:52):
tickling your neck while youpray, you can't concentrate.
Like there's there's no goodprayer coming through, like I
was just finding words. I waslike, what is happening right
now? So let's take a moment andread through Psalm 121, this was
the second scripture readingfrom Sunday verses one through
eight. And we love we lovescripture. I mean this, this
norms us. So as you think aboutyour relationship with God and

(33:14):
what it means to step into theWord, you can take these moments
to kind of center yourself andat a foundation so Roseanne,
would you begin in Psalm 121,

for us, I will start. I lift my eyes to the
hills. From where will my helpcome? My help comes from the
Lord who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot bemoved. He who keeps you will not
slumber.

He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor
sleep. The Lord is your keeper.
The Lord is your shade at yourright hand. The sun shall not
strike you by day nor the moonby night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep
your life. The Lord will keepyour going out and your coming
in from this time on andforevermore.

What did each of you hear from the scripture
reading?

What really popped out to me was he who
keeps you will not slumber. Andthen so meaning that God is
taking care of us. He's watchingover us all the time. Mm, hmm.
And then I want to know thedifference. He who keeps Israel
will neither some slumber norsleep. So what's the difference

(34:41):
between slumber and sleep?
That's

a really good and that is actually a biblical
question that I would ask also,but we have a seminarian with
us, Tom, who should know thatanswer. So Tom

looking it up right now in the Hebrew Okay, that's
great.

So which one, which word are you looking up in
Hebrew?

Well it's gonna be verse three and four. So it says
not he will allow to be movedyour foot. Not will slumber. So
the slumber, Noom slumber sanksleeping, slumbers to just sleep
or slumber. So it may just besomething where. And then the

(35:22):
next verse, verse four, behold,neither shall slumber nor sleep.

Yeah, the sleep in long to sleep. The word
origin comes from properly to beslack, or language, or language,
by implication, it means tosleep, or it means to die, grow
old, interesting.

So he's always going to be with us, always, mm
hmm, absolutely hmm. Yeah, Ilove that. That's so comforting,
yeah, to know that God is withus even when we slumber and
sleep, because we need thatrest. But God is not sleeping.

(36:14):
He won't die. He's with us. Soyeah, that stuck yeah out to me
and

Tom, what about you?

You're right now the heat. The Lord is your
keeper. The Lord is your shadeat your right

hand. Yeah, and he's thick right now. I get

right now, yes.
Heat index of 105 and it's noteven noon yet, man that keep you
from all evil, you know, they'llend of the Lord's Prayer, you
know, lead us not intotemptation, but deliver us from
evil. Yeah, you know, it's that.
That's that source of our of ourforgiveness, the source of our
salvation, you know, the sourceof our protection, all

(36:54):
everything that we really,really need to protect us from
the outside.

So you said that word protection, which is
where I got kind of intriguedabout the scripture reading. Was
this word keep? Yeah, that'sright. I mean, it's over and
over again. I mean, if you lookat this right, where does my
help come from? Right? It beginsright in verse five, it says The
Lord is your keeper, right? Andthen continues in verse seven,

(37:19):
the Lord will keep you from allevil, and then again, he will
keep your life. And then again,in eight the Lord will keep your
going in and your coming outfrom this time on and
forevermore. And so you havethis reality of what does keep
mean, right when we look at itfrom the Hebrew language, and it
means to guard, to watch, topreserve and to protect. And it
was really this identity that wespoke about on Sunday that if

(37:42):
you're looking for a shepherd,that's the guard and the watch
over, right? You have a shepherdthat watches over you, that
watches over the sheep, thatcalls them by name, that sends
them out of the pen, but thenkeeps them also. And then from
there, you have not only reallythis guard and watch, but you
have this protect and you havethis king that protects Israel,
right? This king that steps inon your behalf, you know? This,

(38:04):
this god that comes in and says,You are my people, and I will
protect you, and the Preserve isthe kingdom of God, right, which
is where Jesus is at, right now.
So this, this language of keep,is a really incredible space
where, every single day, when weget into situations where we
don't know who to rely on andwhere to go back to. If you
begin your day with honoring Godand you end your day with
confessing to God and saying,Here's how the day went, and

(38:27):
here's where I need you to be,then the middle of this is a
beautiful space right, where youare kept, right? You are
watched, and you're preserved.
Right? The word God is iskeeping you as you walk through
life. And yet, constantly, wetry to throw off these going ins
and these comings out right?
Like we don't need to have afoundation of God in every
moment in our life. We don'tneed to have foundation God in

(38:47):
every relationship in our life.
We can just pray in the morningand then we're good instead of
praying into every meeting,instead of asking those who are
meeting with us to pray with usand see what that means also. So
there's an incredible languagein the Psalm that I think is
really speaking to a lot ofdifferent people, a lot of
different people, about what itmeans to have relationship with

(39:08):
God. And so as we got throughthis, there was an important
part about, what is this eveningroutine? What does it mean that
we would have the space in theevening to go back to God? And
so just question for you too,what is your evening routine? So
we talked about morning routine,but what's your evening do?

Evening my evening routine?
After supper, we watch a littleTV. Usually argue over what
movie we're watching, then I tryto go to bed around nine

(39:43):
o'clock. It doesn't always work,but I usually, while I'm washing
my face, I'm going, Well, God, Itried. Yeah, right, yeah, that's
great, but tomorrow's a new day,and you're going to be with me.
And I'll do better, and I

keep trying.
So if you miss your nineo'clock, what time do you go to
bed? Around 10? Okay, just anhour later,

yeah, yes, but around 10 o'clock, my body I
really starts telling me I'mdone. Interesting.

Okay, yeah, yeah, no matter what, about 10?
Yeah, okay,

yeah. And I I can't stay up past Well, I mean,
I have stayed up past 10, butthat's when I start snacking. Oh
yeah. I start doing all theseunhealthy things because my
body's like, if you're going tokeep me awake, yeah, you are
going to feed me. Uh huh,absolutely, I don't need that.

(40:43):
Yeah, yeah, okay. Tom, whatabout you?

Kind of the same thing in the morning. It's
usually ones that we startsitting in those chairs and just
kind of relaxing and unwinding.
Yeah, yeah. Typically have greatplans to, you know, end in
prayer right before I go to bed.
And sometimes I make it andsometimes I fall asleep before I
get it done, we're human. We'rehuman, but kind of the same
thing of just that moment, kindof peace, unwind. We don't even

(41:07):
really watch TV. I mean,sometimes we'll watch a movie,
but usually one, I'm just gonnasit in our chairs talking and
showing each other differentfunny cat videos on

YouTube. Oh my gosh. You guys are old soul
couple. I love Oh my gosh. OldSoul,

cat videos, bird videos, you know, old family
photos will wind up looking at,like Facebook memories and stuff
like that. And just kind of justunwinding and relax a little
bit. Mm hmm, ideally go to bedabout nine o'clock.

So interesting thing is that I have trouble
sleeping, as we've talked aboutyou guys are both in bed. But
it's incredible. I would lovethat. That's amazing. My wife

used to have difficulties, yeah, in here
lately, she's been sleeping likea rock, which is a new great
thing for her. Yeah, she used totell me that snoring was
bragging about falling asleepfirst. That's great, because
we'd get into bed at the sametime, and she'd lay there, and
she'd have an idea and tell mesomething, and I wouldn't
respond, and then she'd hear mesnoring. Yeah. She's like, Oh,
he's already

lost him. He lost him. So there's hope. Yeah,
so one of the last points that Imessaged on Sunday was that God
gives rest to those who give upcontrol, and that when we give
God control of our whole lives,and not just part of our lives,
like the doors here at thechurch or something like that,
like the the hard thing that wethink through is that we want to

(42:21):
maintain that we have control ofwho God is bringing into the
church through these doors. Wehave control of who comes into
our life and the comings and thegoings, and we don't right. What
ends up happening is that wehave the space where, if we can
give over control to God, whatwe see is that we then release
so that God can hold us and keepus. But what we constantly do is
just give over control of thingsto God, not our lives to God.

(42:45):
And so what do either of youneed to release control of in
order to let God keep you, guardyou, watch you, protect you,
preserve you. What is somethingthat you need to release control
of? I think

I do better about that than that's one of the few
things I can say. I think I dobetter can say. I think I do
better about that than Amy does.
Yeah, yeah, she worries morethan I do. I don't. Sometimes I
don't worry as much as I should.
Yeah, like, that's, I don'tknow, you kind of call that a

superpower, yeah? Nice, you know, tied to
procrastin Non, anxious

procrastination.
Yeah, a little bit, um, so, Imean, I'll, you know, because I
get that comfort knowing that,okay, I can, well, I can worry
about this again tomorrowmorning. You know, it's a lot of
stuff, stuff with the kids. Imean, right now, the phase of
life we're in, it's kids, theirchoices, yeah, choices they will
or won't make. You know, I waslooking at at Connor's schedule
for classes this morning, and Iwas like, you sucker, he doesn't

(43:35):
have a he doesn't have a classbefore 10am that's great, you
know, I'm like, deciding schoolbased on schedule, yeah, talk
about a freaking Kush, yeah.
Where'd the 8am classes go?
Yeah, I guess they gave up onthat. So stuff like with the
kids, like this, stuff likechoices. I can't make form
decisions. I can't make choices.
I can't make, you know, that? Ihave to kind of release to God,

(43:57):
yeah, I know there's been bumpsin the, you know, between now
and the end, but just trying to,you know, trust that God's got a
plan for him, and we'll putideally people in their lives
that will influence them in waysthat our kids won't let us
influence them anymore. We cantell them something 10 times,
and it doesn't matter ifsomebody else mentions it once,
and all sudden, it's there. It'sgospel there. Yeah, so hopefully

(44:19):
that God will put those peoplein their in their lives to them
and, yeah, that's wonderful. I

mean, I didn't think about family initially
giving up control, but yeah,that's an important part,
especially as an empty nester,right? You have to let them run
their lives, right, even thoughit could be detrimental, right?
You, knowing them, getting thereand finding that independence
with God is going to beimportant to that relationship.
What about you? Roseanne,there's a final thoughts, right?
What

is the I think I need to release the things that
I know I don't have controlover, but I want to, I want to
control what my sisters do andhow they handle themselves, and
how they budget. It and and I,I, I need to release that. And

(45:07):
not, I try not to be a worrier.
But yeah, I think it's just thethe releasing things I know I
don't have control

over, yep, to allow God's space to keep you
Right, right, instead of justhanding things back to God,

yeah. Matthew 634 says, do not worry about
tomorrow. For tomorrow, bringworries of its own. Today's
trouble is enough for today.
Yeah, absolutely. And howpeaceful could life be? Just
worry about today, and I get tothat's tomorrow.

That's it.
Yep, I think more of us need todo that. Worry is exhausting.
Yes, really is. And then whenyou're worrying about the thing
that hasn't happened yet, you'redouble worrying, because you're
worried about it until it hits,and then you realize it's not
that same direction, but nowyou're worrying about the new
direction. I'm like, Yeah, youworried before. You needed to
worry, like you can't do this,and so it

didn't even happen the way you thought it
would happen when you worriedabout it.

That's right, that's right, like we and that's
an only God knows scenario,right? So I think the close part
of this series was that youknow, as we look at, you know,
what is our daily rhythms ofGod, is that we know that God
knows us. God has formed usright in the space that were
they deep in that relationshipis truly how they learn to grow
with Christ in those moments. Sothat is a wonderful end of that

(46:23):
series. Right as we got throughRoseanne, you have some notes
right from Roseanne notes?

I do, but it's really stuff we've talked about
already. Guard will. God willguard over me. He will protect
me, preserve me for alleternity. If I keep God at the
center of all I do trust yourtrust in God will build and

(46:49):
begin each day with God, so thatyou can get into every day with
trust in God.

That's beautiful. I love it. Yeah,
trust in God. Was that lastweek's message? Right where we
have to have the sacrificial,sacrificial relational identity
to God, and that has to beimportant to what we do. And so
I love it. So this next week,we're gonna get into new series.
That new series is going to bedear younger me. It is a wisdom

(47:15):
series. It's a series about whatis the wisdom that we would give
into our younger selves, andwhat do we learn about wisdom
from Scripture? What do we learnabout the wisdom from God? And
how do we impart that undergoingourselves? In fact, Tom, which I
haven't talked about, but I toldthe church Sunday, I want to
hand a letter to everyone wherethey can write to themselves,
right wisdom that they justgotta figure out how to get it

(47:36):
there. That's it. And then withthat, we can read them in the
following weeks about here'swisdom that's coming up, or show
the wisdom to people and seewhat's going on. I think be
really incredible to hear allthat wisdom. So that's coming up
this next week. As we get intofall, launch our youth programs,
our life, your programs. You canfind that all in the church
center app too. So in August,people said, Amen, you.

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