Dave: Welcome to Church on Mission, the podcast of the Christian Restoration Association. Jim, it is great to be with you again. we re Yeah, James Book: Great to see you too. Dave: we recorded a bunch of of episodes back in July and August, and that got us through your 28 days straight of travel and my month in London and the UK, Colorado, Wyoming, and Pennsylvania. And here we are back in our home. I'm working on it. This is my, yeah, we'll see. James Book: You're even sporting a beard. You're sporting a beard too. I like it, man. It's so it looks good. Dave: We'll see. but it's been a it's been a great opportunity, I think, for both of us. You've done an incredible amount of preaching and ministry work over this past month. what are some of the highlights from your travels? James Book: Well, there I know t I've had a lot, but I'm gonna tell you I had such a great time two weeks ago. Jeanette and I were in Richmond, Kentucky, at Big Hill Church of Christ, Christian Church. And anyway, they hosted the area wide men's leadership development. We had over a hundred the Sunday night and then averaged around seventy to eighty, I think, Monday and Tuesday. But I mean the preachers were wonderful. The they they we did the axe model for church growth, the same one we did. when person to person invited us up in Ohio and Dave, you were there for that. So man, it they just could not have been more receptive. And we had so much great conversation and vision planning with those congregations. And fact, had lunch, David, with one of the preachers that you're familiar with, Jacob Cabe over at Mount Carmel Christian. Little church up on a mountain. They have no parking, he said, but they they had over a hundred folks. couple of weeks ago, which is just incredible for this little church in the middle of nowhere. But if if that ch if that church grows only on gospel and Jacob's personality, they'll be running ten thousand. Just a great guy. Yeah. Dave: Yeah, and he and his wife Megan are just a great tag team and you know, we haven't done a game ball for a while. It's football season. What do you think? James Book: I say definitely this guy. And we Dave: Yeah. James Book: went to lunch with him and he was a he paid for the bill. So I'm definitely thinking he should use I definitely owe him the game ball. So Dave: well you owe him. You owe So twenty five dollar gift card for the CRA bookstore. And yeah, Jacob's one of those young guys from Louisville Bible College. Great James Book: Yes. Dave: work going on there and just some really good stuff going on in the institutions of higher education in our brotherhood right now. I'm really excited for that. James Book: Well, and I'll tell you, I know that Terry and Carrie have had a huge investment in his life as their as his teacher. And I would say, Louisville, you should be very proud to have a guy like that coming out of your school 'cause he is top drawer. Dave: That's incredible. Andrea and I had the chance. We went to Colorado with a church there and then the retreat they did for the congregation was actually up in Wyoming and taught some of the principles that you've been reiterating through the year on the book of Acts and just a great time with them and finished out the month over at Monrellville Christian Church with Covey Wise and James Book: Tell us about that, how that church is going. Dave: they are booming and they've really put a focus on reaching young families. And I I James Book: Yes. Dave: We see that here at Millwood, and I know you see that wherever you travel. There's just this resurgence in that whatever generation they call it now, but that twenty to thirty something age group there I I think are trending very conservative. I call it the Charlie Kirk effect. And a lot of those young James Book: Yeah, I do too. I think you're right. Dave: families are just seeking truth and trying to do what's right and raise their kids in a biblical way. And Covey and his associate there Josh are just doing an incredible job of ministering to the church and leading in that way. And you are a huge influence for them. They have a homeschool co-op there. And if I'm not mistaken, his wife Katie, Kate Covey's wife, Katie, runs it. I want to say they have 50 to 60 children involved. the parents are required to be involved as well. So once a week for their co-op, they have about 80 people in the building. James Book: That's wonderful. Dave: and a homeschool co op and it's very effective reaching families for the Lord and they're just building some really good foundational truth in their lives there. They're as solid as solid as they come, you know that as a church. James Book: Well, they are. And Covey's parents were active members when I was at Kissimmee. They were super plugged into our celebrate recovery ministry. I I can't even imagine how that program could have taken off as well as it did without Covey's parents. Covey's senior is gone to be with the Lord a couple months ago. He passed away. But I know that Nancy, his mom, is very involved in that church and what a blessing she is everywhere she goes. She's the best. Dave: She's full of joy. had a chance to meet her and just a wonderful group of people. And it you see this Jim wherever you travel. it is a it is a joy to be with people that love the Lord. And James Book: absolutely. Dave: it's easy to get down at times, especially for the guys that, as you say, those of us in the trenches, we can get so focused on our own issues and what we're trying to accomplish. But when you stretch out a little bit, get involved in in brotherhood programs and and James Book: Yes, yes. Dave: You know, for example, the CRA Bible conference coming up just in a couple James Book: Yep. Dave: of weeks in Mason. by the time this podcast comes out, I think it might be the next next week, but we really just see so much life in the Lord's church. And a lot of there's a lot of hope. And yeah, James Book: Yes, there is. Yep, there is. Dave: there's problems, but my word, his word will not return void and the gates of Hades are not are not gonna stay open or not gonna stay closed against the James Book: No, and No. Dave: Lord's church. So it's good. So well Jim, one of the One of the things that that we have seen in our work is the importance of everybody involved in ministry. that old saying, every member ministry, and the importance of everybody discovering what their abilities and talents are and how they can contribute to the church. And we're gonna spend some time talking today about that and how important it is that that every local church makes an investment not only in raising young men to be preachers. That's talked about a lot and I think that's important, but really raising everybody in the church into a role where they can serve. And James Book: Yes. Dave: just wanted to pick your brain a bit on that through the this podcast here and see where we end up. James Book: I love it. And you know, so our I everybody knows our podcast is titled Church on Mission. And I really believe our mission is very much tied into our ministries. Okay. So a church with strong ministries is gonna have a strong mission. A church with weak ministries or weak ministry team leaders, like you got incompetent leaders, it's gonna, it's gonna derail your future. And so, I truly believe one reason why retention is good in some churches, bad in some. has a lot to do with are your people invested? we know that when you become a Christian, it's grace that saves. Look, it's the blood of Christ. I can't work to salvation. I understand that. Everybody in our movement gets that. But James is very clear that once you've embraced faith, it's time to move that faith into some kind of practical outreach, development, ministry, work. So faith without works is dead. So I'm celebrating grace today, but I'm also celebrating the fact that once I become a Christian, I want to get to work. I want to do something in the kingdom. I want to invest. And so congreg, I believe congregations that believe that ministering and serving are the normal expressions of Christian living are the churches that are on mission. So it's a natural expression of my faith, my salvation is like I get out of the backstreet, I'm drying off. I'm going to roll up my sleeve and tell the preacher or the elders, what do you need me to do here? And I don't want be surprised when someone says that, like, my goodness, you want to get to work? It's a natural expression of being saved. It's like I expected you to say that. And now let's talk about how we can get you plugged in, how you can invest. And Dave, you and I were talking just before the program that one reason why I think retention may not be as high as it could be in a lot of churches is because we we don't give people work to do. We don't give them there's no skin in the game. There's no investment. And they're like, I'll come and sit for a while, but if I don't have something to do, if I can't have tangible ministries to involve in, I I just I I I'm bored. And we're boring a lot of people in our churches. And so I don't mean just to do busy work, but I think there's enough scripture that teaches us we were saved to work. Dave: Yeah. Well, James, you mentioned the book of James. faith without works is dead. It's not talking about salvific works, of course, but the work that we do because we're saved, right? We're not saved James Book: Yes. Dave: by works, we're saved for good works. And for us, it's at Millwood, one of our defining passages of scripture has really been Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians is so rich of theology, but it is very rich in very practical lessons. And in Ephesians four, we see the gifts of the the prophets, the apostles, which were first century gifts, and now we have the gifts of the evangelists and the elders. and their f primary functions according to Ephesians four are to equip the saints for works of service. Exactly what you're talking about. James Book: Yeah. I I so I I I taught my advanced center for ministry training class today, and the class is positioning the church for growth this entire semester. And so we were focusing on ministry development. And so I asked the class, and all of my class, all the students, all 12 of them today were are already involved in working in their certain in their church. And it's kind of cool because the church is kind of like, we want you, we're gonna hire you, but you need to get some training. So when I ask them questions, they're already serving. Which is great. And so I went down the list. I said, what are some of the hiccups that that we're facing in the churches? You know, because that what's that quote, Dave? Like 20% is doing 100% of the work, you know. How do we move that up? How do we get more Dave: Yeah. James Book: people so it's not just a handful supporting the church financially, doing all the works, doing all the ministry? All right. So how do we move that dial? And they had some very interesting responses. And I thought, well, this would be good for our listening audience here because. We've got some preachers that are frustrated. I can't get people off the sidelines into on the field. Okay, well, Dave: Mm-hmm. James Book: maybe there's a reason why it's not them, it's you or or the leadership. One of them is poor advertising. You know, I mean, we know in our staff means what we need. Somehow we don't convey that through the channels and/or we make an announcement on Sunday at the very beginning of the service while everybody's still coming in. And by the way, if you have a cafe at your church. You know what I'm talking about. You might as well start the service 10 minutes after you do because they're still out there finishing their coffee. So whatever you said the first 10 minutes, 50% of your church didn't hear, but that's okay. Do you have other ways of advertising? emails, Facebook messages, other avenues. So in other words, mm mention what you need more. Number two, I see what another one was building relationships. Like one of the young ladies who's a children's minister at one of our churches and she's in advance, she's like, What I try to do is I try to have coffee with someone and say, Hey, tell me about how life and what are some of your strengths. And when they say, you know, I'm really gifted in marketing. I was a marketing teacher at a community college for 30 years. Wow, our church really could use some help editing some of the stuff we send out. It's it it we don't, it's not grammatically correct. We just don't have a real strong presence of the, you know, that talent's not in our office. Could we just send stuff to you to look over before we put it out, make sure it's grammatical? Absolutely. I've been wanting to find right, but you don't know that if you don't build relationships. So it's like build relationship, promote, promote, promote. And David, you guys are doing something. In fact, this morning you told me there's one reason why we're videoing late because you had a massive meeting with some of your ministry team leaders. tell us about like you the way you structured at Millwood. Dave: Well, w I would say this. One of the things we've done for years, I think in a it's a very positive thing we've done but haven't followed up with, is when you are baptized into Christ or become a member of our congregation, we get your typical information, name, address, phone number, of course. But but then we also had this forum and on the forum it basically said, What are the things you could see yourself doing in the church? You know, everything from taking pictures at special functions to cooking food to doing communion meditations to serving in the community, whatever it was. And it was great that we handed out that form. It was better that the people would fill it out and turn it back in, but then you know what happened to it? It got filed away in a binder. And James Book: Yeah. Yeah. Dave: occasionally we'd be like, hey, I wonder if anybody knows how to take pictures. And we'd go through that binder. Well I really appreciate our our administrative assistant Alyssa and Zach Rayburn, our associate, and basically they digitized all of that. And so when you become a member now, you get an email, you check what you're interested in doing. And we use software called Planning Center, which a lot of churches, James Book: Yeah, yeah. Dave: churches use. And what's amazing is that once somebody says, I'm interested in doing this, the deacon or elder or ministry team leader that's responsible in that area will get a notification. So they're responsible then for following up with that person. And that's been very helpful and effective to us. And then we earlier this year took an initiative. And I know a lot of churches have done ministry fairs and those kinds of things. This is nothing new or creative, but we just outlined in a booklet. These are the different ministries, these are the descriptions of them. These are the ministry leaders. And then we asked people, sign up for three of them. And we're going to find a place for you. Our worship team just had tryouts on Saturday. I just met with a couple that just started taking over a new care ministry we have to make sure that everybody who needs it gets a visit, a phone call, a text, or a card. And these two are amazing. They've been doing the work and they are now organizing a team of about 18 people who are doing some of the work for them. And James Book: Yeah. Dave: what what that's done for me, Jim, and I get, you know, we do Bible things in Bible ways and You know, biblically speaking, the elders are the shepherds of the church. They're the ones that are supposed to be out there in the nursing homes and the hospitals. But most of the guys I know in ministry love to do that themselves too. And James Book: You're right. Dave: and what's happened is when you don't get to see all the people you want to see, you start to feel guilty. And so James Book: Yes. Yeah. Dave: what this has allowed me to do is make sure that people are getting visits and calls and ministered to, and it's not all on my shoulders. And so basically what's James Book: Exactly. Dave: happening now is if they if they're not getting to a certain person for whatever reason or they discover there's deeper issues that need to be addressed, that's when myself and or the elders are getting involved and helping them in that way. Because James Book: Yeah. Dave: the the more you grow, you've got to have these kinds of systems in place or you're gonna kill yourself as a preacher. James Book: You do. And and you know, you can absolutely. And they, you know, you can manage a church by yourself at around sixty to seventy. But most preachers that are watching our podcast that are involved in this mission, church on mission podcast, they want to grow and and saturate their community and they know I can't do it all, and nor should you, but the more people you empower, the more people you can reach. I I know in Acts with the sixth chapter, there was a need based, there was a a real need in the church. And and so they you know, I just appreciate the fact the apostles didn't table that need. Didn't like it's nothing to do with the gospel, get them out of here. No, it's a physical need that needed to be addressed, and they did. And I I just, you know, I Dave: And and if you recall, and I'm sure you do, the the reason that they didn't do the work themselves, which in the modern church, somebody would say, Why aren't the elders doing that? the reason they didn't, because they had a priority ministry of the word in prayer. So they were James Book: Yes. Dave: focused on their responsibility. They delegated what wasn't their responsibility to those who needed to do it. James Book: And that is what made the early church so functioning. Now, let me say this, Dave, because I'm just bouncing off something you mentioned. And this is so important. I used to frustrate me as a preacher. Someone would go, I want to do this. I'm really gifted this area. And I say, Let me have your name information. I'll turn over to the the person in charge of that ministry. And then a few weeks later, I'm like, hey, did you hear from the ministry team leader? No, I've been waiting for a call. my goodness, you have not heard. Dave: Yeah. James Book: Then you just want to go and beat the ministry team leader. Not well, yeah, physically, right. no, but did you call them? No, and but you complain every day that you don't have enough volunteers. I hand deliver you the golden goose and you haven't called them. So it's essential, ministry team leaders, please follow up. Now we used to do ministry fairs, a lot of churches hate them. I'm an old school guy once a year, get in there over the weekend, decorate your display. And by the way, if you're and I used to ministry leaders, if your display looks great. sorry and cruddy next to everybody else's that looks really good. It's going to send a signal to everybody who walks by don't join this guy. If his display looks anything like his ministry performance, he's going to be horrible. So Dave: Yeah. James Book: make it look good. Make it look like somebody you want to talk you want people to come to your display. But man, I said those signup sheets do no good. People signing up they do no good if you follow them away. You've got to follow up immediately and start plugging them in. So A church on mission is great at recruitment, but also big in implementation. You've got to implement the people who sign and get them trained and and then have them train others. And acts six, I just notice they picked seven men who were highly favored, qualified. They knew how to do it and then empowered them. And I think it's just a beautiful example of ministry development. A church on mission is a church that's training people to connect, and and serve. Dave: Well, one of the things that we're trying to emphasize more and more is the importance of anybody on staff or anybody that's a volunteer leader of any any forum, they've they've got to have also this ability to connect people to the work that needs to be done. James Book: Yes. Dave: And so we can get a guy that that's really good at maintaining the building and then have five other people that like to do that. But if he's the kind of guy, I'm just going to do it all on my own. He never calls the five. He probably shouldn't be that ministry team leader. And James Book: Right. No, exactly. Exactly. Dave: so that that thought has to go into that too. And I know I I've heard criticism of people before. There's no biblical role of ministry team leader. You know, that's the deacon's job. Okay, well, make sure the deacons are doing that then. And James Book: Right, right. Dave: there's certain areas that that sort of fall through the cracks though, if we're not addressing it. And finding people that have an aptitude to do it and putting them in that role to do so. Early on in my ministry, we didn't have anybody, I was the only person on staff. I didn't have a secretary, didn't have any help in the office. We had a volunteer that once a week would come and do the bulletin. And David Bycroft from Kansas, I took a class that he taught, and he said there is guaranteed some. Old woman who's retired from the local bank, who worked in the president or vice president's office James Book: Right. Dave: as his secretary, and she would love to do your filing for you. And guess I found when I came home from that class? A woman that was retired from the vice president's office of the local bank. And James Book: Ha ha ha. Dave: she became my secretary for two or three years and until we actually could afford to pay somebody. James Book: Yeah. Dave: She stepped out of that role. We brought somebody in on a part-time basis and then it became a permanent paid position. vital for us. We couldn't afford that early, early on. James Book: No, exactly. I I I you know, I think something else we need to do, stop doing. And I made this mistake when I was my first ministry, is is our lead in to either giving or serving. And that is, you know, preachers will stand up and go, I I and I've had I've even been in churches where this happened. So I want to apologize right off the bat. I'm I'm getting ready to ask you guys to to volunteer and do a lot of service. We're getting ready to do this big event. We're gonna need Dave: Yeah. James Book: everybody involved, and I really apologize for even having to ask you because I know your life is busy and you're doing a lot of things, or or we need a special love offering, we're gonna try to do something for the the hurting in our community during the holiday, whatever. But we we set it up almost for failure because we apologize for asking people in the church to do what they've been commissioned by Jesus to do in the first place. So I said, Jim, don't ever do that again. If you if you want people to serve You know, I don't want to guilt them. In fact, I'd rather them just stay home if they're going to come with a bad attitude. But I'm not going to apologize anymore for going, look, the kingdom of Jesus Christ is foremost important in your family's life. So what I'm asking you to do is something that Jesus has commissioned us to do throughout the scriptures, and that is tie our belief with an outlet of ministry. So we need you here. We want you to be here. You're gonna get the blessing for being here, but we're not apologizing for asking for your money and for your talents. So Dave: That's good. James Book: And and I think if we just went at it with that kind of attitude, I think more people would be like, okay, you're serious about this? I'll be there. And they will. Dave: Yeah. Jim, let me ask you a question. Do you think that in our churches at times we've narrowed what the work that volunteers can do in the church? It seems, James Book: Absolutely. Dave: you know, a few years ago for us, if you're a man, we'd let you serve communion and do a meditation. And if you're James Book: Right. Dave: a woman, we'll let you be in the women's group and and maybe make make meals and organize a big thing. How how do you transition from that a preacher does everything, elders are the only ones that can do meditations or whatever to broadening the scope of who can be involved in service. How do you make that transition? James Book: So I when when we were Kissimmee, like for instance, I I felt like our guys needed to do something at the at the base level. So we said our guys are gonna serve the Lord's Supper. And you know, we had to find like 12 per service. I was like 24 on not for both 12 at the 90, 30, 1211. And I, you know, I'd have the deacon in charge, like sometimes hard for me to get guys to do this. Like, you know what? Shame on our men for Dave: Yeah. James Book: not having enough. Effort and time to hand a tray to someone? Is that is that how are we so big? Look, someone said if you're that busy, you need to loosen up your schedule. Or you're busier than God ever intended you for you to be, guys. Can't pass a tray. So it's like, no, don't let the guys off. Do not let them off the hook. This is an honor and a privilege. Okay. So we're honoring the man who hung on a cross so we can do this. I think we can throw some trays around on Sunday. All right. Number one. Number two, I do believe we've marginalized Christianity to where it's Passing out bulletins if you're a lady and mowing the grass at the church on Saturday if you're a guy. And that's one reason why when people are like, Well, what is what are the areas of ministry? Well, do you pass out bulletins? Not really. Can you cut grass? Well, I'm allergic. Well, we ain't got nothing for you, which then we then preachers get all upset. Nobody's serving in this church. You don't have anything for them to do. So let's start expanding our roles. Let's start expanding our influence. Let's do some meaningful ministries out there. And I guarantee you, if it's meaningful, They will show up. Now it needs to be a balance. If it's like all we are looking for is theological giants, you're gonna lose the practical guy. You're gonna lose the guy who loves the Lord, but all he can do is fix stuff. Well, there needs to be ministries for guys who can fix stuff. We had a helping hands ministry at our church, and it was run by one of our elders. We had 24 to 30 people sign up for that. Guys, gals, old, young, okay. And man, when there was a need in the church, they could employ, deploy. about 10 people on a weekend and they did multiple service. And then we had like their friends go, hey, I saw a bunch of people at your house working. That's people from my church. Do you think they could come over and just do something? I can't get this, I can't get this screwed on or whatever. Well what it became an outreach then. But I thought, look at all these people they're serving that would never teach a class. They would never do a communion meditation. They they they you know they they're new in the faith so they're theological infants. But man, they they they want to serve. They want to serve their church family, want to serve the unbelievers so they could be a witness. That became a huge ministry outlet. But I knew we had to create those ministries in order to get more of the church involved in ministry. So I would not ask a church just to oversaturate yourself with tons of ministries that you can't manage. Everything has to be managed well. But man, get creative and develop some ministries. So everybody has an opportunity to sign up that you're touching on all levels, not just one level, but multiple levels. Dave: What kind of mindset do the preacher and elders need to have to have that that Ephesians 4 equipping of the saints and open up the door for more people to be involved in ministry? Because sometimes the leaders are the bottleneck on James Book: Yeah. Dave: on more people involved. What what's the mindset there that needs to happen for us? James Book: So, you know, there's always the fear if we put this guy or this woman in charge of something and they do something stupid, then we're gonna have to go and apologize to the church and then you have to meet with them. Look, that's the gamble you take when you when you're in the people business. Okay. And we're in the people business, folks. we need just as leaders, prepare ourselves for the fact that we can do the vetting, we can have all kinds of governance policies, but people are still gonna make mistakes and they say or do something stupid. the nursery worker is gonna probably forget to change your baby. He's gonna be in he's gonna be in a diaper for 15 extra minutes. I'm sorry, okay. my my grandson, he's one year old. He fell at church Sunday, and the nursery worker came to my son-in-law and daughter and it's like, hey, just want you to know Mason fell. He has a little nod on his head. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm praying that my that my son-in-law and daughter. Handled it well. And they did, like, okay, he's one. He's falling everywhere. Okay. Dave: Yeah. James Book: I mean, literally falling everywhere. Why would he not fall at the church building? But she was super cool. She explained what happened. Everything's fine. But I'm I just I I'm so glad everybody realizes kids are gonna fall in nursery. Don't fire the nursery worker. Don't reap her out. you might have gotten the wrong diaper bag when you left. Bring it back Monday, we'll exchange it. Okay. We're gonna have problems, we're gonna have mistakes, and the bigger we get. More ministry opportunities, the more we're gonna have challenges. But let's don't let the challenges and the problems deter us from the ministry. I I have I've had so many church leaders tell me, Well, we did this, but we ran into some hurdles and problems, so so we quit it. Like, okay, so you don't think the deacons that were that were empowered to work with the widows, you don't you don't think they ever had another problem with one of the widows? It's not recorded that they did. I got to believe that they still had problems, but they didn't ditch the ministry. Dave: Yeah. James Book: They still did it. So look, let's just know going into ministry. Some people are going to mess up. People are going to mess up. We're going to drop the ball. We're going to fail. But the good news is we're a family. And what does family do? We get up, we brush ourselves off, and we continue to perfect it and get better at it. So don't say, well, we're not going to do these ministries. There's too much potential for failure. Look, there's going to be failure in every great ministry. Okay. Every great ministry is going to cost you time and effort. The only ministries that are costing you no effort, no time are the worthless ones. Okay. And those are expendable anyway. That's my answer. Dave: That's great. And and I think one thing I would add is the importance of having qualified people in those roles of leadership. Like the men in James Book: Yes. Dave: the men in Acts chapter six, they were put in that because they were character-filled, spirit-filled James Book: Yes. Dave: men who could do the work. They could probably make good decisions. And and so when the problems came up, they could handle it. And if we're gonna ask people to take on responsibility, we've gotta give them the authority to go with it, go with that responsibility. James Book: Absolutely. Dave: And we can't micromanage them, but we need to be there to support and help to hold them accountable and guide them in the times when there are problems, for sure. James Book: Absolutely. So, Dave, I would like to give this challenge to all of our preachers and leader and leaders that are listening. I need you to go back to your your leadership teams, your elders, your your staff meetings, and I want you to think of one brand new ministry that you've been talking about developing and you've used every excuse not to do it. I don't know who's going to volunteer. We don't have a leader. Okay, that's fine that you don't have any of that. But what would happen if you cast the vision this Sunday? Like you stood up in the pulpit and said, you know what? We don't have a director. We don't have any volunteers. We don't really don't have a good budget. But this is something this church should have been doing years ago and we want to start it. Now I'm going to throw it out there. I'm going to throw the nets out. I have no idea if we're going to catch anything, but we're going to throw it out. The elders are on board. So we're going to pray and we're going to wait for the volunteers to step up and go, here I am, send me Isaiah 6, 8. But you can't get it going if you don't throw that net out and at least let the church know this is what you want to do. I guarantee you. There are people in the pew that are ready to serve in that capacity, but they've never been given the green light to do it. But you're gonna give them the green light this Sunday. That's your homework. One, develop one new ministry we were created for works of service. Remember that scripture. God created us to get to work in the church. for and if we're not working, then we're failing God because He gave us permission and a command to do it. Find a ministry. And preachers, let's let's develop enough opportunities for our people to engage.