Episode 60

"The Challenges and Opportunities Facing New Ordinands Called to Serve the Church in a Changing World”

Bishop Julius C. Trimble is the Resident Bishop of the Indiana Area of the United Methodist Church.

Bishop Trimble has the personal mission to encourage all people with the love of Jesus Christ to rise to their highest potential. It is his commitment to his personal mission that led Bishop Trimble to create the “To Be Encouraged” Podcast along with co-host Rev.Dr. Brad Miller.

Bishop Trimble says, “I am compelled by Jesus to share with you an encouraging word or two about Jesus, theology, the Bible, the pandemic, the environment, racism, voting rights, human sexuality, and the state of the United Methodist Church.”

To Be Encouraged with Bishop Julius C. Trimble is to be published weekly and is available at www.tobeencouraged.com and all the podcast directories.

https://www.inumc.org/bishop/office-of-the-bishop/

In episode 060 of To Be Encouraged, the podcast explores the challenges and opportunities faced by new ordinands in the current socio-political and technological climate. The guests are incoming Deacon Rev. Matt Sherrill who serves on the Pastoral Staff of The Carmel UMC in Carmel, Indiana and Rev. Denise Robinson the Lead Pastor of the Irvington UMC in Indianapolis IN.

This episode is part two of a two part episode with part one available here. https://tobeencouraged.com/episode/059

In this episode the ordinands discuss the importance of staying focused on the mission of loving God and loving others, despite differences in opinion and theological beliefs.

Rev. Matt Sherrill expresses his passion for rethinking the way confirmation is done to better disciple young people and is encouraged by the open-mindedness and willingness to learn and grow exhibited by students. He believes that students are the church now and sees hope in the powerful things they are doing, despite the disaffiliation of numerous churches.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble emphasizes that God loves all people and that most of our limitations are self-imposed. He encourages congregations to embrace the Breakthrough Prayer movement and focus on making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Rev. Denise Robinson shares her experience at Irvington UMC, an inner-city church committed to engaging with and helping the community. Despite challenges related to an older congregation and the dangers of the surrounding neighborhood, the church has established connections with the community through various programs and events.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller asks Denise about her approach to dealing with challenges, particularly in the context of differing theological beliefs or hot button issues that arise within the church. She emphasizes the importance of not being diverted from the mission of loving God and loving others and finding different ways to share the love of Christ with the community.

Rev. Matt Sherrill explores the challenges faced by youth ministries in the current technological climate, as well as the importance of building relationships with people who are different than ourselves to change perspectives and break down stereotypes.

Takeaway points include the importance of staying focused on the mission of loving God and loving others, embracing Breakthrough Prayer, being church in profound ways in the world, and working to bring about social change. The podcast encourages church leaders to have conversations with colleagues from different places to learn from each other, create new opportunities, and celebrate the diversity of the United Methodist Church.

Time Stamps:

[00:02:32] "IUMC faces challenges in serving inner-city community"

[00:05:28] "Overcoming Limitations and Embracing Breakthrough Prayer"

[00:12:20] "Bishop Urges Focus on Gospel Mission"

[00:14:37] "Students embrace awareness and take breaks"

[00:17:55] "Pastor urges young people to hear message of God's unconditional love"

[00:23:18] "Prayer and Humility: God's Promise of Healing"

[00:25:03] "Special Guests Offer Encouragement on Podcast"

This episode is part two of a two part episode with part one available here. https://tobeencouraged.com/episode/059

Transcript
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With Denise and Matt and Bishop, you are being

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commissioned and committed to ministry. You're already in ministry. You're going to continue to serve

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in your places here in

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Carmel, Indiana, and Indianapolis, Indiana. In your ministry

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settings. What are you looking

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forward to moving forward, as in your ordination, in serving

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maybe? What is something you kind of are hesitant about or maybe dread a little

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bit? Matt, start with you. What are you looking forward to? What do you kind

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of worry about?

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I've just enjoyed the whole process. I mean, getting to know other pastors.

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So to me, just continuing to connect with them in the conference

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is really exciting. I'm always just looking forward

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to kind of what's next in ministry with

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students, the things we're doing to disciple them,

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and particularly with confirmation, that's kind of a passion of

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mine is to kind of rethink how we do that.

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So just excited to see these young people continue

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to grow, to be mentored and then eventually to become

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mentors and disciple people themselves.

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I'm excited for the church and just what the

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future holds. I think that we have a great opportunity here just

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to establish ourselves, to have a clear identity

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in who we are as disciples and to have an impact

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on the world. Our job is pretty clear,

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and that's just to continue to preach Jesus. And what

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I'm worried about is just all

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the stuff kind of going on in our world, in our society.

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It is a challenge, a struggle, and how

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the church responds to that.

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Are we going to continue just to do what we've always done or are we

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going to be able to adapt and to meet the needs of

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people? Maybe they don't want to be at the church or in the church,

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so hopefully we can find ways

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to move forward and to reach people where they are

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and not always expecting them to come to us.

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But that's a huge challenge and it's going to take

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a lot of work. Pastor Denise,

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are your thoughts about what are you looking forward to? What excites you? What's jazzed

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you about moving forward and maybe some hesitancy you might

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have about some things? I'm looking forward to

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another year here at IUMC.

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I guess when I thought about going into ministry, I never thought that I'd

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be appointed to an inner city, kind of inner city Indianapolis

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church. Irvington is inside the beltway. It's a very diverse

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community, and being on the

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East Irvington Street corridor, there's a lot of need around

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our church, and it has presented its challenges,

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but at the same time, a lot of joy in the

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church. We've worked hard to make connections with

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a community where we've been lacking. We've got

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a food pantry now or a food closet. We've got a clothing closet.

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This evening we have an exercise class and a

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free community dinner, kind of a dinner church concept.

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And so I'll be getting ready for that at about 05:00 tonight.

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We've started a couple of Bible studies and we also

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have worked the next big thing is we've worked on

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the basement area of our church and we're opening it up to the community,

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calling it the commons. And we're looking at some

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open mic nights and some other forums for community events

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and ultimately another form of worship service

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down in the basement of the church too. We're on what's called an island.

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We're on the North Circle here. North of Washington Street.

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And so people just know us as the church on the

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North Circle. They don't really know us by name, but we're getting

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the reputation that when you need prayer, when you need help, when you

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need somebody to listen, go to that big church on the North Circle.

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And that's the reputation that we want to have,

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that we reach out to the community. But there's also where do we

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go from here, Irvington?

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We look at the news, and when you look at the east side of Indianapolis

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in the news, it's not always a safe

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neighborhood. And there are challenges,

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especially with an older congregation. How do we reach out and engage

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with our community when the

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community sometimes can present a danger?

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And those are things that we're constantly looking at because

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of the issues of alcoholism and drug abuse and

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mental health issues, poverty and so forth

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that exist around our church.

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So that's the challenge. Sure.

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Bishop, what do you see as the opportunities I guess

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I would have put it this way, Bishop. You see the

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little bit of the broader picture, the bigger picture, not only in the United Methodist

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Church in Indiana, but beyond that, even. What do you see as the opportunities

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for a new elder and a new deacon moving

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forward in their ministry context and beyond?

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What opportunities are before them? What can God do through

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these folks? I think most of

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our limitations are self imposed.

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I think one of the things God can do is this

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is picking up across the conference right now,

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is Breakthrough Prayer. I would invite both

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Matt and Denise to, if your congregations have

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not embraced the whole Breakthrough Prayer movement,

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to think about how do we pray our way to what God wants us to

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do next. I did my d men project.

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Brad, I was just thinking I'm looking at Matt and Denise.

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Years ago, her D Men project was on creating

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partnerships between city and suburban churches for

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missional outreach. And I served at

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the time, I was serving an inner city church,

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and we had a partnership with three there were three congregations,

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all United Methodists, in different parts of Cleveland,

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Ohio, where one was outside of the city.

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In a suburb, but we all had similar demographics

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in terms of the

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base of our congregations were older, but we had vibrant youth

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ministries and other activities, but we lived in different kind of

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different worlds in the same city. So the three

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pastors got together and decided what are the ways in which we

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can have both conversation and experience community

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together? Because a lot of times what we do, we would

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do mission projects, we would leave the city and go

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out somewhere else or go

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to the kind of known mission to the campsites and

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do things. And we decided there are conversations and

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opportunities for doing things together. So I'm just looking at Matt and

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Denise. I'm not suggesting that you need to do this, you may already be doing

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something. But sometimes we can have conversations with

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our colleagues who are in different places and say, hey, is there a time

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that we might be able to come together and learn from each other? We're in

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the same denomination, we're basically in the same

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district or same geographical

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area. You're in two different districts. But Carmel

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is just an extension of Indianapolis in one sense.

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There are a lot of opportunities, I think, that we can take advantage of

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and some of the work. I happen to know both that Pastor

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Denise and Pastor Matt in their locals, they're already doing great

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things. So I celebrate that. One of

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the things I do say is that currently right now

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there is in our denomination a shifting or a

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sifting and shifting because there's significant

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number of churches that are disaffiliating,

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which leaves still majority

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of our congregations that are remaining. United method

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is focusing on making disciples of Jesus Christ for

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the transformation of the world. And I think this is an opportunity

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to lean into what God has for us next. Matt kind of mentioned

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it as well. What does it mean for us not to just

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go to church and try to get people to church, but what does it mean

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for us in this season to be the church for people who

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maybe they've been experiencing us online, but they're not going

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to be coming to our church and we can do

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ministry, feed them, have meals. They may never join

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our church. So how might we redefine

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ourselves or ask God to use us in a way in

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which we can be church more in more profound ways

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in the world?

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We need not become formed to the world, but we do need to

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we need to be sufficiently in the world.

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I'm thinking of this book, John Wesley for the 21st Century,

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where it says we have to recognize that Wesley

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was both a social and political and ecclesiastical conservative.

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He encouraged Methodists to embrace the general rules

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and he called them to resist evil and do good.

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Those are open ended statements. There are no limits on

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resisting evil and doing good.

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Therefore here's something. Therefore, when we notice

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that we are providing food for larger numbers of people each week

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at Food Bank, we can rejoice that we are feeding the

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hungry. But sometimes we need to do more than that.

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We need to ask why are there so many more people who

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are hungry? What's happening that they cannot earn a living

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and feed their families? Is there a fatal flaw

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in the current economic system that works against these people being

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able to make enough money to buy food? Wesley may not

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have raised the question in exactly that way, but he

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did set out to both provide immediate relief and

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work to bring about social change so that the relief

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would not be necessary. So when we think about

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scriptural and social holiness,

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wesley was very much committed

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to prayer and to piety, but also for

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Methodists being people who actually did something about the

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pain that people experience on a regular basis. And I praise God

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for these two pastors and their ministry

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and their leadership as we move forward in the United

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Methodist Church with all of our diversity, with all

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of our flaws and foibles,

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god is still using us in mighty ways.

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Indeed, God is using us in mighty ways. We look forward to Denise and Matt

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doing just that. And yet, as has been mentioned a couple of times here,

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we live in anxious times in our world,

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politically, social, economically. There's wars,

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there's famine, there's bad stuff happening, there's crime,

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as we've mentioned here. And yet

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we also have our challenges in our United Methodist Church and disaffiliation

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and other things like that. Denise, I'd be interested in how you

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approach these challenges, both within the

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church. Maybe you have to deal with folks sometimes who have different feelings

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or different thoughts about theology or about racial matters

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or about human sexuality, any number of things that become

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hot buttons, and that sometimes some people say,

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hey, why is our church still in UMC? Or things like

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that. How are you approaching some of these anxious times as

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you move forward, the next step of your ministry? Denise well,

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obviously, questions about what is happening

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not just in society, but in the United Methodist Church.

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Those questions come up in the church, of course.

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And I think that my focus has been to simply

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remind people that we cannot afford to get diverted from our mission.

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We have a mission to love God and love others,

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and we can have different

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opinions when it comes to theological issues as long

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as the heart of our message is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And so my message to my people here

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at my church, and to those that ask me that

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question, is we have enough to focus on.

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It will take all of our time, all of our effort,

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if we focus on living into the gospel of Christ,

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if we allow ourselves to be diverted, we allow the message to be

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diluted. And that's something that we can't afford to do.

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It doesn't matter what church we're in as a faithful follower of Christ,

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that's what we're called to do. And so, in our context,

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we are going to find different ways to love our community. We are going

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to find different ways to share the love of Christ with our community and

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the theological issues that where we may have

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disagreements, will allow that disagreement. And we'll remember

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that in essentials we maintain our unity,

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but in all things, we maintain our love. Awesome.

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Thank you for sharing that. Matt, you have a specific focus in your ministry

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on youth ministry and of course, youth are

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when I was in youth ministry, I used to say some people say youth of

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the future of the church. I would say, no, they're at the church right now.

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So we are engaged right now with their lives and so on and so forth.

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But we do live in this world of a lot of distractions and a lot

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of input, lots of data points coming in,

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including some of the ones we've mentioned about distractions in the church and

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society and so on. What you're feeling moving forward,

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particularly in youth ministry, about how

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the church can focus on, as Denise said,

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what is true and what is real. But what are some feelings about this as

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all these distractions come in?

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Well, I think these students, particularly what we're seeing right now,

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is that they're starting to recognize that their phones,

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especially all these different things, are distractions. And so they're

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very aware of that. And they're more

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open maybe than even several years ago, the students.

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So we're seeing the impact that that has on them.

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We encourage the kids to take a break and just to stop and

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notice their surroundings, notice people, spend time

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with them. They're doing it. And they

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love to serve, they love to love on

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people. They are very open minded, very open

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to all people. And so I'm just encouraged and

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the ways they listen, the ways they learn, the ways that they want to grow.

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And you're right, like they are the church now. And that

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gives me great hope because I see the powerful

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things that they're doing. So I

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continue to learn from them in lots of ways.

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I can't keep up with the social media stuff. It's just constantly

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changing. But are any of the youth wrapped up at all? And in

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some of the adult issues regarding disaffiliation or theology

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or human sexuality or any of that kind of stuff,

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is this impacting youth ministry? Tell me about that.

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Yeah, I would say the disaffiliation that

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I don't think has ever come up with our students.

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They have so much going on in their lives as it is right now.

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And as far as human sexuality and

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all the stuff going on in our society,

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they see people and they love people and

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they embrace people for who they are and they meet them for who

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they are. And so I think that's, again, another model that

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Jesus did that we try to encourage is to

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see them people first, to have that relationship.

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It's easy for us to make broad stereotypes

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or generalizations about groups of people,

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but when you're in relationship with someone,

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maybe that's different than you, that changes everything.

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They're exposed to a lot of more

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diverse kind of experiences than I ever was at

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their age. And again, they just encouraged

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me and how they just love people. I love

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what you're saying, but they see people for people.

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I love that. And I think that's a good message that

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we can learn from those folks, from the young people.

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For us, as the church see people as people instead of labels of whatever

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it would be, where it's a socioeconomic thing or a theology thing or

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a gender or race or whatever.

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Bishop I think you've got something else you wanted to mention or ask about

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to these folks. As we kind of wind down our conversation in the next few

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minutes, here. What's on your heart that you wanted to share with Madden,

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with Denise? Well, I think I'd like to ask them

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to continue to push out the message that

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God loves all the people that we serve. Man and when you're talking

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to the young people, if I can't make it to your confirmation class,

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maybe you'll make sure they get to hear this podcast.

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But I want young people and all people to know

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that God loves you, and that's not subject

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to debate or vote or can't be overturned by the

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Supreme Court, the judicial Council, the church board,

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or the school council, for that matter. That's a subtle issue where

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there's a pastor, retired pastor, retired bishop from the

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Philippines, Bishop Knoxville, who's written several books about the resurrection.

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And he got up a few weeks ago at our meeting, we were talking about

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something I forget about, and he got up, he said,

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friends, he said, it's been settled. And I

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was thinking, what is he talking about? It's been settled. He said,

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you know, we just a few weeks ago, we celebrated Easter.

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Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

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Death has been defeated. Sin has been defeated. We have the

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victory. So it's settled. Many of the things that we are squabbling

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about or we may feel bad about, or people may

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on social media say things about me or

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you or whoever, they're simply not true because

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some things have already been settled. So, for example,

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our sacred worth. And I think young people get this

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in many cases better than we do, because my experience

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was maybe a little bit more how

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can I say? My experience was not nearly as broad or

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deep as some of the things that young people are experiencing today, particularly with social

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media. But also there's a lot of negativity that

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is messaged so quickly that we really need to

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offset that with the message that God

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sees us. And I think everybody wants to

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know this, that it doesn't matter what age you are. People want to know that

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we care before they care how much we know as

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pastor Denise said, it's not about our theology,

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in fact. And if I stumble when I'm doing my Episcopal address,

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pastor Denise, you go to the microphone and you said something.

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You said, if our mission is diverted,

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then the gospel is diluted. Brad, you need to write that down.

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That sounds like that one might preach that one might preacher that might make.

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It into the Episcopal address, that might. Make it into your next book,

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even. I don't know. Well,

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anyway, I just think that it's important for us to push

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out the positive. That's the whole purpose of this podcast,

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because sometimes somebody may need a sign. And Brad's heard

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me say, this podcast message might be the sign you've been

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waiting to hear from.

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God loves you. And Jesus Christ died for our

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sin. And Jesus said, I've come not to condemn the world, but that the

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world might be saved through Jesus Christ. Awesome. We use mentioned

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about being a positive note. The theme of our podcast is

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to be encouraged with Bishop Julius C. Trimble. So we always like to

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kind of bring things around to an encouraging word. So,

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Denise, I would just like to ask you to kind of synopsize

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a bit of what you are about right now and what is encouraged

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you right now as we look forward

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in ministry.

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Brian, I think what encourages me the most is to see

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the love of people played out, the grace,

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the message of grace that the United Methodist Church has to

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offer. Where I hear us the loudest and where

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I hear us speak the strongest is when we let people

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know that God loves them. But more

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than that, that there's a grace for them and a place for them

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in our church. And whatever their voice, whatever their

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gift, that we will embrace that. And to me,

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that message of inclusivity that

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we have here in the church is one to be celebrated,

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that I celebrate. I love that the primacy of grace is

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not much better than that. Man, I ask you the same thing. What is

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an encouraging word that you have to share as you enter this

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next phase of your ministry?

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Well, like we tell our students, jesus was with

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his disciples every day for three years,

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and they still didn't get it, and he was Jesus.

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And so I just want to encouraged everyone to stay true to

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the path, to continue to be faithful as

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Jesus calls us, to be faithful and know that God is with

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us. And as Bishop says, so often,

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God loves us and there's nothing we can do about it. So just

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want to encourage everyone just to share that same love that we've received with

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all people. Yeah. So grace and faith, those are pretty good encouraging

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words. Bishop, what kind of encouraging words would you wrap

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up our conversation with? And then could you have a prayer for us, please?

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Absolutely. So two Chronicles 714

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from the New Revised Standard Version if my people who are

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called by My name will humble themselves and pray, seek my

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face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven

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and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

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God has promised to hear our earnest prayers.

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If we turn our face away from

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the world and from our own self grandizement

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and our own self interest, and turn our face towards God

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and towards the love of God and the love of neighbor, then God

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will certainly use us and bless us and prepare us

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for that which is before us. Let us pray. Loving God, we give

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you thanks and praise for the church, for the

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Christian church, for the body of Christ,

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for the United Methodist Church, and for all people who are seeking a sign

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of forgiveness, a sign of acceptance,

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a sign of love. May you be that sign through

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others and use us if you will. O God,

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take us as we are and make us as you would have us to be,

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that we might be instruments of your grace,

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your mercy, your peace, your justice, and most of all,

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your love, your never ending love. We thank

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you, God, for these to our friends today,

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pastor Denise and Pastor Matt and Pastor Brad

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that we might continue to push out the message of

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encouragement and that we might be prepared to wake

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up tomorrow morning and serve the fresh bread of hope to a

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hungry world. In Jesus name,

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amen. Amen. Amen. And we thank you for

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joining us today on the To Be Encouraged

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podcast. Our special guest today had been Reverend Matt Cheryl,

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the pastor of youth and discipleship at Carmel United Methodist Church

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in Carmel, Indiana, an incoming deacon in the United Method

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Church of Indiana, and Reverend Denise Robinson, the lead pastor

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at the Irvington United Methodist Church in Indianapolis and

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incoming elder. This is the To Be Encouraged Podcast,

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a podcast where we look to offer an encouraging word to an

About the Podcast

Show artwork for Be Encouraged with Bishop Julius C. Trimble
Be Encouraged with Bishop Julius C. Trimble
An Encouraged Word for A Discouraged World