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Matt Kearns Interview · What You Have Seen and Heard

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hello again and welcome back to another episode of What You Have Seen and Heard.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's from when Jesus sends the delegation from John the Baptist back to him
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: and talks about the miracles that he's been doing.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: It says, go back and say what you've seen and heard.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been an opportunity for me to interview very My name is Travis Stevick
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: and today we have a special treat because for the first time on this kind
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: of podcast is we have a layperson with us and his name is Matt Kearns.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: You are a lay member, if I'm correct, at Marian Methodist Church in Marian, Iowa.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: But welcome, Matt.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Correct me if I said something wrong, but welcome to this conversation.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you, Travis, for having me.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Everything you said was correct, so.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I should also note at the very beginning that he
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: and I have had some interesting technical difficulties getting this going.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's possible that if there's a little bit of hiccup, just ride through it.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully it'll resolve itself here before too long.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: So Matt,
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to ask you the same question that I ask everybody at the beginning
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: of these conversations.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that is, can you tell us a bit about how it is you became a Christian in the first place?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you've been a Christian as long as you can remember,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: how it is that you came to take your faith seriously for the first time?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've actually talked about this once other time.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Our church has,
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: during the Holy Week,
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Lenten moments,
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: and I had an opportunity to speak at one of those about the same story.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in the church in the United Methodist Church, that is.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm from Washington State,
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: not an Iowan like most of the folks around here,
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: but I did grow up in a rural, small church.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: It At the time when I was very young,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: the church itself had a population of probably about 100 or so.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was a fairly good-sized church in an area that had fairly good-sized churches,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: including Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic, etc.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was well regarded and it was also a place highly ecumenical in nature, too.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: We get together with all the different churches like sunrise services on Sundays
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: or we'd have cantatas, things of that nature.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: But at one point.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was about middle school or so, something happened to our church.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: the usual Methodist Turnover of preachers that I can recall about once every two
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: or three years we had a new preacher here and there.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then about middle school,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: we had this one preacher come along and I don't exactly know what happened.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: I just I just remember basically our church kind of imploded.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: We lost a lot of our,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: probably at least half of the congregation split because of what happened.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually I was the oldest kid in church and the next oldest kid was my sister
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: who was two years younger than I was.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I lost a lot of what church meant to me because all my friends,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: all that kind of stuff that kept me tied to it.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Really went away.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And growing up,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was in middle school,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: middle age, that rebellious era too didn't help things a lot.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as Pastor Mike would say, he had the drug problem, so did I.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Not that that really helped me, of course.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of resented it more and more as I go.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in the house that was Christian, but it was always there.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I turned from God.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's about what it is.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: I denied God.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it got worse over the years.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't wait to get out of that little town.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually went to college in Arizona.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, things got a little bit worse.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: I went downhill.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: The secular world got to me.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I just,
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: it just went not the greatest for me.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Shortly after I graduated,
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: That was in the late 2000s, December 2000.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually I had a girlfriend and she got pregnant.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then 9-11 happened during my first job out of college.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so scrambling a month before he was supposed to be born,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: had to find a new place, new job, all that kind of stuff.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it just happened.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And my life spiraled.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: His second child eventually moved to Iowa here working now as Collins Airspace.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was Rockwell Collins at the time.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And things just got worse with my life, my personal life and such.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, she became my ex-wife, asked for a divorce.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then shortly after that, She was then diagnosed with cancer.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, it was one setback, one just crushing blow after another drove me into a depression.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't eat.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't sleep anything, 20 pounds in the space of a month.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I just was floating through life.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't do me any good.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't do my kids, who were very young at the time.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I was at wit's end, if you will.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I lost, I mean, you just, everything was, the rug was pulled out under my feet, if you will.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know where to go, didn't know what to do.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was talking to my mom one night and she just said, just get on your knees and pray.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the first time I'd done that in 10 or 15 years.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I poured everything out I had into that prayer.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to bed and I actually managed to fall asleep.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that night, I was woken up in the middle of the night with just two words, get up.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: And there was
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I know who that was.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: That was Jesus Christ, pure and simple.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Get up.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's all I needed, apparently.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because the next day,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: that weight, that despair, the despondency, more or less had been taken from me.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: I...
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Decided that, I mean,
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: I decided what I needed to do,
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: take one step at a time,
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: get my life straight, do what I needed to do because I'm a father.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: I have to take care of my kids first.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, my marriage was dissolved.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: But over that period of time,
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: that's also when I came to First United Methodist Church at
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: the Marian Methodist Church here in Marian, Pastor Mike.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because before even that happened,
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: I went to the church, went to ask him to see about counseling.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And he graciously came out and talked to myself, my ex.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And...
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, I started going to the church periodically.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't regularly.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't necessarily dipping my toe back into it.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's just getting that regularity, that rhythm back in.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Over the course of the next year or so, it became more regular.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was taking my kids to Sunday school when I could, when I had them.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then just over a period of time,
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Things began to grow.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, I met my current wife, Andrea.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: We did not online, but we actually both went to Mary Methodist.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: We just went to different services because at that time, we had four different services.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: The church was so big, ships passing in the night.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, when we started dating, they advertised the discipleship.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: A Bible study program.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, why not?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't we go to this?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: We'll start doing this and there's something we can do together,
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: broaden our faith and such like that.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we started that and went through three of the four programs.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: So we never went back to one chapter and it's like, I'm a completionist.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: I got to finish the whole thing, but I haven't yet.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: But eventually a couple of years later,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: we got married at the church before we moved to the new building
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: that Mary Methodist is at now.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Over that time,
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'd be sitting in,
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: listening to the sermons,
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: stuff like that, and I'd just be writing these thoughts down, questions I had.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: There was always these promptings to do this, that, or the other thing.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, I started becoming more active.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: There were some men's programs that we did,
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: like Modern Day Nights and things like that,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: that helped get me involved more solidly.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: But it was around 2000 that when our church...
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Was going to go to Israel, a big trip.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: We had enough to fill two buses with folks going to that trip.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: And our trip was right at the end of January of 2020.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: So if you don't know anything about the time period, COVID had already started in the East.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: And actually it had come to the Middle East by about that time because there was
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: a mysterious Um, around, around that time.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but, uh,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: going to the,
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: going to the Holy land really impacted me in,
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: in ways that I didn't think I was going to be impacted.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Seeing the sights,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: breathing the air,
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: walking the soil, walking in the places, it really brings the Bible to life to you.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And another aspect of it is I was one of the bus monitors, watching over everyone.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I followed behind everyone else in the group to keep everyone moving along as
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: a chaperone, if you will.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I was able to see it also not just through my eyes, but through theirs as well.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And to see and to feel what it was like there.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: I come back and I say, I got to do something now.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: I got to get involved somehow.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually...
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Pastor Mike asked me and Andrea to be substitute delegates to the annual conference
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: that year, I think it was, or the year after.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the last full gathering that our church attended before the disaffiliation.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Saw what was going on there.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, over the years had felt what was going on.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: We had rumblings of what was going on.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: But in general,
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of the pastor,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of those who I think on both sides of the issues were shielding a lot
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: of their churches from what was going on.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: So not everyone knew what was going on necessarily in leadership.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: There wasn't a lot of transparency there.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually evolved into saying it's like I got I eventually got as part of
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: a men's Bible study group regular that we've now been meeting for
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: over six years now.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: was when I told one gentleman in my group was actually I believe on
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: the nominations committee or something like that.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: I just said, I want to get involved.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: What can I do to get involved?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, We've got nominations coming up and we need a lay delegate to the annual conference.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, okay.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And actually that first one, the first official one was the vote a few years back.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: As part of that and becoming more involved, I also led our disaffiliation discernment team.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a very interesting exploration into the different sides of
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: the different denominations and such like that,
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: because we knew we weren't going to be here.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Once, we had a pretty good idea that our church was going to disaffiliate.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to be prepared for when that happens, where are we going to next?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we looked into the variety of different...
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Different possibilities out there.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Do we go independent?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Do we join another Wesleyan-related denomination and things like that?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: And over the course of about a month and a half or so,
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: that group put together the information for that.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we presented the...
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: We presented to our church what we found and what our recommendation was,
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: of course, was to the GMC.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they approved that.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then our church eventually voted and joined, voted to join.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that all of that,
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: it just,
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: if you will,
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: compounded on itself and how in my participation and in my journey through
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: the What I've been working through because all the stuff I talked about
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: before continued to happen more and more.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I talked to Mike a bit more about my past and stuff like that
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: because I knew there was more I needed to do.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'm an engineer.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm about book learning, not unlike yourself.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I have to know more.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: over the time that you'll come to realize it doesn't matter how much you know.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's not where it's in your head.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about your heart, where your heart's aligned.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to, you know, force your head to realize.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: You have to realign them both.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: It can take brute force to do that.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And getting to that point,
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know about this,
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: because I didn't necessarily read the entire transitional book of doctrines
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: and disciplines.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't realize that there was a program about being a certified lay minister.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: But when I saw it,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was at the convening conference where they They certified a number
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: of folks that were from the UMC.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: We had just come in.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: They got certified under the GMC.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I went and looked at that program.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: I
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: contacted them about the registration and got myself going because I knew that I needed more.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: This had to be more.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Started that program up, and that was 2024.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And by early 2025,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: they needed somebody to run the program.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was asked about, well,
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mentioned something about it to Pastor James,
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: our conference superintendent,
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: my pastor,
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: and he asked if I was interested in Start leading the committee that they were going
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: to form to manage the program.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they said yes, because I'm all about organization.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: My job is as an engineer, especially now that I'm a project engineer.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about organization and management and making sure that we get things off and going.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: From what I saw,
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that the things that we could do to improve things,
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: make things better for those who are trying to get going with this program
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: and help get things moving along.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I really wanted to help get that stuff off the ground.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I picked that up.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then a month later,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: two months later, I was certified at the annual conference last year.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: But that wasn't my highlight of that conference.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: And a couple of conferences before,
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: the convening conference in Watertown and then in the annual conference in 2024,
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: our first annual conference,
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: during the altar calls that followed the ordination services.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'd been drawn
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: forward, but I held back.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: I felt
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: How could, you know, just, why would I, how could I do this?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I felt like I was being torn, if you will.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Why would I go do that?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Even if it's,
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know, even,
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know, profession of faith and things of that nature, why would I go do that?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: What would prompt me to do that?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know it was holding me back because last year when I finally did go forward, I forced myself.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: I had to break free from whatever was holding me back because it was a physical manifestation.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: I could feel it in my chest, across my heart that I had to move forward.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: I had to break free.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And by the time I got to the front with
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: one of my mentors, Norm Kelly, I was in tears.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't hold back because I also knew that this was not this was just
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: the beginning of where I needed to go and I needed to continue on.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually I did make the decision
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: to pursue
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: candidacy for ordination.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just starting that process right now.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're just beginning that process,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: meeting with the Candidacy Mentor Group with a few folks in my area and looking
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: to start seminary here later this fall.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: But regardless of my personal path and how I got here,
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: this This whole thing is being a laity and being
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: in leadership is eminently important,
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: one, for your church, two, to support your pastor.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: But people also need to realize that hopefully that they will distinguish
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: and discern between what being a leader in laity versus being a leader within clergy
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: because they're two different things.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Both absolutely necessary,
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: and we need more of the laity to realize that even the smallest amount
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: of work you do within your church or your community, you are a minister.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: You are worthy of training,
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: of learning,
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: and need that kind of guidance as well to one,
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: better deepen your understanding,
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: but also You will be the ones who are the faces of your church,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: more so to more people than just a pastor will be because pastors is one
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: or two people in the entire church.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: 10, 20, 30, 50, 100,
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: 500 people that are the hands and feet,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: that those are the people who are outside who will be remembered.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you're just one step along another person's path in the journey with Christ,
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: it's an important step, an important person along the way.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really important what you say about the laity needing to really have
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: a role in ministry because I am in a church where on
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: an average Sunday morning we have a little over 100 people on any given Sunday
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: and there's only one of me.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about how many people are out in the community.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that equipping and training laity is hugely important because there's
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: a lot more of you than there are of clergy people.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have to say that being here at Mary Methodist,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've been fortunate to see a lot of lay-led initiatives.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: During the last 20 years, Pastor Mike had been the preacher.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Prior to that, Pastor Stan had been there for a very long time.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now we have Pastor James and Helen.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Though we've had long stints with singular pastors along the way,
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: and hopefully the two that we have now will continue for quite some time.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Though those single people have been there,
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: the initiatives and the church really have Has been led by a strong church council
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: and the church council leaders,
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: committee leaders,
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: men's and women's ministry groups all have been very,
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: very good in Taking on those initiatives to meet the community where it needs to be.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you harken back to Pastor Mike's video with you,
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: he mentioned the FLY program that got started with feeding lunches to youth
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: as blended and partnering with Marion Cares.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Those programs have become institutions now within our community and wholly done by laity.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: The Feeding Lunches to Youth program, incidentally, is overseen, though, by pastoral staff.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: It is run by youth
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: from colleges that come and apply as internships.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And they are the ones that organize the operation to put together the lunches
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: and distribute the lunches,
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: getting the word out to the church on if they need supplies or they need volunteers
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: for any of those activities.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: We have, like any church, we've got the women's groups who have
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Fundraisers that help women in the communities here and abroad.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: And men's groups that go out and perform acts of service across a variety of different names.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: A couple of ones that we have.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: One is the honeydew ministry that the men do, where they go and do services.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Some sorts of service around people's homes that need maybe lights changed
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: or doors repaired, windows repaired, things of that nature.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's also part of that too is they install handicap ramps outside the homes of folks.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: All sorts of different things that were done.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Most recently a big initiative had been Repairing mobile home damage following
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: the derecho that happened a number of years ago.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: So all sorts of different things where the church has,
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: the laity has gotten together and found that there are needs in the community
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: and are putting boots on ground to go meet those needs.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Not just within our community, though.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: We also have, of course, missions abroad.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: Outside of our state,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: I've been a part of one mission that went out to Tennessee to help with flooding.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone in the area remembers the floods that we've had over the last decade,
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: especially in 08 and Cedar Rapids area
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: and many other communities were highly impacted by the floods.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: We've taken what we've learned from those incidents and gone out
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: to serve those outside of our communities in similar situations.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: And earlier this year, access to similar acts of service as well.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that goes back to what I was saying before,
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: is those are the people that those in need,
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: spiritual need, physical need, are seeing out there.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just the person in the pulpit.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, leading the charge for everything.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's, it's,
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: it's those, uh, in our,
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: in our churches,
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: in our communities,
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: it's your neighbors that are the ones that are leading the way in,
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: um, in, in servicing, um, the communities.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Can you say more about you when you talk about that?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that's been so important for Marian Methodist is having
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: a strong church council.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like what,
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: what is it about that council that you think is particularly strong
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: and makes it effective?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we continue to follow one of our bylaws.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: We have regular rotations or classes,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: if you will,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: of folks that are on the committees that lead the council and
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: the committees themselves.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a regular influx of new people.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Coming and joining this committee.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Sure,
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: some of the people that you've seen on one committee may join another committee,
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: but we've had,
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: from what I've seen just in the last few years,
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: we've seen a lot more new,
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: even new people that are new to the church just recently getting involved with
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: the church in itself,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: which is heartbreaking to see because that means that this church has become
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: A second home to people.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: They care about what the church is and what the church is doing for people in
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: the community, be it if they're on finance or I'm
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: blanking on all the other ones.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: But admissions and things of that nature that they want to contribute and see that
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: That what we're doing is making an impact and we continue to make an impact.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: So the strength really has come from the
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: reputation of folks through all
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: the new people that are coming along.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: And on top of all of that, too, is recently our church.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: One of the big things is our church recently went through
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Evaluation of where we're at is kind of a status of this church thing.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right around the time that Pastor McLeft and Pastor James and Helen came along,
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: we're going through this whole evaluation,
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: understanding where we're going to,
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: because around that same time,
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: we also came into the new denomination.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of new firsts for our church.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: The building is fairly new.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting new pastors.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're in a new denomination.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we're cycling through our leadership within the church, the lay leadership of the church.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we're wanting to understand where we're at.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: What are we doing good?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: What isn't we doing well?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Can we do better?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: All those kinds of things.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Out of that evaluation,
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: we put together these plans and committees to make Hit the highlights
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: to identify what we're doing well,
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: seeing what we can do to continue to improve those things,
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: but also what we really should either drop,
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: sacred gals might need to go,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: or what are we really
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: bringing about the kingdom of God here on earth?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: What can we do?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: What are we missing?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is there something that we should be doing that we aren't doing?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so out of all of that,
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: after about a year or so,
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: we put together a plan and now we're starting to execute on that plan.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: We're in year one of basically executing into that plan.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: We've had to make some tweaks along our transition
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: from taking off to regular execution.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we're seeing some things change there.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: That makes the church
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: feel invigorated, if you will.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Not to say that we weren't before.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Not to say that things were bad or stagnant or stale or anything like that before.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: But even when things are going well, you really should evaluate where we're at.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes if something's going wrong,
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then things will explode and go great.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: You just never know when that's going to happen.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you should always be looking out for those kinds of opportunities
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: to have those discussions and make the changes that you might need.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: You might fail with those changes, but at least you'll learn from something.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: Standing still is about the worst thing you can do.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Stagnation,
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: it's going good,
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: but good will eventually just not be great and cease to be good because it'll be
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: the norm and we have to be moving out of norm constantly.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things I've talked to a lot of folks in our annual conference is largely rural.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Statistically, there's just relatively few churches that we have in major urban areas.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: But yours is one of the exceptions to that, that you're in a large area.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you've given it.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: You grew up in a rural area, but you're living in a larger one.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was just curious if you have any thoughts about the different blessings
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: or liabilities that are involved in a more urban,
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: suburban environment than in a rural one.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: The.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Being being in an urban area, I don't know.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Being that Mary Methodist also is one of the largest churches in our conference
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: and statistically one of the largest churches going to be in the denomination in and
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: of itself, it.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: It has access to a lot of money, people,
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're Marion's at, it's basically a bedroom community suburb area of Cedar Rapids.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's heavily people,
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: not much in the way of business per se, big business or anything like that.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not necessarily impacted by that.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: But we do have the same Same issues you probably see in rural areas.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's still poverty.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably more apparent.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Per capita, larger number of people, the odds are there's going to be more people.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: There's still neighbors that need help.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: The urban-ness, you probably have more...
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're probably going to have a more political bent,
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: differentiation within your churches necessarily than probably the rural areas.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know that there's necessarily a whole lot.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't seen a whole lot.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think on the plus side,
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: we've got the people and generally that means more money and that will lend itself
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: to being able to do a lot more.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: That is probably maybe a bigger difference that you'll see in the urban areas
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: than you'll see in the smaller areas.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: On the rural areas, you'll have to do more with less.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you get creative on those things.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that causes us to have the challenge of we have so much.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: What can we do with all of this?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: We have the ability to do a lot.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: What is the best things that we can do with what we have and make sure
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: that we do it well and within the will of God?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose that's, I mean,
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: to a certain degree,
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: if you're a small church in a small town with limited resources,
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: I guess the primary question is what can we do at all?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in some ways,
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: on the one hand,
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: it's a good problem to have to be able to say which of many things we could do,
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: will we do?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time,
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: in some ways,
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: I can almost imagine there's almost more pressure on it because if you say this is
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: the only thing we can do, then I guess you do it with all your heart.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have choices, now you have an added layer of discernment that has to go into it.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I imagine that probably churches like where I am,
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: we kind of don't always give you enough sympathy for
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: the unique difficulties you face along those lines.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think a lot of churches will be like,
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: well, we wish we had that problem, but it's still a problem.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's still a difficulty.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now, one thing that comes to mind is like,
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: we have,
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: as I said,
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: we have a lot and we can do a lot,
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: but there's always things that we have to reevaluate.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: What should we be doing?
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: At the time that we were in,
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: we supported a kindergarten school daycare center in our previous building.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: When we moved to our new building, we actually decided that we needed to give that up.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, that had been a...
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you will, a sacred cow for our church.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: It was a great ministry to have to be able to support and love on the kids coming in
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: after school, being able to support all that.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: But with what our church was going to go to, was going to be, we couldn't support that anymore.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we took that program and we transitioned it to another church in the area
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: that was a little more centrally located for where most of the folks
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: that were actually using it.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're in Cedar Rapids proper.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: And as I understand, it's been flourishing.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: But as I said,
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: it's something that we had to give up,
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: even though we did it well and we would have done it well,
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: but the facility we're going to wasn't really going to be able to support that.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the things that we really have to look at is,
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you grow and you have all these resources,
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: you really need to reevaluate who is in your church.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Where is God leading you to with the church as it is?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because everything we do is for a season.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: These things aren't going to be around forever.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Your parishioners aren't going to be around forever.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Your pastor is not going to be around forever.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: So things are going to have to change and we're going to have to keep.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Please consider keeping an eye on that and understanding where things need to go
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: within your church.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the questions I've also been asking everybody is I ask
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: to identify what you've seen over your lifetime as being perhaps
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: a common sickness that's faced by churches.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm realizing that so far you've mentioned The church that you grew up in and
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: the church you've been at now for some time.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I always say with pastors, I say, well,
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: you've served enough churches that you're not necessarily going to telegraph
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: who you're talking about here.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to be clear,
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: first of all,
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: nobody should assume he's talking about anybody in particular,
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: even at Marian Methodist.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason why I bring the question of sickness is that it's Sickness happens to people.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's because we've done something that helps us get sick,
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: but sometimes it just happens.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we get stuck in things.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the proper response to sickness is not judgment,
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: but diagnosis and treatment and therapy and all the rest.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the goal for these questions is always meant to be constructive,
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: to see things from another point of view.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: So is there anything you'd be willing to share that you've seen as being a sickness
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: that you've seen either in churches or in Christians that you've known
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: that you think needs assessment and treatment?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think partly,
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a sickness of maybe fear or trepidation,
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: especially when it's come to what, you know, church politicking, if you will.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: From the UMC, now going into the GMC, there's a little bit of fear with that.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Partly,
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: I see that in people are afraid that we might revert back to what we once were in
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: the previous denomination.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: I completely understand that fear.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: The thing is, if we want to be completely honest, it will eventually get that way.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: We are humans.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: Fallen, broken, valuable.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: We are the institutions,
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: how good they seem to be at this beginning,
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: will continue to corrupt and make worse over time.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it will have to be refreshed and reevaluated and fixed at some point in the near future.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, we have the GMC, I think, is in a great place.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: We are still in the infancy, the birth of this denomination.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: With this upcoming general conference where we will solidify,
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: even though we have a BDD right now from 2024,
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: we will solidify it
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: and then go into our normal execution rhythm within
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: the denomination.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: But we shouldn't necessarily be afraid of that, be wary of it.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: Be vigilant about it.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's why we have our denomination set up as it is.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: As dictated or provided guidance within the books of doctrines and discipline.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: As long as we can keep faith to those things,
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: we will slow that decline towards whatever may happen.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we should be able to see that coming and hopefully be able to Steer
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: the ship back on course.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Another part of that fear and trepidation
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: is going back to what it means to be
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: a Wesleyan denomination, what it means to be a Methodist.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because the previous denomination veered so far in the last hundred or so years,
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: even before it became the name of the Methodist Church and stuff,
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: The secular ways had corrupted a lot of what we had done,
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: and we had gotten away from a lot of what our early Methodist practices were.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: When I was going to the course, one of the courses is about GMC, History, Polity, and Doctrine.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things we were asked to do, one, was go read the book of Doctrine.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: At that time it was the Transitional Book of Doctrines.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: That first section,
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: the 100th section,
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: tells about the history of Methodism, of John Wesley, and all of that.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know any of that.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: We weren't taught any of that in the UMC.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: I knew of John Wesley.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: I knew him by name.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: I vaguely knew that he was responsible for Methodism.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: I saw Charles Wesley in our hymnal a lot and
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's about all that we knew.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't know what it meant to be Wesleyan.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't understand what our doctrines meant to us with regards to our faith,
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: how we should understand and express it, and the gifts of grace.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: And all of that was...
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe all the classes I did,
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: that was one of the biggest eye-opening classes that I had, what it meant.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: I was all in with regards to discerning going to the GMC.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was all in after I took that particular class because there was just
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: so much I felt was missing.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: Another
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because right around that,
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: roughly around that same time too,
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: just before Mike left Mary Methodist,
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: he was doing a book study on what's the sermons.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: And yes,
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: we used your videos to help translate a little bit because
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: that first class we were using the original text out of, you know, 1700 literature.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: it was hard to distinguish between what John Wesley saying versus
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: the King James Bible.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, right.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because he sure liked to, his speech would flow in and out of quoting the Bible so often.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard to tell where he stopped and the Bible started.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: And vice versa.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: So just all of that understanding just like,
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: We were missing so much and we didn't realize it.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that people realize what they were actually missing.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: What really we signed up for when we became global Methodists and saying
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: that we want to go back to the original church,
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: the Church of Acts and the early Methodism.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: What we should really be understanding about what the early church fathers had
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: to say about our faith and things of that nature.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: I know that they thought things were going wrong,
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: but I think they're only seeing it from the big picture of these big political,
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: splashy topics.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: But they didn't really have the understanding of what it really meant to be Methodist.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so I believe churches need to go back to the basics in the pulpit,
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: in their classrooms, so we can get back to what it really means to be.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because,
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: the class meetings,
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: the bad meetings,
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: all that kind of stuff,
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: those are the tools that were used to help explode that movement.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: I know...
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: This might not be a very popular idea,
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: but you know,
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: you couldn't go to the sermons if you didn't go to your class meetings, right?
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: So if you weren't an active participant, you weren't going to church.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so like, do we want to bring that kind of stuff?
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: we should really be looking at what happened before and seeing what we can pull
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: into today, make relevant today.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, That is what started that movement and those revivals in the early Americas
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: and how we can implement them.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think those are the keys to what will restart a new revival
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: and explode this denomination.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: So he made a reference, Matt,
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: you made a reference just now,
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: and this is why I fill people in, that I,
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: when I was in seminary just afterwards,
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: I made recordings of all of the sermons of John Wesley that were in
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: the public domain and posted them onto YouTube.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: So those are by far the most watched videos that I've ever posted.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm also gonna make sure I put in the description of this video some information
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: about where to go to get information about the Certified Lay Ministry Program at
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: the Upper Midwest.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is the first person that I've talked to in this capacity who's a layperson,
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: but I want to remind anybody who's watching this that I realize I had a couple
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: of videos where I didn't do this.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure I do this again,
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: which is to say if you know someone who's doing really exciting ministry or you know
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: a church that's doing really exciting ministry and if you've got lay people
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: in your mind who are really worth listening to, let me know.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can send me an email at pastortravisatmarcusgrace.com.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: It'll get to me and...
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to just be lifting up these stories.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: I made a couple of connections at a conference I'm going to follow up on.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think it's really important to be able to hear what God's doing,
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: how God's moving individuals.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: Each person's got their own story that is worth hearing and worth reflecting on.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to thank Matt again for being willing to come on here
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: and have this conversation with me.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm realizing that once again, I've managed to spring this on my guest.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: But Matt, would you be willing to close us in prayer?
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: Almighty God, I pray for those watching.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: May they take in our words, ponder them, and seek you wholeheartedly through them.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: Let them hear your word and discern them for their lives rightfully in accordance to your will.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: I pray for Pastor Stevick for his life and his ministry through this video
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: and many other things that he's a part of.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: May his passion for you be seen and felt by those around him
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: so they may also know you and spread the truth of your Son,
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: the power of the Spirit, and the love of the Father.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: I also pray for the Marian Methodist.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: The Upper Midwest Conference,
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: the Global Methodist Church,
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: and all others that have taken up their crosses to follow you
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: so they may live out their lives in the way of Jesus Christ,
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: bringing your word to the ends of this earth and beyond.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: We thank you for this day.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: We thank you for all that we have seen and heard.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: By your love, we are saved.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: And by your grace, we are redeemed.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: In your holy name we pray.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you, Matt.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: So this has been What You've Seen and Heard.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Travis Stevick.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is Matt Kearns.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope to see you guys at our next one.