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Welcome to The Overflow—the bonus round of faith and real-life conversation with Brandon and Susan Thomas. Every week, they unpack the powerful insights, behind-the-scenes experiences, and personal reflections that didn’t quite fit into Sunday’s sermon.
This is where the conversation gets practical, honest, and a little bit unscripted. Whether it's an encouraging word, a deeper dive into Scripture, or a hilarious moment from their week, Brandon and Susan bring fresh perspective and spiritual fuel to keep you going.
It’s real talk, fresh takes, and full hearts.
These are the conversations too good to cut and too real to miss.
Welcome to the overflow. We are so glad that you're joining the conversation today.
Speaker 2:And it's gonna be a great conversation, Susan. As we talk about one of our values as a church, and truthfully, this is a biggie. If you don't nail this as a Christ follower, if you don't nail this as a church, you will never reach your God given potential. No. There is a gravitational pull in the Bible toward what we're talking about today.
Speaker 2:And the value that we're gonna address today is what, Susan?
Speaker 1:Jesus changes lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Jesus changes lives. Have you seen those memes that say, like, you had one job? You know, it's like you've got the McDonald's, and McDonald's has the arches that look like an M. Right.
Speaker 2:And I saw a meme where it was like an upside down arches that looked like a W. You had one job.
Speaker 1:One job.
Speaker 2:Or it's like a road, and somebody's supposed to paint the lines and it went all over the road. Oh. You had one job.
Speaker 1:So funny.
Speaker 2:Well, according to the bible, we have a job.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:And when we miss that job, we've missed it.
Speaker 1:Well, Jesus changes lives, and that job is to tell everyone that Jesus changes lives. But the reality when we talk about this value is a value of our church. But it's true for my life.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:That that's why if you really wanna get to why did we start this church, or how about let's go further back than that for you and me? Why did we get married? Why did I marry a preacher man? It wasn't because I was drawn to marry a preacher. It was because God was doing something so profound in my life.
Speaker 1:Jesus was changing me so profoundly that I was at a place completely surrendered to him. Whatever you want me to do, I will do. And then I met someone who had the same heart, who Jesus had changed your life too. And God brought us together, and we've been on a mission ever since.
Speaker 2:Love it. That's powerful. And, you know, when I talk about Jesus changes lives, the first thought you need to remember is things need to change.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Like, if Jesus changes lives, well, do things need to change? And absolutely things need to change. Things need to change because things are broken.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Things need to change because things are hurting, and people are hurting, and things hurt, and things are heavy, and things need to change. Jesus, in Matthew chapter nine verse 35, Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. And when he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. And he said to his disciples, you ready for this? The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
Speaker 2:Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. There is a hunger that is in need of a harvest.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And in need of people who will go work the harvest. There is a brokenness in our culture desperately crying out for solution. And this is the entire message of the bible, and it's the entire message that we preach, teach, tell our kids about, try to frame it's a framework. We always go back to biblical worldview, but we live in a world so dark, so desperate.
Speaker 1:And there's all these beautiful shadows of eternity and beautiful, you know, the sunset and the sunrise and and images that point to our beautiful creator. And yet the reality of the human experience is that apart from Christ, it's dire and it's really, really dark. But Jesus is the answer. He's the one that changes lives.
Speaker 2:You know, it's almost like there's an air game, and there's an air attack, and then there's a ground warfare. And the air attack is sometimes fun. Yeah. The air attack is fun. You're flying, and that might be like spiritual gifts, or spiritual gifting in your life.
Speaker 2:You know, the joy of discovering how God has made you to be. You know, so yeah, pastor, preach on spiritual gifts. Preach on the Holy Spirit. Preach on having a great attitude. Preach on having a great marriage.
Speaker 2:Preach on parenting. All this is like air attack. Yeah, let's go. I wanna help. I wanna see how And that has its place.
Speaker 2:But the minute we start talking about share your faith, give, tithe, that's a ground game, and the church needs the air attack and the ground game. We need to hear the things that are fun to hear about, that are exciting, that meet a felt need right in our heart. But sometimes, you're gonna hear some things that really aren't your felt need. Like, Hey, go and be my disciples, Jesus said. That's not meeting your felt need, but it is.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes it's more important to go where you need to go than where you want to go. And to become an evangelistic church is so important. It's all over the pages of the Bible, where God said, hey, I'm blessing you so that you can be a blessing. Through Abraham, God wanted to bless the nations. Through us, God wants to bring all people to Jesus.
Speaker 2:Go and be my disciples, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded to you. This is work. This is ground game, And you have to be intentional if you're going to be an evangelistic church that believes in Jesus changing life.
Speaker 1:Well, and just to put that in the lapse of whoever's listening, if you are a believer in Jesus, think for a moment, how has Jesus changed your life? What has happened in your story where you can point to a time I in my own life, there's a before and after of of God transforming my life. What was your life like before Christ? And for some of us, if you accepted Christ at a very young age, which I did, except that I then was a prodigal child for a period of time. But if you say, oh, I accepted him so young, well, then what might he have saved you from?
Speaker 1:You think about how Jesus has changed your life. And I know for me, when God pulled me out of the miry pit of my own sin and my own consequences of that sin and just the hard place I was in mentally, emotionally, in every way, physically, battling an eating disorder, so many different hard struggles. When he pulled me out of that and brought freedom to me, there was such a burning passion inside my soul to this day that I can't help but tell other people about him. I want other people to know the freedom that Jesus changed my life, Jesus can change your life. And I believe that's the heartbeat behind evangelism is why are we excited to tell someone about something if it's not real to us?
Speaker 1:And so I think part of the message today of Jesus changes lives, it is telling others about our faith, sharing our faith.
Speaker 2:Well, and we are committed to being evangelistic people and an evangelistic church.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And to be clear, there are churches that don't focus as much on evangelism, and, that are cynical toward evangelism, and even will criticize churches like ours that are serious about seeing people baptized.
Speaker 1:Makes me sad.
Speaker 2:Well, some of the criticisms are, well, that's easy believeism. That when you say, hey, if you'll believe in Jesus today, and trust him, believe that Jesus died on the cross for your faith, and you let them become a Christ follower right then and there, and they pray, and they, that's easy believism. And they'll even go so far as say, That's not the gospel. And I'm like, Woo hoo hoo, wait up, What
Speaker 1:Bible are you reading?
Speaker 2:Well, and here's the deal. What they're doing is they're picking up scriptures like, Take up your cross and follow me. It's about the obedience. It's about the sacrifice. It's about self denial.
Speaker 2:And I agree, all of that is true, But again, you don't have to you don't have to choose.
Speaker 1:And that's after salvation.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:It's after salvation. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me is spoken to his followers.
Speaker 2:That's so good. So good. Well, and I look at the book of Acts, and in Acts chapter two, or Acts chapter one, and then Acts chapter two, you see the birth of the New Testament church, and it began with Peter preaching. And then Peter, once he had preached, he quickly just said, Hey, if you're ready to repent, let's go be baptized right now. And that's another thing about those that are cynical toward evangelistic churches.
Speaker 2:They say, Well, you're just baptizing all these people. Well, at our church, we baptize almost nobody, but we've really made sure. So we've taken them through a twelve week class, and before they're baptized, they know their theology perfectly. And you know, and I'm being a little extreme tongue in cheek, but truthfully, they just make it so hard. But I look at Peter, and Peter didn't say, hey, if you just, if you wanna follow Jesus, we've got a class next week for you to attend, and over the next twelve weeks, and then you can be baptized.
Speaker 2:No, it was immediate. When when the Ethiopian eunuch was sitting with Philip, he he said, hey, where can I be baptized? Philip's like, there's some water right there. Let's go. It's be saved, be baptized.
Speaker 2:And there's just this beautiful act of surrender, and a beautiful act of dependence, and trust, and obedience in that first step. Some would then say, Susan, cynics of this would say, well, there's a lot of people that don't know what they're doing. There's a lot of people who later, they won't be following Jesus at all, but they got baptized. What do you do with that? How would you answer that?
Speaker 1:So wait, repeat the question.
Speaker 2:So people that would say, hey, there are a lot of people that got baptized, but where are they now? It wasn't real.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that
Speaker 2:So they're so they say that you're wrong to baptize everybody like that, baptize 120 something people at camp, or on Christmas, we'll baptize several people.
Speaker 1:What it sounds like to me is a control issue. That we are somehow in control of other people's salvation. Where God says, get out there and work the field. I'll separate the wheat from the chaff. I'm gonna do the separating of the believer from the unbeliever.
Speaker 1:In fact, nowhere are we actually called to be judges at all. Now we're called to be wise. We're called to share true theology. We're called to be accurate as we share the good news of Jesus Christ. But in the examples that you've given, and I'm sure there's well meaning people that obviously lead church in a different way and have a different view.
Speaker 1:But if not careful, it sounds like a control issue to me where we are trying to put ourselves in position of giving you the stamp of approval if you are in fact saved or are not.
Speaker 2:Well, and I'm responding to just the the mocking and the cynicism, and I feel a little defensive toward, our sweet sheep. I feel like I want to speak up for these students, where there's just a little bit of a criticism of student baptisms.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:I just don't, I just feel like that critical voice is very disconnected from students, and we are very close to the students. And I know when a student stands in front of their friends and is baptized, that's not a popularity contest moment. They are denying themselves. They are sometimes at great embarrassment to themselves. They're standing, saying, I'm standing for Christ.
Speaker 2:And then we've seen a great endurance, but you're right. I mean, there are those that break your heart later, and I would say there are those that went through the twelve week class that'll break your heart later.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:The first thing I know is that the Apostle John speaks at length about those that left his ministry and left the church. And I just came to a place a long time ago that if people are gonna leave the faith under the apostle John's preaching, there are gonna be those that break our heart too. That that's actually just the human nature.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:That there are those who walked with Jesus and rejected him. I mean, that's just amazing.
Speaker 1:Hard to even fathom.
Speaker 2:They saw the miracle of him feeding the 5,000. They saw Lazarus come back from the dead, and they rejected him.
Speaker 1:Well, and before we go judging those people who rejected him, I believe that that points to the depravity of us all. Yeah. Apart from the grace of God, it could be any of us. Like, go back to Genesis chapter three, and we're all so mad at Eve and Adam. Like, why?
Speaker 1:How could you? What what were you thinking? But it all exposes the heart of darkness in us all apart from Christ and the reason we need Jesus, the reason that he changes lives and that we are so desperate for him.
Speaker 2:And whenever we have an altar call or whenever we do that, first of we take great care to make sure they know what they're doing.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And we've had some moments where we caught, you know, hey, maybe that wasn't explained as clear years ago, if you recall any of those moments, where we said, hey, let's tighten this up. Let's make sure that the servant leaders or the pastors who are leading this, when someone's being baptized, that they've heard the gospel. They've responded to the gospel. Even with our students, we'll call the parents, and we'll spend time counseling and talking to them about the decision they're making.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's not without process.
Speaker 2:It's not without a process, and it's not without care. But I love the passage that you gave about a church that wants to be a conversion growth church, and that is, hey, there will be some goats among the sheep. Yes, there will be maybe even wolves among the sheep. Yes, there will be, as the Bible calls it, chaff in the midst of the grain. And there will be tares in the And midst Jesus of the said, Don't try to pull them out by hand.
Speaker 1:Oh, you'll hurt the good. You'll hurt the wheat.
Speaker 2:Yes, you'll hurt the wheat. He said, Let me do that. I just need laborers, and I need ambassadors, I need people who will present. And this is important. You know, Luke chapter 19 verse 10, the Bible says, For the son of man came to seek and save the lost.
Speaker 2:He came to seek and save the lost. Man, if that's his mission, it's our mission. We are here to seek and save the lost.
Speaker 1:And bible goes so far to say, how will they know if someone doesn't go? How will they hear if someone doesn't tell them? We as Christ followers who have been saved by Jesus, our lives have been changed and are being changed, transformed by Jesus. That's the mandate and calling on our life. Even in my own life in recent, honestly, recent weeks, I have been so inspired in sharing the good news of Jesus with other people.
Speaker 1:And I wanna give cred to Jay Pecluda, who is just a great man of faith and reaching a lot of people. He was in the hospital not so long ago, and he just made public on his stories how he began, he's stuck in this hospital, he can't leave, and he just made it his mission field. And he just kinda shared on his stories, live feeds, not showing people's faces, he was honoring. But just how he shares the gospel. And it wasn't to brag, it was to help and to instruct.
Speaker 1:I've been sharing my faith for as many years since God I mean, decades had changed my life. But, you know, we encourage one another when we're we talk about it. And so I wanna share a little bit of how I've shared my faith even in recent weeks. And even how I was like a couple of those times, I was like, okay, I'm gonna use his tactics. So is that I mean, I'm just gonna share some of them.
Speaker 1:Okay. So then one of the most recent ones. So side note, everyone. Unfortunately, I have back pain sometimes. This has been an on again, off again thing.
Speaker 1:Just a side note conversation. Actually started Pilates, which has really helped me not have a major injury, but I still get sore muscles. I just have a degenerative disc, the whole nine yards. So recently, all that said, massages will sometimes help the muscles in my back. It just releases something, and I had this massage.
Speaker 1:And this sweet woman, I would say, I don't know, maybe in her early forties, probably late thirties, maybe. She's given me this wonderful massage. She's really doing a great job. And I'm not a talker. Like, I'm just like, I might fall asleep.
Speaker 1:Like, let me be I appreciate you, but I'm just not into conversation. Well, I felt such a heaviness that the Lord was telling me, you need to tell her about me. So I'm like, alright, God. He present the opportunity because I'm not gonna talk while we're having a massage. I mean, I didn't give him an ultimatum, but I felt like I didn't have to do that.
Speaker 1:So I'm praying for her the entire time that she's giving me this massage, and she's doing a great job. And so it comes to the end of that fifty minute massage, and I feel that heavy weight of the Lord on me that this is someone I've crossed your paths with. Tell her, speak my name. So sure enough, we finish, and it's kind of a long walk back to the reception area, and I've been praying for her. And I just told her the truth.
Speaker 1:I said, this is one of the best massages I've ever had. Thank you so much. And she was like, oh, thank you. And and as we begin walking back, the long walk back to the reception, I just said or I asked her a little bit about how long she's been doing massage and and just hearing her story briefly. And then I said, hey.
Speaker 1:I said, is there anything going on in your life that I can pray for? And I asked specifically about, like, relationship. And I thought maybe it'd be your mom. I wasn't sure. Is there anything I could pray for?
Speaker 1:And she looked at me and she said, you know what? And then she takes her sweet little arm and hooks it around my arm like we've been best friends forever. And we are walking down the hall, and I'm in my robe. And she's like, I feel like I can trust you. And she begins to share with me how she's in the middle of a terrible divorce, that her husband has harmed her kids and suicidal, just very, very dark.
Speaker 1:And I begin to tell her that Jesus loves her and that he impressed on me to pray for her during that massage, and that he sees her and wants to walk with her, and begin to share the good news of Jesus and encouraging her to read John chapter one, that that's a starting point for her. And she said, I've been talking to a friend. She said, I'm Catholic. Are you Catholic? I'm said, no.
Speaker 1:I'm not, but I have a lot of Catholic friends. And she said, I I just feel like we were supposed to meet. That's a moment where I'll tell you, you're like, well, yeah, that's normal for you. This is what you do. I don't care who you are.
Speaker 1:Right. We all experience moments where we think this is awkward. Is this am I supposed to have this moment? And I believe as we walk with God and we have a heart to listen to him, he will tell us when that he sent someone to encounter us.
Speaker 2:It's good. Yeah. So good. And that's kind of the first step if you wanna get in this game. This really is like a supernaturally empowered part of your life when you begin to do this.
Speaker 2:As a church and as a person, if you start praying, God, would you bring people in my path? Right. God, would you bring people in my path that I can say a good word about you, say a good word about his church, invite people to church, or tell them about the difference Jesus has made in your life? Because one of the things that you have that no one can take away is you have your testimony. Yes.
Speaker 2:You have the work God has done in your life, and you share that with others. It's not meant to stay with you. Share it with others. I'd say that as a church, it's so important for us that we stay focused on this. One of the things that we have to navigate is we win so many people to Jesus, but we also have people that come to our church from other churches.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. K? So we wanna be a conversion growth church. We don't wanna grow just from the swapping of sheep. You know, we're just just wooing people over from another church.
Speaker 2:That is not our heart.
Speaker 1:Never has been.
Speaker 2:Never has been. Even when we speak with someone, they say, Well, I came from this and that church. If I know that church, I would say, Oh, we're praying for that church, or We love that church, I'll name the pastors. Just because, you know, this isn't gonna be a place where we pile on and try to grow their expense. We just have always done that.
Speaker 2:We've trained our pastors to be the same way. But God will bring people in different seasons. He'll send some of our people out to other places, and he'll send people to us for a season when they're they're ready to come to Keystone. How do we handle that? This is a fun conversation.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. How do we navigate that when we want to be a conversion growth church?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Well, you don't have to choose.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right.
Speaker 1:You don't have to choose. It's the both and yet again, because Jesus changes our life at the moment of salvation, at the moment we place our faith in him and receive his gift of grace. But until heaven and home, he promises to finish the good work that he started in us. And that's every believer everywhere. I don't care if you're a pastor or if you've been a Christian for five minutes, we are being transformed this side of heaven because the battle with sin still is is it full, you know, it's it's full on.
Speaker 1:That battle was sin until we're heaven and home. And so the discipleship is what God would call it, is is learning how to follow Christ. As we learn how to follow Christ, what we're experiencing is a change in who we are. We're looking more like him. And so whether it's someone, again, who's a brand new believer or someone who comes to us and they follow Jesus for years and years, the heart of a church that loves Jesus is to minister and disciple and encourage one another through that whole journey.
Speaker 2:And you know, we've told people, hey, they say, man, we just feel compelled to be here. Sometimes they're coming from a place where a church has lost their light of truth. You know? Other times, they've lost their biblical worldview or something like, there's some reasons where they felt compelled to find a church that aligned with them, and we understand that. But our heart is, okay, well, if you're here and you're a mature believer, we're to build something together.
Speaker 2:Right. So link arm in arms with us as we see that Jesus changes lives.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Like, you can be here, but don't come here just to sip and see
Speaker 1:Oh, right.
Speaker 2:Or sit here and and just consume but not contribute. Man, join us.
Speaker 1:It's one of our greatest joys is igniting the mission in someone else's life. Igniting the values and the vision that God has a vision for your life. So I think so many people lack purpose or misplaced purpose as believers even. And we are looking for people who say, okay. I may be a dentist.
Speaker 1:I may be a teacher. I may be working in this area of finance. Whatever the calling or career path that you may find yourself on. I may be a mom at home with my all my children. Whatever you're doing, the purpose on this earth is to point people to Jesus.
Speaker 1:That is why you're here. If you're still here. And so we're looking for people who will link arms with us. We said it from the beginning and you said it a moment ago, but when we started this church, our heart was for the lost. God help us seek and just find the lost people that you would save.
Speaker 1:But we've always prayed for the what we call the mighty oak. Yeah. It's the picture of a tree that's been growing for a long time.
Speaker 2:Builders.
Speaker 1:Strong. Yeah. That, God, if you bring those mighty oak people, people who are mature in their faith, they've been they've known you for a while and allowed you full sway, surrendered to you, God, bring them to this church. Let us link arms together, and let us do this mission alongside one another. We pray for those people knowing that the Mighty Oak person also has moments when they're going through a hard place
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Or in the middle of a major storm.
Speaker 2:We were with a Mighty Oak just last night. This family that has experienced incredible loss. And I said to him, I said, You have prayed and ministered to other people, and I'm gonna ask you that you allow yourself to receive
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The ministry and the pastoring of your church. That this is a two Way Street, my friend.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:That God has brought you here to help us build this church, and he put you in our path, and we're building together. But you're in a moment, And Jesus changes lives is evangelism, but Jesus changes lives is helping people find freedom. And Jesus changes lives is when you need comfort, that the hands and feet of Jesus are there to help you find that comfort in Christ and the Holy Spirit. And it's just so powerful when you see that, yes, God brings builders to build, but builders need pastoring too.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:And ministry too. We Prayer too.
Speaker 1:We fall down. We have hard things happen. You you you listening today, you've been following God. You you're gonna come across hard times. There's times when life happens, and it can be very, very broken, and it can even be very, very dark.
Speaker 1:And that's where God is so good to give us the church, which is the hands and feet of Jesus. It's the bride of Christ. It's his body. And as his body, we minister through his spirit with one another. And at the end of the day, it's Jesus changing all of our lives.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the things that that I'm prompted to to bring out is sometimes, I'll hear the comment, man, is the church too big? Is the church growing too big? What's gonna happen when we grow even more? Will we become disconnected? Will we change?
Speaker 2:And there are those out there that say big church is a bad church, that a growing church is a faithless church, and it's an ineffective church, and the growing big church model is dead, and all these things. And I'd love for us to respond to that for just a moment. Just when have you grown too big as a church?
Speaker 1:I mean, I guess you've grown too big as a church when there's no more lost people.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:So Never.
Speaker 2:The answer is no.
Speaker 1:I don't see that happening anytime soon, considering everyone born into this world is lost, spiritually The
Speaker 2:problem there is not size. The problem there is purpose. The problem there is spirit. I remember people were nervous when we left the house and moved into the school because the house was awesome.
Speaker 1:It was awesome.
Speaker 2:I remember when we left the school and moved into the furniture store that became our home, I remember people were nervous. Man, is it just gonna get too big? I remember when we left the furniture store, and especially came into our newest campus, much larger, lots of growth coming, and people are a little nervous. Man, are we gonna change? Is this gonna feel too big?
Speaker 2:And every step along the way, every single step, we still get the comment that we got in the house. We still get the comment that we got in the school, the furniture store. We still get the comment, man, it just feels like this place is home. And that's not about size. You don't have to be small and feel that way.
Speaker 2:It's about purpose. It's about attitude. It's about culture, and it's about spirit.
Speaker 1:Yes. You've always said that's what I was gonna say. You've always said since the very beginning days, it's not about our size, it's about our spirit. And it's about who God has made us to be as a church. And I know that as a church, we desire to have the spirit of Jesus.
Speaker 1:That's really what we're longing for. And I know every church would say that, and that and I hope every church is pursuing that. But when you think about Jesus changing lives, it's his spirit in us that that he works through, and it's his spirit that changes who we are You from the inside know, there's a couple things that I would love to hit in this conversation, and I know you perhaps some more things too. But one, I wanna go back to evangelism at some point and just share some practical tips if you're listening today of just a couple other examples of how I've shared the gospel and was inspired. But also, I think it might be helpful to say, okay, well, Jesus changes lives.
Speaker 1:What are the false ways that we try to change our own lives or the false things that we go to to change lives Yeah. That are not Jesus? Because we're making a very big bold claim that Jesus changes lives.
Speaker 2:I'll say it this way. You know, we love helping marriages. Yeah. We have a voice to marriage. I cannot help your marriage without bringing you to Jesus.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:I can't do it. It's just so in the center. I can't help you raise your children without taking you to Jesus. And the reason is, yeah, the Bible has great principles, but I could teach you some biblical principles, but I'm giving you the behavior without its power.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 2:And so the fake, you know, just the insufficient way to see your life changed is through pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, just try to be better, You know? Do these three steps. You know? And none of that's gonna get you there. That'll have short lived returns.
Speaker 2:God's truth is all truth. All truth is God's truth. And so it'll help. It might be a little better, but you will lack you're gonna hit a wall.
Speaker 1:Yes. And I think we strive without Jesus, and if we're not even considering him, I think people, we strive for something that's going to change me, and we may find something that changes us in a great way. Example, we decide, you know what? I'm gonna begin going to the gym. I'm gonna start working out really hard.
Speaker 1:And we begin to experience physical changes. We begin to experience health benefits, but it's a lack of understanding that our nature in and of itself is so broken that something is always at risk. Something is always vulnerable to the nature of our condition. And so while I may be getting really fit and my physical health may be improving, what happens when my relationships start to struggle? Or what happens when I injure myself at that same gym, and now I can no longer go to the gym to change my life?
Speaker 1:Something always gives. There's always somewhere in my life that's vulnerable and that is broken. And so I may be doing excellent at my job and my career, but is my home life falling apart? Right. The beautiful thing about God is he it's all inclusive.
Speaker 1:He wants to permeate every area, your physical, your relational, your mental, your your spiritual, every part of who you are and what you're about, Jesus changes our lives. And so going to a partial fix for a certain area is short changing what God and God alone can do.
Speaker 2:Jesus changes lives. And so we've talked about winning people to Jesus and how we need to see people coming to faith in Christ. Also, we've talked about how it's not just evangelism, we believe in bodily healing, and we believe in comfort and help. One of the things that I wanna highlight is that ministry and our mission doesn't just occur by helping the poor, doesn't just occur by us serving the down and out. That's part of it.
Speaker 2:But when we gather and people are saved, I mean, someone's gone from death to life.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:When we gather and someone is healed, and we pray for their healing, or you pray for their comfort, that's real ministry. And so the ministry activity, and by the way, when you look at the life of Christ, he spent a lot of time preaching. He spent a lot of time gathering the people and healing. Yeah. He gathered the crowds and he healed.
Speaker 2:He gathered the crowds and he said, Repent. He gathered the crowds and He would teach. And so we just want to be like Jesus, and we're not afraid of the crowds. I would say that our goal is not just more people so that we can pat ourselves on the back and puff out our chest. That is not where it's at for us.
Speaker 2:We don't get the thrill from that. We get the thrill from more and more people having the story that Jesus changed
Speaker 1:their That's right.
Speaker 2:And we collect those stories, we love to see those stories, whether it's somebody being healed, or somebody being saved, somebody being helped, or somebody being saved. But I'd say to the person that says, you know, how big is too big? As long as you have your purpose, and as long as you allow God to grow your leadership, you won't be too big. And we can never be too big as long, as you said, there's somebody there that doesn't know Jesus, as long as there's a marriage that needs to be healed. At what point do you say, We've done enough good.
Speaker 2:Right. Now we're just gonna kinda turn inward, and we're gonna have fun. That's so anti Bible.
Speaker 1:It is anti Bible.
Speaker 2:When you decide to do that, you change. Who you are changes.
Speaker 1:If
Speaker 2:you stop being evangelistic in your heart, you change as a person. And as a church, when you stop reaching and doing extraordinary things to grow and having sacrificial giving journeys so that you can grow and start campuses or whatever it may be, when you stop, the culture that you fall in love with that reach you changes.
Speaker 1:It does. It changes. And along the same line of thinking, I just am reminded of a conversation I had with a woman. This was years and years ago, and she was talking about her mom. And her mom had really stopped going to church, but they'd been raised in church.
Speaker 1:I mean, avid church goers and more of a traditional church setting and come to a place where this young adult, now young mom, is speaking of her own mother, not really going to church consistently anymore. And her evaluation of her mom was this. You know, she paid her dues. Nope. She paid her dues.
Speaker 1:She she had us in church. She had us there. And I remembered my heart sinking.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Thinking, wow. How much more could you miss the truth of Christ and who he is? This is not a pay my dues kind of relationship. This is, God, I need you so desperately till my last breath on this earth. Jesus, I am counting on you to change my life through every season that I walk in as long as you allow me breath here, this side of heaven.
Speaker 1:And to have that mindset, it was just so devastating, but I think it may potentially be other people's mindset, and it's a misunderstanding. And I believe it's a lack of relationship.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. So we wanna be a church that loves the lost and believe that Jesus changes lives.
Speaker 1:Yes. And to to kinda close out the conversation, I'd love to give just some tips. And I'm gonna give props again. I was very inspired by Jay Pecluda, and I wanna just share some of the things that he was using that I have since used. I used it on an airplane with a sweet woman who's a lawyer, and it opened into a huge conversation about faith.
Speaker 1:It was amazing. But this is basically how the conversation could roll because you may be sitting there thinking, man, I struggle sharing my faith. One thing you can begin to do is just invite people to come to your church. But I wanna take it a step further and for you to step into the awkward zone. And it doesn't mean every single person you're beating them over the head, you know, with a bible.
Speaker 1:But what it does look like is when God puts someone in your life and there's a moment he begins to whisper to your heart, be curious. Be curious about their life. Ask him questions. Ask him about whatever it is that you're involved in at the moment. And then at some point, ask them about their faith.
Speaker 1:Hey, do you have a faith? Tell me about your faith. And then this is the question that I was inspired by and I've used a few times now, is you can ask that person, say, hey, I have two quick questions for you. So zero to ten, ten being 100% sure. If you die today, how sure are you that you would go to heaven?
Speaker 1:And I asked a woman this question who I was seated in a nail salon, and this woman sat down beside me and turns out she knew who I was, I did not know her. And she said my name, she said, hi, Susan, and began weeping. Well, as she began to share her story, she had just found out she'd been diagnosed with stage four cancer and had a few months to live. I immediately felt the weight of this assignment sitting beside me, the love I had for this person I did not know and care and concern. And so I asked her that question.
Speaker 1:As we got into conversation, I asked her that question because we're both sitting in a chair stuck, right, with our pedicures. And she said, oh, I'm a 100% sure. I know I know I'm going to heaven. And I said, okay. And I asked the second question.
Speaker 1:Here's the second one. Well, if God asked you, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? And so I asked her that question and she said, I mean, I am so kind. I am kind to people.
Speaker 1:I I am I serve others. I don't even want people to serve me. And I think God just I mean, I don't know. I think he just knows me. He knows me.
Speaker 1:And it was in that moment that it was revealed this sweet woman does not know the forgiveness and the grace of Jesus Christ. And I had the opportunity to share with her the good news of Jesus. And here's another way kinda that I picked up recent. I love to learn from one another. Iron sharpens iron.
Speaker 1:Is that then ripping off Jay Pecluda? I said to her, okay. Imagine that you receive tickets to go to a Mavs game. Somebody gives you free tickets to go to a Mavs game, and that's court seat courtside seats, I mean, awesome seats. And you go to that box office to get into that Mavs game, and the person says to you, why should I let you in?
Speaker 1:What would you say? What would you say? You have a ticket.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then I ask you, what did you pay for that ticket?
Speaker 2:No. What happened? It was a gift.
Speaker 1:It was a gift. It was a gift given to you. That's salvation. Salvation is not by our works. We didn't pay our way through our good works or being kind enough or being serving others enough.
Speaker 1:We did it because Jesus paid for our eternal salvation. It's a gift freely given. And the reason that we go to heaven, it's not good people go to heaven and bad people don't. No. The people who go to heaven are forgiven people.
Speaker 1:We've received the free gift of salvation and forgiveness through Christ. So I hope that helps somebody today. Just some practical sharpening as we become people who are serious. We believe Jesus changes lives. He's changed our lives.
Speaker 1:We wanna tell others how he can change their lives too.
Speaker 2:So good. And we look forward to you joining us next time on the overflow.