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[WW] Defined: Clemson Wesley · The Wesley Word

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Wesley Works.
0:15
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Wesley Worship.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna grab a pony real quick.
0:18
SPEAKER_02: If we haven't met yet, uh my name is Steve Simonov.
0:21
SPEAKER_02: I'm the campus minister here.
0:22
SPEAKER_02: I heard there was some confusion during dinner.
0:25
SPEAKER_02: That Mr.
0:26
SPEAKER_02: Jim, who's about, I don't know, 40 years older than me.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: Y'all thought he was Steve, but I'm not that old, John.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: Um, but welcome.
0:32
SPEAKER_02: Uh we haven't met yet again.
0:33
SPEAKER_02: My name is Steve Simonov, campus minister here.
0:35
SPEAKER_02: Just want to introduce myself briefly.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, my family is up there.
0:38
SPEAKER_02: They're definitely the better part of me.
0:41
SPEAKER_02: That is my wife Julie.
0:42
SPEAKER_02: You may have met her if you were trying to get lemonade or water.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: She was there serving drinks today.
0:47
SPEAKER_02: She is super incredible.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: She teaches second grade for Pickens County School District.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: She's actually a virtual teacher this year, but she's also her first semester being a professor type person.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: She's an instructor for student teachers, I believe, uh, primary, uh, early childhood people.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: So um if you happen to be there or aspire to be there one day, um, she's a good person to talk to and connect with.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: That's my man Coleman right there.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: He's in sixth grade.
1:12
SPEAKER_02: We're starting middle school this year.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: It's awesome, it's incredible.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: Um, he's 11, and then Finley is a fireball.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: If you do well here, by the time you graduate, if Finley smiles at you or acknowledges you, you've done really good, right?
1:25
SPEAKER_02: Um, it took me four years as her father to get her to smile at me, okay?
1:29
SPEAKER_02: So it takes a little while.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: But um, no, Susan, my kids, you know, family, love, uh, we good back there?
1:36
SPEAKER_02: They're awesome people, and uh we look at campus ministry as a family lifestyle together.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: So um feel free to engage them.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: Coleman's always willing to play sports, hang out, that kind of stuff.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: And Finley, if you really want like some ends with her, if you're like, hey, let's like paint nails to do arts and crafts, that kind of stuff, you could be her hero there.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: So just throwing that out there if you're looking for that.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: That's my number.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: You texted me to get a giveaway, which we're gonna get to in just a second.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: Um, but we have my number up there, we put Andrew Wetzel's number up there.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh we are here for you.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: Our primary function, our primary role is to be um pastors for you.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: And so um, you can text or call us at any time.
2:09
SPEAKER_02: Um, if you have, again, like you know, I got my sleep mode on from 10 to 7, but if you call twice in a row, I'll wake up, right?
2:16
SPEAKER_02: One year there was somebody that had uh an appendix taken out, like Steve, we didn't want to bother you.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: That's when you call me twice and bother me at 2 a.m., right?
2:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, don't, you know, and people have text me all kinds of stuff.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: Just let me know.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: I'm here for you.
2:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, and again, just excited to be here.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: I'm starting my ninth year in campus ministry.
2:31
SPEAKER_02: I was a student here a long time ago, graduated from Clemson Go Tigers, and also came through Clemson Wesley.
2:36
SPEAKER_02: So excited to be here.
2:38
SPEAKER_02: You know, it'd be a great thing to do.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
2:41
SPEAKER_02: Good and gracious God, we thank you so much for this day, for this time together, just to come and to worship you, to enjoy some good food, to meet some new friends, to catch up with old friends, a chance to come and to worship you, oh God, in the midst of our increasingly busy schedule.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: So chance just to come and to praise you and to be in community together.
2:58
SPEAKER_02: For these things, we give you thanks and praise.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: We ask all this in Christ's name.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
3:04
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna start a couple weeks, two or three week series uh called Define.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: I think it's important to define a lot of things.
3:10
SPEAKER_02: My first appointment, my first place that I served as a pastor, I had a colleague there.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: She was also a pastor, and she was telling me a story of her first experiences with campus ministry, and it was not a pleasant experience in campus ministry.
3:25
SPEAKER_02: They had a Bible study that was meeting in her dorm uh hallway, and so they came by the dorms and knocked on the doors, like, hey, we're doing a Bible study, you know, Tuesday nights, are you interested?
3:33
SPEAKER_02: Why don't you come?
3:34
SPEAKER_02: She's like, you know, I want to meet some new people, sure, I'll come to Bible study Tuesday nights at 7 o'clock.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: And so she went down Tuesday night at 7 o'clock and she was there and enjoyed the Bible study, met some cool people, small groups are important.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: She's like, oh yeah, this is this is awesome.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: Well, the next week, the person that led the Bible study came by around 6:30, knocked on the door one more time, was like, hey, you know, we came last week.
3:52
SPEAKER_02: Are you coming again this week?
3:53
SPEAKER_02: We'd love to have you.
3:53
SPEAKER_02: She's like, Yeah, I'll come this week, yeah, no problem.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: And so she went and she was just carrying out for like you know a few different weeks.
3:59
SPEAKER_02: And then finally something came up on Tuesdays, you know, like wing night or what was going on.
4:02
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
4:02
SPEAKER_02: But she said there was one night where she just she was like, just wasn't feeling it right, she was swamped, she just wasn't doing it.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: And so she had the opportunity to go out to dinner with some folks, um, but she didn't want to tell the Bible study people know, right?
4:11
SPEAKER_02: And so um she said, Look, I'm not gonna be there this Tuesday.
4:14
SPEAKER_02: She kind of lied to him, right?
4:15
SPEAKER_02: She's like, I'm kinda tired, I'm just gonna take chill, I'm just gonna chill, be here by myself, right?
4:18
SPEAKER_02: Well, she got like a text or a phone call later that day because it was before texting, right?
4:23
SPEAKER_02: And they were like, Look, um, we came by your room to check on you and you weren't there, so like, uh, what's up?
4:27
SPEAKER_02: Why are you lying to us, right?
4:28
SPEAKER_02: And she's like, Oh, my bad, right?
4:29
SPEAKER_02: Like they were like hunting this person down, right?
4:31
SPEAKER_02: And then they come back uh the next week, you know, same kind of thing.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: And eventually it got to the point where she was like scared to go out, right?
4:38
SPEAKER_02: These people were like like stalking her and stuff, right?
4:41
SPEAKER_02: And she tells this story, and the way she tells it is so much better than me.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: But there was one night where they were going out and some girlfriends invited her to go out shopping and go to dinner, right?
4:48
SPEAKER_02: But the way that you had to get out of your of her dorm room, it passed by like the the entryway in the dorm was like this big like conference room, right?
4:56
SPEAKER_02: It had some windows or whatever, but there was a wall that came up this big.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: And she said, like to get out of her place on Tuesday night, right?
5:02
SPEAKER_02: She actually got down her hands and knees and had to like sneak past the Bible study, right?
5:07
SPEAKER_02: And and get back out of them, right?
5:08
SPEAKER_02: And she said, when she came back, she made it out first, she's like, Well, good.
5:12
SPEAKER_02: But when she came back, right, the Bible study leader was waiting on her and was like, Where you been, right?
5:18
SPEAKER_02: Where you been, right?
5:20
SPEAKER_02: I say this to say this.
5:22
SPEAKER_02: Some campus ministries are crazy, y'all.
5:25
SPEAKER_02: You might think we're crazy, but what I want you to do here on the first night in this defined series is I want to explain who we are at Clemson Wesley or who we claim to be at Clemson Wesley, who we try to live into so that you can know what to expect, right?
5:39
SPEAKER_02: Let me first of all say we want you to go on Fall Retreat, we want you to join small groups.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: You do not have to crawl like underneath the window to hide from us, okay?
5:46
SPEAKER_02: Right?
5:46
SPEAKER_02: We want you here when you can be here.
5:48
SPEAKER_02: If you can only come today and one more time, or this is the only time we see you, that's great.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: We love you, we're glad you're here.
5:52
SPEAKER_02: But it's important to know what you're getting into and to define what it is that we're doing.
5:57
SPEAKER_02: Took systematic theology in seminary, and one of the big things you had to do in all your papers, you had to define your terms, right?
6:03
SPEAKER_02: Define your terms and then go about and writing about it.
6:06
SPEAKER_02: So here's some things you can expect at Clemson Wesley, how we sort of define ourselves, four key principles that we hold on to.
6:12
SPEAKER_02: And if you need a cheat cheat or you forget, it's on the back of those awesome t-shirts.
6:15
SPEAKER_02: That uh give a hand to Megan Brown for designing those t-shirts, by the way.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: Also, they get some great dessert next week.
6:24
SPEAKER_02: Um, but here's the first thing, and this is something we hold true.
6:27
SPEAKER_02: This is like our biggest principle that we have here at Clemson Wesley.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: We say that all are welcome, right?
6:31
SPEAKER_02: And when we say all are welcome, we try to live into that and we try to mean that wholeheartedly and 100% through and through.
6:37
SPEAKER_02: And what we mean by that is we want to welcome you for who you are and as you are, just as you are, right?
6:43
SPEAKER_02: No matter who you are, what you've done, what you've been through, you are a beloved child of God and you belong here, and we want to welcome you in.
6:50
SPEAKER_02: We live off of that Eos from Luke 14.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: I preached about that this morning.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: I preached at the contemporary service on Sunday morning, shameless plug.
6:56
SPEAKER_02: If you want to come to church, come at 10:30.
6:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, but in there we see the parable where Jesus is talking about the master that sends out his servant to go and to invite everyone, right?
7:06
SPEAKER_02: And there's still room at the table and says it goes and go and invite the poor, the lame, the crippled.
7:10
SPEAKER_02: There's still room.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: And he says, Go out into the streets and invite everybody and welcome them here, right?
7:16
SPEAKER_02: That's sort of where we get our being of who we want to be.
7:19
SPEAKER_02: Then we look at the next chapter of Luke, Luke 15, with the story of the prodigal son, of the loving father, where you know, the prodigal son, if you know I'm familiar with that story, runs off, squanders everything.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: It's like, ah, can I come back?
7:28
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
7:29
SPEAKER_02: And when he starts walking back, the father runs out to him, embraces him with open arms, and says, My son has returned.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad to see you.
7:36
SPEAKER_02: We want to be a people of hospitality here.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: We want to be a people of strong welcome, where you feel like you can be here for who you are and as you are.
7:45
SPEAKER_02: That's the number one thing that we want to be here is all are indeed welcome.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we do greater that, sometimes we mess up a little bit, but we strive to be a place to define ourselves where people truly are welcome.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: And with that, the second thing, not only can you define us hopefully by people of hospitality and welcome, but that you can also expect that we're gonna treat you like family, right?
8:05
SPEAKER_02: And when I say treat you like family, anybody got some crazy family members?
8:08
SPEAKER_02: You don't raise your hand too bad, right?
8:10
SPEAKER_02: When they're sitting online today, so like I can like talk about my family, right?
8:13
SPEAKER_02: I got some crazy people, y'all, right?
8:15
SPEAKER_02: And and Trisha, it like it wasn't Thanksgiving until she showed up, and then once she showed up, it was like it was game on.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: You knew the house was gonna burn down, right?
8:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, she was crazy.
8:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, she'd be gone for a little while, love you and Tricia.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: But I'm saying she was crazy, all right?
8:29
SPEAKER_02: She'd be okay with this, right?
8:31
SPEAKER_02: What I say by that is we're not always gonna get along here, right?
8:34
SPEAKER_02: They're gonna be people that you disagree with.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: They're gonna be some people that you're like that crazy ant that you're like, oh, here they come, right?
8:40
SPEAKER_02: But we remember that they're still welcome here, that we're still a part of the family, and that we live into that's that's that's diversity together.
8:48
SPEAKER_02: What we want you to do when we say treat you like family is that we don't want you to feel like you have to fit in here, right?
8:53
SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes we have family members, they don't necessarily fit with the family, but they still belong, right?
8:57
SPEAKER_02: And we want you to have a place that you can belong as you go through school, whether you're at Sue or Tri-County or Clemson, right?
9:03
SPEAKER_02: Fitting in means you've got to change the way that you are or dress a certain way or act a certain way to be someplace and to fit in.
9:09
SPEAKER_02: Belonging means that you are welcomed as you are for who you are here in this place.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: And that's what we strive to be about.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: And again, that's difficult, right?
9:18
SPEAKER_02: It's a whole lot easier to be a community that is homogeneous and everybody is the same.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: But we strive to be a place that looks a little bit like the kingdom of God, right?
9:28
SPEAKER_02: And if you were to survey people, we're not gonna do that, right?
9:30
SPEAKER_02: There are people in here who voted for Trump.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: There are people who voted for Biden, there are people who were like, please, I'm voting for nobody, right?
9:38
SPEAKER_02: Or whatever.
9:39
SPEAKER_02: People, all they're conservatives here, they're progressives here.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: There are people who have grown up in church from the day that they were born, there are people that this might be the first time you stepped in church, someone said mac and cheese, and you said yes, please, right?
9:49
SPEAKER_02: Forget that, right?
9:50
SPEAKER_02: It's okay.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: Fair, all right?
9:52
SPEAKER_02: Not out in anybody.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: But we are here, right?
9:56
SPEAKER_02: And we want to welcome each other, we're gonna live in here, right?
9:59
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, not I we try to be in affirming place here.
10:02
SPEAKER_02: I consider myself an ally, and so we welcome folks in the LBT community.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: And there are folks who are out here, there are folks who who don't feel comfortable being out here yet.
10:09
SPEAKER_02: There are folks that are uncomfortable with us welcoming people in that community.
10:14
SPEAKER_02: We all come together as one body with each other, being reminded that each and every one of us are created in the image of God, that God has created us all, and in that sense, and because of that, we welcome all and come together.
10:28
SPEAKER_02: And that's gonna make some people wrestle, and we're gonna have a we want to have a diverse group as we welcome people, and that's okay, and it's okay to even be uncomfortable sometimes.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: But I want you to know this is what you can expect.
10:40
SPEAKER_02: I've used this metaphor, I get it from N.T.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: Wright, he's a famous scholar, I don't go with myself, but he uses the image to describe the church and describe the community.
10:48
SPEAKER_02: He uses this idea of the river and the tree.
10:50
SPEAKER_02: And he says that both are necessary for a community of faith.
10:54
SPEAKER_02: And what he means by that, if you think about a river, now I'm not a geologist or whatever, whoever studies rivers, I don't know, right?
10:59
SPEAKER_02: But if you think about it at the beginning, I was a math major, by the way, I should have told that at the very beginning.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: Um but the river starts with all these diverse things, right?
11:07
SPEAKER_02: You got these little tributaries, these little creeks, right, that sort of come together.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: And eventually, I grew up in New Orleans, and you end up at the mighty Mississippi River.
11:14
SPEAKER_02: But in order to get to this big, wide river, you have to have all these little pieces of running water that come together and make this river.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: In many ways, the church and the community of faith that we strive to be are like a river.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: Many of you came here today.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: We just had a quick sampling today, and I already forget people, right?
11:32
SPEAKER_02: But we had Pennsylvania, we had Charleston, we had Greenville, Greenville, and we had, who else did I talk about tonight?
11:37
SPEAKER_02: I can't remember who else, who else?
11:39
SPEAKER_02: Atlanta! Thank you, Megan.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: All right, we had Atlanta, right?
11:41
SPEAKER_02: And we have even broader than that, but God has brought together all of us from all these different places, different backgrounds, that we might come together and we might worship together in one space and in one voice.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: I said in the back, it is so good to hear people singing again as we've come back inside this fall.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: In many ways, we're like a river that we come together and we form this unity as we flow from different places and flow into one as we worship God.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: Somebody should shave next time.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: All right.
12:10
SPEAKER_02: But we're unified in this river, but that's not enough, right?
12:13
SPEAKER_02: We also have to be like a tree.
12:15
SPEAKER_02: If you think about a tree, a river, every you have this diversity that flows into unity, but a tree starts out unified, starts out as a seed.
12:21
SPEAKER_02: And again, I'm not a botanist, but it grows in, you get this little stalk coming out, eventually it becomes a trunk.
12:25
SPEAKER_02: And most trees end up having different limbs, right?
12:28
SPEAKER_02: Even big old tall pine trees and poplar trees, they still have at least a couple different things going out.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: And this is constant movement in the spirit, constant movement in this community, what we want to be about as we welcome each other, is that it's okay to have diversity.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: It's okay to be coming from all these different places and to be worshiping together.
12:44
SPEAKER_02: And it's also okay that as we go down this worshiping life and this community life together, to also realize that we might split off a little bit and we might think differently, we might believe things a little bit differently, but we're still a part of this river that's flowing, but we're also part of this tree that's growing.
12:55
SPEAKER_02: And it's this this constant diversity, unity, unity brings diversity back and forth type thing.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: And I want you to hear that we want to have diversity, we want to have unity, but one thing that I have no interest in being, and I don't think Jesus does either, is to have uniformity.
13:09
SPEAKER_02: Right?
13:09
SPEAKER_02: You know, unity does not mean uniformity.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: You can have different varying beliefs and still belong here, you can think differently, you can be different, you can you can love different, you can all we can all still be here though to worship the God who has created and redeemed us all.
13:23
SPEAKER_02: We're not all the same thing.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: Man, that's a good thing.
13:27
SPEAKER_02: That's a real good thing.
13:28
SPEAKER_02: All right, so promise what you can expect here as we define Clemson Wesley, all are gonna be welcomed here.
13:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, we are gonna treat each other like family.
13:36
SPEAKER_02: And the third thing we're gonna do is because you know it's more than just like a big powell, let's hug it out and be like, oh, it's great to be here.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: We want to challenge you to grow in your faith.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: If you graduate the same that you walked in here today, we have failed you as a campus minister, campus ministry.
13:50
SPEAKER_02: Whether you are a senior or a junior or a freshman or uh assistant campus minister, I should be changing as I go and I grow in my faith, right?
13:59
SPEAKER_02: And this comes to how we grow in our faith.
14:01
SPEAKER_02: We get this model from Jesus, right?
14:02
SPEAKER_02: Jesus was always asking questions, right?
14:06
SPEAKER_02: He was asked about 183 questions, give or take a question or two, right?
14:10
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus himself asks over 300 questions.
14:15
SPEAKER_02: Scripture is full of questions.
14:17
SPEAKER_02: The Jewish people in the Old Testament are filled with questions and going back and forth, right?
14:21
SPEAKER_02: We look at Genesis 32, we look when Jacob was wrestling with God and wouldn't let go and continue to wrestle with him.
14:27
SPEAKER_02: But friends, I want you to wrestle with your faith.
14:30
SPEAKER_02: You may come to, as you wrestle with your faith, you may say, you know what, I this is what I believe, and I've wrestled with it, and I'm sticking with it.
14:36
SPEAKER_02: And that's okay.
14:37
SPEAKER_02: You may come in with some beliefs and you wrestle with it, and you're like, you know, mama dad, that was great, but this is where I'm at now, right?
14:44
SPEAKER_02: It's okay to wrestle, it's okay to stay the same, but I want you to at least wrestle, to work through that, and to do that.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, and to do that, it requires discipleship.
14:52
SPEAKER_02: And discipleship, as I say all the time, requires intentionality.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: Discipleship is not busyness.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: Oftentimes in the church, we think, well, as long as we're busy, right?
15:00
SPEAKER_02: As long as I do everything, come on Wednesday nights, it's gonna be a great outdoor space, by the way.
15:04
SPEAKER_02: We got it worked out, we got some lights, it's gonna be awesome on Wednesday night, right?
15:07
SPEAKER_02: Come to Sunday night for the food, go to 18 small groups, go hit breakfast up, hot belly deli on Thursdays.
15:11
SPEAKER_02: You can fill your life, all your time up with churchy stuff.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: But in order to really go deep and to grow in your faith and to challenge your faith as you grow, requires you to be intentional, right?
15:23
SPEAKER_02: There's a good chance our tigers are gonna win the national championship this year.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: Why?
15:26
SPEAKER_02: Because we're awesome, right?
15:28
SPEAKER_02: But they don't just show up, they're not just gonna show up in Charlotte and be like, yo, we're tigers, we're gonna kick your tail, right?
15:34
SPEAKER_02: No, right?
15:35
SPEAKER_02: They've been intentional about the things they eat, intentional about the things that they do.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: They are intentional every step of the way as they prepare to do that.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: Ask any athlete here at Clemson, they're intentional about what they do.
15:46
SPEAKER_02: Your discipleship is gonna require you to be intentional, right?
15:50
SPEAKER_02: Before you can pour out into others and to live out this faith, you need to make sure that you are being poured into.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: People ask me all the time as a pastor, what do I do to grow my faith?
15:59
SPEAKER_02: How can I grow in my faith?
16:02
SPEAKER_02: The best answer I can give you is to join a small group.
16:06
SPEAKER_02: Join a small group.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: Get together with people, and I'm just say like-minded, maybe like-minded, just get together with people who are like-minded in the sense that they want to grow.
16:15
SPEAKER_02: You may not think alike, right, and you heard this offering today, and I'm gonna tell you this, all right, I'm I'm I know I like to work for Clemson Wesley, right?
16:21
SPEAKER_02: I think we have outstanding small groups, but if you find a small group from another campus ministry that works for you, that's awesome.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: Just find a small group.
16:29
SPEAKER_02: Find a small group while you are here at Clemson, and that is gonna be a place where you will find exponential growth in what you put into it there.
16:37
SPEAKER_02: You may be saying, I got so much to do, I got so much time, I don't have the time for that, you know, I'm just done, right?
16:42
SPEAKER_02: Remember, discipleship requires intentionality.
16:45
SPEAKER_02: You have plenty of time on your hands.
16:46
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna draw the board like I did last year, right?
16:48
SPEAKER_02: But you have plenty of time on your hands if you really want to do it, right?
16:52
SPEAKER_02: If I were to say, you know, look, I got these jersey mic coupons, we're gonna meet tomorrow at 12 o'clock for lunch, and I'm buying everybody's lunch, you'll find time probably to come to have lunch, right?
17:01
SPEAKER_02: Set a time, make a plan, be intentional, find a way to be at a small group once a week and watch how you may indeed grow.
17:11
SPEAKER_02: All right, so we're gonna welcome you, and not just you, we're gonna welcome others, right?
17:16
SPEAKER_02: We want to be like a family for good, bad, ugly, and different.
17:19
SPEAKER_02: We're here together, and you're gonna belong no matter who you are, what you are.
17:23
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we want you to grow in your faith.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: And lastly, this is pretty important.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, not only do we want you to grow in your faith, we also want you to love.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: We want you to, we're gonna encourage you to love God and love your neighbor in concrete ways, right?
17:34
SPEAKER_02: In real hard, fast ways.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: We get this from Luke 10.
17:38
SPEAKER_02: I just finished a three-week series on this on Sunday morning, where the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the lawyer, as you know the story, goes to Jesus and tries to, you know, say, Hey, what do I need to do to inherit eternal life, right?
17:48
SPEAKER_02: Give me my get out of jail free card.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: What do I need?
17:50
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus says, Well, what do you think?
17:52
SPEAKER_02: And the lawyer says, Well, love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, mind, soul, and you're good.
17:56
SPEAKER_02: And your neighbor is yourself.
17:57
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus says, Yes, go do this and you will live.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: And he continues to pester Jesus and to just try to justify himself.
18:04
SPEAKER_02: And again, they talk about how the priest doesn't stop, the Levite doesn't stop, but the Samaritan stops and helps the man who is wounded on the side of the road.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus once again says, Go and do likewise.
18:14
SPEAKER_02: Twice in that parable, Jesus says, Go love your neighbor and you shall live.
18:18
SPEAKER_02: Go if you want to be a neighbor, go and do these things.
18:21
SPEAKER_02: Help your neighbor, love your neighbor, and do likewise.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: When Jesus says something once, it's a good idea to follow it.
18:26
SPEAKER_02: When he says it twice and says this is the greatest commandment, it's a good idea to follow that and to live into that.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: And so we want here to be a people that are about loving God, but also loving our neighbors.
18:37
SPEAKER_02: I hear the echoes of James 1, uh 22 through 25, where it says, be doers of the word and not merely hearers of the word.
18:44
SPEAKER_02: He said, For some folks, I'm paraphrasing here, right?
18:47
SPEAKER_02: But some people there if they hear the word, but they don't do it.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: It's like looking yourself in the mirror, and then as soon as you walk away, you forget what you look like.
18:54
SPEAKER_02: We're called to be a people who not just hear God's word, but do God's word.
18:58
SPEAKER_02: And we do that most often by not just loving God, but also loving God by loving our neighbors.
19:06
SPEAKER_02: So, what can you expect here?
19:07
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna wrap up here.
19:08
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and again, we got like different teaching each week and we'll continue the series, but I think it's important on the first night to let you know what you can expect.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: And please, please, please, I want you to be here, but you're not gonna hurt my feelings.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: Please don't ever walk hands and knees trying to hide from me, right?
19:21
SPEAKER_02: If you're seeing me on campus, it's okay.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, I love you guys.
19:23
SPEAKER_02: If I only see you tonight, it's awesome, right?
19:26
SPEAKER_02: But you can expect to be welcomed.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: And I hope that you will also live in to that expectation of helping us welcome others.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: You can expect to be treated like family, and in return, I need you to help us treat others like family.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: I want you to grow in your faith.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: Find a small group, please find a small group.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: It's one of the best things I can recommend that you do either here or somewhere else.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: Find a small group and be challenged in your faith and allow yourself to grow.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: Set a time for that, make a plan.
19:51
SPEAKER_02: And above all else, remember that great commandment that we're given by Jesus to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors just the same and as ourselves.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: That's what we're about here.
20:01
SPEAKER_02: It's on the t-shirt, it's what we talk about all the time.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: It's been a great journey.
20:05
SPEAKER_02: That's what we're gonna be about this year.
20:06
SPEAKER_02: And I hope that you will join us.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: I hope that you will join with me as we seek to be a people who do that.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna gather up.
20:12
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna pray in just a second.
20:13
SPEAKER_02: We're not gathered right a second, but at the end, Andrew mentioned it just so you know, we're gonna gather up in a big circle.
20:18
SPEAKER_02: We do this each week to close out our time here.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: If you want to write a prayer request and puts um, do not share, we won't share it.
20:24
SPEAKER_02: But if you do, um, we'll share that in the circle.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: And then we sing a benediction together.
20:29
SPEAKER_02: But we gather in this circle together to as a reminder that we are given this gift of community and that we do this together.
20:36
SPEAKER_02: We treat each other like family together, we welcome together, we grow together, and we serve together.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: And in that time, though, quick like COVID talk on that, right?
20:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, we used to like hold hands, hugs, that kind of stuff.
20:46
SPEAKER_02: You're welcome to do that if you want to, or if you're like me and you're like, eh, not quite ready to hold hands.
20:50
SPEAKER_02: You know, you can kind of stay in the circle like this, and this is the symbol of don't touch me, right?
20:54
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
20:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, or this is the same thing, okay.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, so we're gonna welcome, we're gonna love, we're gonna serve, and we're gonna grow.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: Holy gracious God, thank you for this night and this time together.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: We thank you again for our new friends and old friends.
21:11
SPEAKER_02: Lord, as we seek to be people that are defined, we pray that we might be defined by you.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: Lord, we might be defined by your grace, by your mercy, by your love and your compassion, and not just by the words that we say, but that we may be defined by the actions that we take toward each other and with each other as we seek to bring your kingdom of goodness and wholeness here on earth.
21:35
SPEAKER_02: We love you, we praise you.
21:36
SPEAKER_02: We ask all this in Christ's name.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: The Wesley Word is a production of the Clemson Wesley Foundation.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Clemson Wesley, check out our website or follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, get out there and love your neighbor.