Dave: Welcome to Thrive Mission, the podcast of the Christian Restoration Association. I'm Dave Jones. I preach at the Millwood Church of Christ. And as always, we're with Jim Book, the Associate Director of the CRA. And Jim, it's good to see you back at home there. Where have been lately?

James Book: Well, good news is we've got a couple of days off. And so ⁓ I was at Logan's Port Church of Christ. Jeanette and I were able to spend three days last week with a great church family. ⁓ Jeanette and I were privileged to stay with Dr. David Short and his wife. And so that was a great, great three or three days. But ⁓ Logan's Port is an interesting church, a ⁓ growing church, but it's a very interculturally powerful church. a large audience of Burmese people that have come over over the years, ⁓ significant number of Hispanic members of the church. One of the elders is ⁓ Hispanic and he actually, they all have on and he takes the message and puts it into their language so they're hearing it the same time the English people are. ⁓ And a large of children and youth. So Jeff Streit's the preacher there, but it was really a great great revival and I absolutely love

Dave: Well, you probably felt a little bit at home like the old days at Kissimmee when you had multiple languages in the service and different ethnic groups.

James Book: It was like going home, man. It was just kind of interesting to see all that flavor and energy in one building. And I thought, wow, yeah, it was really just a great experience. And I compliment them. said, look, you found out who's in your backyard and you've gone to reach them. And they love it. And there's a wonderful harmonious relationship with everybody in the church. And ⁓ so I tip my hat to the elders. mean, Jeff is a great elder. ⁓ you know him well, Dave. He very highly of Although he's not a good judge of character, but he speaks very highly of you. Just kidding. ⁓ But yeah, great, great church, great people. ⁓ Just kidding.

Dave: ⁓ And anybody there sticks out to you that might be a good game ball recipient, ⁓

James Book: You know, I would love to give it to Jeff, the preacher himself. I think we should toss it his direction. He's been there, I think over 20 years, he said. I may be wrong about that, but he's been there a while. boy, what a, and I'll tell you what, David, great energy, great love. You can't manufacture that kind of fellowship and love, but you know, but they have it and it's real. And it was, you know, and really plays into our theme today.

Dave: Yeah, you can feel it when you're there, I think. And ⁓ where we're at in our ⁓ series right now, we're working our way through your book on the X model of church growth and not just pragmatic answers to growing the church, but really just trying to see the model that's established in the New Testament for how we should live out our faith as a Christian and as the church. And we want to be a Holy Spirit driven church. That's the S in the X model, a spirit driven church specifically. today to talk about this idea of love. Jim, you mentioned in 1 Peter 4, 8, that we are to be ⁓ loving one another, to be fervent in our love because love covers a multitude of sins. Why is that such a vital part of what we're trying to do?

James Book: Well, okay, so the term spirit-driven gets a lot of Church of Christ people nervous because they immediately assume we're going to break out in tongues or drinking poison or rolling around the aisles. So we all know the Holy Spirit speaks through the Word. And I believe if the Word says something, then it should be internalized and then replicated. if Paul, if Jesus is going to all the world and preach the gospel, and I want to be a Holy Spirit-driven church, we better be preaching the gospel, okay? Or we're not Holy Spirit-driven. So So to answer your question, David, Peter says these words, but the end of all things is at hand. Therefore be serious and watchful, which we talked about last week. Be serious means be aware of your surroundings. Okay. And then he leads into above all things, fervent and love. Fervent, not just a superficial love. It needs to be the meta-narrative of ⁓ our ministries. gotta love people like God loved people. for God to love the world that he gave his only begotten son. He didn't give before he loved. And so a lot of times I think people have a hard time investing in the church because they don't love Jesus nearly enough. They don't invest in their marriage because they love their spouse nearly enough. So if love is what drove Jesus here to give his life, then love needs to driving everything we do. So ⁓ to me, a church that loves the Lord, that loves its ⁓ fellow members is capable of literally doing anything. for Christ. Faith, hope, love, these three, the greatest of these is love. Why? Because you know hope doesn't drive love. Faith doesn't drive love. The reason why Paul says faith, hope, love, these three, the greatest of because love is what drives hope and faith. And love has got to be the foundation of everything we do. So love is what motivates us. It's a fervent love. That adjective is so important. And love will cover a multitude of sins. How many church fights would never have happened had the elders and the preacher, preacher and the elders first loved each other. I think most of us would be squelched.

Dave: So the idea of. think you're right. And the idea of love covering a multitude of sins, that's not saying that we ignore sin. What's your view on what that means there? Love covers sin.

James Book: Right. Alright, so we have a person in the church, let's say, who's guilty of a little loose talk, a little gossip. I mean, I think we confront that person. But at some point, we realize, you know what? I need to include God in on this thing. I need to let God work in this person too. Not me, I'm not the only one that can convert this person. And if I truly love the church and I truly love that person, I'll let God do some work on that person too. I don't know why we feel we have to reconstruct everybody ourselves. ambassadors of Christ need to back up sometimes and let God have His work in that person. I think when you get to that point in ministry, you realize, I'm not ignoring the sin. I'm just giving God an opportunity to weigh on this thing as well. And it enables me to, that kind of love literally allows me to love the unlovable. And we all have that person in our church that we just barely can tolerate. And you're like, how do you put up with that person love? I'll read it again. Love allows me to cover a multitude of stupidity and ignorance and dumbness. And you're right, we're not asking you to gloss over sin. But again, how many times have you, Dave, in your ministry, you could have engaged in a very toxic conversation with someone. You were right. You had the facts on your side, but you decided, you know what? It's gonna cause a greater disturbance in the church if I fight with this person. than if I just back up and turn around and leave because I'm going to allow the Holy Spirit to cover a multitude of potential crisis that would otherwise happen if I backed up. I think that's what he's talking about.

Dave: Yeah, that's good. I think there's a misconception about love. this romanticized view of love. It's all ooey gooey, feelings oriented. That's not the Bible definition of love. That's not the agape love that's being referred to ⁓ in the scriptures in that way. This is a self-sacrificing ⁓ for the betterment of another person, maybe the greater good the church, and ultimately for the glory of God.

James Book: Right. Absolutely. So David, I had an issue when I was ⁓ at my old church in Winter Park. We had a deacon who ⁓ was a friend of mine, ⁓ but he started to spread discord, personal attack on me that were totally unfounded. So we did what the Bible says, we confronted him. ⁓ I had one of my elders with me, my wife was with me. You know, we had witnesses and we shared, you know, some of the concerns. deep concerns and he's like, you're right, they're unfounded. ⁓ But he wouldn't apologize. And so we had him step down as the deacon, okay, just the way it has to be. ⁓ But I made a willful decision, I didn't want to lose him. I didn't want to see him not be around the Lord's table. I wanted him to fellowship. I didn't want to see him adrift. I was in full agreement that because of his actions, he shouldn't be a leader. But the reality was, I just had to swallow my pride and go, he's got a soul. And I don't want that to be compromised. Yeah, I swallowed my pride and we moved on and it was nothing. And I look back on it now, it doesn't even, it doesn't appear on the radar. You look back on it now and it's nothing, but then it was huge. But again, I'm not holding myself as Mr. Poster Child for. forgive and move on. But man, I think it helped me heal too, you know?

Dave: You know, we're so devoted to the truth in our brotherhood and we ought to be, many times though, we're preaching the truth, speaking the truth outside of the context of love. I've heard preachers give very direct, pointed, truthful sermons that were based on the Word of God. And the whole time they're not just stepping on toes, they're actually destroying the spirit of people. I've heard evangelists preach sermons on what it is to be a biblical elder. all the while insulting the elders that are sitting in the congregation and making comments like, if you can't do that, you should resign as an elder. Well, is that true? Yeah. Do you need to say in front of a hundred people? No. You know, that's more of a private conversation in that sense.

James Book: Yes, absolutely. Exactly. agree. I totally agree. ⁓ one thing I used to, well, I still do every time I get to speak, literally every time. I always say, okay, God, give me the words to say, because I don't want to speak outside of your will. I don't want to add or subtract from the word. know, preachers are guilty of doing that. But I've learned to add this one other comment request. Help me to say what you want me to say, but God, maybe more important. Help me to say it in the right tone. Because if it doesn't come across out of love, then what's the opposite of love? Hate. And that can't possibly do anything but bring more harm and discord within the church. It's already sensitive and probably a time bomb ready to go off. So you know what Paul says in Philippians 2, therefore, if there's any consolation or encouragement in Christ, any comfort of love, any fellowship of the spirit, and any affliction and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having that same love. Like, okay, how can I love like Jesus? Well, notice how many times in the Bible it says before Jesus ministered to someone, whether it feed the 5,000, raise the dead boy in the city of Maine, the Bible says he had compassion. Translated, he loved. Why couldn't he just feed the 5,000? Why do have to love them? They just want to be fed. Well, that might work at McDonald's, might work at your grocery store. Maybe the head of the grocery store hates everybody that comes in. But who cares? As long as we get our groceries, we get out. But Jesus said, no, it doesn't work that way. If you're to work for me, you got to put the numbers up, but you got to do it out of love. Your attitude means actually more than the product itself. Wow.

Dave: Yeah. Yeah, Jim, I really appreciate what you said there. Our attitude matters so much in that I'm sure I've said this in sermons. I've heard other guys say this as well. We're not commanded to like people, but we are commanded to love them. And so sometimes we just, yeah, we just tolerate people though. And if we're at a level where we're just tolerating.

James Book: Wow, I'm grateful for that.

Dave: elders or preachers in the church or one another, that's really not good enough. If we're trying to grow the Lord's church and pursue truth and help people know the gospel of Jesus Christ, that idea of love has to go beyond just tolerating them to really knowing and understanding them and ⁓ reaching out to them. And if there's any division, breaking it down and figuring out what... Yeah.

James Book: Yes. So we've heard preachers say, I love to preach, but do you love the people you preach to? Oh, I don't know. Well, we've got a problem. know, I love being an elder. Great. Cause I've been an elder for 40 years. I like the title. Yeah. But do you have a testimony? No, but I got the title. Well, we have a problem. Okay. That's why I, I, I just so believe that our attitude really plays a bigger part in our success than our actual success stories. I do. just, I, someone once said, The reason why it says, Jesus had compassion and fed them. He went into the city of names, saw a widow, lost her husband, now lost her only son. She's destined to live on the streets now. Has no husband, no father. She's a widow and buries her son. The Bible says before Jesus raised the son, Bible, Luke records, only time in the New Testament this story is recorded. Luke's the only one that records it. The Bible says he looked on her with compassion. And again, I'm like, why do I need to know that had compassion? Go ahead and heal her. Just get to the healing part. That's all we want to see. We want to see a dead man come out of the casket so we can all holler. But I think Luke said, no, the Holy Spirit's reminding me to tell you people he had compassion. So Max Lucado records a story, Dave, I don't if you ever heard this, he records a of these seminary students that through the Bible one day, and they cut out every passage in the scripture that spoke to compassion, ⁓ care. Two thousand verses of scripture were laying on the floor. In other words, we wouldn't have a complete Bible. We have a very incomplete Bible if you took all the verses that related to compassion and love and concern. And I thought, two thousand verses? I mean, do think the Lord's trying to get something across to us that loving people really matters?

Dave: Yeah. And when we look at love, we often assess it based off of how we grew up or our current relationships with other people, how people treat us. And I think what we're invited to do in the Bible is see how Jesus loved and loved that way. in 1 John 4, there's like two dozen references to the word love, just within the span of about 20 verses, okay? ⁓ And ⁓ of those verses in verse 11, 1 John 4, beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another. And so the standard of love is how God loved us, that self-sacrificial love of what Jesus did on our behalf. And then verse 20, ⁓ the scripture If someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And so the idea then for us is to understand our relationship with the Lord is 100 % contingent upon our relationships with one another. And there's got to be unity in the body of Christ if we're going to be unified with the Lord.

James Book: Yeah, absolutely. just to drive that point home, he basically drills right down to the core verse eight, he who does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁓ I thought to myself, why does John have to the church, who have been saved by grace and given more love than any of us deserve, why does he have to remind the Church of Christ to love. Shouldn't that just be a natural outflow of all the grace we've received? And yet, John, throughout 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, it's just a constant reminder that we have to love one another. And I sometimes scratch my head going, why do you have to tell us that many times? But I think when you look at the church today and you see the internal fighting, the disgruntled spirit, the animosity among some members toward others, the grudges that people keep, you realize This is why he reminds us over and over and over to love one another. So I guess we are capable of being very, very unlovable people and very intolerant of other people. When we should love, we don't. And I know I'm guilty of that too. You I got to be reminded, got to love them.

Dave: Yeah. You and me both. And when you look at churches that have such distinct differences like the church at Logan's Port, you talked about these multicultural groups It would be very easy to isolate yourself and ⁓ not invest in the lives other people. But we're called to do that even more so ⁓ with those that are different us, I think. ⁓ Think back in what Paul to the Corinthian Church about.

James Book: Absolutely.

Dave: the meat sacrifice to idols and just really being sensitive to those that are a different maturity level than we are. And generally what we try to do in the church is we start judging people as opposed to loving them. And we're called to be so much different than that.

James Book: Yes. I always think if you are the mature believer in the church, then you ought to set in the tone for the volume and the intensity of love in that church. Although I've noticed that the longer some people stay, the more frustrated they get or more toxic they get. It's almost like they've been in church so long, they forget the joy of their salvation. I think that's why David said, restore the joy of my salvation. think it's, I think a person's capable of being saved and not enjoy it, which is sad. We've seen that a lot. People married 50, 60 years. You think 50, 60 years, you must be in love. No, we fell out of love 30 years ago. Okay, so is it possible to attend a church? Is it possible to be an elder in a church? Is it possible to have a long ministry in a church or a long ministry period and not love it? And I'm gonna tell you it is absolutely possible to be involved in all of that and almost hate it, which is so sad to me.

Dave: Those churches are not growing, they're not thriving, and as we're talking about now, they're not unstoppable. And really, they're devoid of the presence of the Holy Spirit in those situations. Shane Capps quotes, in his ⁓ lesson book on 1st John. Every virtue is an expression of love. ⁓ Justice without love is legalism. without love is ideology. Hope without love is self centeredness. Forgiveness without love is self abasement. Fortitude without love is reckless. Generosity without love is extravagance. Care without love is just duty. Fidelity without love is servitude. No virtue is really a virtue unless it is permeated or informed by love. So the purpose of that quote there is to help us understand whatever virtues we see in people, those that give a lot of money, those that are very active in the church, those that maybe we call the most faithful, Jim, you've mentioned a number of times, those that are serving in roles of elders, all of those roles really. And those qualities mean very little if love is not infusing each and every one of those choices. That's what Christian duty and service look like. Love is what infuses it.

James Book: You know, so I think it's perfectly okay to have a difference of opinion in the church, even to have people who are highly vocal, if you will, about a particular issue. I think it's normal. I mean, even the early church, in Acts 6, there was some consternation between the Greek widows and Hebrew widows, but I always loved how the apostles handled it. They didn't dismiss the concern. They didn't go, ⁓ those cranky widows. Hey, you what? We'd be better off without them. They're a drain on our budget. They're like, time out, whoa, let's hear these women. I mean, it's enough that they've lost their husbands. And some scholars believe that they've lost their husbands due to the rise of persecution against the church. Some of these men may have died because they were faithful to God to the very end. So the last thing the church wants to do is to dismiss the needs of these women whose husbands were faithful. And I appreciate the apostles. They said, let's put together a team of men. who are faithful, who have a good report, strong character, and let's not neglect the needs. That is the greatest example of unconditional love, when you can reach out to someone who has nothing to give in return and love them anyway. The widows were broke, okay? They're takers, they're not givers. But you know what? They were part of the family. And the Bible says after this office, I think of deacons, was established, their needs are met. The Bible then says the church flourished. I don't think the church would have flourished had they neglected the basic needs of these hurting people. But they had to love them first before they met their needs.

Dave: And you know when churches undergo periods of shift and change, maybe growth, maybe music change, the things that we've discovered in our churches over the years. Many times what we do, we get so focused on new people, evangelism reaching the lost, the excitement of a growing church. And there's a group of people that gave, that served, that have been faithful through the down times. And it's very easy for us to neglect them like that church did the widows in the first century. And so we've got to be in tune with really every demographic of the church and help all of them feel like they're a vital part of what's going on, even if they can't serve or give in the ways they once gave before.

James Book: Absolutely. And again, the only way to be able to do that is to love. You know, I've seen guys, you know, get married and they have like seven or eight kids. And, you know, some people go, how can you love that many kids the same? You know why? Because they're dialed into every one of those kids. The number is irrelevant. They just learn to love and to dial in and to know the needs of every child. And the funny thing is they could tell you distinctions of every child because they know them. And that's why Jesus says about the hucksters, he's like, They don't love the sheep, man. You're just a head, man. You're just a number. I know my sheep by name. Why? Because you loved them. And I don't care if your church is 10,000 or 110. As long as you know your sheep and you love them, keep growing. And you really can't love someone unless you know who they are. That's why they said proximity determines impact. The closer we are to the sheep, the greater we can love them and the greater they can love us in return.

Dave: That's good. And that doesn't mean we remain small and that we limit growth. What that means is as shepherds, as elders, as ministers in the church, we've got to have some process and systems that are helping to address needs that one guy or five guys can't meet alone. And so having a multitude of people, just like those apostles did in appointing the men in the book of Acts to serve the tables.

James Book: Right. Absolutely. You know, David, there's another verse that really strikes me as so powerful. And it's just a simple phrase, but if you just pause for a second, Acts 15, you know, there's this consternation between the apostles and Paul's out here converting Gentiles and some of the Judaizers thought, hey, that's great, but they still need to practice all these Mosaic traditions. And Paul's like, time out. No, they don't. And Peter's like, you know what? Let's all meet in Jerusalem and hash this thing out once and for all. The verse that sticks out in my mind. Is Paul, Barnabas, and Titus Okay, they arrive and they are in Jerusalem and everybody's getting ready to have this big meeting to kind of resolve this issue once and for all. Verse six, the apostles and elders came together to consider the matter. They came together. ⁓ my goodness, just pause and reflect on those words. They all traveled in so that they could come together and resolve it. They already determined we're going to resolve the issue. A lot of times when there's an elders meeting with some disgruntled members or there's some disgruntled members that are meeting with the preacher, they don't walk in with the idea, hey, my prayer is that we walk out of this room with this issue resolved. No, they walk in having never prayed about it. They've emailed, they've stood over it, and they really go to that meeting so they could topple someone and destroy the other party. Not with the intent to reconcile, the intent to destroy. And I'm sorry, that meaning's going nowhere. If I were the preacher, I'd go, you know what? We're not even gonna waste our time. You decided that you wanna hate this person forever, right? Okay, well, you're not gonna hate him here, but you're not gonna come in here without the intent of loving this person to a resolution. That's why love covers a multitude of sins, because your desire is to love, not hate. Your desire is to heal, not hurt. Big difference.

Dave: So let's flesh that out a little bit, Jim, make it very practical. That's not what we're to do in the extent of when there are issues where we just continue down this path of division and not loving that individual. Practically speaking, how do we resurrect those relationships and make sure that we have a positive outcome for everybody involved, that love has defined the outcome for us?

James Book: Okay, so I used to tell the folks at Kissimmee, I would just periodically say, remember, remember, we have to love each other. Because if we don't, the world will never see the model. They're not. So remember, we set the tone and the temperature in this entire city of what love looks like. If we fail, there is no other alternative. It's not like God's gonna go, well, if the church fails, I'll go to the Rotary Club and see if they can get it done. No, no, we are in. This is the last stop, man. This is it. Number one, number two, remember, most of the people who are walking in this building have been hated on by a family member. They are mocked at work. They're probably ridiculed by their next door neighbors. I mean, so they're hated on everywhere they go. If they walk in here and see a distinct difference, just in the way that we treat them as God's creature, just treat them out of respect because they're made in the image of God, that's going to save volumes to these people. Because remember, They're marginalized almost everywhere else in the world. When we started the homeless service every Sunday, I'm telling you something, David, I would go in there 15 minutes before church and I would just, and this was a real, I'm not asking for any applause. I'm just telling you, I would hug these people. Some of them I hadn't bathed, literally. The odor would knock you out before you got within 100 feet of them. But I said, Jim, I'm telling you, as I read the gospels, Jesus. He loved them. mean, he didn't, I was ready to preach. I had my sermon, but I knew, no, I gotta make sure I reserved some time to love them and then preach to them. Okay. And the gospels really helped me out. Okay. But I realized too that some of those people had not been loved on or had someone pour into them in the entire week. Why? Cause they're the downcast. They're the downtrodden. They're laughed on. Someone's throwing a bottle at them. They come in here and all of sudden here comes the preacher and he's gonna. love me, and he's gonna sit and talk to me. Now again, I'm not holding myself up, I just knew what the message that would send to that guy is this church really, really does care because the volunteers are all coming out. We had people working in that ministry, they were millionaires, but you wouldn't know that because they're rubbing elbows with people and have three nickels rubbed together. And I said to myself, this is gonna not just teach the homeless how much we love them. What I was really trying to do, is send a message to our entire church. This is love. That we lay down our what? Lives? Yeah, but right now I'm not asking you to lay down your lives. I'm asking you to lay down a little time. How about a little effort? How about a little money? Lay down that for a friend. That's how you change the dynamics of a church. And we saw that happen. I mean, it was amazing, Dave, how it just transformed our church and... but it was just showing the love of Christ, just replicating what Jesus did in the 21st century.

Dave: So in communities, we've talked a lot about reaching out to the communities around us. And generally what we discover is that when we decide to serve the community around us together, we often discover we're not fighting inside as much because we have a common goal of reaching out and loving other people, rubbing shoulders with those people. And so these kinds of examples that you talk about, the homeless ministry, Race Martin gave a lot of great ideas a few weeks ago about how to reach out into the community, ⁓ serving in the laundromat, serving in the schools, serving in senior.

James Book: You guys just did something the other day at your church. You guys did a huge, externally focused ministry.

Dave: Yeah, yeah, totally huge. it took a different approach than anything I'd ever seen. And I'm really grateful for our associate minister, Zach Rayburn, who led the charge on this. He came up with, he's a big, big thinker and it wasn't just let's, let's feed people in Haiti. He called it one day to feed the world. And ⁓

James Book: Wow.

Dave: The concept was to partner with Lifeline Christian Mission who primarily works in Haiti, but they do meal packs all around the world. And so we partnered with them and we had to raise a certain amount of money to pack a certain amount of meals. And the church really bonded together, raised enough money to pack 23,000 meals that'll go to Haiti this year to feed what's probably one of the, it literally is the poorest country in the Western But the interesting thing about this mission effort, we thought about doing it in our building, which is very temperature controlled, beautiful lighting, lots of room to do something like this, set up tables, and we could have done it very efficiently with our people. But the idea was to go out and allow our folks to serve alongside the people in our community. ⁓

James Book: Yeah, yeah. you

Dave: And one thing Zach told everybody, take an invite card with you and invite the person who serves with you. So we had well over 200 people serving and about 50 people were from outside of our church. Now, a few of them were from local churches of Christ. We had a group of Amish that came and served with us. ⁓ a group from ⁓ that were mentally disabled folks. came and served alongside us. And then some people that just were in the community that knew we were doing this and they signed up. The fire department stopped by just to ⁓ cheer us on and honk their horns as they drove past. ⁓ This we did it in the park in Danville. And so we set up tables there. One of the other churches in the area fed everybody that showed up. And it was just an incredible event that bonded the church and everybody was just on top of the world by time we were done. And we took this picture of 200 plus people around 23,000 of these meal packs that will be shipped off to Haiti. And it had people from seven years old to 87 years old serving. Just a great opportunity to serve.

James Book: Wow, that's beautiful.

Dave: and to serve with people in our county. It was a pretty incredible event.

James Book: You can't separate good deeds and the good message. They go hand in hand. And I love the fact that you took all of that energy and took it right into downtown Danville so the world could see the church. And that was smart. I mean, that was just, what a great witness. ⁓

Dave: Yes. There was not enough parking for everybody that came. They were parked along the road and caused a little bit of a traffic jam in a little town that has one stop sign and that's it. But ⁓ it was a big deal for the community and a lot of people were wondering what's going on there. ⁓

James Book: You Yeah, for sure.

Dave: We've got this motto we use, we want to love like Jesus and live like family. And it was a great example of the opportunity to do that. And I'm just grateful for the people that we serve with here in this church that get behind ideas like that. And it was just a neat thing. And it doesn't have to be on that grand of a scale, those kinds of events. Even if a few people from a local church go to the local park and they go to the park board and say, we're gonna clean your bathrooms every week.

James Book: Yeah, I love it. I love it. Yes.

Dave: I mean, that would be a significant act of service to the people that go to the park and take their kids. Or we're going to go and pick up trash in the park, whatever it is when we're out there serving and showing the love of Jesus. What that does when we're self-centered and focused on our own agenda.

James Book: Absolutely.

Dave: When we're there and then we begin to go out and serve, it takes our eyes off of ourselves, puts our eyes on other people and helps point them to Jesus. And we forget, we forget, because it's usually these little silly things we fight over that cause division anyway.

James Book: You're off course. Generally, oh, you know, Dave, I think your story and when race was on talking about go to the laundromat with quarters and pay, remember what, what thrive on mission podcast is basically all about is just, you know, David, I'm just going to throw out practical ways for your church to go, wait a minute, we could do that. You may never want to take that many people. Maybe don't have that many people in your church take down to a downtown and package. Fine. You don't want to go to the laundromat. Fine. But can you think of something right now that your church body could do to show forth the love of God to lost people by bringing the loved ones in your church together? And I'll tell you this, you said something, and I know we gotta wrap this thing up, but one of the best ways for churches to work through their hate and animosity toward each other and love each other is through ministry. Because when you're so busy ministering, you really don't have time to argue over superfluous stuff. When I first went to my church in Winter Park, a lot of fighting, know, 10 year spans, five preachers, 10 years, five preachers. But Jeanette and I saw the potential. Great church. The thing that changed the temperature in that church from animosity and backbiting to love is when we started to grow. Baptist tree waters being stirred, new life. I've used the silestries before. Going to a hospital, everybody's crying. Until you go to the birthing wing, you got pizza, you got balloons, you got candy, you got everybody's having a good, why? because that's new birth. New birth in a church will turn people's hearts on. One reason why there's so much fighting in churches is because they've never experienced a new birth. It's been years. And quite frankly, new birth will change the attitude of your church. You stir the baptistry, man. You got to start stirring the waters,