Starting Point Session 3

I got this little... All right, so we have been doing...

the first week we did doctrine, right? And at the end of this class today,

I want to leave a lot of time just to talk more about doctrine. Any questions that you guys might have or just thoughts that have come up?

These kind of 10 points at the beginning of your notes are the statement of faith, not just for this church, but also for the entire

Evangelical Free Church of America. So 1 ,500 churches share the same statement of faith.

And this is really kind of the essentials of the gospel and Trinity and Scripture and who

Christ is and what he's done, the Holy Spirit, the church, final eschatological things.

So it's a very important statement of faith. So at the end of the class today, begin thinking now of any questions that you have or anything that's kind of come up in your mind, because doctrine is really what unites us as a church.

Some people think that doctrine divides, but in truth, doctrine unites. We're united around who

Christ is and what he's done and those things are doctrinal truths. So we did that the first week and then last week we got into history.

We talked about the Evangelical Free Church of America and how it was formed here in 1950 and how it's grown and become a very diverse body across 1 ,500 churches in America and also tons of missionary works all around the world in all continents of the earth.

There are missionaries from EFCA churches. We ourselves at this church support about 12 missionaries and Rick talked about them last week, most of them having come up through this church.

Grew up in youth group or somehow were part of the founding of this church and then, you know, the first pastor of this church is a missionary in the

Philippines. So this church has been known as the little church that sends, very missions oriented.

And Rick told the story of how this church was born, you know, the really exciting from 1979 until now, everything that God has done to provide the land and the building and the people that have come.

It's just been a really neat story. We talked about our core values. I asked Rick to say a few things on those but that's 3 .3,

our core values. What does this church, you know how like different churches have different values and you can kind of tell like this church is all about X or this church is more about Y.

You can kind of get a flavor for what they value. Cornerstone values prayer,

God's Word, having genuine community where we love each other and care for one another.

We value evangelism. We value serving others and discipleship.

Those kind of six values are just kind of the heartbeat of what what this church is all about.

And at the center of that of course is God's Word. We're very much a Bible Church. I'm sure you can tell that.

So we have a number of different ministries that flow out of that from community groups, Bible studies, Sunday school classes, prayer meetings, service projects that we do to Camden with Seeds of Hope and serving homeless people that come and stay here a few times a year.

And now with Louisa, there's another access to prison ministry with writing letters. But we already have other,

John and Stan go down to work with with guys who have come out of prison and they're kind of in a halfway house.

So there's a lot going on there. We have Saints Prison Ministry where Jill Deegan goes in to the prisons to play volleyball.

And now I'm trying to put together a prison basketball team. So we've got about five right now. So if you know any ballers that love the

Lord. My rule is you have to be more serious about Christ than you are about basketball.

I don't care if we have an NBA player, but if he doesn't know the Lord, what good is that? He could go dominate on the court, but that's not the point.

So someone who loves the Lord. So we're putting together that. So it's just that's kind of the DNA of the church.

We talked about that last week. So this week we're gonna move into section four, which is about membership.

And then section five, which is about spiritual gifts. I won't spend long on membership. Not all churches have official membership.

If you need to go get a drink of water, that's fine. Yeah, there's a water fountain. Yeah, not all churches have official membership.

And some will say, well membership isn't in the Bible. Granted, it's not explicitly taught in the

Bible, but also the word Trinity is not in the Bible, but the Bible does teach the Trinity. Membership is not as clearly taught as the

Trinity, but I do think it's implied. Where do I see that? In 2nd Corinthians chapter 2, the church has disciplined somebody.

So this is clearly a member of the church, but Paul says the decision that was imposed by the majority is sufficient for him.

Well, majority of who? In order to have a majority, you need to know who is a part of the church, because these people are making a decision.

Something so severe as having to discipline somebody, who in that case it was unrepentant sexual immorality.

And this person now has repented, and Paul says now it's time to forgive. Okay, the majority put this person out of the church, because they wouldn't repent.

But then when they came to that brokenness, Paul says what the majority decided is sufficient.

Now welcome him back. Point being, we do have membership, and we think it's a biblical principle that we would know who are our brothers and sisters who are in this battle, in this fight together.

And we think it's a biblical body metaphor in 1st Corinthians 12. Louis might be one part of the body, and Anna another part.

Somebody's a hand and a foot and an eye and an ear, but we're all one body, right?

So that's a concept there. So membership is something that we do. Now, if somebody comes to church and they're not a member, if they are in Christ, they are part of the body.

Universal. They may not be able to vote on money issues or church discipline, because we're not sure who's...

if they're actually, you know, part of the body in terms of an official member. We still recognize that even if someone doesn't join the church, they're still part of Christ's body.

Universal. So this is more of a structural thing in how we run the affairs of the church with order and decency, where there's elders and deacons and a functioning body.

So does that make sense? That's kind of our position on membership. And there's other scriptures we could talk about that.

So how do we then structure that? What does it take for you guys to join this church, if the

Lord so leads you to do it? Well, in 4 .2, it's any person...

why don't you just read it for me, Louis, because I know you're a good reader and you don't have to hear me... you don't have to hear me talk the entire time.

The five requirements for membership. Any person publicly professing faith in Jesus Christ as his or her personal

Savior and Lord, whose life and conduct give evidence of such a profession, who agrees to abide by the

Constitution and bylaws of this church, who commits himself or herself to faithful service in this church, who is not currently under discipline from a previous church, may be received into the membership of this church.

Okay, so the concept is we're looking for genuine believers. We want someone who professes

Christ. We do not want to be a social club. You know, there are social clubs where anybody and everybody can join, but we don't say that this is open to anybody and everybody.

Anybody and everybody who professes Christ, and they show that they know

Him. In other words, they're not living in blatant, unrepentant sin where the fruit is evident.

Now, this person says they're a Christian, but they also rob banks every Sunday. You know, it's like, okay, we're not going to let that person in.

We want a believing membership that are genuinely saved people. If the church is made up of saved people, that's going to save us from a lot of church drama.

Ever notice that in churches there can be problems, personalities that clash, and hypocrisy, and things that are not done right?

Well, if in the first place we have a church that are made up of genuine believers, that's going to help a lot with that.

I think a lot of the the problems that come up in churches is just throwing the doors open and letting everybody be a member who's not even a

Christian, and now you have unregenerate membership with carnal thinking and therefore problems in the church.

Now, does that mean you have to be a certain level to be a member at Cornerstone? Is it like the spiritual elite that can be a part of Cornerstone?

No, it's just based on a genuine profession. So, anybody who names the name of Christ who's living a

Christian life and is willing to be a part of this church and abide by what we are, you know, our structures, elders, deacons, that's who we want to be a member.

Then there's this final clause, not under discipline from another church. We don't want someone who's like running from a discipline situation in one church to come here just to escape something there.

Now, it could be that the church that they're leaving is the one that's in error. So, we're not going to say just because there is a situation, go away, but we're going to say let's talk about that.

What happened? You know, is there something that we should know? And if it's a discipline situation, let's talk to their elders and find out how we can all be walking in the light.

So, does it make sense? So, it's not like an elite club, but we just want Christians, genuine

Christians. Okay, fourfold process. Number one. Anybody else feel like reading? Otherwise, I'll keep going to Louis.

Okay, Louis, you're my reader. Number one. This is just four easy steps here. Application for membership.

Application for membership can be made at any time to the pastoral staff or any other member of the church board.

In order to pursue membership, the applicant must complete starting point. Point number two.

I'll just do one at a time real quick. So, all that is is there's a paper in your folder. It's just two sides, front and back.

Just about how were you saved? Were you baptized? And the important part there is just like a paragraph or two about how you got saved, like a testimony.

Okay, you don't have to turn it in right away, but when you have time to work on it, that paper is our starting to get to know you.

After that, point number two, a church board interview. By board, that doesn't mean you have to go in front of all the elders and deacons, representatives of the board.

So, it'd be like myself and Rick Thompson or myself and Ralph Rossler. We'll just sit down with you and just talk about your faith.

So, number two. Following such starting point, the applicant shall meet with representatives of the board to share his or her testimony of salvation, evidence his or her agreement to abide by the church's

Constitution and bylaws, and affirm his or her commitment to serving

Christ and this church. Yeah, so the interview, it tends to be, I'll tell you right now what

I ask. Alright, this way. It's like when you already have the questions ahead of time, it's not scary, right?

So, here's my first question. If you died today, would you go to heaven? And what

I'm looking for is someone who knows Christ and has assurance that they're born again.

My follow -up question is like it. If you died today and you were at the gates of heaven and God said, why should

I let you in? What would you say? And what tends to happen is if someone doesn't know the completed work of Christ, they'll start pleading their own righteousness.

Well, I'm such a good person. I do all of these things, but they won't talk about Christ and His work.

They'll talk about their own righteousness. And so, these two questions were from Evangelism Explosion, Dr. D.

James Kennedy. They're diagnostic questions to get people talking about what they're trusting.

What are you resting on? And that's what I want to know. Are you trusting the finished work of Christ that He died and He rose from the dead, or are you trusting your own righteousness?

Then after that, we talk about other things like, well, how do you want to serve in the church? What are your spiritual gifts? And just tell me about your life and get to know you kind of things.

But those are the diagnostic questions that I use. And I give them to you ahead of time because I want you to rest in Christ and Him only.

Okay, so that's what that's all about. Number three. Congregational vote. If the church board is satisfied that the qualifications for membership have been met, they shall recommend the applicant's name for membership at the next congregational business meeting.

Okay, so that seems a little scary. The whole church votes. What tends to happen is the church is going to be going off what the elders have done in the meeting.

So, they're not going to be interviewing you there. We'll just ask you, if you're at the building, you don't have to come to that meeting, but we'll just ask you to step into the other room and it's just a show of hands vote to welcome you.

I think we need two -thirds. What I've seen since I've been here is the church is trusting of whoever the elders are that have done the interview of the person.

But the congregate, because remember in our church, the congregation is the highest authority under Christ. It's not the pastor, it's the church.

Okay, so there's a vote that happens at a board meeting. And then finally, we just welcome you into membership. You can read it, but Lewis, it's just on a

Sunday morning we ask you to come forward and we introduce you to the church and then I pray over you and over the church that we would be united in love.

So, you can read it for us. Number four. Welcome into membership. The prospective members shall be informed of the congregational decision.

New members shall then be publicly welcomed into the church at a subsequent

Sunday worship service. Yeah, so it's four steps, but they're actually really simple, right?

You got to fill out the paper, meet with us, and then from there, we'll vote at the congregate. And you just wait till we call you up front and introduce you.

But we'll let you know all along the process. You know, we won't keep you. Yeah. Does that sound too intimidating?

Yeah. Do you understand the reason behind everything? The why of what we're doing?

Yeah. We want a believing membership. Okay, last section before your question. So keep preparing your questions in your mind because that's the best part of this class is just we can put anything on the table.

The last section is choosing to be involved. Okay? Every Christian has spiritual gifts.

Not every Christian walks in the fullness or has those gifts fanned into flame. It's almost like spiritual gifts can lie dormant because you're just not using them.

We would love for you as you're becoming a member to discover your spiritual gifts and to step out and use those.

Louisa knows that she's gifted in writing to prisoners, in helping believers come farther in their faith, discipling them, coming alongside them as a help and a servant.

So she's using that gift in a ministry. You have a ministry. Praise the Lord. We want to encourage that and say, is there others that can join

Louisa in that? A lot of times the ministries that are born in this church are born out of somebody's passion.

So someone comes along and says, I have a heart. You know, it was John Detoli. He came a couple years ago.

Men that are in halfway houses and trying to get back into society. He goes every

Thursday and he mentors them and he's been doing that since he came to this church. Other guys will come and help him a little bit.

We need to get more guys surrounding him in that ministry. But it was born out of his passion. So I want to see where you guys feel gifted and there's so many opportunities.

Community groups, Bible studies, different service projects with the homeless, serving in the children's ministries, being a teacher of kids.

You know, you might say, I'm a little scared to teach, you know, 12 year olds, but I can teach five year olds or I just want to take care of the little babies, you know, in the nursery.

There's so many needs for people to serve and so just be praying about it. Recognizing what your gifts are.

So there's four passages in the Bible that speak of spiritual gifts.

I've got them in part two, but they are 1st Corinthians 12, Romans 12,

Ephesians 4, 1st Peter 4. That's how I remember them. 12, 12, 4, 4. So Romans 12, 1st

Corinthians 12. I encourage you to read those at some point. Do a study of spiritual gifts and you'll find lists of different gifts.

The word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, tongues, miracles, interpretations, service, all of the gifts of the

Spirit. We believe at this church that God is still gifting his church.

There are some that believe in what's called cessationism and there are some true points about cessationism.

In other words, the gift of apostleship. I think that gift has ceased.

I don't think there's any modern -day apostles, but I think there's still spiritual gifts. Okay, it's a very thorny question.

We could talk about it in the question section. My interpretation of that tends to be a little bit of a middle road.

Awake, aware, and open to spiritual gifts, but also cautious in some ways of any excesses and abuses of those gifts, which

I've also seen a lot of evidence of. But we can talk more. That's always an important conversation piece, but I do believe that the spiritual gifts are still with us today.

I think even most cessationists would say that. They would just say certain sign gifts that validate an apostle have ceased.

So it doesn't tend to be as polarized as someone might think. Yeah, so yes.

I do think so. Yeah, I think first of all, I definitely believe God still heals, but I've also noticed that I don't feel like I have a spiritual gift of healing, meaning

I pray for healing a lot, but I haven't seen a lot of miracles. But I do know people that they seem to have a gift of healing, that God uses them in particular with kind of more faith or something, where they go and pray for healings and seems like it's more marked in their lives.

So I do think there are people with gifts of healing, and maybe somebody at this table has seen

God use you in healing more than others. I have seen, this is interesting, there's twice that we as elders have prayed according to James 5 with the oil, and in both cases it was a woman who had cancer, and in both cases it went into complete remission.

And I don't attribute that to a gift of healing in me. I think that's them obeying James chapter 5.

If anybody's sick, call the elders of the church to anoint with oil, and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.

I often don't have enough faith, but I had enough faith to just obey and believe and say, you know what

God, you can do this. And so far those two people have remained in complete remission.

So praise the Lord. Yeah, it's mysterious. It's a little bit beyond me.

So I just try to stay open to whatever the Bible says, and He does according to His will.

Yeah, and balancing that with the miracles of Jesus, I think we're in demonstration of His deity.

So He walks on water to show that He is God. There's a sign gift in that that marks

Him. So the greater works of John, I don't take that to be that we're going to qualitatively do greater miracles than Jesus walking on water and raising four -day -dead

Lazarus from the dead, because those are demonstrations of His deity. And it's often connected, the particular miracle demonstrates something of His person.

Does it make sense? So I think the greater works refer to salvation to the ends of the earth.

A greater miracle, a greater work than Jesus healing a dead person, is a spiritually dead person being born again.

And they're saved. And this is happening by the millions across the world every year.

Well, that part where it talks about Jesus walking on water, like you said, is God walking on water.

It also talks about faith because it tells Peter to look to Me. Yes, it does. Yeah. And look at Me.

Right. So that talks about faith. Yeah. Have faith in Jesus. Right.

Don't look down. Have faith. Just come. Yeah. And Peter started walking. He did. Yeah. As he looked down, then that's when...

Yeah. And I'm sure that my lack of faith is a reason why

I don't see as many miracles as as are possible. Yeah. I think I have a lot of room to grow in that, like Peter.

Yeah. Yeah. There's no doubt. Yeah. Well, I think...

And I think there is a spiritual gift along those lines, a preaching gift. Right. Those who preach as those speaking the oracles of God.

That's in the 1st Peter 4. That's... I think there's a spiritual gift thing in preaching. Yeah. I do think that.

I just haven't seen it in healing. Yeah. I want to. And I remember one time we were in Costa Rica and there was a girl in a to raise her up.

And we prayed for hours. She didn't get healed. But we were holding on to her legs and praying over.

And I was trying to muster up the faith and it didn't happen. And maybe it wasn't

God's will to heal her. Maybe... At the moment. Right. I know when she will be healed for sure, which is in heaven.

That will be a perfect healing. So, he apportions his gifts, it says according to 1st Corinthians 12, according to his will.

As he as he will. So, the the will of the Holy Spirit has to be accounted for too.

That we we seek his will and we pray and we ask.

But we don't demand. I don't think it's always God's will to heal in this life.

I don't think that. There is a theology that it's always a lack of faith and that's the only reason for not healing.

But I don't see that in Paul when he says, take a little wine for your stomach. You know, he sometimes he even acquiesces to God's will.

And when he says, three times I prayed that this thorn be taken from me. And God said, my strength is made perfect in weakness.

So, he had to accept God's will at that point. It seems that's what the teaching is to me.

So, but I do think that sometimes we lack faith. So, that's kind of where I'm sort of in the middle on the question.

But definitely believing that he still does it. And I've seen it. I've seen miracles with my own eyes.

Yeah. So, okay. Recognizing gifts, recognizing needs is the last section.

Then we'll take your questions. It's not only about where you feel passionate, although that's important.

It's not only about where you see a gift in yourself, although that's very important, right?

I think we're in our wheelhouse when we're sort of like operating according to our gifts and we fit in the ministry.

But it is also important to look for needs. You see in the church like, oh man, there's just nobody doing this.

And you know, there's nobody signed up for IHN this last Saturday or something like that.

You know what? I'm going to make a meal. I might not be a cook. Or maybe I'm not a cook, so I'll go and minister to the family and be the host.

Whereas somebody else I know, my mother -in -law, she's a cook. She'll make something and we'll work together.

It's recognizing needs, not just, you know, what I want to do. It's kind of a both end.

You want to look for spiritual gifts but also recognize needs. So, that's something to pray about, you know, as you're coming in potentially into membership.

Pray about where does God want to use me? It's exciting actually. It's not a burden.

Ministry to me has never felt like a burden. I've never woken up thinking, oh, I got to go do ministry.

I've never felt like that. And I've been in full -time ministry since 2000. So, that's 20 years now. It's always been like a joy.

Like, what has God called me to do? And I get to serve in this way. Yeah, yeah.

And that's how it should be. We should want to serve the Lord and be involved in the body, in the life of the church.

So, think of it like that. Have that attitude which was in Christ where you're desiring to be lowered in order to elevate

His name. So, yeah. Absolutely.

And we'll use that as the first question. Now, it's open for questions. The last 20 minutes, 15 -20 minutes here.

Any kind of questions? I've seen that. So, I saw that this weekend where we were at the men's retreat and just seeing how the

Holy Spirit directed the conversation where one man shared and another shared. And it just all fit with the theme that God was doing.

Yeah, I think you see the Holy Spirit in the midst. Yeah, yeah. It's a beautiful thing, isn't it?

Questions. It could be theological. It could be practical. Could be anything. What's been on your minds?

About the gifts. Yes. I don't know. I'm not, I'm uncertain also what my gift is.

I feel like He's feeding me into trying to understand, to interpret, you know, the words.

I mean, God's lessons, His teaching. Yeah. The words, you know, like each time you read,

He reveals something new. Yeah. That's why, you know, reading of the

Word is very important. Yeah. Because He reveals little by little what

He wants you to know. Yes. And what plan He has for you. And you have to pray for, you know, like give you wisdom and understanding to interpret

His words, you know, His teaching as you read. Right. And I try to, you know, like,

I try to remember verses, like I'm, you know, I have to, you know, pray and trying to remember, you know, to give me

God, you know, the gift of trying to remember the verses, you know, like I might remember certain things, like I'll just,

I won't remember what book it is. Yeah. I'll bring it out. Yeah. To the situation that I'm in, but I can't say in what book it is.

Right. I can't say, you know, but I'll bring out what it says. Yeah. But I can't actually say what book it is, you know.

If I had to distinguish between what that would be, it may be the difference between gift of knowledge and gift of wisdom.

Gift of knowledge. There are people in our church who can quote books of the Bible from memory, like the book of Acts, the entire book.

That's a gift of knowledge, that a mind could just hold on to the actual order of words and verse references and everything.

Gift of wisdom, what I think, has to do more with the practical kind of Proverbs application of biblical principles to situations in life.

You may have a timely word to a situation that that's wise, and you can give wise counsel, but you might not have a gift of knowledge.

Or maybe it's just you need to develop more and more knowledge, as we all do. You know, we're growing in knowledge.

Yeah, and we want to keep growing in all areas, you know.

There's a gift of evangelism, but there's also a command, do the work of an evangelist.

So even if you don't have a gift of evangelism, you got to be trying. You got to be looking for opportunities and sharing the gospel.

Yeah, and then some people, it's like, you know, you might have shared the gospel with some guy over and over, and he meets him for the first time and leads him to Christ.

It's like, how did you do that? Well, maybe it's a gift of evangelism, that certain people just tend to lead a lot of people to the

Lord. I don't know how it's going to turn, but I always say, and I read the

Bible 365 days a year, and I started January again, because like you say,

God, he does teach you every year in each chapter something different that you read the last year, and you did not pay attention to it.

It was not that clear, but this year, he made it more clear to you, and he pointed it out to you, so you get it through your head, and that's been happening to me.

And then when I go out, for some reason, I start talking about Jesus. Don't ask me, don't ask me anything.

But if I see a situation, and it's like, all that comes from my mouth is talk about Jesus, and I'm like,

I'm going to talk about Jesus, and I'm like, I'm going to talk about Jesus, and I'm like, I'm going to talk about Jesus, and I'm like, I'm going to talk about Jesus, and I'm like, I'm going to talk about Jesus, and I'm like, I'm going to talk about Jesus, and I'm like, I'm going to talk about Jesus, and I'm like, I'm going to talk about Jesus, and I'm like, I'm going to talk about Jesus, and I'm like talk about the Bible, talk about what is about Jesus, about what God did, and the sacrifice, what

God did to create this beautiful earth for us, and it's like my daughter would tell me, mom, all you talk is about God.

And it's like, but I can't help myself.

So what do you do in these situations. No, you're not in the wrong! Don't stop talking about God!

like, you know what? He's the one that's worthy of all of our devotion. Keep talking.

Yeah, just not everybody's gonna want to hear it, but you know, we were told that it will be like the aroma of death to some and of life to others.

Well, that's

I think what Louisa said about reading the Bible every day, you know, 365 days a year. If you have that kind of input into your soul, you can't help but it coming out, right?

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Yeah, you just keep storing up that treasure. That is a compliment.

That is a compliment. That is not an insult. I have to say that I read the Bible twice, the entire book.

Nice. Twice. I mean, I started differently. Yeah. Like, the first time I read it, like, one book in the

Old Testament, one in the New. So, like, back and forth. I mean, the old one has more books than the new one, but I just go, you know,

I started like that until I continue the new one, you know? Yes. And you can see how it comes together.

Yes, yeah. Such a coherent. It is all about Jesus. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it has one author.

God, the Holy Spirit, through human authors, but yeah, ultimately, it's one story that he wrote.

You have a good problem. Of all problems to have. Yeah, you talk about God so much.

Sometimes, when I go to see people in places, I always say,

I'm not going to be afraid to speak up or stand up anymore for me or for God, because when

I start to speak up, I don't feel that it's not even me speaking up before everything comes to me. And it's that I just say what

I have to say. Sometimes I feel that I say things to people and I don't take it like,

I talked to that person. I thought it was a message for that person that the Holy Spirit wanted it to give.

Like, I went to the hospital, I have an appointment, and this lady was still crying about her mother who passed away.

But it came to me to tell her that she was fine, that she's alive in heaven, not to worry about her any longer.

And I told her. And she looked at me, and looked down, and looked at me again, and looked down again.

And then she said, oh, that's another way to see it. So it's like, okay. I said, all right.

She needed to know that. Okay. Yeah. Just don't be afraid to speak the words of Scripture.

So it says, fear not, for I am with you. Be not afraid, I am your God. Oh, I guess.

I will strengthen you, I will help you. It doesn't look like she's scared. I see that she speaks.

That's what I need. I'm scared to speak to the people next to me.

I think that is courage. Courage is when you do that, and you're afraid, but you still do that.

You still do it. Yeah, that's a good point. Doesn't take much courage if you're not afraid. Well, I'm still scared, but my spirit doesn't.

So that's why I gotta learn more to trust on the spirit, but he's guiding me too.

That you have. Yeah. And just know that to trust him more.

Don't trust myself, trust me. Yes. Any other questions?

Do you have any recommendations as far as, like I kind of feel like for many years

I sort of got in a rut of always doing the same things. Right. And I could definitely recognize that it's time for me to,

I don't know, to serve in a different way. Yeah. And because this is a new church for us and all that sort of thing, it seems like a good time to really be thinking about that.

I mean, besides just natural things that you sort of, you know, you might be gifted with, but you know, is there anything in particular that you would point people to to kind of help with that?

In terms of service or like your own spiritual life? Yeah, just slowly, like gifts, like kind of just knowing.

Do you just think they're evident and you have to think about too much? No, I think thinking about it is good. Also, trying some new things.

Yeah. And then that's okay to give it a try for a while and say, you know, let the leader of it know,

I just want to try this for a while. And you step out in faith, kind of like the walking on water.

Next thing you know, like, oh, wow, I can do this. You know, so stepping out in faith is one big way.

Other people will recognize it. Like as we get to know you, someone's going to say, well, maybe you have a gift, you know, like Anna just said to Louisa.

Right. So like I think other people will speak it into your life. Yeah. And in prayer meetings, the

Holy Spirit can show us too. You know, when Acts 13 set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul to the work

I've called them to do. That was just the Spirit leading, kind of identifying who the missionaries would be.

Yeah, I think a lot of prayer. I think we have to get to know you better. And then we'll say, you know what?

I really see, you ever think about doing this or, you know, but I think just try some things. Pray about it, try some things.

Isn't that a great answer? Pray about it, God will show you. That's a good feeling because that's sort of like, you know, something is coming.

You just don't know what it is yet. So, yeah, being open to what the

Spirit's going to do in you. That's a good place to be. Yeah, I mean, as long as it's

Jesus related, I mean, and spreading the Word. And yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong by trying something different.

As long as you try to get that, you know, try to save that soul. Right. Try to bring it to Christ.

And that's a more evangelistic, but it could be teaching children that already know the Lord. You know, being in a

Sunday school class or, yeah, getting involved with the community group. Yeah, a whole number of things or writing letters, you know, all different kinds.

Sometimes it's good to like give situations, like say, you know, what would, you know, how would you, you know, like ask the person, how would you feel if you put yourself in this position?

Try to put them in a position that they have to answer, to give an answer, you know.

Right. Yeah, asking questions. Make them think, you know, a little bit, you know. Very helpful.

And sometimes, you know, God can touch that person through that, you know, question. You know, like trying to put them in a position, you know, and God can make them.

Yeah. Think and touch their heart, you know, that way. Amen. Okay. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.

You can shoot me an email. You can call me on the phone, whatever. You can catch me on a

Sunday right after church or something. There's no rush. If the Lord leads you to become a member, you desire that, the application's in your folder.

So start filling that out. That's the next step. And then it just kind of flows from there. Kind of, we'll let you know step by step.

So that's the next thing that is on your plate to do, Lord willing, if you're called to do that.

What else? You have graduated starting point. You're officially done.

If you had to miss one, we have the classes that you missed on the website. So yeah, you can go to that.

I'll put that on there. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So let's,

I'll write this in a second. Let's close in a word of prayer and then I'll turn off the camera and we'll dismiss. So Father, I want to thank you for this class that you sovereignly brought together.

Each person here that I think genuinely believes in you. Genuine Christians that want to know you more and serve you in the church.

I pray that you would use this group, and the ones that aren't in this particular class, but are also part of this class by watching video, or they already took the class.

Lord, I pray that this body that is coming together into Cornerstone would be a powerful addition to the church,

Lord. That each one would find a niche where they can serve you. And that their gifts can be used.

And that you would give them passion and joy in everything that they set their hands to do. Lord, thank you.

Thank you, thank you for bringing these into this body. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.