Good morning. My name is Nate again, and if I haven't got a chance to meet you, I would love to do that. You came on the perfect Sunday to meet people. It's Hootenanny Sunday. So after this, we go to that parking lot there and we just kind of celebrate God and his goodness, reflect on the year that we've had. This is something that we do every year. We call it the sometimes annual Hootenanny because COVID made us not have it. So it would be dishonest to call it the annual Hootenanny. And we care about honesty here. So it's this sometimes annual Hootenanny. And I hope that you'll stick around and talk to some folks and say, hey, and again, if I haven't gotten the chance to meet you, I would love to do that. This morning is going to look a little different. You can see I'm going to be talking to a couple of different folks within the church this morning about service and about volunteering. One of the things that we realized, I guess it was in August, I was talking with Aaron Winston, our children's pastor, and we realized that we hadn't highlighted service at Grace and volunteering at Grace in a really long time. And we said, it's high time we do this. And then we thought, well, how do we want to do it? Normally, you just preach a sermon about serving and servanthood. And God wanted us to partner with the local church and things like that. And I would bet 75% of you could predict most of the things that I would say in that kind of a sermon. And because of that, and also because I'm always looking for ways to get other voices up here and in front of the church so that we can hear from one another and learn from one another, we thought it would be good and interesting to do this kind of like Ministry Partner Sunday. So in the summer, we have Ministry Partner Sunday where we highlight the different ministry partners that we have outside the walls of the church, and I'll bring them up and talk to them about what they do. And so we thought we would do that with some of our volunteers this morning. Before we do that, just to kind of set up the conversation to set you guys up as you consider your role at Grace or any local church, I did have some thoughts from 1 Corinthians. So if you have a Bible, you can turn there, 1 Corinthians chapter 12. I'm going to start in verse 18. The idea of the church being a body is all over scripture. It's all throughout, particularly the New Testament, particularly the writings of Paul. And there's some seminal passages where he talks about this, but this or Romans are probably the two, and this has a little bit more detail. So in chapter 12, Paul is detailing the spiritual gifts. He talks about this idea that God has given each of us gifts that we are to use in his kingdom. One of the verses I highlight often and say to you guys often is Ephesians 2.10, where it says that we are Christ's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, that we should walk in them. And so the idea is that as we live the Christian life, we are trying to determine, God, what are my good works and how do I walk in them? What do you have for me to do and to walk in? And so that ties in here in this idea that we're all part of a body. We all have a part to play. We all have a role to fill. We all have something to do. And so it's incumbent upon us to figure out what that is. This is what Paul says. But as it is, he's just talked about the body and the ear needs the eyes and the eyes need the feet and the feet needs the hands and none of them can exist without the other. And then he says, but as it is in verse 18, God arranged the members of the body, each one of them as he says, of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow greater honor. I love this passage, particularly as a pastor, because I addressed this a few weeks ago, I think when we were talking about Hebrews in August. But we can make pastors more important than they should be, more valuable to the church than they really are. We can start to feel like staff, the people who work here, we're the most important people, and everybody else is kind of auxiliary, and they're helping. I know that when I grew up in my church, I kind of sensed that. And it's really important for me to point out, as often as I can, in God's kingdom, nobody's more important than anybody else. Nobody plays a more crucial role than anybody else. Leaders are to have a higher degree of accountability because it's our job to teach truth. But that's not a higher value in God's kingdom. And so I believe in grace. All of our partners are equally valuable. Everything we do is equally valuable in God's kingdom and in God's eyes. And so you can't, there's some, sometimes there are people who serve behind the scenes and I will get from them that they don't, that they feel like what they do is kind of small potatoes and it's not. It's hugely important. Everything that we do as the body of Christ is hugely important and matters in eternity and matters to God and is valued by God. Because of that, I wanted us to hear from different portions of our body that play different parts and different roles, and maybe we can relate to some of them. Maybe we'll be inspired to serve. We all have this sheet in our seat, and I'll be going through this at the end of the sermon time today. But I wanted us to hear from people in the church who serve and kind of get to know them a little bit. I felt like it was appropriate on Hootenanny Sunday because we're going out to talk and to be communal and to be a family. So this is kind of a family meeting this morning. Mike and Holly, if you guys want to go ahead and make your way up here and grab that microphone. Oh, you have it? Okay. Is there a microphone over there? There it is. Okay, good. I wanted you guys to hear from parts of the body as well. These are Mike and Holly. This is Mike and Holly Anderson. Just to kind of... I want to say wet your whistle a little bit, but that feels like I don't want to say that. Just at the Hootenanny, ask Mike and Holly what their email names are for each other, okay? I'm just going to, I learned that when they first started coming here. We met for lunch, and I saw what their email names were for each other, and they're great. So ask them what they are. I'm not going to say them from stage because there's children in the room, but just ask them what they are. Mike and Holly, you guys have been coming to Grace for how long? Two and a half. Two and a half years. Two and a half years. And in what capacity do you guys serve? So we fill your tummies every Sunday with yum, warm, yummy coffee. That's what we do. And what made you guys decide that we want to do coffee every Sunday? Because they literally do it every Sunday. I'm like, we can get you extra help. They're like, we're good. We like it. We'll do it every Sunday. So what made you decide, let's get involved, and let's get involved at the coffee level? Okay, so my wife and I, we own our own businesses. so we have an opportunity to do every year, like you do in corporate America, is we do a goal-setting session. And so we go through all of our business plans and all of our personal plans about what we want to get accomplished. And so we usually do that the end of November, early December, every year. And so the year that we were doing this, our personal plans was how do we invest more time, resources, money to Grace? That's kind of where we were. And this was our first. We were eight months, nine months into Grace at that point in time. And just trying to figure out where can we get plugged in? What can we do? How can we get more involved? Small group is definitely something we had just started. And we wanted to figure out how to get further more engaged and so the sunday of after setting those sessions on um that service was all about not being a consumer of grace and how do you be more of a provider as a partner and it really hit it hit us real quick and we shot nate a quick email you guys were just you were just leeching off the the system. We were just little leeching. Yeah, you were dead weight. And so we had lunch with Nate and we said, how can we help? What do we, we want to get plugged in somewhere somehow. And he tried to put us back there in that big old booth back there. And we know nothing about that booth. So we weren't going down that road. And so coffee, obviously with COVID and being very sensitive to what was going on in the world. We thought, you know, that would be a great way for us to kind of really get plugged in and start that back up and really move on. So we just kind of jumped on it and went from there. Now, tell me, Holly, I think it's helpful to get a little bit of y'all's background. Not like, how'd you meet? Not that, but you guys met doing a similar job, and I think that the job that you did contributes to how you guys approach how you do coffee. So what did you do when you met, and how does that help what you do here? Yeah, sure. So Mike and I met. We did sports tourism industry for a long time, so the hospitality industry. We worked for convention and visitors bureaus, and it's all about hospitality and service. And we approach everything in our life like that, our new career now. So we expect a high-level, high-touch service. And so it's the little things, like writing the messages on the cups and having a flavor of the month in creamer. So we never go here. We're always, like, way over the edge, sometimes too much. But it comes from our past and how we met and just high-touch customer service, and we wanted to bring just our love of that to the people that we love here at Grace. Yeah, and that's why you guys are discovering in real time right now that you're going to be planning the golf tournament for us in the spring when we do that. We've both done that before. They're perfect for it. And so they take their professional background and they apply it to coffee. Now, coffee is underwhelming. That is a small thing compared to what you normally organize. But one of the things I noticed right away is the writing on the cups. I don't know if you guys have noticed the writing on the cups, but we don't buy them like that. They do it. And which one of you does it? Mike does it. I have the worst handwriting ever. That's his penmanship on the cups. And I saw him back there this morning. He's got a note on his phone where he's typed up the little messages that he's brainstormed, and then he's just alternating as he's writing those on your cups, just bringing a little bit extra to it every Sunday morning. How have you guys, it's a combo question, so answer it however you like. How have you guys personally benefited from getting to do that for now, close to a year and a half, almost two years? And then most importantly, how have you watched God work to use that bit of service to bring you closer to him? Yeah, we kind of talked about how those kind of coincided, we felt like. And I think so much of it is we love coming here. We love sitting in this building with people that we've just really grown to see as family and friends. And it's been cool in the short amount of time we've been here. And so there's a selfish part of it that's like, I have to get up and go. Like, if I just want to put my PJs on and have coffee and watch Nate for my house, even though he'll give me business about it later, I at least, like, I can't even think that way, right? Like, I know that I have a reason to be here. So there's that selfish reason of I know I have to be because I've committed, but it's also because we want to be here. So I think it's helped that, and it's just helped plug us in. Like, just being here in the morning, I think we've gotten to know, you know, you guys and staff better, which has been really cool, but also the people that serve, too, and really get to see what it takes to make this all happen on Sunday. And it's been really, you know, really neat. We were talking that the church that I was most involved with when I was a little kid and my family was really involved. This is the first time as an adult that I've been plugged in. And it has just felt like the most perfect place. I call my mom all the time and I'm like, I can't believe God brought us here. This is just, it's perfect and amazing. And what I've been looking for for a long time. So That's great. That's great. I love to hear that. Well, we're grateful to you guys for serving. We're grateful to you for planning the golf tournament. And it'll be in the end of April. And we're grateful for the coffee. But if you want to sign up for coffee, they've agreed to relinquish some rights for Sunday mornings. So if you want to partner with them and help or just give them some reprieve and do coffee with them, we would love for you to do that. Now, you've got to rise to their standards, okay? They're tough bosses, but we can still use some help there if that's something you guys want to do. Thanks so much. I'm going to call up Jacob and Elena Farmer. Where are they? Okay. Jacob and Elena are so committed that they drove straight from the beach this morning to be here to do this. Is that true? Yesterday. Yesterday. Oh, yeah, because their dog got a little bit of a struggle. There you go. They've been in here for two weeks. Elena couldn't be less interested in being on the stage right now. I couldn't believe. I knew that Jacob would be game. Jacob's fine. But I couldn't believe. I was like, if Elena wants to do it, I think people would benefit. And I knew that you were going to be like, no, not a chance. And then Jacob said, yeah, we'll be there. And I thought, okay, I'm not going to ask any questions. I didn't ask permission. Yeah, sure. Sure. So, um, a little bit of background on them and I didn't have time, nor did I think it was appropriate and sure service, but it would have been fun. Jacob is a huge birdwatcher. So if you like birds, talk to Jacob at the hootenanny and he will love to talk to you about it. I know. And I almost, I wanted to do a slideshow of birds and see if you could identify them, but maybe another time, maybe another time. But after they had been going here a while, Jacob and I got lunch and he told me a little bit about his background, and he kind of let it slip that he could play guitar, that he could lead worship. And whenever, in my position, you hear that someone's musically talented, you kind of go, okay, you want to get involved? I mean, that's a high skill position. That's pretty tough. But I kind of told him, like, I'm not going to tell Aaron. I'm just going to let you sit on it. You let us know when you're ready. And so Jacob's story, and it's one of the reasons I wanted you all to hear from him, is I'm kind of, I'm teeing this up for you a little bit. He had done it a lot, gotten burned out, found a new place, and wasn't sure when he wanted to re-engage and if he even trusted doing that. And so I thought his perspective on why you decided to like, yeah, let's go ahead and sign back up and play guitar and all that stuff. So if you kind of want to fill in the blanks there for that story, that's great. Yeah, sure. So, um, yes, long story short, I've been in praise and worship since seventh grade. So whatever, whatever age that is, 13, um, got burned out. I mean, every, every church I was involved with was a, was a plant we were tearing up, sitting down every Sunday. We were serving multiple roles. Um, and then adding onto that, I kind of got burned a little bit at church as well. So I kind of had a sour taste in my mouth. And we were out of church for a long time. And I was not playing for a long time. In fact, I think the first thing I told Aaron was I probably haven't played in a band setting in close to 10 years. So we can tell, but you're getting there. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So my, my first practice Aaron, Aaron's like, yeah, come, come, come sit in. And then he's like, Oh, see you Sunday. I'm like, Oh, that wasn't at all talked about. Um, but, uh, but yeah, so for me, I guess leading up to it as a series of things, my wife dragging me here into church when I was stubbornly not wanting to be here, her volunteering to serve initially in the children's ministry, you know, just all these things that were poking me. My parents, my dad actually had been borrowing my guitar for over a year, and he brought it back to me at the beach vacation last year in September. And he's like, I think you're going to need this. And so everyone around me was seeing the writing on the wall, and I was feeling kind of the tug on my heart. And I think our conversation, which I was intentionally coming here and hiding. I didn't want to be known. I wanted to be unknown. Because the second you find out, you play guitar. That's right. Yeah, a need. Right. Um, so I was, I mean, and that was impacting my ability to connect. Um, I was, I mean, I think you even made the comments like, Hey, you've been like here for a year or more and I don't know a thing about you. I think that's how you preface like, let's get lunch. That sounds right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But there was something else you said at lunch, um, that I think it was a week later. I talked to Aaron after service and I'm going to paraphrase it. And you probably said it much more eloquently than I'm going to do. Basically, basically you said you want grace to be a place to heal, but not hide somewhere along those lines. No, that's better than I would say. Yeah. You know, and I'm going to actually, and that was just like the final like stab of like, okay, you're, you're hiding you know, you're healed. You there's, there's writing all on the wall that you need to jump back into this. And so that was, you know, the series of events that led up to me jumping back into worship. But I think a couple months before that, I had worked as an usher a couple times, kind of dipped my toe back into the service realm. Yeah. Yeah. And, Miss Elena, in what ways do you volunteer here? This is active service for her to be here right now. Yes. Yes. Right this second is how she's doing it. I volunteer with the kids ministry. Yeah. Yeah. Elena does a kids' men, but we're going to bring up Shane and Carter to talk about that. You don't have to talk about kids' men. We don't even care about that. That's what on my notes are. Oh, that's okay. That's okay. I want your notes, but I also, one of the reasons that I think her perspective is so great is because if you are also a person who would literally hate to be sitting where she's sitting and having me talking about you right now, like my wife, Jen, everybody look at Jen. She hates this moment. Like if that's you, sometimes it feels like you got to be out front or whatever. And like you don't. Elena, she's remarkably crafty and creative. And so, yes, yes. And so two summers ago, and I hope I don't hurt anybody's feelings with this, but two summers ago, the Summer Extreme theme was Under the Sea. Is that right? And every week, every year, the week before Summer Extreme, the Sunday before, we decorate, and then we kind of add to it throughout the week, and then we do the stage. And when we did Under the Sea, I walked through here the Monday after they got done decorating and was like, who'd we hire? Like, what happened? Like, anybody who comes every year knows that was amazing. And they were like, Elena Farmer. And, like, she started coming. I was like, this was her idea? And so then we got her going on Summer Extreme for this year. Last year, I didn't even know she was going to do this. I don't know if you all remember, but the Christmas theme was Not Home Alone. And it's kind of a Home Alone feel. She did the auditorium in Home Alone stuff. There was paint buckets, and there was a war map on the drum thing. I didn't even know she was going to do it. I just showed up, and it was done. So quietly behind the scenes, she's using this gift and this skill to make the church better. And she's able to do it without ever having to do this or even get any public feedback for it. And then she's already working on the theme for next year's Summer Extreme, I heard. So we're excited about that. But, yeah, when you guys started coming, you jumped in pretty much right away, just kind of helping wherever you could help. What made you want to do that? I knew, so I guess we had, we'd been married for a while, but we had just had Wren, and so I think she was maybe a year or so. And I knew I wanted to have kids, our kids and future kids involved in church and growing up around church. I wanted them to see that God was like important in our family and to us, and it was a priority. I also knew that I wouldn't be committed and prioritized coming to church if I didn't get involved. So it was very important to me to jump in somewhere and get involved so I would be accountable to come. Now, which one is more fun for you? Is it the decorating part? Because there was one day this year where she and I think Faith and maybe Liz were here until like 1.30 a.m. decorating and getting it done. So y'all get after it. Like y'all work hard. And I would imagine there's an element of that that's fun. At least I hope there is. Absolutely. Which one do you find that you enjoy more? Do you enjoy them the same differently? What do you get from kids ministry? What do you get from doing that behind the scenes stuff? I absolutely love doing the decorating. Like that is, I think having a goal and an idea and just being able to plan it and then doing it with my best friends. Like it's just, it's like a girl's party at night at church and nobody's here with no kids. It's amazing. That's right. They tell their husbands, just need a couple more touch-ups. It's great. A few more clouds. Sometimes he brings ice cream. I mean, it's great. For the kids' side, I love it just because I don't know who I was telling, I guess maybe Aaron a few months ago, that it's amazing to hear the kids retell the stories that they hear and then just to know that you kind of had a part in that relationship that they're developing with God. So that's really cool to see and to be a part of. And what age kids are you with usually? So I am now back with two, three, but I had been with the K through, I guess three, K through two. Yeah, K through third. Yeah. And Jacob, or to either one of you, whoever wants to answer, she's very happy to give that up. How has God used stepping out in faith and serving, going, okay, for consistency's sake, I'm going to do this, or God, I feel like you're just pushing me in this direction. How has God used that to encourage you to draw you close to him, to, to build you up as a, as a believer? Yeah. So existing in that kind of rub or the friction that I was in coming to church, but not wanting to commit, I mean, intentionally, um, hiding, I wasn't, I don't think I was receptive to sermons. I was certainly not connecting to people. Um, and you know, you mentioned, I mean, intentionally, hiding. I don't think I was receptive to sermons. I was certainly not connecting to people. And, you know, you mentioned, I guess, what 1 Corinthians, but I think 1 Peter also mentioned something about gifts, about whatever gifts you received, you know, basically serve others and demonstrate God's grace in its various forms, paraphrased. That's good. But for me, I mean, the same reason I've always wanted to be a leader at work is the connection to people and be able to influence people and be able to connect with people to understand how I can best serve people. And that's foundational. I mean, that's arguably one of the biggest parts of my walk, period, right? I mean, I got saved in seventh grade. I started playing place in worship in seventh grade. So, I mean, it's been quite literally foundational to my walk. And so to connect back to that, you know, it's opened my heart in the sermons. It's opened my heart in prayer and quiet time. I found joy in understanding how I can serve others. And I think something else that we really hadn't discussed, but I was thinking about out there, is how his presence fills our home. My kids were six before they heard me play the guitar, right? So, or Wren was six years old. So, and now Praise and Worship is played constantly. I mean, they know what a metronome sounds like now and they probably hate it, but praise and worship fills our house every week. Even the weeks I don't serve, I enjoy tagging along and practicing and playing. So, I think an unintended benefit, right? And so my kids are singing along and they know more of the words to the songs that I play than I do. So that's great. It's unintended. And I think a huge benefit to kind of serving. I love hearing that. And is it just for the record is Aaron now writing you like a rented mule? I mean, are we just driving you right back to burnout? Oh, no, no, no, no. So, well, well, I don't know. Yeah, we have a real discussion here. So, you know, I had never played with in-ears, never played with tracks, you know, hadn't played with a band. He's like, you know, one week of practice and I'm on stage. And then he's like, part of the story, it was before Christmas and I think it was an acoustic set and it was Greg and Carly and Jordan up here. And I remember thinking the whole I was like I probably could play acoustic guitar would probably be nice and that was another thing that kind of pushed me on this journey and I mentioned that to Aaron and he wasted no time and giving me that opportunity to be the solo acoustic guitar up here so I mean I'm improving as a musician selfishly it's nice to have a praise and worship team that's pushing me there. And so, yeah, I enjoy it. And I guess kind of to connect further on to wanting to serve, and I guess people that are maybe apprehensive, everyone's super, super accommodating, right? I mean, I just took three weeks off. I just blocked entire months off, and he hates it, but I do it. And I send him pictures of all the fish I'm catching at the beach. And the birds you're seeing. And the birds, yeah, well, no one cares about that. In fact, if I could get as good as evangelizing the gospel as I could about birds, I think I would be in a better place. That's a separate service. Yeah, right. Yeah. Elena, what would you say, and the last question, what would you say to anybody who's considering serving, not just in kids, although you could, but anywhere who's not serving yet but they're thinking about it? This is more intimidating, sitting up here. I would say just do it. Try it, and if you don't like it, then try a different spot or try somewhere else. I don't know. I don't feel like... That's not what I had in my notes. That's not what I had in my notes. It's all geared toward kids. I don't know. You put me on... Yeah, you put me on the spot. Sorry, Elena. She's never doing this again. Never, ever, ever. This is the one time. No, but I think, and I think we would agree on this. There's a sense of accomplishment, right? There's like, there's plenty of days at work that I leave work and just battered and tired. And I'm like, what did I actually get done? I have no clue. But I think we both feel a sense of accomplishment. You know know we mentioned how we're impacting how she's impacting the kids and and the summer extreme and I doubt I'm impacting anybody musically but I have fun yeah but being part of a team right and and and and just having a sense of pride and what we're accomplishing here and what we're doing here at Grace. Yeah, I like that. Thanks, guys. I like that. You can leave, Elena. Shane and Carter. This is Shane and Carter Smith. They serve in children's ministry together. They've also served as small group leaders. Carter actually served on our architectural committee and helped us come up with the design of the floor plan for the building. So she was there for all the meetings. And really, we should just be talking to Carter. She's a lot more valuable to us than you. If we had to pick one. Carter does a tremendous amount behind the scenes. We have a few people who work behind the scenes that whenever I hear their name brought up for something else, I always say to the staff or to the elders or whoever, like, just be careful. Like, they do so much. Like, please don't ask them. Like, offer to take something else off their plate before we ask them to do this other thing. And Carter is one of those. She's, she's, do what? Yeah, right, right, to do this. And then Shane, Shane used to be a bouncer, so he's in charge of security all the time around here, and he's a Panthers fan, and we beat them two weeks ago, and that's great. Thanks for being up here. What's up, Wake Forest? Okay, Shane and Carter, where do you guys serve? Because you guys serve together. Carter, you're on the children's ministry leadership team too, correct? Okay, but you guys serve together. So I started out actually ushering, I don't know, five or six years ago as a way to kind of get involved. And then Erin kept sending us some nagging emails about how much help she needed on the children's side. So being a coach, I was like, I guess I can try helping over there. And I don't know, it was pretty fun serving over there too. Carter, for everyone else, can you tell us what over there is? We teach K-3, and that's the other wing. K-3, so kindergarten through third grade meet over there. Yes, so we teach the kids over there, large group and small group on Sundays. What does that typically look like? Because that can sound pretty intimidating to go teach. Sometimes know, sometimes it's eight, sometimes it's 20 elementary age kids. You get the lesson during the week. What kind of prep goes into it? Like, what are you guys doing behind the scenes so that you're ready for Sunday morning? And then how does a typical Sunday morning go? Well, Aaron and Julie set up absolutely everything and their team. They have a team behind them. They have everything set up. They email you the lesson plans. They email you kind of an outline for the morning and are available to offer and ask and answer any questions that you have. The kids come in. You do a little activity. You get to sing and dance with them and they get a lot more wild than we do in here. And then we teach them large group and then we break into small group for second and third grade and kindergarten and first grade. And sometimes it's five kids total and sometimes it's 25 total and we just get to all cram back in there. That's great. And Shane, besides Carter Volland telling you probably to do it, what made you decide? because one of the reasons I wanted us to hear from Shane is because we we get we get women to volunteer in the children's ministry more often than we do men and frankly men probably need to just step up to the plate because there's there's not for nothing there's there's there's two genders in all of classrooms, and they should probably be able to look up to both genders as they lead them and guide them and teach them about Jesus. So I think it's good for our boys to see men in their teaching. I think it's good for our girls to see women in their teaching and vice versa. And so we're always grateful when a dad steps up and says, yeah, this is something I want to be a part of. So what made you decide like, okay, yeah, I'm going to do that? Because I didn't, I didn't, I meant to mention this up front. I've asked the volunteers to come up in ascending order of difficulty. So Mike and Holly Anderson running the coffee, and I ran this by Mike beforehand. That's compared now, if we really wanted to get easy, we do like ushers. Okay. But I didn't bring up any ushers. But then the coffee team, right? And then there's the security team, which you just stand out there, and you don't have to listen to the sermon. It's a nice team, actually. And then being in the band, that takes some skill, but I think the hardest ask in the church, honestly, is what you guys do, the K-3. That's super intimidating. It's really difficult, And I think we just disqualify ourselves from the jump, but I don't think we need to. And so I just wanted to hear from you, what made you decide like, yeah, I'm going to take that plunge and go volunteer in that room. Yeah. I think again, just being involved with coaching, you know, coaching different baseball teams and football, I kind of knew what to expect from kids. And I felt like, you know, I could at least teach them. Like I said, Aaron makes it pretty easy on us. She gives you basically a sheet of paper, and as long as you read from it, you can pretty much teach kids a class. For me, I felt like it was almost a way to answer the question of being a disciple making disciples too because I don't feel like I'm ever going to be like a street preacher. I'm not going to go out there, and it's hard to talk to adults, you know, about those situations. But going over there and teaching the kids some of the basic stuff, I just feel like that's a way that you can grow. Just feel like you're, you know, making disciples, somebody else that's hopefully going to grow up and lead this church as well. I love that. I love that a lot. And, Carter, you know, I mean, you guys were here when I got here. Y'all, y'all, y'all been here a long time. You've been serving the whole time that y'all have been here. So it's a part of your DNA and who you are. What is it that makes you continue to serve, continue to come back, continue to sign up and let us put you up on stage and things like that? Like what, what's the joy that you get out of it? Why do you continue to do it? Um, I don't think Aaron would allow me to keep coming to Grace if I didn't serve in the kids ministry. No, we get, I used to teach first grade before I had my oldest son, Cason. So I think that's part of it is selfishly. It's something I do enjoy and I enjoy doing it more for an hour than a nine to five. But we get poured into here every Sunday and it's just a chance to pour into kids. And they are just like little sponges and so excited to be there and so excited to learn and learn about Jesus. They have no hesitation asking hard questions. They have no hesitation expressing their joy through dancing and singing. And they're just genuinely excited to be there. And I find that excitement contagious. And my favorite Sunday to teach back there is Easter Sunday. Oh, wow. Why is that? I mean, I've heard Easter sermons for 30 years. They're pretty good. They're pretty good over here. They're pretty great. The podcast is great. But no, they are so excited. And for some of them, it's their first time hearing it. For some of them, they've heard it for a few years, but each time, something new is clicking for them. The story is unfolding, and they are more excited about the Bible than most of the adults I know. I love that. And last question for you guys. How has God used your opportunities at service, whether it's leading a small group, serving on a leadership team behind the scenes, or serving in the kids? How has God been using that over the years to draw you closer to him and build up your faith? So, I mean, it's for us, obviously, it's been a way to get to know a lot of people in the church. You know, and it's also a way that we feel like, as Carter mentioned, you know, the church pours into us so much. It's a way that we can give back and really help this whole community grow. I mean, we're all here to try and, you know, promote the kingdom. So I feel like it's a way for us to be able to give back. And again, I'm not going to be up on stage doing any preaching anytime soon. So, you know, teaching the kids is a lot easier. Just let me know when you want to. For me, I think teaching takes the focus off of me. It makes me be less self-centered in when I'm getting ready to come to church on Sunday in my prayer life. I'm thinking about the kids, praying for them, praying over what I'm going to be teaching. And so I think any opportunity I can take to be less self-centered is a good one for me spiritually. Well, thank you guys. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming up and for sharing. As we wrap up the morning, just a couple of thoughts. And I say this with some hesitancy because I want to be careful with my words, and I don't want them to be self-serving. That's not my heart at all. But I do think that based on the body passages, body of Christ, spiritual gifts mentioned, he mentioned, Jacob mentioned some in Peter, they're in Romans, they're in Corinthians, they're in Ephesians. They're all over the place. Because we have good works to walk in, because God calls us to be a part of a local church, I don't think it's optional to serve in a local church. And when I say that, I say local church intentionally because I'm not trying to leverage this and the Bible to get you to guiltily serve at grace. But what I can tell you as a pastor and someone who cares about you is, it is God's will for you to be using your gifts to benefit his kingdom. I know that for sure. It is God's will for you to be using the gifts and the talents and the abilities that he gave you to grow his kingdom. Now, many of you are doing that outside the walls of grace, and that's great. I would not reduce serving God and using your gifts to things that can be done here. But I would say that there's a reason that we have partners and we don't have members. Members tend to consume, partners tend to contribute. One of the things I am so humbled by in this church is that it doesn't go with just staff. Unless people are giving of their time, talent, and treasure during the week to sit on elder boards, to sit on committees, to be thoughtful about the church. We have some people because of their professional backgrounds who kind of mentor or pour into or befriend different people on staff. I've watched people in the church come alongside Aaron and begin to help him and give him some advice. I've watched them come alongside Kyle or Aaron Winston or me. And so there's different ways to serve the church and they're not all reduced to this sheet, okay? But here's what I would say. You ought to be doing something. You ought to be doing something to allow God to use the time and the talents and the treasures that he gave you to serve his church and build his kingdom. I don't know why. Well, I would want you to be going to a local church that you love so much that you wanted to partner with them and serve in some way. That's what I would say. Now, what Jacob said is true. And Jacob, the way you said it is better than I said it. We do want grace to be a place for you to heal, but not necessarily to hide. I know that there are people here because I've spoken with you. You have been burned by church. You have been worn out by church. You have been chewed up and spit out and something hurt you or something wore you out or whatever. And this can absolutely be a place to come and rest. But it ought to be restorative rest so that when you're ready to go again, you get going. So I would ask you guys to prayerfully consider, and in a minute I'm going to pray, Tamir's going to come up and give us a little bit more instructions, and then we're going to have a song sung over us while we kind of look over this and think about what we might want to do. Really quickly, if you want to grab this sheet, anything that might not be clear, Worship Team Tech and Production is back there. Those are, besides sound, largely low-skilled jobs, so you can do them, all right? I was joking around with David. David's running the live feed this morning and, uh, there's somebody else here. He's, he's being, he's being, uh, shadowed. Somebody's watching him to make sure that David doesn't mess it up. David runs a software company. So I'm pretty sure he can handle the live stream. And I was joking around with him beforehand. Like, dude, if you get stressed and you need to take a minute and get out of the sound booth, like go ahead. And we were laughing about it. So if you want to get, if you volunteer back there, that's, that's great. You can do that, but that's what the tech and production team is. And it's a vital team that we need greeters and ushers. That's if you're new or you've been coming here for a while, but you're not really plugged in, join one of those teams. It's a great entry point to join one of those teams, start meeting new people. It really doesn't impact your schedule a whole heck of a lot. You get here 15 minutes before you normally would unless you're late all the time, then you need to get here 25 minutes before you normally would and then you don't necessarily have to stay later but you get to meet a bunch of people, learn a bunch of names, shake a bunch of hands. That's a great way to get plugged in and involved. The prayer team is pretty obvious. We send prayer requests out to that. The care team is a big one, too, because we don't want people slipping through the cracks with care. And so the way that care works at Grace is first your small group leader is kind of responsible for you but sometimes people require ongoing care sometimes people are not in a small group sometimes the need is greater than what a small group can provide and we like to have a team that we can call on to go visit people who aren't able to leave their house or where they're living to make some phone calls. We even have a wonderful team of people that serve in something called Stephen Ministry that exists throughout a bunch of churches. And they provide ongoing pastoral care in ways that pastors just simply can't and don't have time for. And there's a whole training process with them. And they do incredible, incredible addition to that things that are not on here we have committees we have a finance committee that helped with the with the money at grace to make sure that everything's happening the way it's supposed to happen we have a personnel committee that serves as kind of the HR department at grace while we're while we're healthy and the staff development department so if you have a background in that, that's a great way to serve. We have a missions committee that determines who we get involved with and what activities we do outside the walls of Grace. So there's different ways that we can help and different things that we can do. But my heart would be, and what I would ask is, if you call Grace home, then prayerfully consider how you might jump in if you're not doing that already. If you call Grace home, take a few minutes right now, and prayerfully consider, God, what would you have me do at the local church where I go, where I can pour myself into? Maybe it's not on here. This sheet is a starting point. Maybe it's something else. Maybe you want to have a conversation about it. That's fine. I'd love to have that conversation. Maybe you can make us a little note on this and tell us what you'd like to talk about or what you think you'd like to offer. That's great too. But if you call Grace home, partner with us, let's work together and let's build God's kingdom together and move this place forward. Let me pray and then Tamera's going to come up and give us some more instructions. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for your servants that we got to see this morning and hear from. Thank you for the ones that are doing your work right now so that we could be in here. Thank you for the hands that set up tables and chairs. Thank you for the hands that will be cooking and prepping the meals for us. Thank you for the worship team that's leading us into worship, God. Just thank you for the workers in all the children's rooms who are pouring into our children so that we might be in here and hopefully you're pouring into us. God, we just thank you for this morning. We thank you for grace. We thank you for all that you've done here and all that you are, the way that you're so faithful to us. And God, we pray that in return, we would continue to be faithful to you. In Jesus' name, amen.