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[0:00] Got it. Okay. Cool. All right. So do you want to work on the vision statement tonight or is that like a breakout separate two hour discussion?

[0:16] ! You know, I looked at this when you first produced it and I thought, well, this is pretty good. Yeah, just the wording. No, I mean, I think.

[0:30] Like if we went live with this today, it'd be fine. Yeah, I mean, this is I just read through the whole thing there.

[0:49] Let me get the door real quick. I'll get the door real quick. Someone is at the front door. Hey, guys.

[1:06] Hey. Oh, cool. Good job. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. What? What, Maddie? I got a cupcake. That's awesome. I got it.

[1:16] It's my first name. That's a long ball game. Good job. Good job. All right. I'm on a call right now. Hey. So what do you want to do?

[1:29] Well, the thing about it is, is that it's solid. It's just the question is just how actionable it is. Like, what are you wanting to use this for? Is this an internal guidance document or is this an external guidance document?

[1:44] Internal. Internal. I think I would want the, I think I'd want the PLT and maybe even community leaders to read it, be familiar with it, understand it, and be aligned to it.

[1:58] I don't think it's, I think, I don't think I'd take any controversial stances. I think it's just trying to, I think it's our cultural declaration.

[2:08] It's what we believe generally. I mean, the statement of faith, obviously being primary over this and then, and then who we are as a, as a church and what we're, what we're trying to live into.

[2:23] Yeah. I mean, until it hits the pulpit, it won't be real. That's just always the truth of, of a situation. Okay. So to me, as I'm looking at this and thinking of the 80, 20 here, the shaping virtues are probably the 80, 20.

[2:42] Would you agree with that? What do you mean by that? Like preach on their shaping virtues? Right. Because I mean, if you think about everything you wrote there and you ask, okay, what, what degree of this stuff is assumed by the average, you know, person that's coming into Providence?

[3:01] I'm thinking of transfer growth, not conversion, you know, but. Yeah. Yeah. I think the shaping virtues. To me might be the.

[3:16] I don't know. I might add courage or something like that, you know, but. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just thinking of a way to. I guess maybe what we should do is, is consider the possibility of, especially in the next.

[3:32] Say in January. Like if we were to preach a. 12 to 20 week series.

[3:45] On this document. You know. Maybe that's the way to think about this. It's just like, what are the essentials that if you just did.

[3:56] What makes us Providence? What makes Providence Providence? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, because then you kind of have to think through. What are the assumed things? Because some of this is just assumed.

[4:08] Yeah. Yeah. Personal Trinity. Gospel. Bible. Right. Right. But then love one another. Like, what does that look like? Sure. Yeah.

[4:20] You know, that thing that I don't know where it's at in the Sovereign Grace database, but that thing about applying the gospel. Have you read that before? Um.

[4:32] Read it. I mean. Living the cross-centered life? No. I don't think. It's more like a gnomian than that.

[4:46] It's applying the gospel booklet. Hold on. I'm not seeing it here.

[4:58] But anyway, there's a little booklet written about applying the gospel. Okay. It actually is kind of, like I said, more gnomian in the sense of it says, you know, like, here's the glorious truth.

[5:12] And it will affect how we parent, how we talk to each other, you know, so on. Yeah. Yeah. But I guess, just to summarize, my suggestion would be, this really should become a, you know, a preaching series of some kind.

[5:37] Yeah. I think that makes a lot of sense. And I think January could make a lot of sense. We will be in the new renovated sanctuary for six months or so.

[5:49] Right. We'll probably have a bunch of, or we may, God willing, have a bunch of new people. Right. You need to, and to renew what we are as a church. Exactly. Yeah.

[5:59] I see what you're saying. I think that's a good idea. Okay. So then, you know, that would be maybe also if, when we do that, it would also be kind of a way for us to triage this stuff and also wordsmith it and create kind of memorable you know, taglines and so forth.

[6:27] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote this at like one o'clock in the morning. One night. Yeah. So it's not, yeah. Yeah. It's not super sticky. Yeah. Yeah. The, yeah.

[6:40] So I, you know, in an ideal world, we would potentially find a book, say Philippians or something like that.

[6:52] Right. That gets us through a majority of these in, in, in a semi-exegetical, sorry, semi-expository fashion.

[7:06] Don't know if that's possible or not. Right. That'd be, in an ideal world, you'd do it that way. And if you can't do it that way, then you just do topicals that could still be exegetical, of course, you know, you'll have a main text.

[7:18] Right. Right. But anyway, that'd be my thought is, is that we, we polish this into a sermon series. It doesn't even have to be short. You know, it might, might need to be kind of long actually.

[7:30] And just say, you know, for the next, and, and we can always just make the disclaimer that, Hey, normally go through books to the Bible, but we're in this season of growth and we want to make sure that we're all on the same page.

[7:42] So we're going to do a series of messages and, uh, you know, so forth. So that would push us toward, if we wait until January, which kind of seems right, um, that would push us toward figuring out a December through December plan.

[8:01] Yeah. A smaller book, smaller book, not a Romans. Okay. That makes that, I think it makes a lot of sense to me.

[8:12] Practically speaking. Yeah. I mean, for whatever else is going on in the church, I mean, I'm speaking to you as a future senior pastor, Doug, whatever going on in the church, like it is not real until it is preached.

[8:27] I'll take that down. I'm not in a way. I'm happy. Okay. Okay. Cool. Want to keep going?

[8:40] Yeah. All right. What are we doing next? Are you okay? Yeah, I'm good. All right. My family just walked in. They were a pizza planet. I heard them. You did.

[8:52] I did. They got, they got, they won balls and cupcakes and lots of stuff. I heard all the updates. Maddie in particular. All right.

[9:04] Video production needs. I tried to jot down like everything that Christine and I could think of that we would need videos for. Yeah. So obviously overview intro. What to expect on Sunday.

[9:15] Church mission, which would go into what we're talking about with the, that preaching series. Church distinctives, which is in, which is on the website, but we would just make it alive in a video. And then what do you love about Providence?

[9:28] Like members talking. So we just need a video production crew, which I think you said you were going to start to work on.

[9:40] Yeah. I could tell you that the game changer for that is the space. The tech is actually not a huge deal anymore.

[9:54] It's the space. And having a space that's well lit and appropriate for what you're trying to do. That's really the everything piece. So waiting until September.

[10:10] Well, you know, my living room, it's like pretty picturesque in terms of the fireplace and the brick and the bookshelves and all that kind of stuff. Sure. We could do some of the initial outreach videos that we need to do for outreach for digital outreach.

[10:25] We can do some of that, like potentially in my living room or also in the new sanctuary. Yeah. But the long term thing is we need a place that has the lighting already installed and the cameras already positioned.

[10:38] And it's just a consistent place that you can walk into and record videos. And I genuinely believe that in terms of investment, I don't know that there's anything else we could do after we do the building that would be the most profitable for our church.

[10:56] This is to me the next thing. It is? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. All right. And so that means space.

[11:07] And, you know, Katie's office comes to mind as one possibility as a good space for that. There's already all those books there.

[11:20] It's a pretty big locate. But, yeah, I'm telling you, like, if we could just get a studio in our church or, you know, in this room I'm in now even, and it just was like the turnkey place to make videos, I firmly believe that the payout of that investment, which really isn't huge, probably a few thousand dollars, would be the most consequential thing.

[11:50] We have the people that can talk. We have the content, all that kind of stuff. It's really just now about nailing down this spot that makes it easy to do multiple videos at a single time.

[12:07] Yeah. Go forth. Yeah. I'm just thinking around the church. I mean, yeah, maybe like a nursery room.

[12:24] But we're going to need the nursery rooms. We can't set up video to go in there. So that's a bad idea. I mean, one thing I've thought about is how the sanctuary is, I think, uniquely, it's going to wind up being a good-looking space.

[12:45] And then also, it just communicates to people, like, this is our main thing. Like, we gather as the saints and we worship. So I think probably what we need to do is come up with a system that's, it's not permanent exactly, but it's like we might even have markers on the floor and things like that where it's like this is where the lights go and so forth, and we can set up and we can drop in and do videos.

[13:16] You know, I think I've told you my dad was the, you know, was the leader of the largest teaching, video teaching ministry in the Midwest for years.

[13:28] He ran all the production and everything with that. And, you know, the pastor of my church growing up was the main guy. And they had their system so set up that after he got done preaching, the next, because I would always sit kind of in the front row.

[13:45] So after he got done preaching, the, he, one camera would still be live. My dad would be in the director's booth. And the pastor, Monty, would speak into this one camera and just do a quick video sort of, I think it was, it came before his sermon, might have came after.

[14:08] But it was always like every week he would just do this quick thing right after the service with the people in the congregation. He would still be miked. And, you know, it was just this habit that the institutional habit.

[14:22] And the problem with that is all that is with my dad is he, that world has changed completely. Like there's almost nothing in common any longer.

[14:34] Video production, the technology, the style, the cinematic style, it's all changed. So he doesn't have a lot to say anymore about that world, but, you know, that church was, it punched way outside of its weight because it had this video ministry that spanned really the whole Midwest back in the 90s.

[14:59] And a lot of it had to do with this ability to just quickly turn out videos. Well, as you're talking, I'm thinking, why don't we pray for a point person on this?

[15:12] Give it like a week or two and see what God provides or a month or. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't we just pray about it? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I think that having this use, having some plan for to use a sanctuary, at least as a part of the load bearing on this will, will be good.

[15:33] As it shows the pulpit in the background, it shows, you know, the cross in the background, the, the instruments and so forth. And it essentially overcomes that threshold, that barrier to entry that people are on the outside looking in, you know, they're really trying, like, it's a huge deal to walk into a new place.

[15:51] And, and so, like, the more video you can produce inside the church actually winds up giving people this sort of sense of safety to come visit and so forth.

[16:03] But, but I mean, humanly speaking, and, you know, for what that's worth, I genuinely can tell you, I think that moving from 200 to 300 is probably mostly going to be a video proposition in terms of anything we can do actively.

[16:25] Sure. Understood. Okay. All right. So why don't we, why don't we pray about every group next month? Okay.

[16:36] Can you tag me and I will make a base camp appeal? I think we do have all the talent we need. Have you seen any of Chloe Thunberg's work? A little bit.

[16:48] Okay. I mean, she did the Easter egg stuff and she's done the, she's done the first draft of the connection document and it's good. Okay. Clean. It's clear.

[16:58] It's not fancy, but I don't think we need fancy. We don't want fancy because it'll miscommunicate what we are. So I can send you a picture of the first draft.

[17:10] Okay. Yeah. I'm just thinking like, that's probably the main issue right now. It's just a good graphical artist that we can depend on. Oh yeah. I think, I think, I think we got her.

[17:21] And then all the editing and stuff like that. That's all pretty, there's a bunch of people in our church that can do that kind of stuff. Okay. I'm sorry.

[17:32] Sorry. One last action item would just be like a camera. It's, it's, it's, I know what camera we need. It's $1,500. The lighting is probably $500.

[17:46] Okay. Okay. Cool. Like I said, I'm taking notes in the PLT notes and follow-ups document. Okay. So it's, it's all down there.

[17:58] I'll put our action item in bold as much as I can. Hey Bennett. Hey buddy. Hey. Buddy, when you're done talking, you can't be able to listen to me.

[18:14] As long as it's before bedtime. Okay. Okay. Okay. It's always open. Oh, cool.

[18:25] All right, buddy. Thanks for inviting me. Oh, wait. You also need this ice cream card. Oh, thank you.

[18:35] You have to do slice. Okay. All right. You have to do this with it. And Matthew, come on. Thank you. Thanks, Daddy. Come on. All right. So the church teaching diet, so sermons, we've got a plan for January.

[18:49] Daddy. Yeah. Right? Daddy, I will be ready. Daddy, come on. All right. One minute. One minute. Okay. The nickname in the Oswald household is the communion cup inspector.

[19:04] Oh, does he look at all of them before he picks up? Yeah. Oh, wow. I didn't notice that. It's adorable. So I think if I counted correctly, we have 17 sermons between September and January.

[19:19] Okay. Do it again real quick. What book? You think Old or New Testament? 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.

[19:34] 17 or 18? Okay. Okay. 17. It's 17 from September to the end of December. Okay. I don't have any clearer sense there.

[19:47] Not yet. Yeah. You know, we might have to think about that longer. Yeah. I mean. Don't forget like the winter advent.

[20:00] I know. So that probably limited three or four. Yeah. Unless you tie it all in. Right. That's true. I, I think it's conceivable.

[20:12] Just, this is literally just me at 7, 56. You might know. I, it's conceivable to me that Isaiah could get us there.

[20:25] Okay. Because. Highlights of Isaiah. Yeah. Because. You could wind up in. Some of the.

[20:38] Hi, Christine. Hi. I know that baby's not just floating in the air. So I know you're. Yeah, she's floating. Did you know? Hi, Annalise.

[20:49] How are you, sweetie pie? She's even waving to you. Hi, cutie. Can you wave? Sort of.

[21:01] Kind of. Yeah. All right. How old is she now? He. Six months. Six months. Six. Okay. Six months. You had so many in that window.

[21:12] I, I lose track of months. Yeah. Five years. They'll all be the same age, you know? So. Yeah. All right. Come on. All right.

[21:23] So. So. How is it? Isaiah. I mean, that. That'd be. That'd be pretty cool. Also. Hebrews is kind of another one. Hebrew. I just read that. It blew my mind.

[21:34] So good. When you were saying Romans, like the voice inside of my heart was like Hebrews. Hebrews. So that would be another possibility.

[21:45] All right. I'll take the notes down. Let me pray. Isaiah. Hebrews. You had mentioned James and Ephesians before. I think we abandon that for now.

[21:57] Maybe revisit. Yeah. I don't, I don't see that either of those. We had told the ladies that, Hey, if you'll read Ephesians and James, we'll preach on it eventually.

[22:07] But I just don't see that as likely. Sure. All right. Podcasts. Any. So we talked about the humility one.

[22:19] Any other topics you'd want to cover. You're going to work on or that you, especially are planning to do. What do you think? I think that we have a unique. Synergy available on the topic of parenting.

[22:34] Just because we're basically the same age. But. We're in very different seasons. I just think there's probably a lot of synergy on that stuff.

[22:45] So. On the humility thing. Like we would take the angle of. This isn't really a parenting conversation per se. Except that if you're prideful. It will show up in your parenting.

[22:58] But elsewhere. I think that like. You know, if you were looking at the one felt need of our congregation. It's probably parenting. Okay. But. That's just a thought.

[23:09] Not marriage. Well. And marriage. Sorry. Yes. Yes. I mean, it's kind of all tied in, I guess. But. That's probably not felt as much as parenting. But I wonder.

[23:22] The other thing that's. Kind of the elephant in the room is. We've been. Holding off on. Going all in on sovereign grace.

[23:33] For a few years now. Yeah. And. We probably need to decide. Soon. You know, this year. Are we in or we not?

[23:44] You know. And. I guess some of that depends on me. You know. I. I'm still not. You know.

[23:58] I think that like. If sovereign grace thought of themselves as a regular denomination. I'd be all in. Because a regular denomination doesn't expect you to be a hundred percent in.

[24:10] You know. A regular denomination is okay with you being 70. 70 percent on board. You know. They want you to be theologically. A hundred percent in.

[24:22] Which is. Of course. Appropriate. But culturally. They want you to be a hundred percent in. Sovereign grace does. That's not true of any other denomination. And it's actually a big failure of sovereign grace.

[24:35] That they don't know how to accommodate people who are. 70 percent in. Like they just don't know how to do that. They. There's this pride. And this exceptionalism. Within sovereign grace.

[24:46] It's like. Hey. If you're not. You're not a hundred percent in. You're not. And I. And there's many reasons for that. So. But long story short. Like. A big part of. Kind of what we could be doing.

[24:59] As the teaching elders. Is we could be talking up. Sovereign grace right now. And. It. Of course. There's obvious benefits to that.

[25:09] I mean. It gives us all kinds of structure. And missional kind of. Extension. Beyond our. You know. Synergy. Beyond our abilities. Our own.

[25:19] So anyway. To me. That probably. Will dictate. A lot of how we talk to the congregation. Over the next couple years. Yeah. Are we in or we not. You know.

[25:33] Yeah. And some of that's going to. Obviously. Factor into. Where. Where the leadership team is. But obviously. I think we both understand that.

[25:46] If we're in. They're probably in. You know. And if we're not in. They're probably not in. So. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any.

[25:58] I mean. Do you have any thoughts. About how we can decide. If we're in or not. I mean.

[26:11] It's. To me. It's the statement of faith. It's this. The seven shared values. It's. It's the. It's all like.

[26:21] For me. I know it's all paper stuff. But I. I think paper stuff literally. Or like. I feel like. Bought into the paper stuff. And then there's. Then there's the relational aspect of it.

[26:33] And there's the missional. Interdependence of it. And I'm. I like this. I love the statement of faith. I'm aligned to the statement of faith.

[26:45] And. I think. I think the seven shared values. Virtues are fine. I like. The seven shared values. I totally aligned to.

[26:59] Culturally. I feel like. I like. The culture. I think it's. It's somewhat evolving a little bit. And I like our regional culture. A lot. And then missionally.

[27:13] I think it's. I think it's a good thing. Missionally. So those. Those. The kind of the paper written stuff. Relational and missional. Are the three categories that I'm seeing.

[27:25] For how. Just real off the cuff. I would think through it. And then there's a thought of like. Where else would we go. Um.

[27:36] And I. I just. I think I like it better than what I know. Of the Southern Baptist Convention. I don't know a whole lot. About the ERC.

[27:47] Or. Doug's thing. Yeah. It's not really an option for us. In my opinion. So. And I. I would be very. I'd be. Quite wary about going independent.

[28:02] I like being in. Community. As a church. That's. That's my gut. So. Like. Let me throw some. Some. Things out to you.

[28:14] Yeah. Sure. For instance. So. I agree with everything you said. But. It's the paper. The paper is. See. A real denomination. Uses the paper.

[28:24] That's. That's the way. They keep everybody together. Right. Is they publish. This is our stance on this. Right. This is our friend enemy distinction.

[28:35] And you know. You're. If you're with us. You're. The problem with sovereign grace is that. They. They go beyond that. Into. Backroom discussions about.

[28:46] Is this guy really sovereign grace. And it. It becomes a. A vibe thing. And that's.

[28:57] So all my concerns are not with what's written. But it's with what's not written. Being such a. Prominent. Guideline. For. How they evaluate.

[29:09] Future leaders and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And so I. Is that. The assessment that people play sovereign grace kind of thing. Or is that even beyond that. I mean.

[29:19] It's. It's. It's probably encapsulated in the sovereign grace thing. But that's. Obviously. All three of those metrics are pretty subjective.

[29:30] You know. And. And left up to the powers that be to determine. But like. Let me give you an example.

[29:41] So. Jeff. Perswell. Jeff. Jeff Perswell. Jeff Palin. Yeah. Is. Was an ordained elder in sovereign grace. And he wanted to plant a church in Idaho.

[29:54] Right. And. Whether it was his fault or. You know. Just. If it was his fault. It was a skill issue. Not a sin issue. But.

[30:05] Whatever. He presents this plan to the western region. And. The western region. Essentially. Including Greg. By the way. This. I've been careful not to.

[30:18] You know. I've been careful to not commit the sin of ham. In this. Um. But. The western region. And Greg. Dismissed him.

[30:29] As being a red stater. Who wanted to plant a church. Amongst. A group of people. That were. Presumably. In the western view. West.

[30:40] Uh. Region view. And Greg's view. Already Christians. Because they were politically. To the right. Now. As it turned out. Greg. Or. Jeff. Wasn't even.

[30:51] Jeff is not a political guy. He wasn't even thinking. He's not a Trump guy. He's not. So. This was not even a thing for him. But. Of course. For me. It is. To some degree. And.

[31:02] And so. It caught my attention. Because it just seemed to be like. This weird. Like. Why are we. Telling this guy not to do this. And so. I leaned into Jeff. When no one else was.

[31:12] And. Invested. A couple years. Into getting to know Jeff. And. You know. Essentially.

[31:24] Had to address. All of these concerns. That were actually. Just misconceptions. So. What I didn't do. Was I didn't argue. Like. Hey. It's a good thing. To try to reach Trump. Vote.

[31:35] Voters for Christ. Like. I didn't try that. I just. All I did was say. You're wrong. Like. That's not what he's thinking. He just. Close to Planet Church in Idaho. Right. But I remember Greg. Specifically saying.

[31:46] Like. I don't know why. We want to plant a church. Amongst a bunch of people. Who are already saved. As if. You know. The Red Staters. Are all Christians. Which of course. Is not even close to true. Right.

[31:57] And they're all coming from. California. Colorado. Yeah. So. Yeah. This. So. So. Everybody. All the powers that be. Were. Against Jeff. And.

[32:07] It was essentially. just me spending two years talking to Jeff that wound up sort of pushing that through but it wasn't it was literally just because I was able to demonstrate well he's not that guy like that's like he's not I basically had to tell them he's not like me and then eventually they were like okay let's plant church Brandon the black guy shows up who is who wore a Augustine of Hippo sweatshirt with black guy on it Augustine was not black and he was from Africa he was not black and northern Africa well Brandon announced after he got back from the RAE you don't know this that he wants to go to Pastures College in September I was immediately looped in as the RCPC head to make that happen

[33:08] Joel Shorey out of church planning nationally and Jared Rellinger both said we want this to happen and when he gets done with Pastures College we will take him in as a church planning resident on the east coast so that he's in more diverse contexts in preparation for his plant in the inner city of Minneapolis so I don't really have anything against Brandon except I think he probably is woke and I think he probably is a little BLM and I think he probably thinks George Floyd was an innocent victim and those are just factually incorrect all of them but compare like the hesitancy with Jeff in planting a church in Idaho who was already an ordained elder who was already an elder on one of the most prominent men in Sovereign Grace's plurality by being rich with Brandon who isn't in Sovereign Grace and was immediately embraced not only to attend

[34:27] Pastures College but also to take a residency in one of the more prominent churches in some of the more prominent churches in Sovereign Grace so that's where your paper doesn't do you any good yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I can see that so then it's like well you know and it was put on Greg called me I was at the gym he called me he said hey we need to push this through like I need you to do X Y and Z for me and I'm you know fifth commandment guy all the way I will literally like on any question of possible discernment I will defer to my superiors and so I started doing that work and you know will continue to support that work but that's that's where I'm I'm still not able to fully get behind all of this because it's such ludicrous short-sighted and worldly thinking yeah in a denomination by a guy that wrote a book about worldliness it is the quintessential worldliness yeah to look at a black guy and think he gets a pass let's get him in you know and so forth so that's why it's like if we could just that's why I can't just say like yes yes yes yes it's not the stuff on the paper it's the stuff it's the way things are done and that's frankly the stuff that I haven't been privy to right right like I've

[36:11] I've been privy to paper relation missional yeah well you have been privy to it a little bit because like when you mentioned the dead wilson book to warren yeah that raised some eyebrows right and and you know yeah so anyway I sent my last sermon yeah I mean your last sermon was good and there shouldn't be any concerns there but we'll see but anyway we're getting off topic but like obviously if there was just a clarity there then and to me this is part where you need to hold me accountable I to me like one of the ways to sort of evaluate some of this is I'm not the least talented guy in sovereign grace I'm not the youngest guy in sovereign grace I'm I don't think that I'm overtly hard or rude or sinful yeah it's like to me the way

[37:16] I'm sort of evaluating this is are you willing to use me to help your endeavors or not because if not like if there's a lack of respect toward me I don't I don't think that's the risk of sounding narcissistic I don't think that it would be appropriate for there to be some sort of sidelining of Chris given the current composition of sovereign grace so and also you have to think about from my perspective like you know Angela and I are at a season where we really want to be useful to people and not just locally but extra locally and so if it if it if it continues to feel like we're getting the stiff arm to me like that would not be tenable for us long term if that makes sense yeah sure all right so I got three thoughts and then we can move on if you want first thought is we're in until we're out you know what I mean about that yeah like I if we're in we're in

[38:43] I think we function as being in I think we'd be I think we'd be hot and not not hot for sovereign grace I think we leverage the missional aspect of it I think we leverage the strong teaching and we keep an eye on the person stuff that's my first thought and I'll put my thoughts I like it second thought is let's let the church planning committee play out and let me get some real sovereign grace experience like let me let me experience sovereign grace at a regional level in a sensitive area which is church planning yeah you know what I mean by that yeah so give me some exposure there and then the third thing is just are they causing us to sin and if that's a minimal question I know that's not an optimal question yeah so that's my third that was my third thought and and then I guess the fourth thought is are they optimally positioning us for fruitfulness yeah that's probably better as we're talking about this those are really good and I agree with all three four four one of the things that is kind of another elephant in the room with this is like we're giving four percent we're supposed to be giving ten percent okay and so like that's another piece of this that is that is that an issue well

[40:21] I know it shows enthusiasm and it shows buy-in and Dave York Dave York and I are basically the same guy in a lot of respects okay and things fast forwarded for him when he got this entirely unique set of circumstances praise God in Roseburg he has no competition so forth so now you know he's leading one of the larger churches in Sovereign Grace yeah and Dave stock in Sovereign Grace went to zero to ten based on his church growth size not good that's not that's not a good thing it isn't but also when I get it like we'll probably be in that we'll probably wind up in the same situation and so yeah so I think there's ways to kind of measure some of this you know anyway I trust you I've shared I think a pretty accurate view of things it's good to offload some of this into your graying head so you you worry about some of this now I agree with you on the we're in we're in and I think if we were to do like the podcast and stuff with a sort of sense of the reason why I brought that up here is because there is such this there's such a storehouse of value in the past teachings of sovereign grace whether it be yes yes yes but see you have to think about it from my perspective

[41:57] I came into this church they were extremely hostile to sovereign grace because Matthew was thrust upon them it turned out to be this terrible situation yeah and and we also just have a pretty significant non denominational bent in our church which is just a unique factor in our church and so it was pretty clear to me that at the time I wasn't going to die on the hill of defending sovereign grace I was going to lead my church right and so you know we're just in this situation now where we just need to evaluate whether we're in or you know how to interact with them I would say it's probably fair and it's more than fair to say that I've I've minimized our connection to sovereign grace in an effort to just establish congregational unity and momentum and so on and so forth and yet now with the missional stuff coming into view and which we're just 100% aligned with whether it's church planting or the TLI stuff or whatever like it's you know it's obviously we want to put that stuff before our congregation and so we're just in this moment where it's like we we just need to decide are we going to lean in are we going to not you're going to be on that call on you know may 7th or whatever it is with the onboarding call you're going to hear like the policy it's a very robust policy it's a very good policy you've looked at the BCO it's a very good document all the stuff on paper is great and there's some great guys in sovereign grace but anyway and also you're you're coming in at a moment where the old me was very sensitive to playing the game at all and so

[43:47] I would almost reject playing the game at all and I've matured a little bit in that sense where I I feel like I am able to play the game and not sell my soul simultaneously so yeah I just I would put this on your plate in terms of we just need to figure out how much to emphasize our connection to sovereign grace to the congregation and if if we open that floodgates even if you you know even if we were to do bad cop good cop where you were like the good cop and I was the bad cop and you were like I'd be the bad cop you'd be the good cop even if one of us was like sovereign grace is great for x y and z and then the other one was like yeah but blah blah blah blah like that could be a way of entering into a greater denominational relationship while also differentiating we are aligned mostly but not completely or whatever anyway

[44:50] I think there's probably a way to thread that needle but and there's like I said there's so much there that is worthy of passing on even even just some of the stuff Ange and I listened to back in the early 2000s about home home life you know from Carolyn and Annie and so forth like there was some stuff there that was had absolute influence on the way our kids turned out you know so as a pastor I don't want to hold anything good away from my people right right right so anyway my my general heading on this subject was on the question of teaching and podcasts in particular I would say how can we access the vault of sovereign grace goodness while still giving us a little room to detach if things get weird down the road okay but can I give me give me a couple weeks let me think about it meaning probably tomorrow

[46:00] I'll text you a 200 word yes with a strategy right so yeah give me a little time by the way don't change a thing I love your 200 word text I don't get many thumbs up from the PLT so I'm like am I am I you are you are I will give you this criticism you are overly reliant on text response the thumbs up kind of stuff you're just too you are you are you're the extreme on the read on the feedback you give everybody feedback immediately no one else does like that you're you're unique in that way I feel like it's a sign of care I know I know you have a whole thing enough of that so let me think about the sovereign grace thing I will get back to you with some thoughts okay that's good good ladies or teaching diet we talk sermons we talk podcasts men's ministry

[47:09] I think we need to start thinking about next year a little bit we do do you have any thoughts no I don't yet either so I just I just wrote this agenda because I was like we I know we need to talk about this kind of stuff but I haven't put much thought against it I just put against the agenda I mean the great thing about the health of our men's ministry is if we all get together good things happen that's a beautiful truth I mean that's just that's just where we are so we do probably need to think through it more thoroughly but the women's ministry is probably more the concern and that and I think the huddle we already talked about that today yep so I'll put some working on the huddle piece we probably want to have the recommended readings in line before we do the huddle piece for the women yep got it it's in my notes all right staffing needs I think I'm just writing what I can see yeah

[48:09] I think at some point we need an admin at some point like in the next two to three years we're going to need a youth pastor and and then a church planning resident is just would be I think a nice to have and I think an executive pastor but I kind of feel like I can function as the executive pastor at this point I don't need the title but I think I can do the work and I'm starting to read up on how to do the work do you see any benefit to giving you that title now yes I think I do maybe I need to qualify a little bit more but if I'm already doing the work it might and you think that I'm giving good teaching and it would support the teaching that I'm giving like the two minute reads and stuff like that and my sermons maybe give me another one or two good sermons I don't know

[49:11] I'm hesitant to like put myself forward but I think I think it could be good well don't think about it as you think about it as some other person and you know you're just looking at the church like from Michael Gimity's perspective does having you know senior pastor executive pastor does that does that do something for people I think I think over the next six months it would okay I think it would build confidence but I need you to tell me what else I need to do to fulfill that duty I don't think you need to do anything else I think you're already doing it I just I just was asking if you think the titular aspect of it is significant I kind of lean toward literally I haven't thought about this but I I I would lean toward your perspective that it just shows a more button down you know system organization we've got this kind of thing which we do so to me that would be maybe when you do your call with outreach digital outreach let them know you want that changed on the website okay okay it will also do good for you down the road the sooner you get that on your you know yeah on your cv whatever the better it is for you too

[50:46] I mean that's what you are so I don't I feel it I feel like I'm doing it yeah I agree but I also yeah I feel like except that your zoom title says christine cohen which I know I know I know I don't know how to change that you think an executive pastor would be on top of that but I'm a teams guy which is the lamest ever but okay I like Microsoft teams it's a full service operation okay all right all right so all right so I'll do we need to run that by the PLT or yeah probably we yeah we probably do okay um well whoever's listening it's the recording session but I think they'll all agree all right yeah I don't agree that we need to eat faster I don't think that's actually I think we basically just culturally pick the you know two to three best teachers in the peer group at the time yeah and we just equip them train them up and so forth we don't actually I think we actually want a parent led model forever okay and I like we're doing it

[52:01] I feel like yeah we're already doing it if you think about it like we don't have any concerns about that for a long time to come yeah it'll be Larson whatever you know yeah it'll be you now it'll be Jesse whatever you know we we're fine there okay on the admin side and the church planning residence side let me drop something in your head so the the church in Chaska is really disintegrating in real time this has been something that's been on my radar for about five years and yeah it's really coming to fruition now Nathan is just not appropriately placed as a lead pastor so at the RAE he was basically crying almost the whole time I mean he would kind of reserve moments but then as soon as anyone would interact with him directly

[53:01] Greg called me about this so that church is Andrew is also not a guy that is probably even gifted to be on a staff of a church let alone to be the lead guy Josh is the guy he's the he's the most capable of the three and the most emotionally resilient of the three but he's you know in his situation so right they're in a real crisis Nate's going to be sent on a what is essentially Greg's kind of you know cure all sabbatical it's a sabbatical plus pastoral counseling if I told Greg that's not going to fix it do you know that do you understand that he said yes so really that church is just kind of hanging out there right now a couple thoughts

[54:10] I wanted to throw out to you one Providence has a unique history as a revitalized work I don't think that most people think about it that way I think the leaders probably do but the rest people yeah I think the gimmies of the world don't think of it that way but I think John would anyway point being one thing that stuck out to me was should we just make a concerted effort as Providence as a church to basically say for the next three to five years Chaska is our flesh to flesh bone to bone we're we're with you guys and we're going to do whatever we need to do including sending teams up to there to do outreach and consistently highlighting them in prayer and so forth and that that may be

[55:17] I don't know the other thing is is that Josh you know is essentially a guy who can raise up to 100% of his support but doesn't have to raise you know he has some flexibility there and it's like well Josh is just this sort of gleaming free agent to me that sort of left sitting out there but you can see the tension because if we were to encourage Josh to potentially move here and serve in some of these roles and pay him a part time salary while he does you know when I say part time my guess is like we would be 30% responsible for his salary obviously if we do that it is to the detriment of the Chaska church to some degree assuming that Josh is appreciated there and placed there anyway so that's kind of all just hanging out there like if we wanted to do a short term like a partial hire to just relieve some of the tension generally

[56:34] Josh would be a guy to do that I mean he has all of the he and I basically have the exact same experiences everything from the foreign mission side to the church planting side the failing in church planting like all the things so like that's just kind of out there right now in my head I don't know what to do with it Chaska definitely is in a crisis that's necessarily going to involve us at all yeah and you know there's a there's a you know 20% chance that we could talk Greg into like letting us own that maybe it's more than 20% because he did call me to talk about it anyway so that's kind of all out there and to me like you know we have needs but the needs don't mean as much as like you find these guys who are called and you figure out a way to serve and support them and they serve and support you so anyway that's kind of when

[57:45] I see this potential of a more immediate hire beyond you down the road like well that's the stuff that comes to mind because you've got essentially Nate who might need to be replaced relocated and then you've also got Josh who might need to be relocated as well okay some thoughts you want some thoughts yeah I like Josh I didn't I didn't get to know him so well but I enjoyed talking to him I don't like to go negative but what are his weaknesses like I mean he's obviously he can raise funds and he's a good preacher so his weaknesses are pretty universally known and they are one he will never stop having a primary commitment to missions and his second weakness is his wife has been this is very common his plant that he did

[59:00] I think it was in Madison before he went to TLI you know it was a failure I don't think it was Madison actually but anyway anyway he's done a few works that have not gone well and you know he and are the same age and to some extent that was partly youthfulness and also you know back in the day when we were coming up they were throwing guys like us into church plants when we weren't really qualified so is he coachable Oh no question what I was about to say was his wife bears scars from his churches and so I personally don't think it's a problem I think we just essentially could win her heart in a year pretty quickly with the culture of providence but yeah anyway so that's the other thing is his marriage has been flagged multiple times not so much because they are in disharmony they're actually pretty much in love but she just has that kind of it's a pretty common thing where a broken pastor's wife will have this kind of stiff armed vibe to her and

[60:25] I guess that's kind of been the consensus as people have interacted with them together he's all in for everything all the time and she still feels a lot of like I've been mistreated by the people of God in multiple occasions in local churches that we tried to serve you know that kind of stuff all right so I personally don't feel like that's super concerning!

[60:54] I know Providence well enough but I know our wives well enough but anyway so my my gut inclination right now would be I think it'd be cool to absorb him into Providence I think that if he's coachable you can speak into his life and you can you primarily could help him I think his wife could heal and I think if he's as good a preacher as my impression is from you he could provide some really good sermon support and take some pressure off of you and let you do some other stuff some other kind of teaching or whatever I don't know but just take some pressure off of you well and the other piece is our city is ready for a second providence like we could plant a second church in you know what I mean so yes yes gosh is he's able to do that you know it's like probably a five year thing or a three year thing but anyway yeah and I think also

[62:04] I highly doubt that John Noah and Noah are going to listen! to this recording but if they are like I think that's the other piece is just like they have to come to understand like if you want to plant a church you have to do that five years in advance you have to give a salary to somebody and so forth and it's just like a slow transition point so I can see how Josh meets that one of the!

[62:36] we've talked about as a leadership team before is if we can get our building consistently full of 300 people 300 members ideally then you can send out a group of 50 to plant a church in North KC or in Leawood or whatever you know yeah Josh would be ideal for that but anyway so I would be in favor of absorbing him caring for him helping him and investing in him okay well that's definitely a down the road sure elevate to PLT thing okay okay can we stop Dov you want to stop well Mr.

[63:22] Bennett wants you to stop what is there anything else that we what's up I think I think we could stop big thing is the follow up on if we can get an actual plan on the video production and on the you know obviously on a sermon schedule like those would probably be two of the bigger pieces here okay and I do think that practically speaking we might want to just set a standing meeting where we do a podcast together on a predictable basis and then just come up with the content yeah I agree tapping into some of the stuff and there I would say we could definitely lean into the CJ stuff from years past and we can probably even just relationally talk about some like you probably remember where you were when you heard this CJ sermon I probably remember where

[64:23] I was stuff like that might be a good bridge into the sovereign grace stuff yeah okay so I got predictable podcast time I'll look into I'll try to identify a date I mean it's even like first Thursday and then first and third week is when we have our PLT meetings yeah so we'll have to maybe on second or fourth we'll do a standing podcast time well what we could do is we could do one of these meetings but we'll just hard cap it in an hour and then like the last 20 minutes do a podcast prep and then just do the podcast next hour okay that works all right well let me pray for us hey Bennett you want to pray real quick and then your dad can be free okay Bennett what do you want your dad to do for you after we're done I want him to pray an ice cream restaurant with me okay all right well let me pray and then you can have your dad okay

[65:33] Lord Jesus thank you for how much you love us and thank you for how much you've taken care of us and you know everything perfectly you see it all and you know exactly what is going to happen and you have a plan to take care of us and to make us more like you Lord we pray that you would bless all these plans and help us God to serve your church God your church is so important to you and we are so thankful that you let me and Dove serve your church we pray God that you would help us to do that well Lord bless our plans and help us to have wisdom to understand how to care for your people in Jesus name we pray amen amen all right guys all right do you access to this notes document I think I do yeah I think you do so you can look at it if you want and I'll follow it with you yeah it's linkedin base camp I'll follow it with you with follow ups like tomorrow or the next day perfect thank you so much

[66:33]  Dev yeah thank you bye bye