Latest / Our Community, Our Mission / Ep #190 - Called to be Faithful: Meet Pastor Gabe Pennington

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Ep #190 - Called to be Faithful: Meet Pastor Gabe Pennington · Our Community, Our Mission

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day and your blessings and provisions.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: God, thank you for this time and another opportunity to record a podcast.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Lord, thank you for our listeners.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Pray your blessing over them and Lord, just pray that their hearts and spirits would be encouraged.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: And Lord, that your Holy Spirit would be upon this time.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: In Jesus' name, we pray Amen.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Hello everybody.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: You're listening to Our Community, our Mission, a podcast of the Topeka Rescue Mission.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: This is your host, barry Fieker.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Normally we have Lamanda Roy, executive Director, and Marion Crabill, who's the Deputy Director of Supporting Services, but neither one of them could be here today, and so we're going to kind of do away with some of those preliminary tests that I give them.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I know that they're going to be very disappointed that they didn't get a chance to do that, but today is September 20th, 2023.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: This is podcast 190.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: And we do have a very special guest, though.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: We're not just going to, you know, hear me talk today.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: So we do, yes, we do.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: That's Josh Turley, by the way, so you never hear Josh here.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I stay in the background.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: We sprung it on him one time and actually interviewed him one day.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: He's the guy that puts all this together, and so, josh, just thank you for what you've been doing now for 190 times.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if we finish this one well today.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and I got your back since they're not here, so that's good Okay.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Well, where's my quizzes here that I can ask?
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: you the other question.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: You know I didn't have any.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Well, you already know the answers to them, yeah.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: So that's good.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Before we get into our guest here today, who is just a great guy in our community and got a chance to know him off and on through some experiences working with the homeless and seeing him in some meetings, I want to talk about a special event that's been announced.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: It's called Night of Praise.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: It's going to be this Sunday night, september 24th.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: The doors open at the Fellowship Bible Church at 6 pm and the program actually starts at 6 30.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: It's going to be worship from some different groups of Fellowship Bible Church Topeka Bible Church, grace Point Church who've all come together to be able to just have a relaxed time of people connecting with the Lord and to be able to have no sermons I guess that's part of the deal and HJ Haseem, sj Haseem, is going to be there with his poetry and people can come.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: We do ask that people would sign up on the Topeka Rescue Mission Facebook just to kind of get a count of how many people will be there and then also if they're able to bring a non-perishable food item, because food needs across the whole community are increasing steadily and so the supplies are going down quick.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: So again, that's Night of Praise.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: It's going to be a Fellowship Bible Church and it's going to doors open at 6 o'clock this Sunday night, september 24th.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: There's a lot more that could be said about what's going on, but since I don't have my two ladies here today and I know one's going to be really disappointed that she's not here today, because our guest is a very special person in her life because she attends his church yes, and so we have Pastor Gabe Pennington from Southern Hills Mennonite Church.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Welcome, gabe.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Hello, thank you.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great to have you here.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: It's good to be here.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: So I understand you've been into Topeka at the church about three years now.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, I just came up across my three-year anniversary of being into Topeka.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Congratulations.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what brought you to Topeka and where did?
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: you come from?
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Good question.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Well, my wife and I lived in Western Oklahoma, which is not where we're from.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: We're from Central Oklahoma.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: I grew up in the shadow of Oklahoma City, but we lived in Western Oklahoma about an hour west of Oklahoma City for the last four years before we came here.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: When I was there, I was an associate pastor at a fairly large Mennonite church, but it was in the country and then I taught, was teaching high school English during 2019-2020 when COVID came oh, yes, and through all that, I had got out of pastoring and back into high school teaching, which I had done before, and I was ready to see where God was going to take us next.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: My wife and I had talked through that, what that process might look like Over Christmas break.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: We call it an MLI, a ministerial leadership inquiry.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: It's sort of like online dating for pastors, but instead of I hadn't heard about one of those before you find a church I guess it was online everything, yes.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: So they ask you a bunch of questions and you fill out answers and then people look at your answers and try to find good matches and through that process I was one of the churches that I said.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: They said you should talk to the church here in Topeka.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: So I started some conversations with the search committee here and really was interested in what was going on and just seeing where God was going to lead us.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: This goes a little bit into my wife and I's story.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: She grew up in a large suburb of Oklahoma City and I grew up outside of town, so growing up in the country is something I'm very comfortable with and something that was very natural for me.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: We were through COVID, we were living on a farm about 15 miles north of town, so it was a good drive to get even to Walmart.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: And she missed neighbors, she missed having a neighborhood and people around, and so through that we talked through where might God be leading us next?
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: And I recognized that moving to a town would be something that she would really like to do.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: And we love Topeka.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: It's a great size.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Had you ever been to Topeka before?
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: We had come to Topeka once and it was sort of.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: I have a friend here who pastors at another church here in town and we were passing through one time and I stopped and went to his church, cornerstone Community Church.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, we stopped there for a Sunday and that's the only people we knew in Topeka, but our move here has gone really well.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: I tell people we moved in August of 2020, oh, what a terrible time to move.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: Well, you have to be somewhere.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: There is a lot of people staying put and a lot of people moving.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: Absolutely Thanks.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: So the two parts of that you have to be somewhere, nowhere was easy.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: So was it hard?
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but everywhere's hard.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: And the other part is, I think that this is for us, this was the move that God was leading us to, and it's gone really well With this online pastor dating thing.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: did you do your original interview in person or did you do it online?
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: It was all online, so until the very end.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: So you see that I saw a sheet for the church here that kind of described it in a graphic, so just what was going on.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: And they saw a lot of my answers to some questions and then my first interview with them was.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: My first interview was on my computer and I'm FaceTiming them in my house and they're asking me all these questions and we have a great conversation and afterwards they say, well, check with your wife and see what she thinks about it.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: And I just kind of start laughing and what's going on?
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: Well, she's sitting on the other side of the computer where he can't see her, but she's absolutely interested and couples operate all sorts of different ways In our relationship.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: I'm a firm believer that if God calls one of us, god's calling both of us, and if that's not true, then maybe God's not calling yet.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: So even though she was on the other side of the screen, she was still giving you thumbs up like, hey, this is good, and you're on Zoom or something like that at the time that's an interesting way to interview for a pastor job.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, so we interviewed like that a few times and then came for an initial visit.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: We call it a quiet visit because they didn't tell the congregation.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: They had me come in the middle of the week and come and check out Topeka and I was showing the library and some different parks around town and then later I came and so my process is after the quiet visit, then they had me candidate, so I came and I preached for the congregation and that's when they introduced me to everyone and then the way our church is structured.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: We have worship first and then we have Sunday school, and Sunday school that day was a pastor gaben in questions you had.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: So I was very thankful that I had some softball questions by some friendly folks and also some of these harder questions what's your vision, what do you think moving forward or how?
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: So that was?
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: So where is Southern Hillsmen tonight?
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Obviously somewhere south.
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: Yes, I describe it 37th Adams, but we're actually west of Adams a couple blocks.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: So right across the street from the High Crest neighborhood and if anybody who's been involved with Topeka Rescue Mission has learned that, there was a big effort going on in the High Crest neighborhood with what was called net reach, today it's called sent, and we partnered a lot with Southern Hills, a lot of your members before you ever got to know them, so great, great people over there, and that's one of the things that I think Southern Hills is really good at.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: and as I think about how do we love people, the first part is being connected to the community, both where we live, but also where our building is planted, and that's a big part of it is how do we be a good neighbor?
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: You know, that's a good explanation.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: My first place I ever spoke in a church was in a midnight church in Kansas City.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: We were in Bible school with the Youth of Christ program and we had our first child on the way, this is clear back in 1980, it was summer, it was hot, we didn't have a place to live, and so I got a call from the church and they said hey, come over, we understand your student, we got a spot for you, we got a place you can live.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: We just would ask you to do a few things.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: No rent, no charge, which was good because we didn't have any money.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: And so a nice little place on Metropolitan Avenue in the Kansas City Kansas side, so Metropolitan, about 3700 block.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: And so they said to me we need you to do some cleanup in the church, we need you to do a little yard work here and we could use some help with the youth Sunday school.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I go fine, fine, fine.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, one more thing.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: We'd like for you to fill the pulpit ever once in a while.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: And I said what do you mean fill the pulpit Like?
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Does it need gas?
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: They said you need to preach.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Well, I'd never preached before and I've never done that before.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Well, this would be a great place for you to start your student.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: And so the thing about when we walked in and this was kind of some old men and I I mean, they had their sleeves all the way down to their wrists and the collar's up.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: My wife only had one maternity dress at the time and it was very bright red.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: And we walked in and we stood out like living color.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: You know, it was an older congregation, I think their youth group was about two kids, about 20 in the whole church, and so we thought surely they're going to tell us to leave.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: We had more invitations to dinner after that church service that day and then when I finally got to my day to speak in the church, I was about as nervous as I've ever been in my life and I remember sitting up there as the pastor that they had at the time.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: He was getting ready to do some in there, getting ready to sing the last song, and I'm looking as I'm sitting up on the platform, there's the exit door over there.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: It's not too late.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: I seriously gave.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: I literally thought about running out of that church, and normally a lot of first time speakers they'll go about, you know two minutes and then they're done.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: This church was used to a 15 to 20 minute message and I went 45 and those because I didn't want to stop.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: And so those people were so gracious, they were so nice, I lost 20 pounds in sweat but they, they just were so loving to us.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: So I'm not surprised to hear about your experience here at Topeka.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've had a great experience and I'll back up a little bit.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: And I want to be real clear that I recognize I'm a Mennonite pastor, but I think Mennonite is an expression of the Christian faith.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: I'm a Christian, yes, I follow Jesus.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: There you go.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: We call that Mennonite where I'm at, but it's called different things in different places, and that's fine because I follow Jesus.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I will say that the churches that I've maybe been a little more comfortable in have been smaller churches where everyone has a job.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: There's no, there's no, there's no.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: I just, I'm just here to watch.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: There's no participation.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Right, that's it.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: Everyone has a role to play, and I think that goes with some of these churches is well, we got to fill the pulpit.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: Yes, someone's got to get up there.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: That's right and that's what they did with me, yeah.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I remember the first time that I preached I was in seminary.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: I hadn't preached.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: I went to seminary before I ever preached a sermon.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: And the church we were going to had asked me in a preach and I was ready to go, and then it snowed hard and so, but I lived on campus and so many of the people that would have came and saw me came out to my apartment and I preached to my living room.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: So you were saying God, thank you for this snow today.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Right, I thought I added it.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: No, no, I preached in my living room.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Three years now into Topeka.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: You've got a chance to experience the church and the community.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: What's on your heart personally that you believe the Lord wants you to do here in this community?
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: And what about for the church itself?
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: That's a good question I start with.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: I think God calls us to be faithful.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Sometimes I wrestle with this.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: I think it's a false dichotomy, but it seems like sometimes we're stuck with this Am I called to be faithful or am I called to be relevant?
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: That's a question I remember even exploring in seminary and I think it's a false dichotomy.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: When we're faithful, that's how we become relevant.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: But it's this idea that well, do I want to be snazzy and have all the cool gadgets and nothing against that.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: It's not who I am and it's not who Southern Hills is, and I'm sure for some people that works and that's great.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: But they call us to be faithful and that looks different ways.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: So the next part of that again, I don't think we have a monopoly on the truth.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: Christ is a church here in Topeka and we're a little bit part of that.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: We all have roles to play.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: I was a coach for many years.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: I coached football and wrestling and tennis.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Pastor coach, they kind of go for the hand, don't they.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: I see them very similar, and so I try not to stick to sports metaphors, because I'm sure people that go to a church and their pastor used to be into sports.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: Hey, I'm good with it.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: I remember really good, I do it all the time People say do you have any other thing than football?
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Like so no.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: But it's the same way even with band or orchestra we're all playing the same song, but we all have different instruments and roles to play, just like a football team we're all doing the same thing but we all have different roles.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: And while we have different roles, we're playing the same game and we have the same goal.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: So even if we're not doing the same things, we're doing things to complement each other.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: So back to your question of what's.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: When I think about Southern Hills and its role in Topeka, I think we have a specific role to play, but we're all called a lover neighbor.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: We're called a lover neighbor.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: We're called to love God and love our neighbor and in my opinion, the best way that we love God is by loving our neighbor.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: We love the things that God loves.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: God loves people, we love people and that's how we relate to God, darrell Bock, and how do we do that in your, in your relationship?
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: Aaron Ross, absolutely so.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: My sermon on Sunday was Peter's Restoration, when Peter denies Jesus and then Peter's restored the first thing part about that.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Now I won't redo my whole sermon at all, but I'll point out that Peter's Restoration was public, it wasn't just private, and there's a reason for that that it wasn't just enough that Peter was made right with Jesus, but the disciples needed to see that Peter and Jesus run on the right page.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: But the question in that Jesus pushes to Peter didn't change feed my sheep.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: That was what the charge was all along.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: If you love me, follow my commands, feed my sheep.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: So I think that pushes to us.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: How do we love our neighbor?
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: We take care of them, and that looks different ways.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: So I know the rescue mission does a lot with homeless people here in Topeka.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: When I was in seminary one of the things that really kind of got my feet wet in doing things differently I did an internship at the county jail in northern Indiana and I loved it.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: I absolutely loved it, and I found so I would go to the jail several times a week and meet with guys and talk about so.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Jail is a very transitional place.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: People are either going to prison or a lot of times getting out and thinking through.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: These are people in very vulnerable spots.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: How do we build people up for success and how do we love them, recognizing that people find themselves in all sorts of situations and it does no good to to hound people about the place they're in.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: But to think through, how do we, how do we love people where they're at?
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Gabe, the love piece to me is the method.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: What's the end game?
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: So you are a follower of Christ, you're following his command, you're coaching other people to follow his command, looking for opportunities, but what's the end game?
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: So you go to jail or you work with the homeless or people in the high-crush neighborhood or people in your own congregation.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Where are you trying to go with this?
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: To have life and have it abundantly.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: The life that Jesus provides.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: So I went on a trip recently to Minnesota and one of the we were working with a community that had been damaged by a tornado and hellstorm, and one of the big takeaways that I wanted specifically to the people that went with me to go is our job is not to be the hero, even though we're coming in and doing this work.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: It's really easy to look at ourselves as like, oh, we're Superman, they need us, they don't need us, god's using us.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: But the whole reason that we're going is we love, because God loved us.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: So God loves us and it has to reflect out.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: So the end goal is loving people, so people know that they're loved by God.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: So what's the value in that?
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: I know I'm going you're a pastor buddy, we're not going shallow here today.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Absolutely so.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: God calls us a shalom, which I think is right relationships.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: I define, I use the word shalom, which is a Hebrew word that's often translated as peace, but a canostomy in welfare or completeness.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: So God desires right relationships with humans, so we are made for right relationships with God, right relationships for creation and right relationships with each other and within ourselves, so that the end game is this restoration.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: The restoration that Peter had is the same restoration that we're called to be right with God, so we love people, so people can be right with God and people can belong to God.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: I probably needed to tune into your message that you preached last Sunday, because I really like that.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Those three times Do you love me and really what does love me mean and how.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: you know Peter wouldn't quite get in it, but Jesus was really pressing him to say do we have this right relationship?
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Right, you know, is this are we going in deep?
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, and how challenging is it, with so many polls today, in the society that we live in, to help people to understand not just their value but how to go deep with the Lord.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: I think the there's a lot of distractions today.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: Absolutely so right.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: How do we keep focused on Jesus when things distract us?
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: And it's easy to get caught up in all the things that are going on around us and to miss the bigger picture?
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: I think that's part of it is what is the bigger picture here?
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: So I know I mentioned in our previous talking that I'm a parent and one of the conversations that my wife and I have a lot in parenting is what's the goal, and that the goal is often not compliance, but the goal is safety.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: So whatever you have kids, whatever you're doing, you're going to butt heads and I have a way that I want you to do it and if you don't do it my way, it's the wrong way.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Trying to back off of that a little bit and recognize that we're called right now.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: My wife and I are called to raise these children and, like any relationship and this is a hard part for us we can't make people do the right thing.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: There's nothing that I can do that can guarantee success for anybody else.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: There's no right formula that if we just follow these rules and do these things and our kids will be successful.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: And in my eyes that means love God, love Jesus.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: I want them to live Godly lives and I want them to follow Jesus.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: But, just like my congregation or anyone else I meet, there's nothing that I can do that can make them do that.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: What I can do?
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: So my wife has a saying that she's picked up on you can't.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: You can lead a horse to water.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: You can't make him drink, but you can provide a salt lick so you can… and so, if… Right Ways to encourage people to seek out the life that I see that God has for us, a life of completeness, a life that's not fragmented or isolated.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: A big part of my faith is we're called to love Jesus together.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: That's a corporate call.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: So when I feel… I feel often I enjoy time by myself and I want to spend time alone with God.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: I go to the woods or ride my bike.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: There's lots of things that I do and I think that's a good thing.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: I think the overboard is when we go too far with that is when we choose not to share lives with other people.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: We just want to withdraw from the world.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: That's not my problem.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: I don't want to get involved.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to stay to myself and take care of the things that I have.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: So going deeper?
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to come back to your going deeper question.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Is going deeper means getting messy?
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: It means getting into situations where… things aren't always so clear cut and I am not in control anymore when I think about going deeper.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: That's the when God's in control.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: Gabe is not.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: That's not fun, that's a scary place, right, but that's the faith that we're called to is to recognize that when God is in control, that there are things that I won't control and there are things that will happen that I don't like and things that if I had my druthers, it would not happen this way.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: And but following God means sometimes we end up in those places and it's not like your term, messy, you know it's.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: We would like to have a rulebook.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: We open it up and here's the way we're going to do it.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: It's even in the back of the sports.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Now, you know you can have the game plan, but there's going to be an opposition to the game plan.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, so you have to learn and adapt and try to improve the game plan.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Right, but the goal is to score touchdowns if you're playing football or baskets or whatever, and.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: But it's messy.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's, you know, when you think you're going the right direction and there's going to be something that's going to hit you and people get really discouraged about that.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, I find that people who view Christians or whatever faith following it is, is that religion is the key, you get all these rules down right and you're going to be okay, or it also is the enemy, and neither one of those really are Christ.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, that's yes.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: When I think about the terrible things that have been done in the name of the church or the name of Jesus, it makes me grieve and it should make us grieve.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: And I think and honestly I see this and I see this more and more that people are fed up with short answers or with saying, oh, let's not talk about that, that people are leaning into it and I think we is the, we that belong to Jesus, that are the church, that the church is the people, not the building, and it's easy to say, oh, that's not my thing, no, I think we need to embrace the truth and be honest about yeah, the church has made some big mistakes.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: Christ, didn't people make mistakes?
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: Opposition.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: But Jesus is bigger.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the thing that I heard a mentor of mine say.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: He'd been a pastor for 40 some years, I believe, and he said that he does oftentimes not refer to himself as a Christian anymore.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: He refers to himself as a Christ follower, and I like that.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, christianity has unfortunately tainted the name of Christ and it's tainted the name of the church and the whole intent here.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Not that we want to do away with the word, but what does it mean?
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Does it mean a set of rules that you follow and if you don't, you're going to end up in eternal banishment from God?
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: But if you follow these rules exactly we tell you to do them then you're good.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Or is it deeper than that, right In the middle of the mess about this loving God who has given us his son and his Holy Spirit to have relationship with?
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: Like you do when you go out in the woods.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: Right, the key word is relationship.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: It is and building a relationship and, like in any relationship, there's sometimes things we don't understand, and that's where I think it's important to remember that God is faithful.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Even when we're not, even when we mess things up, god continues to be faithful, and so yeah.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: So how do you deal with the question?
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: And then it's a legitimate question.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: I've asked it many, many, many times, gabe, and that is why does God allow the suffering that goes on, if God is always faithful?
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: And yet, you see, in Topeka, kansas and I think I'm going to digress here a minute Mary and Crabill, who is Deputy Director of Sporty Services, a member of your church, has talked just incredible phenomenal things about you, about your heart, about your Jesus, and so have other people that don't even go to your church.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: There's a heart in here that is exemplary, in not only personal walk but also coaching.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: So, all that said, so you've been touched by the Lord and you've identified.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: It's messy.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: There's not a straight arrow here.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: There's not a straight line here.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: What do you do with the question?
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Why does God allow that to happen to some people?
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: Why do bad things happen?
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: That's for me.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: I want to push back against quick, easy answers, and so to that question I'll say I don't know, and, as uncomfortable as that sounds, especially, I think this is a maybe a generational shift I'm not sure, but this idea that clergy should have all the answers gave what's the answer?
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: I find that more honest than pretending like I do know and trying to put a bandaid over something that I don't understand.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: What I do know, though, goes back to that God is faithful, so when bad things happen, god does not abandon us.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: I think that's when God draws us.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: So why do bad things happen?
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: I don't know, sometimes.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Sometimes bad things happen this is something I heard from my mom growing up Sometimes bad things happen because you make poor choices, and that's true.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Sometimes I make poor choices and I get the consequence of that.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: Sometimes other people make poor choices and I get the consequence of that.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Sometimes everyone's doing the best they can and we still get poor consequences, and we don't understand it, and I don't know why, but I do know that God is faithful and I do know that God is with us, and so those hard times, in my eyes, will come regardless, and it's our choice.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: Do we want to experience them by ourselves or do we want to experience them with the God, who is sovereign?
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: I appreciate your transparency here and I love your answer.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: I don't know, because we don't know everything.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: We're not God, right?
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: And I find comfort in that there are some parts of God that I don't understand.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: For me that's comforting.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: And why it's comforting for me is if I say that I know everything about God, then God is limited by how smart I am.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Then you made him up.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: He's your creation.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: I like to think I'm real smart, but if God is only as smart as me, we got a big problem.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we do, don't we?
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: So, gabe, you worked at one time the mobile access partnership was Southern Hills parking lot and then, due to geography and how the outreach was, they left there.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: But I heard just incredible things about your membership of really reaching out to the folks who were suffering and still do volunteer, and those kind of things, and so I'm going to go.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you allowing me to push you here because I think it's for our listeners and I believe the Holy Spirit knows what's going on here, and I believe that somebody's listening right now who has really been questioning some things in their life, and I believe that that's why you're here, okay, okay, so you're going to have the right answer here, okay, no, no, I'm just kidding.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: So got a guy out here on the riverbank and he's been homeless for say, 20 years and he was abused as a child and he's been in and out of mental health facilities, been in and out of jail.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: He's tried about every substance that you can find to sue this pain.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: He doesn't feel like anybody cares about him, so he's become a survivalist and he's angry.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: He's paranoid, and yet we call him a homeless person that needs to get his act together.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: What do you say about that guy to others that are looking on the surface level, and then what do you say to him personally?
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we are all created by God.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: We are all created in God's image, and that alone makes us worthy of God's love.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: Nothing that we do or say can change that.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: It can make it.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: Nothing that we can do can make it stronger or weaker just the fact that there's nothing that I can do bad enough to change Correct.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: God's thumbprint is on each of us and nothing that we do changes that.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: I think our role as Christians is to help remind people of that, and I think so the eyes of someone that's had a lot of these traumatic things happen.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: We forget things.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: Throughout the Old Testament, again and again, you see the Israelites forgetting God.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: It's really easy to forget good things.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: It's really easy to forget how much God loves us.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: So our role as the church is to remind people that God created you and God did that on purpose and that you are beloved by God.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: And yeah, it doesn't matter how.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: Does that mean we excuse behavior?
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, this morning we read the.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: So should we keep sitting?
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: No, absolutely not.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Our freedom is freedom to love.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: Because of what God has done, we don't have to keep sitting, and that's for me, that's the good news.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: The gospel is that death does not have the final word.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: Sin is not the end.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Jesus provides a way out.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: So we're not a victim to sin.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, we don't have to keep doing it, we can't.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: Christ is the victor.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: Christ is the victor and we get to celebrate in the victory.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: So I'll start with the.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Why do I want my congregation to be involved in the MAP project?
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: This goes back to when I was teaching high school.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: I would stay in front of a group of kids and I taught freshman English and we would lecture for a little bit and they would ask them questions and I would give them homework and send them home for the day.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: At a church, I stay in front of the group, I give a lecture for a little bit, I give them some notes and then I send them home.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: What's the homework?
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: If we're called to love people, I can say you should love your neighbor.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: But opportunities like the MAP project are homework.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: And how do we get better at loving our neighbor?
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: By loving our neighbor.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: So when we go out and we serve people, we learn, and that's the, in my eyes.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: Faith in Jesus is not just head knowledge, it's not just knowing that Jesus did all these things, it's putting it into action.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: And so you find yourself in this situation, whether you're a person that's lived on the streets for 20 years or you're a person that's lived in a house, and you struggle with what's the meaning.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't fully believe all these things, and that's where I would say okay, that's not God.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: God doesn't call us to fully believe things and then act.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: God calls us to follow, and I think the only way to fully understand is to follow.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: So it's through the act of serving and loving that things begin to make more sense.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: When we love our neighbor, when we start to love it, even if we're not sure why, even if we're not sure how and we will make mistakes we'll do things and recognize oh, I probably shouldn't have done it that way.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: Okay, the call to love is not the call to be perfect, but it's a pursuit.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: That's good, that's good, because there isn't an exact way to do it in every situation.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: It's just a thing to do.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Back to your analogy with Jesus speaking to Peter Do you love me, do you love me, do you love me?
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: And every time, with whatever Peter was interpreting that love was and even Jesus dubbed it down for him he said go do this.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Even if you love me as a friend, even if you don't love me as a brother or a gap a love, go do this.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: So he was taking him right where he was and eventually Peter would write some pretty cool stuff like it's the second Peter and some do some really amazing things.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: But Jesus took him right where he was and then said okay, you're not getting out of the love obligation, we're going to do this, we're going to do this love thing because that's primary.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: You know that we got to figure this out, but we're going to take you where you are, but in the midst of that, go do.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Go feed my sheep.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: So there's the lab, there's the homework.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I think that's a way that we view education, that in America we often think if we give people all the right information, then they'll just make the right choices.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: But we see again and again that's not true.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: People have all access to all the right information and people continue to make destructive and unhealthy choices.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: So there's got to be something more than just head knowledge.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: It absolutely does.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: You know, there's so many people today that feel like they failed.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: They're just hanging on whether they may live in a two and a half story home, got three car garage, whatever but there's the sense of failure for someone.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Or the guy that's down, like we talked about, it's been homeless outdoors for 20 years.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, I feel like I'm a failure.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: I don't feel like I can trust anybody.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: I've been disappointed so many times.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: I've been let down, let down, let down.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: People have been using me, so I've created this bubble around me.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: So how do you take what you would communicate out to the people who just see it from a distance, to the person themselves?
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: I think the same loneliness and same fragmentation is what we feel.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: Everyone feels that, and we like to think that, oh, I have things together, or maybe more so.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: We like to present and project ourselves as we have it together.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: Look at all the things that I have going on, look at the filters I can use on different social media to show you how good things are for me.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: But without that right relationship, we know full well that things aren't like they're supposed to be and we can point at someone else and say, oh, I'm so much better off than that person.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: First off, that's nowhere is comparing the goal.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: And secondly, the things that pull us down are not unique.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Every human feels those that draw to isolate, the draw to not be loved, the draw to be spiteful and mean when people are mean to us, and that's a response to trauma.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: When we get hurt, we want to hurt people back.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: We're definitely protecting ourselves, so we don't get hurt again.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: Right, and that's the yeah.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: My wife and I had spent several years as foster parents and one of the things we learned is people are really good at surviving in whatever situation they're putting.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: So when we look at people and we say, oh, I can never do that, well, it's because you're not in this situation, because people in those situations have adapted In any situation, have adapted great survival techniques for that situation.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: God calls us to wholeness.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: Wholeness does not mean survival.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: Wholeness is more akin to thriving, so that a lot of those same skills that we and I say we not like, we all do this have adapted maladaptive or hurtful proc practices so we can survive, not so we can thrive.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: And that's when we compare ourselves, other people and and we don't know any difference.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: You know a couple things I heard you say is is One is you you recognize your own limitations, that I don't have all the answers?
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: And also, if somebody is looking at you as the Godman, okay, you're the Godman, right, you're the pastor.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, the Godman is that there's no difference between you and the person that you're talking to in front of you.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: There really is no difference.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: No, the same God created both of us and we are beloved in God's eyes.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of times people will look at the Godman and they will expect him, as you said, have all the answers, to be the perfect guy, to be special, hmm.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah you're special.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: God really loves you because he made you a Godman.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: But you're not saying that any of those are accurate.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: No, no, that it's the the same.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: God loves us the same and ends my.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: My call is to remind people of how much God loves them.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, dear friend of mine, been in law enforcement, worked a lot of very sad, serious, incredible crimes and he struggled with it very much.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: He struggled with it because of God.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: You know where's God and all this and and he said one of the best things I ever said to him is life's messy brother.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm life is messy.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: We would like for it to be unmesse.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: So what we'll do is we'll get on Facebook and we'll look at all the unmesse part people who've Given us exactly what they want us to see or we'll turn on the television and see all these wonderful things and all the trips we could take and all the money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and and and try to unmasse it by covering up the mess.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: We can't cover up the mess.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: Actually, mess is going to cover us up if we don't go into it and address it and I think the biggest way, especially in modern American Society, that we try to cover up the mess is getting more stuff yes, right, how much, and whether it's actual stuff like boats and cars or whatever, but also busyness.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: The the proudest people in America are the busiest people.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: Right, and look how busy I am.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: I have this to go to, I have that to go to.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: Everyone needs my time and we try to fill that.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: What we're doing is we're trying to fill in this, this, this mess, to try to make it look like, oh, I'm so important, but really what we're doing is just dumping stuff, hoping that something will scratch covered up.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, gabe, there may be somebody listening right now and and it could be this day, on September 20th, or it could be a year from now, could be, as Josh and I've kind of catered around it could be a thousand years From now, because this is cyberspace, right, but be listening.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: But right today they are Wondering if they really have enough to go on the words time to check out.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Not sure, I want to live anymore now.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Somehow they stumbled across this or just brought it up on their iPhone or whatever is thousand years from now, they're not sure anymore, and they've been listening to you and I and and boil it down for that person right now.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: God loves you.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: God loves you, and you're gonna feel like you're not enough, and so do I, because the short answers were not.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: But God is.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: God doesn't call me to be enough.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: God calls me to follow, and that's enough and I do that.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: What's what's what's in it for me?
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: What's in it for me to follow Jesus I I think is is the abundant life that God calls us to.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: I've never known that.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: I've never experienced that.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: I think that that's for other people, but not me.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: I'm different.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: I think we are all.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: We are all created by God and because of that, the the only thing that will satisfy us is is the living water that is Jesus.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: We can chase lots of things and nothing will satisfy us and we can feel not good enough and know that God is enough.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: And then I'm gonna put next to that is God calls us.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: God calls us to to love in a corporate way.
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: So I don't, I Am unconvinced that we can follow Jesus alone.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: And am I understanding?
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: We follow Jesus in a group.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: So when we get to those spots and we find, oh, I don't know how I can keep going, and that's where we have our sisters and brothers to lean on, to bear one another's burdens, to encourage one another, because there's there's times that we all need to pick me up, there's times that we all need reminded, and that's where the, the community of believers comes in.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: And a lot of times we call that church and that's what.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: That's what my congregation calls it.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Different people call it different things, but but it's a call to community, it's a call to know and to be known and and to to follow God.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: I think is a call to that, that community life.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: And does that mean that you need to go Live in a house with a bunch of people?
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: Not necessarily, but it means that there's people that know the real you, the authentic you, that the you that we like to hide, the you that we like to put behind Instagram filters or whatever, because it's, it's a reminder that that God loves us, and and when we forget that, and when we stumble, and when we grasp that there are people around us that remind us that God loves you, right where you're at, and God is leading you to something more.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and there is a responsibility on my part.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, that is to take the hand that's been offered to me.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: If the Lord is stretching out his hand and saying, hey, I want you to trust me, I Can not take his hand right.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: So when you say God loves you, and he's here for you and you don't need to check out because you're valuable before him.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: He there's.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: There's the responsibility on my part.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Am I gonna grab ahold of that message and, by faith, walk it out?
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: I may not see it.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: I may have unrealistic Expectations that tomorrow I'm gonna win the water.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: You know right there all my debt or whatever right, but it is a, it's a, it's a journey.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: It's messy, but in the middle of our mess Christ is there.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: We can reach out to him, but we've got to grab ahold of the reach.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: Absolutely that we we are responsible for, for our own actions, and God calls us to follow, and in the New Testament we read the wonderful stories of people that do follow.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: But we also see stories where people don't.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: A lot of times they don't have names because they're the people that said no, but Jesus called lots of people and some people have more important things to do, or, according to them, they do them right at the time.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe later on.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: We didn't get the rest of the story right so, but Jesus calls us to follow, and I Think the thing that pushes me to is that that call to follow is not just the lights, which either Once I've said yes, then that I'm good and I can do, kind of whatever I want from that point, I think it's a continual call to follow the disciples that said yes to follow Jesus and left their boats or the tax collector booth or whatever they left to follow Jesus For three years.
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: They they had to wake up and say, okay, I'm gonna keep doing this.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: And I imagine there are probably people that at some point, you know, I don't think I can do this anymore and and they didn't do it perfectly right, and that's that's.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: That's it too is is, when we mess up, the God doesn't give up on us, absolutely.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: I see a God that constantly pursues creation From Adam and Eve in the garden.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: God looks for us To Jesus, god continues to seek us out and so when we mess up, god is there, calling us back, jesus welcomes us home and we continue to say yes.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: And there are days that we look back and go that didn't go as well as I would have thought, and Jesus still calls us back.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: If you're hearing this right now and you're going, man, that sounds too good to be true.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Give it a shot, give it a try and see what God does in your life.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: Give me a couple more questions for you and I want my last question will be is there anything else you want to say?
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Because you and I could go on and on and on.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: This is kind of fun.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: There's kind of two pastors here who can really dig into this.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: But you came to a to pick a rescue mission, pastor's clergy lunch the other day.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: Information the rescue mission had done three community meetings to kind of unpack what's going on with the mission, address the homeless issues and some other, just kind of straighten some things out and would have been said in lots of different social media things that weren't accurate.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: Came to the pastor's luncheon.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: What did you take out of that and what would you say is something that the body of Christ general right in Topeka can do, going forward with those who are experiencing homelessness in our community.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: My biggest takeaway is a reminder that the body of Christ is the church in Topeka.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: It is not Southern Hills, but tonight or any other church that is planted here.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: We are all part of this body.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: I think it was you that brought up the point that the rescue mission is a paratroop organization, which means alongside the church, not the whole side, and so we all have back to that metaphor of whether you want to be a band or a sports team, we all have a role to play, and whether it's a big congregation or a little congregation or anywhere in between, we all have a role to play and that role is for everyone.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: What would you encourage or suggest for the body of Christ to do going forward?
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: The city and county and the state to some degree, are stepping into this arena of homelessness here, which they haven't really done much before.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: It's been predominantly the rescue mission and the body of Christ and some others for about 70 years.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: And now there's a tendency sometimes, when government steps into a thing, that the body of Christ steps back, steps back from actually boots on the ground financially, those kind of things, and so now that we've seen the city, they've taken this and kind of run with it in our suggestion that they need to get ahold of this in a different way than they historically have.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: But what can we say about the body of Christ?
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: And, from your lens, what can be done through the church, in conjunction with others in the community, to reach out to those who are suffering?
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: I think this calls me back to some of my seminary classes about Missiology, missions and anytime missionaries go to a new place and there's competing narratives of God is calling me to do something new, and sometimes that's true, but I think a lot of times God is already at work and what we're called to do is see where God is at work and join in God in that work.
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: That's perfect.
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: So and I am we don't have to create something.
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: God do we?
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: Yes, no, god is firmly at work in Topeka.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: Our job is to take a minute to look around and see where's God at work.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: And how can I be a part of that process?
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: Because if we choose not to, let's say we choose not to be a part of what God's doing, what side of the coin does that put us on?
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: That's not where I want to be.
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: So I want to see what God's doing and be a part of that and recognize that.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: I'm sure I can dream big of ways to solve an issue, but God is already at work.
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: It's not up to Gabe to fix anything.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: It's up to Gabe to follow God.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: It's up to Southern Hills or any church in Topeka to follow God, see what God's doing and try to catch up with what's God doing and how do I help out?
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's good.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: I heard you say something in that clergy luncheon that we had and I hope I'm quoting you correctly, but you came there today to learn everything you didn't learn in seminary.
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: So that's an ongoing things I didn't learn in seminary.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: I learned lots of fun things in seminary about.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: What I said to then was I learned how to read Greek and Hebrew, which are great.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: I didn't learn how to dispose of needles that were left in our parking lot, and that's something that I've learned in my role here as pastor at Southern Hills, and it's a safety thing, right.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's something that needs to be done.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: It's not like for somebody else to take care of, absolutely Right?
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's what I learned here in my area of ministry responsibility, whether it's at the church or in your neighborhood or wherever it is.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: And you're not saying, okay, I didn't learn that in seminary, so it's not my job, right?
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: No, I love that game.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: I think that that was well said.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: Seminary is very valuable.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: They can't teach you everything, right?
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: And I think the relevance of the church in our community, as well as our nation in the world, is going to be evidenced by people who are going to love, going to follow the Lord's command to go out and do, but are not going to say it's somebody else's job.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Right, and that takes a little bit of organizational systems that we've yet to try to figure out, but the needs are so significant in our country, today in the world and right here in our community of Topeka, kansas, that if the church sits back and waits, it's not going to get better, right, it will get vastly worse and it's going to be messy.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: It's messy today, it will be even more messy.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: But Jesus came in the middle of a mess called Barry, you know, and he says I'm going to help reboot that.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: Right, I'm going to be there, as long as he lets me, to help straighten that guy out and he's still working on it and in all of us.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: But he also can do that with the body of Christ.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: He can do it in our community as well, if we don't just sit back and say somebody else's job to pick up the dirty needle.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good, that's good.
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: Well, gabe, I thank you so much.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: It's been a lot.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Is there anything else you'd like to say today on our community, our mission for people?
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: to get to know your heart or anything that's going forward.
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: This is good.
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: I'm going to say that how do we love God, how do we love others and how do we do it together, and that's I'll throw this in.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: One of the things that I really enjoyed from the clergy meeting is hearing other pastors that are going through some more things.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: I can talk with pastors across Tipeek and we have vastly different experiences, but it's good to hear that the things that I deal with are not that different Right.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: We have some different approaches to walking out the gospel, maybe some different interpretations of theology.
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: Maybe you read the Greek, this one, or the Hebrew a different way.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Bottom line is if that needle is on the ground, doesn't matter what Greek or Hebrew means.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: It means it's on the ground and there's somebody that's suffering because of that, and we could come together around those things.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: And the other thing is the supremacy of Christ.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: We can come around about him too.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, well, gabe Pennington, pastor of Southern Hills Mennonite Church here in Tipeek, have been here three years and thanks for digging in, thanks for saying yes, absolutely.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: We first started over the Internet in a pandemic event, and so thank you for your service here and just your love and, I think, your leadership as well.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: So thanks for being here.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to our community, our mission.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: If you would like more information about the Tipeek Rescue Mission, you can go to trmonlineorg.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: That's trmonlineorg.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: If you'd like to go to the Night of Praise which will be at Fellowship Bible Church September 24th 2023, starting at 6 pm or the door is open, it's just going to be a night of worship for anybody.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be anybody that goes to fellowship or TBC or Grace Point.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: It's for anybody just to be able to come and worship the Lord together.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: If you'd like to help promote our community, our mission, you can subscribe to it, you can rate it or you can share it.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: Thanks again for listening to our community, our mission.