Q&A On Recommentation to Discontinue Sunday Evening Service

Okay, before we open up for questions and discussion, I want to just review briefly what we covered this morning. Just very briefly touch some of the high points and mention a couple things that I forgot to mention this morning. A couple of questions that were addressed to me following the presentation this morning. And I hope everybody was in the presentation this morning. If you weren't, you're going to not understand what we're talking about or where the questions are coming from. But at any rate, one of the things I forgot to mention this morning was that we will not be voting on this until April the 29th. The next couple Sundays have their own agenda things that we can't squeeze a business meeting in. So we'll be doing a business meeting on the 29th of April. There are two or three other items that we'll bring before you in regard to church discipline and constitution statement and some other things that we need to vote on. So we'll just have a business meeting that Sunday morning. It will be following the same schedule that we did this morning with nine o'clock service being devoted to the business meeting, the 1030 service being devoted to the worship. Also, one thing I forgot to mention this morning was that we will not we do not anticipate beginning the new schedule where Sunday evening is discontinued until May 27th. So I think some folks mentioned this morning they thought they were going to be needing to make adjustments right away. We would not anticipate starting till May 27th. And the reason for that is we do want various ministries that may be affected by this to plenty of time to make their plans and determine how they're going to accommodate their ministry. Let me just highlight for you again, the motivation for this presentation, the recommendation initiated by me. It's one of four initiatives that I've been asking Lord to help me to complete before I retire won't go back through those, but that was the context that we talked about this morning of those of this being presented. This is not being driven by anyone else. Nobody forced this on me or asked me to do it. This was totally my initiative just as those other three initiatives have been and the reason why it's coming before us. We gave a little bit of a history of the Sunday evening service and I mentioned in that that the first discussion of discontinuing the Sunday night service happened 11 years ago in a what we used to call Deacon's retreat. We call leadership retreat. We spent a whole weekend talking about the possibility of starting small groups. And at that time we were going to drop other discipleship efforts like ABFs and Sunday evening service in order to do the small groups felt that was too drastic. We had to change at the time and so we backed away from that. We also made another recommendation on the Sunday night service in 2010 when I came back from ABC transition to a different kind of service. And as I mentioned this morning after about a year I opted to go back to a preaching service just to escape the conflict that was coming from from that. And as I mentioned this morning that was not a good motivation for me at all. And really ended up putting us in the position we're in now. So that's the reason I consider this unfinished business on my part. Let me say one other thing about the history of the Sunday evening service and that's this. I love the Sunday evening service. It's not because of any dislike of this service that I would want to recommend discontinuing. I love it. I love every opportunity I get to preach anyway. But I love this service because it reminds me of my beginning days in ministry in the 1970s at Needham's Grove. There was no PowerPoint back then. There were no screens. We just got together every service and we sang old hymns and we have made a few announcements and took an offering and preached and it just reminds me the old days. But I've come to realize in my own life and didn't come to realize that while we realize we always realize this you don't build a church on nostalgia. And so what has to drive these kind of decisions is the future not the past. And as much as I love this service because it reminds me of my past. That's not enough to build a church on and if there are initiatives like we talked about this morning that can reach the next generation and those need to take priority. Let me just remind you just by way of outline not going to touch on them at all. The reasons for discontinuing the Sunday evening service as I mentioned this morning the difficulty in staffing the ministries that support the Sunday evening service and allow it to happen. Decreasing attendance the demands on the senior pastor the duplication of ministries and the dynamic of cultural shifts and the cultural shifts I mentioned this morning were shifts with young families with churches with younger generations. Those are the shifts that we need to take into account. I mentioned also this morning other ministries that would possibly be affected or would be affected. Some of them just very minimally because they really don't tie closely to our Sunday evening service. But I did mention some other ministries and we talked about plans for accommodating those ministries. Just one other thing I wanted to say about that. And that is I mentioned when we talked about teachers meetings our Bible fellowship teachers meet pretty much quarterly. At 430 on Sunday afternoon I mentioned that I talked with Kathy Hawks and she had a plan for changing those meetings that she was actually quite excited about. But I never mentioned what the plan was so let me mention that two times a year we have business meetings January and July we have two two times we have a business meeting. And her plan is on those Sundays what we do is we have a combined service at 1030 and all the Bible fellowships meet at 915. Her plan is to cancel Bible fellowships on those days when we have business meetings and instead have a teachers meeting at 915 on those two Sundays. On the other quarters spring and fall she intends to put out a newsletter to Bible fellowship teachers that will take the place of information that's communicated in a meeting and so forth. So she's actually pretty excited about that way of changing things up there. I think that's all I need to say that I felt like I didn't get said this morning. So I'm just going to open it up for questions if you have questions just raise your hand so I spot you and I will try to repeat the question if I remember because we are recording this so that you can hear it later if you need to. Yes. If the if the proposal were voted down bill is asking is there a contingency plan. We have loosely talked about a plan. I don't know that we put a lot of effort work into it. We would if the proposal was voted down we've got still a couple of months that we can work on that. But what the idea that has been floated is that we might spread teaching around to lay people. I mean that's one idea that's been floated. As I mentioned this morning there are still five reasons why it's difficult to pull this off. One of them has to do with the preacher. So it's still be difficult to pull off Sunday evening service. We would try to find some way to do it if the church voted not to do it then we we we can't follow through obviously. So we would try to find some way to do it. But I would hate to just do that, be honest. I mean I'm just going to be honest. I was honest this morning. I left it all on the field this morning. I didn't hold anything back. So I'll just be honest now. If we don't vote to follow the leadership of the Deacons and Pastors on this as I said this morning. I fear for what we are doing to our church for the future. And just what we are saying what we are saying to our next generation of leaders about. The emphasis of ministry. And what we need to do to reach new generations. I would just really be concerned about what we're saying. But if the church votes not to follow this recommendation then we would have to come up with some plan. Can do DMAs on Sunday nights. Well I've already suggested every other day of the week. So in my world there are a crowd of Sunday nights. OK. It's a good question Bill. We need to get some thought too. Tommy? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like Tommy said he enjoys this too. And he needs the preaching. He needs three or four sermons a week. And I do too. Tommy's mentioned that he's heard other pastors. He uses the figure of 85% of kids who grow up in church after they go to college, leave the church. And I've read similar figures and it simply highlights the need to put our focus for the future of the church on younger generations. As I mentioned this morning we're not abandoning older generations. We still have plenty that is of your interest and for your age group. But for the church to remain viable in the future we have got to think about scheduling. Ministries that accommodate younger families. How many work on Sunday morning? Yeah. I just don't think that's the case here. That may be true in some places. I don't think that's the case here, Tommy. OK. Other questions? Yeah. Right? Well, it will have to be a different model of ministry than we have. And yes, there are ways, I mean nationwide, there are ways. And our leadership understands that. We understand what is needed to meet the needs of the next generation. And it's just that we're not positioning ourselves to do that. But yeah, Lifeline has attracted a lot of young families. The I Heart Church in Beckley, which has grown to over three years to 1200 people. It uses a very contemporary approach to ministry. They're going to be planting a church in Princeton. And when I said this morning that if we don't do something to reach younger generations, we will lose them to other churches, those are the two I was talking about. And neither one of them has the kind of theology that we would agree with. So we're already losing younger families who visit our church and then visit Lifeline and like the worship there, regardless of what the theology is. There are multiple issues that we need to address. The Sunday night is only one. Sarah? Sarah is asking, what about Wednesdays? Are we still going to have the small groups? The ladies Bible study, the target ministries and so forth? Yes, all of that will continue just as it is. Okay. What are the questions, Julie? That's not for me to answer. I think we know from October, September and October what his vision and passion is. And all of that was put on hold to wait until Dan can entrench himself firmly in leadership and gain the confidence of the people. And Dan himself has said, and I shouldn't be answering this question for Dan, but since I've got the mic and it's being recorded, I think I know how you would answer it. Dan himself has said, it may not look exactly like what we presented back in September and October. But I think we, if we, if we heard those presentations that Dan and I both made, we know where his heart is. His heart is to reach our community by penetrating this community with evangelism and service ministries. But I can't really answer as to when that will be articulated and in what form it will come. That's up to Dan between him and the Lord, along with our leadership here. But I think I can say this with confidence. It's not like I'm going to, my last Sunday is June 24th and on July 1st, Dan bombard you with a whole new vision. I know that won't happen. Was I right there, Dan? Okay. Jimmy. Yes. The question, thank you, Jim. The question is, I don't know if I can repeat all of that, but the question I think basically is, crew on Sunday night being merged with a WANA on Wednesday night, there are different leadership teams for those two nights. How are they going to merge? I think as we heard Jason explain this morning, the WANA will be broken down differently into three groups rather than one TNT group. So the leadership, and I don't know that he has talked with all the leadership on Sunday night to see how many of them will be brought over to Wednesday night. But there's enough, there will be three different groups in the WANA now for that age group. We heard this morning, the arrows, then the two different groups of the fourth and fifth graders. I think the leadership, there will be plenty of leadership needs. I know he has already talked, or plenty of leadership opportunities, I should say. I know he's already talked with the TNT leadership, and they are all on board with this change and excited about it. What he has done in regard to the crew leadership, I can't remember. Do you remember Dan? He may have talked with them as well, I'm just not as up-to-date on that. He offered, he's taking care of some of the children's ministry tonight, he offered to try to come in here and answer those kind of questions himself. But I will promise you that there will be plenty of leadership opportunities, and if people who work on Sunday night in crew want to be a part of the crew ministerial Wednesday night, I'm sure they'll be involved. And you're right, they're not exactly the same, but Jason does have a plan for merging them in a way that picks the best of crew and the best of a WANA. And I know we got all that kind of thrown at us quickly this morning, but the best of both of those ministries will be used on Wednesday night. And so I think the leadership, anybody that wants to be involved in that from Sunday night or Wednesday night, I'm sure will be. Okay. Other questions. Jim. Some of the adult ministries at what. Well, maybe that's what we need to vote on, and I think you'd be voted down, yeah. And we're talking how many years ago. Yeah. I understand what Sunday night services used to be. Understand that. I was pastoring in 1973. I understand those days. And even before that, I was very much part of Sunday night services as well. It is not that way today. I do agree Sunday night, Wednesday night. I love those services too, as I just said. I think I think I made a case this morning for how the whole church dynamic has changed and. Given the big picture, everything that's taking place, I still think this is the right recommendation. I know Sunday night service has a lot of special memory for many of us. Looking ahead, looking to the future, how best to tool the church to do what's needed in the future. I don't think it plays the same role it did 30 or 40 years ago. I appreciate people talking about the wonderful sermons, but as I said this morning, those are sermons I preached on Sunday morning. I certainly understand that, but that still does not touch on all the other reasons why Sunday night service is not effective. Regardless of the sermons, that's not really the key issue. There were five reasons we gave this morning and expanded on. It's not really about the sermons. There's no question Sarah is saying we all need to know more about God. No question about that. That's a life long daily pursuit of every believer. It does not require one service a week to make that happen. I like the sermons on Sunday night and Wednesday night too. I really love them. I preach them. I appreciate what you're saying. The Sunday morning service reaches three, four, five times as many people as the Sunday night service does. That trend is not going to change. Abandoned. After all I mentioned this morning that we still have for your age group, you feel abandoned. Again, I will say that we could come up with a lot of different Sunday night ministries if we wanted to. That would mean all five of the issues that I mentioned this morning that are difficult to keep up with now would be that much more difficult. Again, even if we tried to do something for whatever adults wanted to meet on Sunday night, it still means another preparation for the senior pastor. I think I labored the longest on that point this morning, which is difficult for me to talk about, but it needed to be said regardless of... I'll be back up. Yeah, we could plan something for whoever wants to be here on Sunday night. That's what we're doing now. It still means the senior pastor has to prepare another message. I think that's what I'm going to do now. I know that this is a time. I'm all so happy to show all of you that I'm going to be here on Sunday night. Okay. Statement is made if adults want to get together on Sunday night, have something like a small group or a Bible fellowship. Why couldn't they have their own leader do that? It's kind of the model we presented back in September, moving more towards small groups with whatever adults, but also using those groups to reach out into the community and not just gather at the church several times a week for Bible study. Part of the focus I think that we'll see in the future is more moving into the community and not so much emphasis on three or five times a week gathering here at the church to study the Bible. We will always have multiple times a week where we study the Bible, but the emphasis for the future to reach our community better and excuse me. I think I got some water. I'm drying up. I've got cotton mouth. Thank you, Dan. The real emphasis for the future needs to be on moving out into the community and we would like to use small groups to do that at some point. Again, that's not being proposed right now. This is a first step toward opening up the schedule to where we could do that. And any, any adult ministry that operates on a Sunday night is going to take pastoral oversight. If it wants to be a small group, then it needs to come under our small group ministry because every small group has to be accountable to pastoral leadership, which means small group leaders go through training. There's a several session of training to be a small group leader. There are small group leader meetings of accountability where they answer 10 questions for me. So I know they're staying on target. Everything is okay. Doctrically and they're not getting off into tongues and all those kind of things. So even starting something else like that for adults on a Sunday night is going to require pastoral oversight. And so why do we want to keep adding more things rather than focusing better on things that will help us in the community? That's really, I guess, the whole point. Thank you. I'll be thinking of your next question while I hydrate a little bit. This is another reason why it's difficult for senior pastor. My voice is almost gone on Sunday nights. If I preach hard two times on Sunday morning. But part of that's my age. Okay. Other questions? Yes, great. Thank you. I understand that Greg and Sherry have both raised the question which is going to be difficult for some families. I'm sure where families who live further away. It's easier for them to get here on Sunday night and it is on Wednesday night. And for those who have children and young people and children or youth ministries, they're depending on being able to be in those on Sunday nights, be harder on Wednesday nights because of distance where you live or work schedules or so forth. And that raises part of the gut-riching difficulty of our leadership and going through these decisions because we love everybody in this church. And we wish we could craft our ministries till where everybody's needs could be perfectly met. That would be the ideal world. But that is not always possible. And I that hurts. I don't want to hurt any family in this church. No, no, I know that Greg. I'm just speaking my heart now. We would love to be able to have every family have all of their needs met. And we have through the years multiplied ministry after ministry after ministry to try to do that and added so many things to the schedule that it's pretty back breaking now to keep up with everything. I wish we could do ministry in ways that every family's needs could be met exactly like they need them to be met. And it is to be honest part of the gut-rinsing difficulty of dealing with these kind of decisions. And when these kind of things present themselves, I struggle with them. I think all of our pastors and leaders do. And we have to at some point go back to the bigger picture of the future of the church as a whole and accomplishing the God-given purposes in the scriptures. And that has to drive our decisions. But it hurts to leave any family with needs unmet. And I certainly appreciate that Sarah is thanking God for all of those who serve in the different ministries and leadership to make all the ministries possible. And I certainly appreciate that and those who drive the vans and do so many things to help us carry out everything we do. Again, I just have to fall back on the reasons we gave this morning without going back over all of those reasons still hold. No schedule that we have is going to fit every family. I'm sure there are families who would say the same thing about Sunday morning or Sunday night or Wednesday night that those particular time frames are difficult for them. And I wish we could craft ministry where every family's needs are met perfectly. Really do. I think Bob was raising a question about whether or not a statement was made that only one person was saved over the past year. I think the Rick was the one he knows. I think the comment that was made or the observation that was made was that we have very few adults being saved who just come to church and get saved that way. That we're not reaching adults as effectively as we could by reaching into the community in a more strategic and purposeful way. I think we we have seen a few adults make professions of faith over the past couple of years. But some of those were I think Rick is the example of someone who was invited to church or heard a message and responded and came to Christ. And there may have been a few like that, but they're not a lot. That doesn't happen as frequently as it did back in the 70s, 60s and 70s. And I've been told it's because of me, not by any of you, but I've been told that that I don't have the kind of ministry that the preaching that does that. But again, I started in 1973 and I used to see a lot more people walk the aisles. Even under my preaching, believe it or not, then I see today. It's because of a cultural change. People are not as likely to walk in the doors of this church as they were back in the 60s and 70s. Even to come with friends, it just doesn't happen like it used to. I don't know how to explain that well enough possibly, but anyone who's been pastoral ministry knows the cultural shift that's taken place with people that just do not walk into church and come to special meetings and so forth like they used to. I was asked yesterday to come to a church next April and do a revival meeting and immediately the pastor started apologizing to me. He said, we won't have anybody here on Monday and Tuesday night. We'll have our church people here on Sunday night and Wednesday night. It's a far cry from the way it used to be in the early days of this church. I do agree that a lot of it was preacher Jimmie's evangelistic passion, no question. But people came to revival meetings in those days. The last revival meeting we had here was in 2003 and the preacher was Jimmy Jones. The 50th anniversary of his preaching on Mother's Day, we had him for a revival meeting starting that Sunday and through Wednesday night. We couldn't even get our own church people out on Monday and Tuesday nights. Much less the lost and there was no one that responded in that meeting. That's just a fact of life in these days. And the point that was being made by the example that was used is I thank God for every Rick cutlip who comes to church and here's the gospel gets under conviction and comes to Christ. That thrills my heart like nothing else. But our culture is such today that doesn't happen like it used to. Doesn't mean that people are not getting saved. People can still get saved. But we've got to go to them. We got to go outside these walls and a part of the whole philosophy that we're trying to at least begin to institute is that that sometimes requires that we we not do as much group meeting at the church for believers only and that we take some of the precious time that we have and invested in our community and reaching out to the lost where they are having them in our homes going across the neighborhood fence and talking to them about Christ. That's the way people come to Christ today and the churches who are following the kind of model that we've talked about are the churches that are seeing multitudes of people come to Christ. And we're only recommending one small change in dropping one time a week that we meet together in the church building so that at least time is freed up for leadership to begin strategizing and planning what does it look like for us to be more invested in the community. That's really the heart of what we're saying and I understand how much we enjoy the Sunday night preaching and the Wednesday night preaching and and I'm grateful for that and I appreciate that and understand how much we as adults want to get together and study the Bible together. But what we're saying is we've got to start looking at things differently. We're not going to abandon all the services. We're not going to abandon things for older generations. We still have plenty of those things but we have got to think about meeting the needs of people where they are. And this is just one small step toward that at least allowing our schedule to be such as a church that we can focus more attention that way. And that's really that's really what this is about. I hope nobody thinks I'm upset with with with you or with with anyone who's asked the question. I started preaching lifestyle evangelism back in the 80s in our church in Indiana. I read a book by Joe Aldrich, the first book that ever really came out on lifestyle evangelism and it captured my heart. And I started trying to leave it out with our neighbors there in South Whitley. I started preaching it to our church. I've preached it ever since I've been here. But we know what we've done. And this is my fault. I'm guilty of it. I've preached it. But we've never really engineered the culture of the church and the schedule of the church to allow for it. So it's one thing to say it from the pulpit. It's another thing to say we've got to organize some things to be more strategic and getting out into our community and reaching the loss where they are. And that's where I think we have failed. Because we have wanted to maintain the same schedule. Same schedule of always being here at the church and studying the Bible together. And what we're asking is that we consider one of those times a week we open up for the opportunity for other ministry to happen. And I'm not saying that the first of July there'll be a whole full scale blitz into the community. That's going to take some time to change the culture of our church. But we've got to start somewhere. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get to preaching again. Ruby did you have a question? Then we'll get to you, Caroline. Thank you. Ruby is basically stating that most of us here on Sunday nights are. I don't think you used this expression, but we have one foot in the grave. It wasn't quite that explicit, but we're leaning that direction. We're headed that direction pretty soon. And for those of us in this, my generation and the generation just above me a little bit. I want to hang on to something that in the long run and in the bigger picture would rob reaching the next generation. I don't think I'm putting words in your mouth. You said that would be pretty self centered. I think that's a that observation kind of captures what what I've been trying to say. And I think our leadership's been trying to say recently. And it's hard. It's hard for me to say that. That's getting easier for me to say because I'm R1 of you. But it's a little hard to say that because it can sound like we don't care about the older generation. And we do passionately. So many of the older generation in this church were the people that were in their 30s and had young families when I was growing up. And I looked up to them. A lot of them are gone now, but there's still a few of you around. And you mean the world to me. I would never want to do anything to hurt older people neither would Dan. So it really has to do with the bigger picture of being more strategic about outreach. Bless your heart, Jean. Okay, we'll be sure to tell you. Jean is a genius. Expressing such a beautiful spirit. Thank you. And this is true of those of you here tonight. You're here tonight because of that spirit, that mentality. Whenever the doors are open and there's something being offered by the church, you're going to be here. That's what Jean's saying. So I appreciate so much that spirit. And it is the spirit of your generation that whatever is here when the doors are open, you're going to be here. And I deeply appreciate that and respect every one of you who feels that way and lives that out. What I would say to kind of add on to that is why we deeply, we deeply appreciate and value that and love that. It ministry is not all about when the doors are open here, we come. I'm grateful that we're faithful with that. But ministry is also about reaching the needs of people out there. And we've got to be doing that as well. And I know a lot of you are doing that. That's not what I'm saying. You know, I would like to say this. And we had Carolyn had a question. I don't even see his got a question. Sometimes I think those of us of our generation, we look around on Sunday night and we say, where are all the young couples? Where are all the young families? And you know, why don't they join us spiritual ones? Maybe you're not saying that. But I think it might be easy to think that. Pardon me? Exactly. It's what I was going to say. The younger generation in our church are the ones who are running the youth ministry and the children's ministry on Sunday night. They're running the Awanah ministries on Wednesday night. They're involved in lots of other ministries in our church. And their plate is full of serving opportunities. So the one time in the week where they can have some family time, they're going to take that. And I would say go to it. Go for it. Do that because they're faithful to it. It may not look exactly the same as being here three services a week in the church in the auditorium. But they are also faithful because they're involved in so many other things that are happening in other parts of the building. So with that said, let me take Carolyn's question because she had her hand up first and then we'll go to Lindsay. Okay. Repeat the last part of your question again. I was trying to think of an answer to the first part and I'm sorry I just didn't get it. Okay. Let me go back to the first part of the question about if we put something in the place of Sunday night service, but we have community outreach. Does that add more to the pastors? Yes and no. It will add some work to the pastors. Let's say for instance, and again, now we're speculating on what might happen in the future. And I'm not sure I can really speak to that and tell them because I don't know what will happen two years from now. But if for instance there is an emphasis on small groups or community groups that will add a little bit of work to the pastors. Yeah, but that work will be the kind of timeframe that was taken up with putting on a Sunday night service. So doing away with the Sunday night service allows the time to be channeled to other areas. And yeah, we're all busy, but I don't want to camp on that too much. I felt like I said too much about that this morning. You're all busy. Aren't you? Most of you who work outside work 55 hours a week or 60 hours a week. I mean, we don't mind working those kind of hours, but we can't add another 10 hours a week to do the community outreach on top of what we're doing now. That's the issue. If we can replace, I think then and Jim and Jim and Jason and James would all say, I signed up for this 55, 60 hours a week. I just can't do 70 to reach to make to make that transition. If we, so I think it's a trade off. Yeah, they'll still be busy. But that's okay. And we all understand that we signed up for that. So that's okay. The second part, have we thought about adding pastoral staff? We don't feel like we're in a position to do that financially because of the size of the church. Now, if we become more invested in the community and we start seeing lots of people getting saved and the church grows, then yeah, that's a reality. That can be addressed. Okay, Lindsey, you had a question or comment? Lindsey is asking, do I know of a church of our size and doctrinal persuasion in our area? Did you say anywhere? I could give you a thousand. Go to any other city in this country. Go to Bible Center at Charleston. They've done what we're talking about a long time ago back in the late 90s and adjusted their ministry schedule to accommodate it. And they grew from 700 to 2,200. I know they're in Charleston. But yeah, there's one example. The church I mentioned in Bechley is not doctinally where we are possibly. I don't know of many churches in southern West Virginia. They've done this. No, but they're all over the country. You can go to any other place in the country. Small town, Liam's high city, large city, and you'll find most churches doing what we're presenting to you with the kind of service and service schedule and model that allows for deeper penetration in the community and not keeping people so busy with other things that they don't have the time to do it. Yes. Sure. I know. I agree. I agree. You're excellent at it, Deity. There's nobody that we appreciate more for what you do for our kids. But you're exactly right. And I'm not going to try to repeat all that. I think, by on the CD, he has a question about what did he say to go ask her? No, you were perfectly fine. We appreciate so much. All you all have done. The issue really with Sunshine Club has been finding folks to take your place. And that's true of the other five or six support ministries I mentioned this morning. We just don't have staff to run them all. Here's an example of a family that the change in schedule would would probably help. And those are the conundrums that we face as leadership. Some families will be helped by the news change. Some families will not like it as well. And we wish we could please everybody. We really do. I just can't. So thank you. I'm going to come back to you. So I'm going to come back to you. Yes. I agree. I agree. And so the opportunity. Well, you know, you're making me hungry. Where stop? There's nothing more rewarding than getting out and serving like that. And I respect and admire your class. I appreciate your class for modeling that involvement with Bluefield Union Mission. And there are other ministries in our church that do those kinds of service opportunities as well. And I believe if I understand the heartbeat of our young leadership, the future will hold more of those things church wide and not just with already established ministries, but getting into the homes and the lives of unsafe people in our neighborhoods and reaching them with the gospel where they are. So there are lots of opportunities like that that are awaiting us. And we must seize them. I still have Lindsey's question on my mind. I wish I could give you. I mean, I could give you a lot of names of churches for us to in Charlotte. All kinds of churches in other parts of the United States triad Baptist in Kernersville. I mean, there's so many others independent viable in Martin'sburg. You can just go down to almost every place in the United States and find churches that are doing it the way we're beginning to talk about. And I think if you know the literature, you read the literature, you see the things that we passed or see all the time. Those are the churches that are reaching people and are growing. Okay, it's almost a quarter after seven. The young people have already come in. Tommy, I'm going to take your question. Then if anybody else has a burning question, I'll take it. But otherwise we're going to have to stop. It's a different world. And the hearty and I were just talking about that before the service what he's seen in a one he was affirming that he has seen the change in a one with the one Olympics and games because of all the outside activities kids just couldn't do it anymore. And that's a debate. I mentioned this morning that we could get into about how much parents are in control of their children's schedules. And I'm not going to get into that debate tonight. I know that's not where you were headed, Tommy. But it's something that I don't care for in our culture. But I'm probably not going to change it. Each individual family has to deal with that, but it does affect the church. Sure does. Thank you. I'm not going to repeat that one for the CD either, but I just want to say this. It's not just me. This is our entire pastoral leadership team and our deacons. I'm the spokesperson because of my position. But this is a larger group of leaders that is feels the same way as passionate about this. Yes or Paul? What we're seeing now. Yeah. Paul's referencing a book on revivals throughout history. He had mentioned to me his interest in that topic. And I got a book for him that I had used in a research paper for a class in my doctoral program on revivals and awakenings in America. And that traces revivals all the way from biblical times up through church history in the United States history. And Paul has Paul's heart. He's been talking with me about that. His books, his heart has been captured by that book and the subject of revivals and awakenings. And I think what I hear you saying Paul is we need another revival and awakening and we need to be asking God to grant that. Obviously, that's the only way the church any church or community or nation's going to be revitalized. And I trust that we are seeking God's face for that very thing. Yeah. The old revivalistic methods that really started in our country with Charles Finney in the 1820s, the kinds of methods that use the kind of evangelistic preaching and alter calls that were effective even through Billy Graham's ministry are seemingly not the tools that God's using today. We need to be looking for other ways that we've talked about to reach the lost. Okay, we're getting a little far field of the Sunday night service. And I think probably our time has been well spent. If you have other questions, please, please don't hesitate to ask me. I'll make sure that they are addressed properly. I will not just shove them off. I promise you we will address them seriously. Talk about them along our leadership team. I would ask you to be praying. Please about the vote on the 29th. And by the way, sorry to keep you, but I just thought of a part of a part of D.D.'s question. I didn't answer. I wish also we had known about this a little earlier, but just to give you kind of a little bit of inside information here, the Deacon said talked about this in our March meeting. And I had kind of shut it down by saying I don't know how to approach the church about this. And the Lord spoke to my heart after that and kind of gave me some insight into how we could address this. So it's only been in the last month that we've been pursuing this very diligently. And we are going to wait until the end of May to institute it. Hopefully that will be enough time for ministries to make adjustments. Okay. Could we pray? And then we'll need to go. Father, thank you for all these folks here tonight. They come out because they're interested in our church. They love our church. We all do. And we all want to see what's best, even if we may differ somewhat in what we think that is, we all want to see what's best for our church. And I pray that you'll help us to pull together to find out what that is, what the best road ahead is for our church. I pray that you give our pastors and Deacons wisdom. Thank you for the input we've had from the congregation this evening. We want to do the right thing, Lord. We want to do the right thing for the lost and we want to do the right thing for our own church people. We want to do the right thing for the ultimate blessing of this church. And I know, Lord, it can sound like sometimes that dropping something is not healthy, but pruning of a vine is always healthy if it produces more fruit. So I pray that you'd help us to take that big, big picture perspective on what the end result can and should be. Give us wisdom. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.