by Bill Jacobs

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An article is taken from a transcript dated June 4, 2009.

Last time we saw that inspiration – which is what we’re talking about today at church services – comes from the Holy Spirit. It really is out of our control. We also saw that what inspires people is relationship with God and relationships with others of like faith.

So today we’re going to talk more about how to make services more relational. I suppose the first thing that comes to people’s minds when you think about inspiring services is music. And music is a way to make services inspiring, because it is a relational medium. God can inspire us through that medium more easily than He can if we’re reading the dictionary, for example. Music is emotional and relational.

What are some of the things that you think of when you think about an inspiring song service? Well, to me, I always think of happy, uplifting, praise-filled, worshipful songs – songs that have meaningful words. I don’t need to repeat the same words over and over and over again until it becomes tedious. Now I’m not talking about repeating a chorus of a song, but saying the same phrase over and over and over again.... Different people have different opinions about that. So we’re all in kind of a...this is probably one of the touchiest areas in the whole church – the issue of music. It’s not just our church that has that same situation. I think it is also good to have songs that people know. If you can’t sing it, it’s not as much fun and you don’t get the feeling as much. So we can learn songs.

I know, in our little group, we got a new hymnal when we started the group a few years ago. We knew some of the songs, but we didn’t know even a majority of them. So we started picking out one song and we would sing it after church every week until we felt like we knew it, and then we would add it into our repertoire. And I think we probably know most of them now, don’t we? We’re doing pretty good on that.

What about quality? Well, music is more enjoyable if it is good quality music, isn’t it? More inspiring. Now I’ve seen some children’s choirs do a pretty poor job and it was still inspiring to see little guys up there singing their hearts out. I’ve noticed over the years that when a children’s choir does poorly, it is usually not their fault. It is usually somebody who graciously volunteered to help, but doesn’t know what they need to know in order to get kids to do their best. I have heard people put kids down for that, but you really shouldn’t, because they, if given the right training, they’ll usually rise to it. But generally, I think, to be inspiring music, it needs to be performed by somebody who is a good singer, or a good musician, or whatever. I don’t know, but if I hear somebody who can’t sing on key, or they hit a bunch of klinkers on the piano, I might like them, but it kind of makes me cringe a little bit for them, because I know they’re probably going to feel a little embarrassed. So, we do as good as we can. I mean, we have problems with quality here in our group because none of us are really musical – not that good as singers. We still try. We know it pleases God. But if we could have good quality in our music programs, that makes it more inspiring for folks. That’s the point I’m trying to make.

Another thing to think about music that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is the style of music. There’s just no way to please everybody on this topic, because there are so many different musical tastes. I think – and this is just me now – I think that if we would stop equating a specific style of music with either God or the devil, we’d probably do better. Usually it is, “My music – the music that I like – is of God and the music that they like is of the devil.” Have you noticed that? How that works? So, if you are going to have a relational field – which is what is inspiring to all of us – there is no place for judgmental looking down on others over that.

So let me ask you a question. If we said that inspiration comes from the Holy Spirit, and there is a teenager who is inspired by a Christian rock song about living a better life for God, wouldn’t that mean that God used a rock song to inspire him? That might not inspire me or you, but if it inspires him, then that’s a good thing, isn’t it? Now, the response I’ve seen from older people on this topic is – in spite of that – “but I don’t get inspired by that kind of music.” Well, is it always about you? I mean, if he gets inspired by it, wouldn’t that be a good thing?

So what are we going to do about that? Well, we have to decide whether we want to have our way all the time or are we willing to let other people have their way some of the time. Paul said that he wanted to be all things to all people – rise above self and reach out to others who are different. That’s what it takes to build a relational field. I’ve always marveled at the Church of God and how diverse the people in the congregations are. They do different things. They wear different kinds of clothes. They have all different kinds of backgrounds. The only things we have in common, it seems like, are the truth of God and God’s way of life, the Holy Spirit, and pretty much everything else is completely different. So the only way that we can be really unified is if we’re willing to cut other people some slack, and let them have their way once in awhile, and be willing to listen to different kinds of music, and all of that sort of thing.

Let’s talk a little bit about our situation here. We have – let’s see – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven of us today. Wow! There are as many people online as there are here. I haven’t had a chance to check this out yet, but when you think about small groups, I remember somebody – and I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out who this is, so I’m hoping somebody will be familiar with this and clue me in – but I heard that Rick Warren – the pastor of Saddleback Church – it’s a big mega-church out in California – talks about, in one of his books, that when he first got started at Saddleback. He and his wife got out of seminary and they started talking to people in parking lots at grocery stores. And the first place they met, I believe, was in a garage. And now they have...I don’t know how many people they have going to church there. But he talked about the early days and he mentioned a specific kind of music equipment and I don’t know what it is. But it’s very good for helping small groups get into music. So I’m thinking it would be roughly similar to a karaoke machine, but that wasn’t what it was. But it’s some kind of thing that you can participate with. I’d really appreciate knowing about that if anybody knows about it. Heidi might be out there and she works in a music store, so maybe she knows what I’m talking about, even if I don’t.

So when you have a small group, and you have some people that are musical, all is well. But if you have a small group like ours – where we don’t have too much musicality – much talent – then it can be rather challenging. And that is our situation. We have that hymn book. And we have recorded piano accompaniment. We like most of the music, I think. We think the songs are good and meaningful. So we sing along and we don’t sound really great, probably – it’s never anybody but us – but we have fun. We do the best we can with it. I think everybody is pretty pleased with how that has worked. I don’t know, if anybody new came off the street, and they were used to going to the big mega-church in town, they’d probably wonder where the drums were, or the guitars, but we do okay for ourselves.

So, music – a really important aspect of church services. And also a really troublesome one when you have people that are self-willed and set in their ways.

What else? Well, I’m going to talk about something that has to do with the relational field that most of us would never think of – and that’s the sermon. How can a sermon be a part of the relational field at church? For a group of people who focused on responsibility and doing their duty for so long, the idea of a sermon being part of the relational field just isn’t how we tend to think about it. We’re not the only ones that think that way. I was reading yesterday, in Christian Schwartz’ book on NCD, and he was talking about that very thing – that, in a lot of churches, it’s not about being inspired. It’s about being responsible and showing up. That’s the important thing.

So, for us, a sermon is supposed to be like a classroom with a lot of heavy doctrinal material presented – kind of like reading a text book. We’re supposed to take notes and look up every scripture. It’s not really about being inspired. It’s about an intellectual exercise, where we’re learning. But I think that, if we apply some of the principles that we’ve already learned in this series on Church Health, I think we can see that a sermon can contribute to the relational field of a worship service.

It’s kind of funny because I had an example of this take place just last week. Two weeks ago I was here and I spoke on Inspiring Worship and that the Holy Spirit is the source of it. So last week I went to Durango and I gave that same presentation again, and immediately after the sermon, one of the young girls, that I don’t know very well, was pretending to take all the donuts off the potluck table and run off with them. She was giggling. She made a couple of runs at it, so I thought that she’s wanting someone to notice that she’s pretending to steal the donuts. So I kind of flagged her over, and I put my arm around her, and I said, “You know, you are a very tricky girl, and I think it’s a great idea for you to take those donuts as long as you give me one before you leave.” So she ran over and got me a donut. We’re buddies now. I was thinking about that. You know, I didn’t initiate that. She did. Her plan worked. There was some connection there – inspired by the sermon to move toward relationships. She’s learning what services are for. While she was listening, she kind of went down inside herself to see how that felt, and liked the idea, and immediately made an overture – inspired to do something a little bit different. And on top of that, when I got home, someone had sent us an email, saying that the group was quite stirred by the idea of a relational field at church. Several people, in their discussion they had afterwards, volunteered to do things that would draw people together more. So, wow! That’s inspired, right? Inspiring worship is when you hear something that makes you want to be more relational. So that’s good, isn’t it?

How do you cause that to happen when you are a public speaker, speaking at church? Well, I have ten thoughts for you, if you ever have to make a presentation, that can help you be a relational speaker. Now, if I just wanted to give a presentation on public speaking, I could probably talk until the cows come home. But we’re just going to talk about how to make a sermon or a presentation relational right now.

The first thing to do is, instead of thinking about what you want to say, or what is important to you, think about what the group needs to hear. What’s going on in the group? What are their needs? What do they need to live a happier, better life for Jesus Christ? If you think they need something and that they don’t know it, then you need to spend some time proving it to them first before you give it to them. That is called a need step in a sermon.

You remember, two weeks ago, that I talked about the Gatlinburg Youth Retreat. I did that to prove to the audience that they needed to be inspired by services – that it wasn’t just about duty. It’s really hard when you’ve gone to church for forty years and thought about it as being responsibility, to suddenly begin to change and think about it as being something where you could be inspired. So when we’re facing a situation like that, it’s always good to try to prove to people that they need something, because most of the time – in that case – they don’t know it.

The second thing that I try to think about is, as a result of what I’m thinking about talking about, what changes would I like to see people make as a result? You’ve heard me say over and over again, “At LifeResource Ministries we don’t just talk about the problem. We show what to do to fix it.” We’ve said that over and over and over again. That’s about teaching what to do. That’s called an action step in a sermon or a presentation. So you talk about what change needs to be made, for example, and then you show them what to do to make the change.

I confess that in times past I’ve given a lot of exhortive sermons – very specific exhortations – like overcome, or be happy, pray and study. Pray and study about what? – sometimes whiny sermons, where I pointed out problems – didn’t even exhort people to change, but just know that there is a problem – be zealous. Those are not action steps. How does one be zealous? How does one study the Bible? How does one pray? See, those are more like what we really need. So, if you’re going to talk about a problem, then you need to talk about the solution. And you have a solution.

Okay, the third one is to encourage group involvement. Let’s say that you decide that it would be good to give a presentation about how your group needs to be more involved with caring for the poor. Well, before you get up and say that in public, it’s a good idea to have a way for people to get involved. Right? There should be some kind of ongoing program that has been established so that there is a way for them to do what you’re talking about. Now there’s a thought, isn’t it? To actually have something in place. That means that you actually have to start preparing weeks, months, maybe years ahead of time, to give a specific sermon. But when you do that you’re talking about group involvement, right? And that is relational field material, isn’t it? Anytime you talk to about a viable way to be involved with other people – you can say, “We have this. You can do that. You can be involved in this.” Then that encourages people, because people want to be included in things. If they’re new at doing something – like taking care of the poor – they need somebody to help them get started. So it’s good to have some kind of effort ongoing so that people have something to do.

In our little group, we kind of do this with each other in our Bible study and fellowship. We sit and talk a lot about what we can do to be more involved in serving our community. We keep trying things to find what is going to work for us. Our current effort right now is a mediation training. We started out with the idea of wanting to learn mediation so that, as we grew and new people came in, and also just for ourselves, so that we could resolve any conflicts we might have. That kind of expanded out into using our space to help the community. So that’s kind of where we are.

Point number four. What are our points so far? Well, one is think about the needs of the group first – instead of what you want to talk about. Have you seen somebody giving a sermon on their own pet avocation or interst? It doesn’t matter that nobody else is interested in that – but just what they want to talk about. It doesn’t work too well. You might find one person in the group that is interested in what you’re interested in, but then after that, eeeenk. So it’s good to think about that. Second one: what changes would you like to see as a result of the sermon? Do some specific thinking. What would it look like if they all actually did it? Encourage group involvement – have something for them to do.
The fourth one, then, is to use examples of success from the group. Stories of peoples’ efforts to be better Christians is inspiring to all of us. If you use the example of somebody in your group, that’s right at home. If you want to move people a certain direction, it’s almost always better if you tell a story about somebody who has already been down that road with good success. You have to be careful not to pressure or embarrass anybody, though. If you brag on people too hard, sometimes they feel like they can’t live up to it.

The fifth thing that I think is really important in public speaking at church, where we’re trying to create a relational field, is for the speaker to be transparent and let the people there get to know the speaker. We can talk about our own successes and failures. That can cause the audience to feel more connected to us.
I think about – twenty, thirty years ago – I gave a sermon at a festival site where there were fifteen thousand people, and I’m sure that the only thing people could tell about me from the back row was what color tie I had if it was red. Other than that, I was just a form at the stage. So how do you help people that are way at the back connect? But that is very important. If they don’t know who you are, they’re not going to value what you have to say, for sure.

So, is it possible to build a relationship in a sermon? I had this interesting experience a couple weeks ago. I was talking on the phone to one of LifeResource Ministries’ biggest supporters, and I was thanking her for all the encouragement and financial support, and I expressed a desire to get to know her and her family better. She said, “I feel like I already know you better than you know me, because I listen to everything that you publish.” So there it is. She knows me and she wants me to know her. She wants some equality there. She wants me to get to know her like she knows me. That happens when we’re not just lecturing about topics, but including our own experiences, our own reactions, our own feelings in with it to give those listening a chance to make a connection with us. A pastor, or any speaker at any group, has a great opportunity to build relationships through the messages that he preaches – to contribute to the relational field and make it feel like everybody is included.

We talked a little bit about people in the group, but I’m going to hit this one again in point number six – stories about people who succeed can be very helpful and inspiring to us and really punctuate the points that we’re trying to make.

Two weeks ago I told the story about the Gatlinburg Youth Retreat. That moved people and encouraged them to action. Remember, when I use the word encourage, I always mean by that that it causes them to make a change. They are given courage to do something different.

Jesus taught in stories, didn’t He? That’s why. They are relational. They give us a chance to connect to the experience of people in the story. Even His negative stories were intended to encourage people – not to do something wrong, but to do the opposite.

I had the privilege of working with a woman some time ago in my counseling work who has suffered so much in her life. I think she may have suffered more mistreatment than any person I have ever personally met. She was so anxious that she had eczema all over her face and scalp. She just looked very uncomfortable – and very unpleasant to look at, as well. After I learned of all the terrible things that had been done to her as a child, I wondered if she could be helped – at least, by me. I mean, it was staggering to think about the anxiety that she had been carrying for so long. But you know, over time, I learned that no matter how hard it was for her to talk about all of those terrible things, she never backed off. She would sit in my office and cry and shake, because the memories were so painful and distressing to her. But she never quit. She kept going. And week by week, month by month, she told her hurtful story. And one day she came in and I noticed that her face didn’t look so red and scaly, and I said, “I notice your face is looking better.” And she said, “I noticed it, too!” She said, “You’re helping me.” And I said, “You are reaping the results of all your courageous, hard work.”
I want you to stop for a minute and think about how that story makes you feel. We feel good for her. We feel good about God, who builds into us the capacity to heal, and we feel good about ourselves, especially if we have something that is yet unresolved, because that story tells us that there is hope for us. The other thing, too, that I think becomes obvious there is that she gave me the credit and I gave her the credit. So there is this relationship of helping and being helped that is going back forth there. It’s in that relationship that the healing takes place.

One of the things that I’ve noticed about our church is that people in it are generally more negative about their chances of change than people in society. I really struggled with that. I tell some stories about people, and I’ve had people say, “Well, that kid is never going to get over that,” and yet they do. Shouldn’t it be just the other way around? I think it should. So I tell this story about this lady and others like her to show that there are ways to feel better, and to be healed in one’s heart, and that we can be encouraged by that. We connect to that lady when we think about what happened to her and we feel good with her when we see that she’s getting better. That’s relational, isn’t it? You can make the presentation relational as you talk.

Point number seven. Humor. Humor can get us in trouble. The world we live in increasingly takes itself too seriously – many of us are way too sensitive – but there is that kind of humor that doesn’t put anybody down, or, if it is depricating humor, it can be self-depricating. I’ve found that that’s a big hit with my congregations in years past. I always noticed that they loved to laugh at my mistakes, especially if I brought them up – certainly no shortage of material to work with there either. I also noticed that some of them didn’t want anybody laughing at their mistakes. So sometimes it is just best to leave off the kind of humor that puts other folks down. I remember here that I broke that rule and we had a congregational meltdown over a specific mental health issue sometime ago. We had to start the tape over – we were all laughing so hard. We can’t do that anymore, because we’re live. We have to be good.

Okay, point number eight. Ask questions in the sermon. Even if you are in a situation where the audience can’t answer back, it engages people when you ask them a question. Because the natural response is to try to find an answer for the question. For example, if you were giving a presentation on professional mediation, what questions would you ask the people to peek the curiosity of your audience? You see, I just asked you a question. What happened in your mind? Well, two things can happen. One, you have an answer and you start running the movie of it, right? Or, you don’t have an answer. And what does that do? It makes you curious. You want to know what I’m going to say. Both of those are good things. So it feels relational, because I’m reaching out and trying to engage you.

I tell the parents of my kids, who have impulse control problems, to catch them controlling themselves and then ask them, “How did you do that?” Of course, they never know the answer to that, so it makes them curious about how they did it, and they begin to pay attention to their own internal control process. We can do the same thing at church. We can ask questions, and we can give people a chance to formulate or be curious, and that helps them listen. It helps them feel a part of what is going on.
The ninth point that I like to do sometimes is filling in words. Sometimes I’ll stop at mid-sentence and ask people to fill in a word for me. “Traditional Christianity celebrates Easter on Sunday and the crucifixion on Friday, and yet Jesus said the only sign of His divinity would be the fact that He would be in the grave for ______ days and ______ nights.” Right. So we got it, right? So that’s an interactive way. We’re all smiling because you got to participate in the sermon. Tell me something I didn’t know.

Here comes the last point – and probably the biggest, most important lesson I’ve learned in public speaking. Just because I think of it doesn’t mean I have to say it. When we prepare a presentation, and we get all fired up about it, we can think of lots of stories, and lots of experiences, and lots of examples, and lots of things to do, and a lot of associations. But the trick is to have a point related to them. So the story should pertain directly to the sermon that you are giving and it should amplify some point that you are talking about.

So, when you’re sitting there, trying to prepare your presentation for your group, you need to think of the faces of your audience in your mind’s eye, and ask which of the stories that you’ve thought about will most likely resonate with them? It’s not about telling your favorite story. It’s about telling the story they are going to like the best. That is so important to do that – to try to tailor to the group that you are talking to.

Now, there are lots of other things we could say about good public speaking, but these ten are the things that I focus on to try to make my presentations relational and to contribute to the relational field. I know that, if I can connect, I’m also going to inspire my audience not just to feel good, but to do good, as well.

Okay, so we’ve talked about music and speaking. What else can we talk about? Well, interactive discussion is a fantastic relational tool to use. One of my good friends, Tom Kerestes, at the Park City Feast this year, suggested that we have a discussion about the sermon afterwards for one of our seminars. It serves two wonderful purposes. Number one: it gives the speaker feedback on his presentation. You know, it’s really fun to think that our speaking is always perfectly helpful to people, but we’re more likely to get better if we hear the way they really think about it. So it’s really good to get feedback. The other thing about that is – besides being good for the speaker – it gives the audience a chance to connect even further with the speaker and with each other. If a sermon encourages someone to action and they tell about it in the meeting afterwards, then that is going to be really encouraging to other people. Or, if they all disagree with what the guy said, that is going to cause them to bond, too. The group dynamic is powerful there and very helpful for all of us.

One of the real difficulties with just sitting and listening is it doesn’t give you a chance to give any input, amplify it and talk about it with others. But if you have a meeting afterwards where that can be done, then all the bad stuff goes away, and that just becomes a point of discussion for you. So it’s very helpful. I’ve suspected for years that the group in Durango, after I leave, always talks about what I’ve said. (Chuckles) And that’s great! I just wish I could be there for more of it.

The other thing that I wanted to say about interactive discussion has to do with studying the Bible. Our group sat in the same room for nine years and listened to me talk. And once we stopped doing so much of that and we started studying the Bible interactively every week, we began getting to know each other a lot better. It never fails to interest me to hear the various takes that people have on what we’ve all studied. I learn so much. Of course, we always wind up digressing onto what’s going on in our lives, or whatever, because we always have those associations to things. So church itself becomes what is inspiring – the service – the discussion becomes a relational field for us. And that’s good.

Another way that we can do that – a lot of the larger churches do this quite well – is to form affinity groups. The women’s quilting group. The choir. When we lived in Arkansas, I soon learned that to be a real man in the state of Arkansas, you had to go deer hunting every fall. Well, I’d never fired a rifle in my life. But my father and mother told me lots of hunting stories that sounded fun when I was a little child – they both grew up in rural Michigan – so I decided I try it. Well, we hunted all day, which was cold, boring, tedious, punctuated with a few moments of stark terror every now and then, but then in the evenings we would sit around the fire and we would talk. There was a relational field there created among people of like interest. That’s where you really get to know people. It’s not at church where everybody’s dressed up with their suit and tie on, saying, “Hello, Mr. So and So,” like we used to do back then. A lot of stories, a lot of joking, a lot of teasing, a lot of laughing and a lot of eating. All good fun.

I remember taking twenty-two college-aged people backpacking in Colorado a few years ago. I remember the last night before we had to hike out, it was a beautiful night. And they all went out of the trees on to the side of a grassy hill and laid down on their backs and looked up at the stars. They were talking and they were sharing, laughing. I can remember the sound of it and how happy it sounded. When we got home several of them sent me emails, and they talked about the mountains, but mostly they talked about the bonding that happened between them and their friends. That was inspiring to them. So, if you can form groups like that, that’s a great thing.

If you are too small to have a lot of different groups, then the group you form is one that has the Holy Spirit in kind. That’s what we do in our group. We talk about the Bible.

What’s another thing? Food. We’ve talked about food a little, but it’s so important. We need to talk about it more. Food binds people together. We have snacks every week while we sit around and talk about the Bible. We’re very informal. We have a potluck every month after our study. When they start heating everything up the smells are so delicious – you know, all that New Mexico green chile stew, and green chile chicken enchiladas. All that says home and comfort and relaxation and connection. We sit down. We sit across the table from each other. We make eye contact. We talk. We laugh. We relax. It’s great.

Not just good for church either. A man told me once that he felt like his daughter was growing distant. I suggested that he would take her out to a fast-food place every other week – just the two of them – sit across the table from her, ask her about her life, tell her about his, look into her eyes, smile at her a lot. He tried it. First time afterwards, he called me up and said, “It was amazing!” He said, “She’s growing up! She has hopes. She has dreams. She has plans.” I said, “Yes, she does, but she still needs you.” So just sitting across from each other with food creates a relational field where communication and bonding take place – are you ready for this? – all by themselves. Right? That’s right. That sense of belonging that we all need – that connection. It makes the work of the Holy Spirit so much easier for God to accomplish when we plant the seed.

Now I want to talk to you for a minute about that term all by itself. That’s a term that comes out of the Bible. Jesus said a man planted seed, and whether he slept or stayed awake, somehow, without him really understanding how it happened, the seed grew into a grain all by itself. That’s code language for that happens by the Holy Spirit. That’s what that means.

We said inspiration comes from the Holy Spirit. So some people might be confused thinking that I’m saying, “Well, yeah, I said that, but actually there is all this stuff that we have to do.” We have to plant the seeds. We have to use our creativity to build the relational field so that the Spirit of God can work.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:19 Paul says, “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.” So, okay, it’s possible for us to quench the Spirit. If that’s true, then it’s also possible to for us to fan it into flame. So how do we do that? Our part is to invite God’s Spirit in to make God’s work easier to be willing servants. And if we know that inspiration comes from the Holy Spirit and that’s most often about relationships – either with God or with each other – then we can do things to cause our services to be relational. We can use the principle of intentionality. If we do that small part that is ours, then the big part – that we can’t accomplish – gets done all by itself. Not really – it gets done by God. But since we’re not doing it, it feels like it happens all by itself.

Let’s go to Jude, verse 20.

Jude :20 – But you, dear friends, build yourselves up – oh, there’s something we have to do, right? We have to build – in your most holy faith, and pray – oh, we have to pray. We haven’t talked about that for awhile. We talked about that quite a long time ago in this series, but still a part. ...pray in the Holy Spirit and keep yourselves – so we have to keep ourselves. We have to pray and we have to build ourselves. ...as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you eternal life. We have to wait. We have to build the field. Then we have to let God produce the fruit.

So in the same way that we can build ourselves up, keep ourselves, we can also create an environment in which God can work. That’s one of the reasons I like the NCD approach so much. It’s aligned with the principles of scripture. Jesus said that, if we plant the seeds, they are going to grow all by themselves, without our involvement. So the overarching principle of it is that, if we work on being a spiritually healthy group, all the other needs will take care of themselves – the growth, the unity – all of that stuff. If we plant the seeds for spiritual health, then a tree will produce good fruit.

Now everybody knows that, if you have a fruit tree, and it gets a disease, it quits producing fruit. So it makes sense – it’s logical, spiritually – to focus not on growth, but on health – on getting healthy, on being a healthy church – then all the fruits that we want to see and that God wants to see are going to follow along. All we have to do is our part, which is small and doable, and God is going to take care of all the rest.

Okay, so next week we’re going to consider some action steps that anybody can take to foster and encourage and help along the things that we talked about today. We got a little more specific, but we can get much more specific still.