Have you ever found yourself at a crossroads, wrestling with the decision to follow your faith into uncharted territory? That's where my co-host Sean Sloggett and I have been, and it's the heart of our latest podcast. We're pulling back the curtain on our lives, sharing stories that illuminate the daily grind of a Christian's journey. From my leap into youth pastoring to Sean's business endeavors, we celebrate the blend of hard work, determination, and divine favor that has marked our paths.
We discuss effort and how it plays an important part to receiving a blessing and help from God! We expect God to do EVERYTHING for us..... But that's not what true faith looks like!
To wrap things up, Sean and I tackle the complexities of ministry, spotlighting the importance of authenticity in our service. We share stories that reveal the impact of humble acts on our communities and discuss the temptations of seeking glory in our endeavors. Our hope is that our conversation sparks reflection and conversation in your own life. So tune in, share a laugh, and maybe—just maybe—you'll find a nugget of inspiration to carry with you.
Have you ever found yourself at a crossroads, wrestling with the decision to follow your faith into uncharted territory? That's where my co-host Sean Sloggett and I have been, and it's the heart of our latest podcast. We're pulling back the curtain on our lives, sharing stories that illuminate the daily grind of a Christian's journey. From my leap into youth pastoring to Sean's business endeavors, we celebrate the blend of hard work, determination, and divine favor that has marked our paths.
We discuss effort and how it plays an important part to receiving a blessing and help from God! We expect God to do EVERYTHING for us..... But that's not what true faith looks like!
To wrap things up, Sean and I tackle the complexities of ministry, spotlighting the importance of authenticity in our service. We share stories that reveal the impact of humble acts on our communities and discuss the temptations of seeking glory in our endeavors. Our hope is that our conversation sparks reflection and conversation in your own life. So tune in, share a laugh, and maybe—just maybe—you'll find a nugget of inspiration to carry with you.
You say you want God to bless you here, but you're not willing to do anything about it. You say that you want God to open a door, but you're not putting forth effort and proving to Him that you actually want Him to open that door.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Everyday Christian Podcast where we apply scriptural principles to everyday Christian lives.
Speaker 1:I'm Sean Sloggett and I'm John Rich, and today, brother Sean, we are actually going to do a different episode for you all, something we've done a little bit before, not really very often. I think we did it once like year one of the podcast and you weren't even on that podcast. So what we're going to do today is we're just going to kind of I don't know if spitball is the right word, but share some testimony, share some different stories that we've got going on different things on our mind and heart More of an informal podcast in this episode. You guys know where to find us. You can find us on TikTok, instagram, facebook, by searching at podcast the number for him, that's at podcast for him. You can also find us on a podcast platform of your choice by searching the everyday Christian podcast. It's the every day, two separate words Christian Podcast. It is really fun to do this.
Speaker 1:Last episode, we did a live episode. It was definitely unusual, so this one's going to be unusual as well. You're going to see probably a lighter side of our episode. In fact, when I do these little spills of our social media, sean is mocking me. You guys can't see that, but it's hilarious. Do you think we should do a bloopers reel? Yeah, we should absolutely do. I've actually thought of that, but most of the content that we've had it's already been deleted. It made it to the cutting room floor, but that was it.
Speaker 2:Coming soon to a screen near you, bloopers of the Everyday Christian podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be really good. Most of our bloopers start off with our intro. Um, even when gabe and I did it, it was always the intro. I don't know why. It's just some of the stuff like where we apply scriptural principles every. It's kind of a tongue twister anyway. So, yeah, it is kind of hard to do so this episode's different.
Speaker 2:I literally tried four times before I got a ride. That's why he's saying this. He's making fun of me.
Speaker 1:Maybe at the end of this episode we can just put that little blooper in there at the end we'll see. Only if it's not at my expense, though, um. So yeah, this episode, like I was saying, this episode is going to be different. You know it's going to be something that is opposite. I mean mean, a lot of podcasts do this, obviously, but opposite sort of what we do.
Speaker 1:You know, we're usually studied up and ready to speak on a specific subject, but we just had a lot, a lot going on, a lot of different things that you know work, wise, family life, personal life but a lot of good testimonies and things that have come out of the different things we've been doing, and so we're excited to share that with you. If you like this episode, you know, give us a like, leave us a review. You know I love reviews, love seeing people's feedback, things that we can improve on, obviously, there. So, yeah, you know, starting off this episode, I know Brother Sean's got a couple things to say. Really cool, last night we had youth and I had some of the kids.
Speaker 2:I'm not trying to steal his testimony here, but a lot of people don't know things that go on in our everyday lives and that's kind of what a little bit of this is is just us, you know. I guess a Get to Know you somewhat podcast.
Speaker 1:The everyday, Everyday Christians.
Speaker 2:When Brother Jonathan and I met, we were actually both working at a furniture store. I think I met you at church one time, at Bethany once. I think, but we kind of started becoming friends working at the same store together. But that has since. We've both since moved on to other things. Brother John has a new job. He's now a youth pastor.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's where he's going, with this Included, with that new job Included, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's another new job. With a new job, it's wild.
Speaker 2:Man of many talents over here yeah.
Speaker 1:So Go ahead a lot of people don't know this either. So like we were both sort of affiliated with hma, I mean obviously the podcast is your dad started it, president of it, you know, and I'm somewhat affiliated, he's somewhat affiliated.
Speaker 1:You know he's only traveled miles and miles and miles all over the us for hma, uh, but I'm still obviously connected with that, still helping with that, um, you know, quite, quite often as well. So there's just there's tons of things going on. Something that really excited me last night so, um, we had our youth service and, just like any other service, it all kind of like it felt different like all day. It just felt different Like I prepare, you know, I try to, I try to think of things days in advance to to give to the kids. And well, sunday I just felt just compelled to to talk about, like, I guess, the Easter story or whatever I get it. We don't use the word Easter, the resurrection story, you know, and open up a can of worms right there, and we're not even trying to, but we're talking about the resurrection of Christ Sunday. And so it just really compelled me to want to do that for our youth because, you know, I talk about, you know, jesus dying and I talk about those different things. But I really wanted to share this in more detail with them, share this in more detail with them, and so, like all throughout the last few days, I've just felt like just sort of a you know we say stirring in our spirit, but just that feeling in the pit of your stomach like God's going to do something, and like all day Wednesday I had just been praying off and on and just like seeking God and just asking him to just, you know, to just open doors, et cetera, the usual prayers and I actually we averaged between like 15 and 20 kids, and I set out 30 chairs. I was like I just want to like, even if we don't have 30 kids, come in, I just wanted that to be the environment, like there's empty seats, like we can fill that. You know, that void, that gap. And so I was thinking, well, you know, we'll have a good crowd. And then we had, like I think, four brand new visitors that have never been there before to our youth, which is cool. And then we had probably seven or eight that had been there like once months ago or years ago, that had just decided to come back, which was really cool too. And so we ended up with, like overall, like 26 people or something like that. It was wild, like between my wife and me, you know, it was probably like 24 youth, you know. So it kind of was above our average, but it was cool because I was like if I just set out 15 or 20 chairs, you know anyway.
Speaker 1:So I'm given this message. I'm trying not to take too long, but I'm just given this message you know about, you know how Jesus died, why he died, the purpose you know of him coming to the earth, him bleeding out, him being raised again, how history actually proves that, even aside from the Bible, just all these things. And you know, at the very end I just felt just compelled again to just say you know, if you want to get saved, step forward right now. And there's this kid that has been coming for quite a while and I've asked him to pray before, you know, and he never has never really showed like a lot of, not effort, but just a lot of drive to want to do that. And he was the first person to step up there.
Speaker 1:Quiet kid, never really did a lot of that and when he did it was just like floodgates opened. And so I had seven people come up that wanted to accept Jesus as their savior genuine. And I'm like thinking, you know, maybe some of them are doing it just because their friend's doing it, whatever, but four of those people out of that, seven were brand new, never had been to our church before came in. You know, they accept. You know I kind of explained them what to do and they prayed with me. I prayed with them and they all let them do what said?
Speaker 1:oh no, you let them, I let them, I allowed them to pray um, but we, anyways, we prayed, prayed for them, and they all just were like, very genuinely, um changed, like you could tell god was helping them, saving them. And afterwards they were like asking me for a Bible. They were asking me about all these different things and it was just really I don't know. It was very it's a great thing that's happened in our life, like we're working and we're trying to do all these things and we're getting these people and these kids to come, and that's great. It's just it's hard when you see them come and play basketball but you don't really see the fruit of the messages you've been preaching. You're not doing it for the fruit. I get that, but when you see that you know seven of them came forth to get saved, I genuinely feel like a majority of them did and they confessed their life to Christ that night.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Do they stick with it? I don't know, but I'm going to try my best to help them with that.
Speaker 2:That's awesome that I left the furniture store to go do other things. I started another job. Through a series of unfortunate events, that job only lasted right at two months and I've been starting a side business I've been doing a little over two years now. So at that point I just decided well, I'm just going to go in on it. Um, so we went ahead and got started on it in December of last year and it was very, very slow. We had, of course, we had some money saved up, different things, but it was just one of those things that man, I don't know, I don't know if I messed up doing this or not. We kept praying about it and actively trying, and that right, there is the key. I'm not taking any glory, maybe a little bit, it's not.
Speaker 1:I told you we're not cutting anything out of this, it's all right, it's all right.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, we're not cutting anything out of this, it's all right, it's all right. No, I mean we just got out, we hustled, we kept trying, but we kept praying about it as well. And since then I actually told Jonathan this earlier since I started full-time in December I have not had a full, solid week worth of work all in a row. I've had some that were really close to it but just hadn't yet, and I understand you know a lot of those things just come with time. It takes time to build a company.
Speaker 2:But this week I've had an overwhelming thankfulness.
Speaker 2:Monday morning when I got up, I had Monday through Thursday morning, thursday late morning, completely booked up and since that morning when I woke up, I added, I think, three more jobs this week.
Speaker 2:So for the first time I have had a solid week's worth of work and we're recording this on a Thursday, by the way, which a lot of you guys hear this on Monday or Tuesday when we release it. But I have a solid week's worth of work and I've got a couple days or not a couple days, but a couple jobs into next week already booked up. That's awesome and I just man, I've been so thankful, so happy and it's easy. I know it's easy to be happy and all those things when times are going good, but I've just had this thankfulness because I have people in my church that have come up to me and asked me hey, how's Slog Code doing? And not lying, being as honest as I can be I've told every one of them it's doing okay or we're doing pretty good, we're making it. But I'm telling you I can't wait for somebody to ask me right now how Slotko's doing.
Speaker 1:Somebody's going to ask you Sunday.
Speaker 2:I hope they do. I hope they do Because it's kind of a small thing. Yeah, you know, as some people may see it and not think much of it, but to me, I mean that's, that's huge. Yeah, I'm trying to do this to support my family, to further the kingdom. I've got things that I do and we all do things like this, but, you know, pay our tithes and offering stuff, but I have things that I want to do specifically, but I have things that I want to do specifically. I've always wanted to have my own business, to run my own business, for different reasons.
Speaker 2:And some of the reasons are to help others. So when I tell you that this week was booked full, I mean that's another step closer. I've shared with you some of the things that I've wanted to do travel around with others and different things. This is just man, it's just getting me close and it's just, I guess, lit another fire in me and I'm like man, I'm ready to do this, let's go.
Speaker 2:But a key to this and I was actually talking to a gentleman this afternoon about it is effort. I've actually talked to two people about it. I've prayed and I've prayed and I've prayed about this. My wife has prayed about it. I love my wife. She's a very prayerful woman. I have others in my church, like I mentioned, have come up and asked about it and have told me we're praying for you guys, we're praying for your business to prosper. But one of the keys that we miss a lot of times is we don't act upon it. Man, something, god do it for me and then that's it. Yeah, like we look around for them and they're over in the corner twiddling their thumbs Right, and I understand there's different seasons for different things. I'm not saying you have to be just gung-ho running at it the whole time, but there are. I mean my question to a lot of people is what's up? If you really want God to do something, go for it Right.
Speaker 1:It takes a lot of, you know, thinking about, like the, the determination, but, like God, bless his effort. And it takes a lot of grit and you can say what you want, Like you can. You know people can think the way they want to. Well, I'm just going to have full faith in God, Um, but you're not going to find that very much or very often in the Bible. You know. It's like the Israelites walked around Jericho, the walls of Jericho. How many times? Six times.
Speaker 2:And then on the seventh one.
Speaker 1:God made the walls fall. You know, david went to go fight Goliath and before he did that he went and gathered five smooth stones. You know, and put forth the effort for God to bless him and you think about the thousands of people, the 3,000 plus people, that Jesus needed to feed. And it took a boy's lunch, you know five loaves of bread and two fish.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which, by the way, somebody needs to look into that. That's a lot of food for a boy, anyway. What?
Speaker 2:would have happened if he never would have got up and brought his lunch.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Jesus could have done a miracle.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that he could have. But that's the exact point that I'm making is that God can do anything and he can interfere with our free will, but he chooses not to. He desires us to put forth effort. I mean, paul said it best. He said I've planted, apollos has watered, but God gives the increase. Like that is the exact thing that we're talking about.
Speaker 1:You know, it ties into the youth that I just mentioned. You know, like we've been doing different things and trying out different things. Some of them have worked, some of them haven't. A lot of them haven't. I've failed in a lot of areas. I haven't done things correctly, but I've tried. But you've continued, and that's the thing. Yeah, it's the continuance, and some of you listening to this episode it's different. It's the. It's the continuance, and some of you listening to this, to this episode, it's different. You know it's a testimony episode, but some of you listening to this are are struggling, like you're. You're trying to figure out. You know why God doesn't help me right here in this area.
Speaker 1:I've been praying for this for years and the thing is, god can and will help you, but it's almost as if there's a door that's open that you're not willing to walk through and prayer is the key. Prayer is the key that opens that door. But you've also got to walk through it. You've also got to go forward and let God give the increase. There's doors open all around you. A lot of times we're afraid that we'll pick the wrong door, but the beauty of it is, god's grace is enough and his mercy is sufficient in those situations. Have I went through the wrong door? Absolutely. Does that mean that all the other doors shut? Not necessarily. Sometimes. The good thing about God is sometimes he allows me to go back and pick another door.
Speaker 1:People, you know we are preached this sort of preached and taught this sort of mentality that you know, if I pick the wrong, will that all of a sudden everything else just closes for me, or that God's just not going to bless me as much as he could have, or that you know that I'm just not going to have as extra of an anointing as I could have, and that's just not in Scripture. It's not true. I've found it to be false. Actually, there's been times where I haven't, I guess, what I would consider fully obeying God's will. There's times where I've messed up, for sure. But God's grace is always there and he blesses effort, he blesses someone who wants to do something for him. He blesses that work, brother Sean.
Speaker 2:Isaiah 40 and 31,. We've all I mean we can all quote this scripture, I'm pretty sure. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with them. But I've always looked at that word wait a lot different than most people we say. But they that wait upon the Lord, and we and I don't think it's necessarily wrong, I'll throw this out there I don't think that they're wrong. Be patient, be patient, wait on the Lord. Yeah, you know in his timing, and I understand all those things. But when I read that verse, all those things, but when I read that verse, I think about what happens when you go in a restaurant. Who's there to take care of you? We call them a waiter or a waitress. Right, they're not sitting over in the corner. Yeah, they are at your table every.
Speaker 1:I mean they all differ, I understand, but yeah, some of them are terrible, some of them are there every 30 seconds, which is way too much. Some of them every 30 minutes, which is not enough.
Speaker 2:But no, I'm kidding, but they're there at your beck and call. Do you need a refill? Let me get you something else to drink. Here's your appetizer. Your food will be ready in five minutes. Hey, here's your food. Let me get that appetizer out of the way. Man, they're clicking, and when I read that scripture, but they that wait on the Lord, I'm like God. What can I do for you? Yeah, right, I don't like sweet tea, but, god, would you like some more unsweet tea?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, let me refill that for you. Is there anything else that you need right now, lord, right, right, what can I do for you today? Absolutely, I'm waiting on you to do this for me and, let's be honest, that's what waiters are doing. Yeah, they're doing a service so they can get something in return. Right, they're hoping there's a good tip at the end of it. Yeah, god, while I'm waiting on you to pay me more you guys understand, we're not on a bargaining system with God but, god, while I'm waiting on this, what else can I be doing? And that has completely changed my life when I started looking at it that way. There are times where you just need to sit back and wait, but I'm like man, what's next? What can I do?
Speaker 2:for you, lord, at it that way there are times where you just need to sit back and wait.
Speaker 1:Right, but I'm like man. What's next?
Speaker 2:What can I do for you, lord? I can set out 30 chairs. Let's set out 30 chairs tonight. Yeah, I hope you set 35 out. Next week I probably will, and you have 30 instead of 26. Yeah, yeah, god, while I'm waiting on you to bless my business, let me go make some flyers and pass them out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:Get up and do something.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Get up and go Go, man. Yeah, there's again. I understand there's times for both of them, but this is where I've been this week. Guys, you just have to love it or leave it I guess I don't know or hate it and bear through it. Just something Put your all in it. Yeah, if you're sitting over there twiddling your thumbs, I find it hard to believe that God's going to bless that. I understand. There again, I'm correcting every statement I make. I'm getting tired of doing this myself. To be honest, there are people who can't do a lot of these things and there's times where it's not necessary. But God blesses effort, just like you said. How many times they march around the wall? Right when Moses walked up to the sea, he said stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then he went and did something else. The people had to wait. Literally they had to just stand there and more or less twiddle their thumbs. But Moses took it a step further and he went and did something about it. There are both sides of it that we have to do, but more often than not I think we get stuck in the children of Israel side of it, where we're all. Everybody's heard the saying too many chiefs, not enough Indians. I think the church as a whole a lot of times has too many Indians and not enough. It's not.
Speaker 1:PC. It's not politically correct anymore, but yeah, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 2:We're all sitting around waiting on somebody to make the next move. Yeah, man, I'd really like to have a youth ministry. Who's going to do it? Who can we get to start the youth ministry for us? You, you. I'd love to have a bus ministry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go Right.
Speaker 2:Right, I wonder when we're going to get somebody who finally knows how to play the drums. Yeah, get started, get started.
Speaker 1:Exactly. It sort of reminds me of HMA. We work with a lot of just individuals of all walks of life. We deal with addicts, we deal with ministers that call in or need information about how to deal with whatever ministry or how to start whatever ministry. And you know rule of thumb that you know from the moment that I got here, probably day one. It's been almost three years now that we started, but since day one it's always been you know, whoever puts forth the effort, that's who we're going to help Like. That's always been our motto, because if you put forth the effort, then it shows that you actually want to do something or want something.
Speaker 1:You know we've had people come all the time and I'm kind of letting the cat out of the bag here. You know we're letting out our little tips and tricks here, but you know we've had ministers that have called and said I really want to start peanut butter and Jesus ministry. How do I go about doing that? And the very next thing that we say is we've got a book on it. It is the pattern for how you start PB&J. Order it on our website. We'll send it to you. When you read it, give us a call back. We'll talk to you about it. And I would probably say nine out of 10 of those ministers never order it. I would probably say nine out of 10 of those ministers never order it. And then when they do order it eight to 10, somewhere around there don't even call back or they don't put forth any extra effort after that. Same thing with addicts. You know, when an addict says I need whatever X, y, z or I'm hungry, yeah, you say come on, let's Z or I'm hungry.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You say, come on, let's go grab a bite to eat. And they say, no, there's probably ulterior motives If an addict is like you know, obviously, brother Todd, your dad deals a lot more with them and knows a lot more about the do's and don'ts of what they, of how they are. But you know, when a homeless person says I need X Y Z but they're not willing to do whatever it takes to get X Y Z, they want you to do it for them. That's not how that works. If you want X Y Z and you want it bad enough, you're going to do something about it. And that's exactly how it is with God. Believe it or not, that is exactly how God is. You say you want God to bless you here, but you're not willing to do anything about it. You say that you want God to open a door, but you're not putting forth effort and proving to him that you actually want him to open that door. And that's what this all boils down to.
Speaker 1:You know, this episode turned into an episode about effort and an episode about God blessing us. Not quite, but you know, here we are and I think that this is great because there's so much truth to that. You know, we expect God to just be. You know well, and we say it all the time. Well, god's not a magic fairy, or God's not someone with a wand that just does whatever. You know, we've got to pray for it.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing. Prayer is powerful, Prayer is good Prayer. I hate to say it this way and you're probably going to disagree with this, brother Sean, and you're probably going to disagree with us that are listening. I'm saying it again Prayer is powerful, but prayer is not the only effort that you need to be doing. So many times I get it. We have moments where we need to be patient. We have moments where we need to fast and pray. That's all good, that's all fine, that's great, it's wonderful. But there is a time to pray and there's a time to take action. And oftentimes we say, well, I'm praying about it. Well, I've been praying about it. Well, I've been praying about it.
Speaker 1:And God's saying put forth effort, do something about it, don't just pray about it. Do you think that the people sitting in the upper room, when the Holy Ghost fell on them and they spoke with other tongues, just stayed in the upper room and said God, you move in this situation? No, they got down out of the upper room and they went and they witnessed to thousands of people and thousands of people were saved in that same day. You cannot expect your prayers. It's not that God can't answer prayers. God is all powerful. Don't take clips of this message and episode and say, oh well, they don't think that prayer is powerful, that God can do anything. God can do anything he wants to do. But my question is why doesn't he? It's because you're not putting forth effort. It's because you're not putting your work into it, because you're not doing anything about it yourself. Brother Sean, you better take it over for me, because I'm about to preach to these people. Preach.
Speaker 2:Sounds like you've got it, here we go. No, I mean, you're absolutely right. It takes effort putting yourself out there. You mentioned the homeless people. It's very easy to tell yeah, and as church people, this is something that we, brother John and I, have somewhat studied, so it's a little easier for us, I would say, to tell when we look at different people, not just homeless people, but you can tell most of us if we're honest, we can tell when somebody is genuine or not, and it comes down to just one or two simple questions. Man, I'm starving. There's a McDonald's caddy corner from us. Let's go in there. I'll buy you a burger. Yeah, man, I got $5. I just need two more. No, you keep your five. Come on, let's go. No, no, I've. I've done this before and and call. You know they'll sit there and argue, so I'll. I'll call them out on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and well, you're right, man, I just need some drugs or I need my alcohol or whatever it is. And if we're not careful as church people, we get that way. God, I need a blessing. Okay, we'll go walk around the altar or go speak this word, go tell somebody you know, give somebody a word of encouragement. Or while you're pumping gas, just look over to that gentleman across from you and say it's a wonderful day God created. That's too much, God. You think you could just, next time we're in service, just let the Holy Ghost fall and let me feel it just a little bit.
Speaker 1:I'll run around for you.
Speaker 2:We do that. Yeah, if we're honest with ourselves, we do those things.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:And this is not a condemnation to us. This is just trying to help us understand. I'm guilty of these things. I'm guilty of going into church and, just like man it's been such a long week already it's Wednesday night I don't want to stand up for the song service, but I'll go ahead and do it because it's what I'm supposed to do. God, I'm just ready to go home. Can you let the preacher hurry up and say something that will touch my heart, so I can get down and say my little thank you, jesus, for today and for this church service and go home and get it? I'm guilty. I'm 100% guilty of these things, but we can be better, yeah.
Speaker 1:We can do it. I thought about that. We'll cut this out, this part we will cut out if we have to. I'm just going to let you guys know. Of course, if we cut it out you'll never know. So I guess that's kind of a win-win for me.
Speaker 1:You know, when I think about you know we're talking about, like the homeless. It's a very it's a different example, but it's the same. You know, obviously you're talking, you're saying that. You know. Well, hey, I want a few bucks for food, and it's like what do you really want? You know, that's sort of the mentality that we have. Sometimes they're honest. Like there was a homeless guy the other day. I was in Panda Express and I said I was like can I buy you a meal? You know he's asking for money. I said, well, I'll buy you a meal. Yeah, that'd be great. You know it's like cool.
Speaker 1:You know I could talk to believers and churchgoers. We have such ulterior motives and a lot of times the ulterior motives are not drugs, but it's whatever feeds our pride. It's a spiritual high, yeah, it is a spirit. Well, that's exactly what I'm saying. It's whatever feeds our pride. It's like, well, god, I want to do more for you what it sounds like when I hear that is oh man, they want to get out and they want to witness, and they want to get out and they want to, you know, do a feeding program or a drug rehab ministry, whatever.
Speaker 1:But really, when they say, god, I want to do something for you, it's God, why can't I lead song service or why can't I preach, or why can't I teach Sunday school? You know, that is that spiritual high. You know that you're talking about and there is something to that. You know, someday we'll have to, we'll have to talk about that, but it's something that feeds our pride, and so God's looking at that, like, oh God, I want to do something for you. Okay, go talk to your neighbor about me.
Speaker 1:Well, god, that's not what I meant, you know. I meant like, like, start me me off, like speaking to a nursing home about you, or, you know, start me off in the jail ministry, or start me and those are great ministries, by the way Start me off. You know I want to lead service in church. You know it's things that feed our pride, that we want to do, and God's just like man, like you're, you know, going back to the effort, your effort. You want me to bless you in all these areas of your life. You want me to open doors so you can go preach revivals, but you're not willing to do anything for me. That's not in front of other Christians. Mic drop.
Speaker 2:Now you were saying that and I had several things come to mind. That is a ministry. We have a young man in our church that he's a teenager. He's been very quiet and backwards pretty much ever since I've ever had any type of contact with him Very, very quiet type of contact with him. Very, very quiet. These last year, last year or two he started to open up a little more, probably because he's in my class so he feels a little more comfortable with me.
Speaker 2:But for for months now, sunday evening when you pull in, that dude is standing by the front door. Everybody that walks up there he sticks his hand out to shake your hand and he'll open the door for you. That's a ministry Like that ministers to me when I see that that he's willing. I've seen it when it's 100 degrees and I've seen it when it's freezing, below freezing. He is standing outside right by the door. If he's not there, there have been times where you'll walk up and he's standing there with his hands up over the glass watching for it and man, he gets the door open, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Cleaning the sanctuary yeah, somebody has to do it, right, that's a ministry. Don't clean the sanctuary for a month and then come back and we'll talk more about this. If you think it's not a ministry Because it is I am thankful that whenever I go in, I don't have to worry about who blew their Kleenexes and left me in my seat. It's not that bad. But there are things. I mean, there's several things that we can do. But there are things. I mean there's several things that we can do, and a lot of times I think it gets overlooked. And when we're asking God, can I do something for you? No, it's not the bass player. We need somebody to hold the door open for the elders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, something else that is a ministry.
Speaker 1:We mentioned this a little bit, but you know your home is a ministry and I think that we sort of treat we treat home life and church life differently.
Speaker 1:You know, we I can't it might've been your dad actually the day I was talking to you, but we were talking about like how we are very comfortable around some of the groups that we minister to and we were talking about like one of the funerals we went to of this particular group and it was just like and they wore whatever they wanted, they acted however they wanted, and it sort of was like a cultural shock for me, because I, you know, when you go to a funeral you're like everything's formal, respectful, you know you're quiet, you know it's not like this with that group and the reason I like it is because that group and the people and individuals in that group, even outside of like church and funerals and you know different gatherings, they've all been the same Across the board.
Speaker 1:They've been the same. They're the same way at home as they are in a church house and that, I think, says a lot about your effort and God wanting to bless you too. You know we sort of hide behind a facade, you know, or a mask. When it comes to going to church and being around other church people, it's like that Sunday morning drive you're running late, the kids are getting on your nerves, you're yelling at them because they did X Y Z and you're tired of it. X Y Z is my favorite wording tonight apparently too, hey quit.
Speaker 1:Quit, yeah, yeah, stop, stop. No, I'm telling you to quit. Oh me, why.
Speaker 2:Maybe because you're rebuking me.
Speaker 1:I was like you're dead serious, you wanted me to quit. Well, no, I'm the same way, dude. That's what I'm saying, though, like we get that way and then, like the moment the car door is open, it's like how are you doing? Like, how's it going, you know, and I, like I look at my wife and I like beforehand, you know, there's been times I've been in church and I just look at her and I'm like I'm sorry, like we shouldn't have been that way, we shouldn't have acted that way, and it's good. But that's exactly what I'm talking about, you know, you, you, I struggle with that too. Like don't, don't freak out on me. I didn't mean to like step on your toes, I'm stepping on my own toes, really Like hey, shut up, yeah, stop it. Thank you Lord.
Speaker 1:With the same hand that I just beat my kids with. I'm raising it to God. No, but there is a lot to that. You know, we sort of want God to bless us when we are in front of other people and it's like God wants you to put forth effort outside of the church walls. He wants you to put forth effort at home. That's a ministry in itself. Don't say you want to minister to other people and not do everything you can to have your house in order.
Speaker 2:Sorry for stepping on your toes there, bro. You curbs don't mean it, no it's. I mean it's true, we all. We all need corrected at times, even if it hurts.
Speaker 1:Absolutely no, we, we, we hope this helps someone. You know we were kind of going all over the the place with our topics but it it's sort of all blended together in a weird way, um, which is really cool, uh, but we hopefully will do an episode like this someday again soon. Um, you, of course, know where to find us. I'm not going to mention it again because I already talked about sean making fun of me for doing that. Um, but podcast for him you'll find it at the bottom of the screen there, number four. Number four him and the Everyday Christian Podcast.
Speaker 2:Every and day are two separate words.
Speaker 1:Yes, but God bless everybody for listening. We hope this helped you in some way. Leave us a comment concern whatever you want to do, but yeah, if you liked this episode, let us know we. We would love to do it again.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. God bless, thank y'all. God bless you, thank you, thank you.