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Beyond Sunday's is a weekly podcast from Porter Memorial Baptist Church that continues the conversation beyond Sunday morning through biblical discussion, pastoral insight, and practical application. Join members of our pastoral team as we dive deeper into Scripture, answer listener questions, discuss SBC and current events through a biblical lens, and encourage one another to follow Christ throughout the week.
We're excited to announce a brand new discipleship resource here at Porter, the Beyond Sunday Collective. In the coming weeks, we'll launch our first show, Beyond Sunday, where some of our pastors will continue the conversation from Sunday, answer your questions, discuss SBC news, and think biblically about what's happening in our culture and around the world. Over time, we'll add more podcasts designed for different ages, stages of life, and areas of ministry, all with the same goal, helping you grow as a disciple of Jesus. These podcasts aren't meant to replace gathered worship, life groups, or the relationships that make up the life in the local church. They're simply another tool to help equip you to follow Christ throughout the week.
Pastor CJ:We can't wait to share them with you, so make sure that you scan the QR code and subscribe to the first show so you never miss an episode. Alright. Welcome to the first episode of Beyond Sunday, the first in a series of podcasts that we're gonna be releasing here at Porter Memorial. Before we get into our conversation though, pastor Nick, I was hoping that you would explain a little bit of how this came to be. How did we end up in the basement of Porter with a podcast studio?
Pastor Nick:Well, the world's changed a lot since I started in ministry. I mean, know, it's ollie gee, who would have thought we'd have been talking into microphones in a basement through wifi. And I know that people are getting their information at a different way than they used to. When I first started in ministry, I was the only theological mind that the church really had speaking into them every week, unless they went to the library and read books, maybe listened to a few voices on the radio. But now the voices are everywhere.
Pastor Nick:And I know that our people's schedules are crazy and I know that I benefit from podcasts. And so I thought, why wouldn't we produce something like this for our congregation? And, when the Lord brought you to our team, you had some expertise in that. I thought it was an opportunity for us to start taking content to our congregation. My vision for it is not to build the brand of Porter.
Pastor Nick:I know there's some excellent church podcasts out there that really, you know, do a great job of marketing themselves and even more importantly, sharing the gospel. But my vision is for us to just talk to our folks every week and talk about what Porter's doing, what God's doing in us, how we, as individuals can take the gospel outside the walls of our church, and, and better equip our people to be those types of disciples.
Pastor CJ:Yeah, that's awesome. So how do you hope our people use something like this? Like where do you see them utilizing it in their lives, the rhythms, the routines?
Pastor Nick:Yeah. Well, we're going to take a little deeper dive each week on some of the issues that are talked about on Sunday, but that's just a small part of this. What I really hope is that we start speaking into issues of, how to parent, how to, share my faith with my family, how to deal with some really complex issues in life. And I hope we can kind of do some things in here that we can't do on Sundays. And I hope they can also take this as something that fits into their schedule.
Pastor Nick:Yeah. You know, cause sometimes like church has got a set schedule, you know, you show up on our time here, everybody's getting together is complicated. But this allows us to disciple people on their schedule.
Pastor CJ:Yeah. And I hope it's a point of engagement to where at some point, whether it's digital or physical, I'd love to have a drop a question in the box type of thing that we can pull out. Then I can ask you on the fly with no prep ahead of time. Wait a minute. I don't know how I like that.
Pastor Nick:None of that.
Pastor CJ:No. I'm just kidding. But, yeah, a point of engagement with the congregation where we can be answering those questions and talking through those things. So as we continue, I was thinking if we took a second and did some introductions. So names and how you serve at Porter, how long you've been here, those kinds of things.
Pastor CJ:So, Nuno, can we start with you down there? Yeah. Okay.
Pastor Nuno:Nuno and I've been a Porter for nine years. Now this summer is nine years. And I'm the worship and media pastor here.
Pastor Daniel:But your real name is not Nuno.
Pastor Nuno:No. My real name is Jazimar Oliveira Norberto. Oliveira? Yeah. Oliveira?
Pastor Nick:I didn't know that.
Pastor Nuno:So yeah. That's cool. That's a
Pastor Daniel:cool like Nuno better.
Pastor Nuno:You know what
Pastor Daniel:I mean?
Pastor CJ:I I never I
Pastor Nuno:never liked Jazimar growing up because it's my father's name, and it's a very kinda weird name. It was a combination name of my grandfather and my grandmother. And it's just not a popular name. But when I got here to The US, you know, and everybody's, Jazimar.
Pastor Nick:I was
Pastor CJ:like, oh,
Pastor Nuno:I like Jazimar. That my
Pastor CJ:that was exactly my reaction when he said that. I was like, that's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Alright.
Pastor Nick:Pastor Nick, I've been here for ten years, and enjoy the time. I don't have a cool name, but I've got a great title. Pastor.
Pastor Daniel:Is Nick short for Nicholas?
Pastor Nick:Yeah, it's Nicholas. Real cool story about my name. My mom worked for a dentist in Owensboro and his name was Nicholas, Nicholas, Nicholas. There you go. Wow.
Pastor Nick:Yeah. So when She'd worked for him five or six years before I was born and she just always thought that was a cool name, Nicholas. And so she I'm glad she just gave me one.
Pastor Daniel:I'm glad we don't have to call you Nick Nick Nick. That would be weird. I'm Daniel. I serve here as our next gen and discipleship pastor. So I help kind of guide our next gen team from preschool all way up to college and then help lead out in our life group ministry.
Pastor Daniel:And then CJ and I kind of co lead several of our other discipleship ministries together. I've been here for two and a half years now,
Pastor CJ:which is kind
Pastor Daniel:of crazy. My name is Daniel, so that's not short for anything.
Pastor Nuno:Any one Daniel, not Dan.
Pastor Daniel:One Daniel. But I am named after my grandma because her maiden name was Daniel. So I'm named after her. But Dan's not okay. No.
Pastor Daniel:Or Danny. Absolutely not.
Pastor CJ:Right. Off limits. Okay. All right. My name is CJ and I am Which is short
Pastor Daniel:for Clifford, right?
Pastor CJ:Yeah. Yeah. Clifford Jose There you go. No. So it's Christopher James.
Pastor CJ:Okay. And I also have a story about my name. My mom, I think tried to name me Christopher Robin because she's a big Winnie the Pooh fan. I think my dad said no to that. Okay.
Pastor CJ:So, I appreciate that from him.
Pastor Nick:Yeah. Christopher Robin wasn't Superman? Okay.
Pastor Daniel:That's Clark Kent. Christopher Reeves.
Pastor CJ:Yes. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Not Christopher Robin.
Pastor CJ:No. Christopher Robin is 100 acre wood. Okay. Climbing the trees kind of kind of guy.
Pastor Nick:Never did Winnie the Pooh. Yeah. It's scary to me.
Pastor CJ:Yeah. Me neither. So I'm glad that my name is not Christopher Robinson.
Pastor Nuno:Know that he's yellow.
Pastor CJ:He's a bear. Right? Yes. Yeah. Little red shorts.
Pastor CJ:Yeah. Yeah. He has no pants. Yeah. Alright.
Pastor CJ:Shirt only.
Pastor Nick:It's like it's like the
Pastor Nuno:three little mouse yesterday mice yesterday. I had no idea what you're talking about.
Pastor CJ:You mean the three blind minds?
Pastor Daniel:Three blind minds? Three blinds. Literally Three blinds.
Pastor CJ:None of us know any these stories.
Pastor Nuno:We were sitting behind you,
Pastor Daniel:and I saw I saw you lean over to Sarah, and
Pastor Nick:you're like, what is that? And she
Pastor CJ:was like, I had no idea.
Pastor Nick:Arpin, did
Pastor CJ:you know? Yeah. Arpin knew. Alright. Yeah.
Pastor CJ:Arpin is at our producer's desk running this whole thing, so I appreciate you sitting
Pastor Daniel:over We're looking for nicknames for Arpin.
Pastor CJ:So That's right.
Pastor Daniel:You can submit those online through our church website.
Pastor CJ:Tweet those into us. So so that's my name. I've been here almost exactly two months, I think, teaching and discipleship associate pastor, working with Daniel on on a lot of things and also the podcast ministry, and I'll be doing some preaching on Wednesday nights. So I'm excited about those things and, being here. Speaking of preaching, the sermon that, you preached yesterday, Pastor Nick, was Psalm 100.
Pastor CJ:Mhmm. And I think Beth and I, my wife, were both, I don't know what the word is, but we really you went off script and you said I'm going off script in the first service, and we were both like, keep going. You know, like, keep going off script. This is good. Like, we really enjoyed what you were saying.
Pastor CJ:You're talking about the idea of service, creating a culture of service, how it's easy to, I guess, negotiate with yourself and your schedule about, you know, getting out of things that might have gospel impacts. And so I would love to talk a little bit more about that with you guys, the three of you, because, you know, relating to each of your ministries, we're always looking for volunteers, right? We're always trying to train people. We're always looking for, you know, a spirit of volunteerism from people and in those things. So I was going to ask you, how do we create that culture of of service in the church while not falling into the other ditch of burning people out?
Pastor CJ:Right. So as leaders, how do we do that? And then we'll talk about that maybe from the other side, too.
Pastor Nick:Yeah, I think it's really complicated because our culture is constantly telling people you need more escape, you need more time for you, you need to say no to more. And that's really complicated in ours because we have this high investment. I talked about that high investment, high involvement ministry. And yet we've got a low commitment culture. And that escapism meeting the need for faithfulness is really difficult.
Pastor Nick:I thought about this a lot since yesterday. There was a little part of me like, man, I didn't want our people to feel leveraged, but I do want our people to feel challenged. Like, I don't want people to think, oh man, I can just, you know, do whatever the world tells me to do and find the likeness of Christ. You know, chasing that escapism isn't going to form you into Christ. It's going to take you farther away from it.
Pastor Nick:So I think we have to push on that a little and also recognize that the church can abuse people. I mean, we can ask way too much of them, but I don't see that as the norm, except for a small handful of people who are trying to pick up the slack of people not stepping up and doing their part of the body.
Pastor Daniel:Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say I think that burnout in church and you see it all over social media. There's a lot of the ex evangelical stuff that's out there. A lot of what you hear from that is legalism and burnout. And and nine times out of 10, when it's burnout, it's because those people were often part of the small percentage of the church who's doing the work.
Pastor Daniel:And and they do everything because it often feels like nobody else will step up. And so there is this, like, burnout is a very real thing. But I think like yours you said, like, burnout is also kind of a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot, and the the enemy can often use it as an excuse to to avoid that which the Lord has called us to do. Right? I mean, the son of man came to be to serve and not to be served.
Pastor Daniel:Right? We we don't look any more like Jesus. We look more like Jesus when we're serving others than any other time. And really the heart of the gospel is laying ourselves down to serve others. And I think that's a deep and real fruit of our faith if service is joyous byproduct of the
Pastor Nick:faith that
Pastor Daniel:we have in Him as our Lord.
Pastor Nuno:Yeah, I think also comes from leadership. Think if we're just kind of people that wait and let others serve and we just kind of look, I don't think we encourage people to serve with gladness, like the verse says. I think here at Purah, at least it feels that every aspect of our church, every leader of ministries serve with gladness, which encourages others to jump in on board because, hey, you know, that guy, do a good job, but also is excited about serving the Lord in his capacity or stepping in to help somebody. So I think it comes from leadership as well. And I love that if we are focusing on verse two, serve the Lord with gladness and then come before Him with joyful songs.
Pastor Nuno:I love that part of my job that I get to do every Sunday. And, yeah, so I think it comes from us too, as we lead, we're not just bystanders. Actually do serve.
Pastor Nick:Yeah. You never ask people to do what you're not willing to do. But I hear a lot of people say, of course I'm willing to do it, but then you never do it. So people have to see your willingness in your actions, not just in your talk. And so, I think that's part of it.
Pastor Nick:I think as leaders, have to balance the world in which we live. It is a hectic, fast paced world. And I'm not talking about escaping from culture. We're people who live in the world. We're just not like the world.
Pastor Nick:But we can't say that I'm in a body where, you know, Paul is clear in one Corinthians that we all have a part in that body, but you're not functioning. If you're not functioning, you're being detrimental to your spiritual health. So I mean, you've got to
Pastor CJ:be
Pastor Nick:doing something and we can't say, man, I'm just so busy with everything else. World's pushing on me, and school and, and movies and vacations and all of these other parts of our life, which I'm not even dogging. I just, you can't do that and say, I'm not going to do my part in the body. And we have to push against that. And I don't think our problem at Porter is that we're burning out the majority of our people.
Pastor Nick:I think the problem at Porter is we've not figured out how to get the majority of our people engaged. That's why we have these high involvement choirs. That's why I want a 100 people in our choir. I'd love to have 80 people in the first service and 80 people in the second service. And I have to tell people, we just don't have enough seats for you to sing in both services.
Pastor Nick:And then we'll have 200 at our big events. Okay. I got you. And I'd love it in LifeGroup. I'd love for us to have two teachers in every room who rotate together.
Pastor Nick:I didn't tell a story yesterday that I'd planned to tell. I'm going to name names because they do an awesome job, but Justin and Christina West teach our third graders. And sometimes you can go down through here and you hear this class singing and they're just really having this awesome time. But they were down decorating the room for pop up Sunday and their room's amazing. And they've taught like for five or six straight years together.
Pastor Nick:And they're here like all the time. I saw them down the hall and I just went down and said, Hey, I just want to thank you guys for your faithfulness and for how faithful you are. And she said, What do you mean? I said, Well, you're here like all the time. And she said, Nick, kids don't tell you if their parents are going through divorce, if they don't know you're going to be in the room.
Pastor Nick:And I heard what she was saying.
Pastor CJ:That's so good.
Pastor Nick:Yeah. Consistency is what opens people up to the gospel. Knowing that that consistent love is going to be there and show up. And I know not everybody has a life rhythm where they can do 50 out of fifty two weeks. I get that.
Pastor Nick:But I do think striving toward more consistency is God honoring, you know, and we don't push people there.
Pastor Daniel:Yeah, I agree. And I don't think it's about, you know, we we want people to give all their time or anything like that. I I think it's more about as we pursue the Lord and as we grow closer to him, that should be a natural byproduct of our faith. Right? That we that we want to be consistently serving and knowing where people are and caring for people.
Pastor Daniel:I think about miss Esther, who led one of our senior adult lady group. She she led up until about six months ago and had to step away for health reasons, but she had served as a life group leader in her churches for well over fifty years.
Pastor Nick:Yeah. And that's because she was gifted. Yeah. I mean, it was her calling. Yeah.
Pastor Nick:You know, we want people to find that calling.
Pastor CJ:Yeah.
Pastor Daniel:Yeah. It's not about filling a spot just to fill a spot. I don't want that. I'd rather you be serving somewhere that you feel gifted and led to do. Like, we can do the work to get the right people in the right spots, but sometimes it feels like we're scrambling because like, I got to have a warm body here.
Pastor Nick:Well, think sometimes people don't know their spot because they've never tried. Right. I agree. You know, I mean, the Lord shapes us as we go, you know, and He channels us into the right places. But I think a lot of people never start.
Pastor Nick:And so we've got that pushing is a part of it.
Pastor CJ:Absolutely. Yeah. So as we're thinking about these things, we want to serve out of joy, know, just like it talks about in the Psalm and in various other texts throughout scripture, but emotions are fickle and they come and go. So you're just imagine you're entering a season, have a place of faithful service, but your emotions aren't aligned with your responsibilities. What do you do?
Pastor CJ:What do you tell someone or what do you guys do personally as you're entering those seasons where I know I should be doing this but I don't want to because my emotions aren't there? How do you how do you navigate a season like that Or what would you encourage someone to be doing in that season?
Pastor Daniel:For me, it's remembering that the service that I do, it's not about me and how I feel. Right? The moment it becomes about me and how I feel is the moment when, and I think you alluded to this in your message yesterday, when I'm serving myself and I'm not serving other people. Know, life is not a constant, like you said, it's not just joy upon joy upon joy. And sometimes our circumstances do require us to step out of some different places that we're serving.
Pastor Daniel:But when my emotions aren't there, I have to remind myself that I'm more than my emotions. Right? Like you said, I think that's so true. Our emotions are fickle. And this thing that God has called me to do and placed me to do, whether that be on our welcome team or as a life group leader or working in the counting room on Sunday morning.
Pastor Daniel:Even if I feel like that I'm just not there mentally, I'm not there emotionally, sometimes even I'm not
Pastor Nick:there
Pastor Daniel:spiritually, the drive shouldn't be about how I feel about doing it. The drive should be the fact that God has called me to serve my brothers and sisters in Christ and this is a way in which I do that.
Pastor Nick:So this is a practice of my faith. Y'all know I'm exercising right now and I'm almost on my one hundredth class, but I think a lot about my exercise routine. I know it is good for me and I've even gotten to a place where I enjoy it sometimes, but there's still days where I don't want to go, but I know it's what I am in need of, you know? And so I believe service is something we're in need of. I hope it came through loud and clear on Sunday that your service is not just helping the church pull off what we do.
Pastor Nick:That's part of it, But it's also about you being who you're created to be. And we develop into that. And when we just lay down every time that it's hard, then we lose that development. So that means that, so, so yes, I'm going this afternoon, 05:15. Don't want to go.
Pastor CJ:Is this your hundredth class?
Pastor Nick:No, no, no, no. I'm almost at my one hundredth class. This is like 92 or 93.
Pastor CJ:Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got any thoughts, Nuno?
Pastor Nuno:No. Okay.
Pastor Nick:Come on, Ollie. I
Pastor Nuno:don't know who Ollie is either. I don't know who Ollie is either.
Pastor Nick:Oliveado. Oliveto. Oliveto. Oliveto.
Pastor CJ:I'm sorry. Okay. So as you know, so we're talking about service, but if we zoom out for a second. So Baptist Press put out this article about the impact of Southern Baptist on, the World Cup and how we got to be involved with that. They they said there's approximately 500 salvations that happened through evangelism efforts, you know, during that whole event.
Pastor CJ:And so service is not just inside the church, you know, on Sunday morning within the walls. It's also going out. This how does Porter think about that? So I'm genuinely asking you guys. Right?
Pastor CJ:Because I'm still new. But how do we think about cultural engagements, leveraging, you know, big events like that in in in the society? I mean, this was this was huge. There was people talking about soccer that I've never heard talk about soccer before. Right?
Pastor CJ:I mean, people were watching and paying attention. I was loosely following, and I've never followed soccer, but it's just everybody's talking about it.
Pastor Nick:Mhmm.
Pastor CJ:How do you leverage something like that through an act of service for Kingdom Impact? Have we done things like that?
Pastor Nuno:Yeah. You don't know what you're missing, by the way, in Russian soccer.
Pastor Daniel:I'm I'm
Pastor CJ:trying to catch him on basketball right now.
Pastor Nuno:Yeah. We're just
Pastor CJ:in the Lexington.
Pastor Nuno:So Yes. Okay. So
Pastor Nick:No football starts in just about a month.
Pastor Nuno:That's right.
Pastor CJ:Okay. Go for us.
Pastor Nuno:Well, F.
Pastor CJ:O. Oh, gosh. We almost made it. Did you hear what he said? That's what he said.
Pastor CJ:Yeah. Oh. I don't have a dog in
Pastor Nick:this bag. Have very few rules in this room, but you can't wear orange.
Pastor CJ:Yeah. Go ahead. Right.
Pastor Nuno:You can't wear a jacket or a coat. I'm just brutally honest. I did go to the Winter Olympics, to do street evangelism there. Honestly I went a little skeptical at first to see how it would work. And I mean the way the Lord works out conversations with all kinds of people from literally all over the world was really eye opening.
Pastor Nuno:That people still want to talk. And they're still open. I know that it's a crazy world out there with lots of crazy views from politics and from religions too. People are just willing to talk. The many doors that the Lord opened there in Italy from talking to really devout Muslims, and having just an open conversation about the differences, but not getting mad at each other, to seeing people accept the Lord, even with some folks from our church, you know, it's worth it.
Pastor Nuno:So meaning the effort that the SBC did with the World Cup here in The US on our soil, you know, with people from all over the world coming to us And just seeing these numbers are really exciting. They're really exciting. That people are stepping up again and sharing the gospel faithfully and let the Lord work. So I was really excited when I saw those numbers from the biggest sport in the world, by the way, on having this this great conversations about the Lord. So that's I was excited.
Pastor Nick:I think on a much bigger than soccer level
Pastor CJ:Is there something bigger than soccer? Yes.
Pastor Nick:Think we should leverage everything for the gospel. I mean, and so things that are constantly being talked about or things that people kind of are rallying around, You know, we don't have many things that we rally around anymore. So when there's something that is kind of on everybody's mind and yet it's not causing division, you know, I think we ought to leverage those anytime we can. So I think not just macro at a Southern Baptist level, I think you could do that as an individual church level. I know our youth will have Super Bowl parties where they bring friends to their Super Bowl parties.
Pastor Nick:You know, I've seen that with our young professionals, our men's nights as Those are great ways to invite somebody in. Hey, you want to come and be a part of this with us. And even if you don't want do it at a church level, you know, we're to take the gospel with us through our homes and in our daily lives. Real conversion happens when people are sharing the gospel outside of these walls.
Pastor Nuno:And
Pastor Nick:so I think these are great times. Hey, come over and watch a game with us tonight. And it doesn't even have to be the Super Bowl. It could just be, you like the Wildcats. I like the Wildcats.
Pastor Nick:Come over and watch them. Even though I watch them alone, by the way, I don't want to go to anybody's house because
Pastor CJ:You're saying please don't invite me. Please don't invite me.
Pastor Nick:My wife would say it's not safe for you to go and watch the Wildcats at other people's homes.
Pastor CJ:Do you have a ritual that you follow, like a lucky shirt
Pastor Nick:or no, I just yell at the refs. That's kind of true. But no, think, I think leveraging thing for the gospel is, is not only an opportunity, I think it's just mandatory. We're supposed to leverage life for the gospel.
Pastor Daniel:Yeah. Well, and we've alluded to, you know, the world has a lot of demands on our time now, right? Like from work to hobbies to kids sports and things like that. But the Lord is also really intentional about placing us in those environments and situations, not just for us to be there for the sports or even the thing that we like to do, but because we're to be a light in the darkness and in the world, right? It's as simple as your neighborhood.
Pastor Daniel:Who lives across the street from you? Who lives next door? Realizing that like, I don't just live here because this is the house I could afford to buy with the interest rates and all that fun stuff. But God has placed me and my family here to to be a conduit for the gospel. And it's as simple as I think it's as simple as, man, let's host a Super Bowl party where we invite our neighbors to come.
Pastor Daniel:Or let's know, the the cats are playing away this week. Like, let's host a watch party and invite our our neighbors. Or our kids soccer team. Let's invite their parents to come and watch it with us. It's as simple as that and creating a space where gospel conversations can begin to happen.
Pastor Nick:Yeah.
Pastor CJ:What I like about what you're saying, it almost circles back to where we started because instead of always having to pit things against each other, like church versus not church, we're saying the things that we're doing outside the walls of the church can be redeemed for the same
Pastor Daniel:Absolutely.
Pastor CJ:Right. But in maybe a more creative way. Yeah. So like those watch parties or those events. Yeah.
Pastor CJ:It doesn't have to be like, oh, I can't do ministry because I have this soccer game. Right. That soccer game can become evangelistic or can become a ministry setting. Yeah. Yeah.
Pastor CJ:It's really good. I enjoyed, was it was it a week ago or so we went to the legends game Mhmm. In in Lexington. I don't know. I mean, it wasn't necessarily evangelistic, but what I did see was, a lot of connections being made.
Pastor CJ:And maybe I missed something. Maybe it was evangelistic, but
Pastor Nick:it was not, but we did have people bring people. Right. Okay. Perfect. Got introduced to about four people who I know don't go to church anywhere.
Pastor Nick:And they made it, they wanted me to meet them. They engaged them with other friends. So it, it, did. Some people were using it for that purpose.
Pastor CJ:So we had people doing already what we're talking about. They're already seeing that.
Pastor Nick:And that's happening Sunday after Sunday. But some people church is like a wall.
Pastor CJ:It's easier to invite someone to a baseball game.
Pastor Nick:Yeah. Yeah. A friend. Yeah. You know, so we build relationships.
Pastor Nick:We share the gospel. The vehicle that the gospel rides best in is a friendship. Absolutely.
Pastor CJ:Yeah. So just thinking strategically then about that before it gets to that point. So who can I begin building some kind of relationship with or some kind of friendship with whether it be a neighbor or a co worker or something? So then it's not awkward when the time comes to invite them to a baseball game.
Pastor Nick:Yeah. Right
Pastor CJ:at the Legends game or something like that.
Pastor Nick:Yeah. It's good.
Pastor CJ:Yeah. So, we want this to be a resource, this podcast that we're doing here and the ones that are be gonna be, showing up here soon. But I wanted to also ask you guys, what are some resources that you're finding encouraging right now so that maybe you'd recommend someone listen to you? Maybe it's a book, another podcast, a YouTube channel, whatever the case may be. What are some things that have been helpful for you lately?
Pastor Daniel:Well, I'm continuing to meet with the guys who were in my 2x2 group. Last year, we met through the summer and we kind of got to a place in our reading plan where we're like, okay, what are we going to do next? And so we decided to read a book together in addition to reading the word. And so I suggested that we read Donald S. Whitney's Spiritual Disciplines for Christian Life.
Pastor Daniel:It's a great book. If you've never read it, I highly encourage you to read it. I read it in seminary for the first time, but rereading it. This morning, started chapter two, and there's a part, if you don't mind me quoting it. No.
Pastor Daniel:Go ahead. He says this. He says he's talking about so the the first chapter talks about why we have spiritual disciplines and then what some of them are. And then each chapter after that kind of breaks down different disciplines that we can do. And he starts with daily reading God's word or or being in God's word.
Pastor Daniel:And he says this, he says that no spiritual discipline is more important than the intake of God's word. Nothing can substitute for it. There simply is no healthy Christian life apart from the diet of milk and meat of scripture. The reasons for this are obvious. In the Bible, God tells us about himself and especially about Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God.
Pastor Daniel:The Bible unfolds the law of God for us and shows us how we've all how we're all broken to it. There there we learn how Christ died as a sinless, willing substitute for breakers of God's law and how we must repent and believe in him to be right with God. In the Bible, we learn the ways and the will of the Lord. We find in scripture how God wants us to live and what brings the most joy and satisfaction in our lives. None of this eternally essential information can be found anywhere else except for in the Bible.
Pastor Daniel:Therefore, if we would know God and be godly, we must know the word of God, and we must know it intimately.
Pastor CJ:That's so good. Yeah. So good. Was the author again.
Pastor Daniel:Donald S. Whitney.
Pastor CJ:Okay.
Pastor Daniel:That was a very challenging and important reminder for me this morning. Yeah. Sometimes you get into this rhythm of doing what you know you should do because you know you should do it, and you forget the reason outside of, well, I'm doing this just to do it because I'm supposed to. And it's this reminder that like, man, I've been a Christian since I was nine years old. I've really started reading God's word when I was in high school.
Pastor Daniel:But man, I am never beyond the Bible. I'm never beyond the word of God. There's never a point in time when I will not need to be reminded of my need for Christ Yeah. Or the ways that God calls me to to to live my life, the things that God calls me to do. And so just this reminder of like, man, I've got to I've got to intake God's word, not just to check the box off, because I desperately need it.
Pastor CJ:Yeah. Yeah. Charles Spurgeon said that you never get to the bottom of scripture, that it deepens and widens as you age. Absolutely. And I think that's what you're getting at.
Pastor CJ:Yeah. Right. Is that idea of, like, you can't exhaust what is inexhaustible when it comes from an infinite being. So we have this well that we can always go back to that that just never runs dry.
Pastor Daniel:Our our previous, teaching pastor Hagan, preached, last semester to the on Wednesday nights to the book of Jude. And this morning, I read the book of Jude, and it's so cool. Like, all the things that he taught through. Like, I remember, I I could go back through my notes and look at all the different important things that were there that I was learned and I was challenged in. But then again, like reading it this morning, just the way that the spirit spoke to me and where my heart is at right now and how my life is right now, even though those same truths are still ring true, like God's Word is living and active and He can speak to us through passages and books that we're familiar with in different ways.
Pastor Daniel:We're reminded of different things. We're encouraged and equipped in different ways. And that's eternal, like that doesn't end. And we always need that.
Pastor CJ:Yeah, fantastic reminder. Yeah, thank you.
Pastor Nuno:Yeah, now a book that I always recommend and actually I use some with the people that I mentor with. It's Bob Kaufman's Worship Matters. And it's just a book, for the understanding of biblical foundation of worship. It has a lot of practical stuff as well, But I think it was a book very, very it was beneficial for me personally. And it was a book that was beneficial to some of my mentees.
Pastor Nuno:I was going with Isaac, you know, in in another a teenager that leads Worship Youth for Our Youth. It's on pause right now, till he recovers from from what he's going through medically right now, health wise. But yeah, Worship Matters by Bob Kaufman. It's a book that I would recommend for understanding biblical foundation of worship.
Pastor CJ:It's awesome.
Pastor Nick:Yeah. Read one this weekend in response to a conversation I had with somebody who had some really tough questions about faith and they felt kind of bad that they were asking a pastor like, How can you believe this stuff? Because they love me and I love them, but they were asking me respectfully and so we had great conversations. But this is about a friend of mine named Jeff Robinson, called Persuasive Apologetics. It's the art of handling tough questions without pushing people away and it kind of lets you into the world of how to do apologetics and kind of what that world looks like and then gives you some baselines for some of the go to questions that antagonists have about Christianity.
Pastor Nick:So that's something I read over the weekend and that was enjoyable and it's fun. Does apologetic sounds really boring, but he's got a
Pastor CJ:lot
Pastor Nick:of pop culture type and he gives kind of historical overview. So he kind of weds a lot of things from, from apologetics. So it's fun. Okay. A podcast I listen to, I listen to Bible talk.
Pastor Nick:It's just a really deep dive for those who want to nerd out over kind of genre and structure and syntax. And it's just, you know, it's not for everybody, but if you like that kind of stuff, I'm going through the book of Isaiah right now, like really slowly. But that's what I use, Bible talk.
Pastor CJ:Okay. Yeah, that's awesome. What about you? So I've been trying to stretch myself in different ways this year. So typically, I mean, for several years, I've only read like Christian books like Christian living or theology books and I felt like at the beginning of this year I felt like I was kind of capping myself or constricting myself in some way and I was trying to challenge myself to be a more creative thinker, writer, preacher.
Pastor CJ:And so I have been reading Christian poetry, which is very unusual for me. Like, it's not something that I would tend to lean towards, but I'm beginning to enjoy it after a few months of of being in it. And it started off more as an exercise, like I said, to kind of try and stretch myself in those ways and be more imaginative in the way that I'm speaking or writing. And now I'm catching myself like enjoying it. Which I didn't I didn't think I was going to right when I started off.
Pastor CJ:But so right now I'm reading, this book. It's called, Gallahat and the Grail by Malcolm Guite, and, it's epic poetry, which I didn't know what epic poetry was until I bought this book, but it's one it's the first volume in a four volume series on King Arthur in the Knights of the Roundtable and it is one long poem the entire thing.
Pastor Nuno:Yeah he's, I've been under his teaching a couple times.
Pastor CJ:Oh have you?
Pastor Daniel:Okay yeah
Pastor Nuno:on the same conference there in Nashville Okay. And, he actually he was actually here at Asbury, last year, and Sarah went to to listen took the kids to listen.
Pastor CJ:I see. I would love
Pastor Nick:to hear
Pastor CJ:that. Yeah.
Pastor Nuno:And it was she said it was awesome.
Pastor CJ:I didn't even know what the I didn't know I didn't realize that the book was poetry, in that sense even when I bought it. So I didn't realize it was one long poem. Right? I thought it was several poems just kind of about these topics.
Pastor Nick:Do you know it now that you've read it?
Pastor CJ:Yeah. Okay. Alright. Alright. Just make it true.
Pastor CJ:Yeah. Alright. Okay. Because I might not. Yeah.
Pastor CJ:So it's I mean, that's just something that I found beneficial. And, you know, I don't wanna take too much time talking about it. Maybe that's another episode. But I found I found that it was kind of a missing piece in my reading diet was one, I guess you could call it fiction, but also a bit of poetry I think is good to sprinkle in there. So yeah.
Pastor CJ:Okay. As we are winding down guys, is there is there any updates you wanted to give on ministry areas? Something that you're excited about that's coming up, something that you wanna have on people's radar, maybe something you wanna just pitch real quick, or even a prayer request for a ministry area that you can think of.
Pastor Nuno:Yeah. August is gonna be a busy month here at our church, and I'll let these guys talk. But in our ministry, we're back at rehearsals this Wednesday at 07:30. We have the exciting semester ahead of us of leading worship here at our church. Christmas retreat.
Pastor Nuno:I know Christmas is just around the corner. Crazy. And we're having our Christmas retreat at Porter Jesmond Station there this Saturday, the eighth, and it should be exciting. I'm excited about if you've
Pastor Daniel:seen that stuff on social media about, you can hear her unthawing, the Mariah Carey.
Pastor CJ:Oh, yeah. Oh, that's
Pastor Daniel:funny. Like, that's
Pastor CJ:what I thought of what
Pastor Daniel:you just It's, like, around the corner.
Pastor CJ:It's echoing from the Dezon thawing. I
Pastor Nuno:promise that we're not gonna have that arrangement. If and if you hadn't chance the chance to watch, our presentation with Fox fifty six last year, it is on on YouTube. But we're we got invited again, to be a part of their Christmas programming, and we're gonna have three showings this year instead of two. So we're excited about recording, and getting getting this, this thing underway. So this week.
Pastor CJ:Okay. Awesome.
Pastor Nick:I'm excited about Wednesday nights. This Wednesday night, I'll be kicking off kind of about, the life of Paul and kind of an overview of his writings and just some things that are helpful to know because you're going to dive to Philippians on Wednesday nights and you'll start a week from Wednesday. And then I'm diving into Colossians in about three weeks. And so we're going get heavy doses of Paul. Sometimes I worry about that with all the books that are written by Paul.
Pastor Nick:Paul says, Paul says. And you know, I've always worried that people are like, what about Jesus? Well, Paul's all about Jesus. So we're going talk a lot about Jesus, but we'll be kicking that off this Wednesday night. That was a really exciting thing for me.
Pastor Nick:Last year, our Wednesday night service became more than just Bible study. It became community and I watch people really develop relationships and it's becoming a pretty good sized congregation on Wednesday night. So we have 150 to 200 people on Wednesday nights. And so that's not counting our students, our ESL, our preschool children, choir. It's a fun engagement.
Pastor Nick:And so we'd love for you to come out to that. 2x2 is coming. Well, you talked about it, but for me, I wanted to highlight something 2x2 is coming. God changes people's lives when they get in real relationships where they can open up about their shortfalls and talk about how God has been gracious even in the midst of that. So I hope people will sign up for 2x2.
Pastor Daniel:Yeah, I was going to mention 2x2 as well. I'm excited for it to relaunch. But all of our next gen stuff is launching again Wednesday app programming this week. So we have preschool programming. Awana is going to get started in a couple of weeks.
Pastor Daniel:So we're doing some special stuff couple of weeks over August before we launch Awana's. And then we have kids remix, student midweek is gonna be going on. And the student ministry room, we actually have been through the process of remodeling that over the summer. And so if you've not been downstairs to see the student room in the last couple of months, you should go down there. It looks incredible.
Pastor Daniel:Our team has done a phenomenal job with that. So that's been going on. And then I'd say just as a prayer request, we're in the process of prayerfully considering and praying through, seeking out who our next student pastor is. And so just continue to keep that in your prayers that the Lord would lead the right man here and that we would have wisdom and discernment in that. Think that the Lord has some incredible things in store in this next season for student ministry and I'm excited to see how he moves and who he brings to the team.
Pastor Daniel:I'm really excited to see that. So just be praying for that.
Pastor CJ:Yeah, that's a good one. I'm excited about this. Yeah. I'm excited about this room. I'm excited about the conversations that are gonna happen here.
Pastor CJ:I'm excited about the benefit that I think it will be to the congregation. And so I'm just really looking forward to that. Looking forward to getting a couple of the other shows rolling in here. One of them is going to be more focused on like on an interview style. And so it'll be myself sitting down with one or two other people and really just kind of hearing their story, which I'm excited about.
Pastor CJ:That might be someone who's been at Porter for fifty years, you know, and just hearing, like, you know, their, their perspective on the history of Porter and, like, the the way they've seen the Lord be good and gracious and kind to the church. Or that might be someone who got saved in the last few months and got baptized here. Also We want to hear their story, you know, and how did that happen? How did the Lord bring them here? How did they get baptized?
Pastor CJ:And so excited about those kinds of things. Yeah, I think that's it. So all right guys, for everyone who is listening or watching appreciate you taking the time, to to listen in. We hope it's been encouraging and, be listening for more episodes coming out soon. Make sure you like and subscribe so that you get notifications on those things, and we will see you next week.