Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: These songs that we sing are just awesome. They're powerful. The words in them remind us what we have to be thankful for, what we have to be confident in, how strong we can be in an ever changing world. Even when the ground around us is shaken, we can be confident that you have everything in control and you have our lives in the palm of your hand, and that you love us more than we can possibly know.
So, Father, I pray on behalf of this congregation, as some of us are going through some difficult times right now. Loss of a grandfather, health issues, ongoing health issues that just weigh down on shoulders, job situations.
There's so much represented in our congregation right now. We just, first of all, want to say thank you for listening to our prayers, but thank you that you are a God that not only listens, but loves to intervene and loves to answer prayer.
And so, Father, as we pray to you this morning, would you provide comfort, grace, hope, encouragement, peace for those who need peace. And with those actions, let us remember what a great God we serve, and let us listen to the truth and not the lies around us.
Bless us, Father. Now, as we open your word, may you speak to us in only the way that you can help us to receive what you would have for us, humbly and boldly enough to change.
And, Father, I wanna thank you for our church.
Thank you for what you're doing and continue to use us, Father, to change this generation into a worshiping generation at the feet of Jesus Christ. I pray in Jesus name. Amen. Please be seated. Good morning, everybody. My name is Craig Jarvis. I'm the lead pastor of village church east. And if you were thinking maybe I shouldn't come to church today, you have made a good choice to come today. There's so many things that you will have missed. If you weren't here. You'd be glad that you are here. For those of you at home, I'm sorry, but for those of you in house, we have a lot of cool things we're going to do today. First of which is I have an announcement that you have been on pins and needles to hear for the last seven years.
Drum roll, please. Mark, where are you?
[00:02:15] Speaker B: All right.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: We are close to looking at a building where we might move to, so we have been doing due diligence. I want to thank Steve. I can't see you because of the bright lights, but who has been. Who has been wonderful at helping us out here. Jay has been incredible in giving us some direction. The elders have met. We've looked at a ton of different buildings. This one particular one holds some promise for us and would be financially a good move for us. So we've been looking at this building for a while, actually. Ironically, it's like one of the first buildings we ever started looking at so many years ago. And now it's come up as a real possibility for us. Come down in price. So elders got together this week and we started talking about how are we going to do this? How do we want to handle this? And I said, listen, we talked about a whole bunch of different options and I said, well, why don't we just take a field trip? So next Sunday we are going to have our service here, but we're going to trim it down so that we can finish our service over there. It's about a ten minute ride. And if you would like to go see this building at home, if you'd like to be a part of this, next Sunday's your day. The guy's going to let us in. He's a wonderful landlord, he owns a building, super nice believer in Jesus Christ and he has allowed us to go over there and take a little field trip. So you will not want to miss next Sunday. We'll go over, we'll take a look. I wanted. I don't want to just look at it on your behalf. I want everybody to see it. So next week we're taking a road trip and hopefully you'll be able to come with us and see this building that we're asking the Lord about. We haven't signed on the dotted line. There's no commitment up to this point because I don't want to make a commitment until you all join us in that commitment. All right, sound good? Sounds good. All right, cool. All right, we'll do that next week.
Today is reset Sunday. What that means is we are kind of calling everybody back together after a busy summer season, taking vacations, going on youth trips, sleeping on the ground, no air conditioner. But I digress. But we are kind of calling everybody back together and planning and plotting out our brand new year. Today you are going to experience two very cool things. First, you are going to hear about how our church works. So if you're not familiar with our church, you're thinking, you know, I don't know about this. These people are, this is a good Sunday for you to be here. We'll tell you a little bit about how our church works. You'll get to meet some of the leadership in the church. And also it is a very unique Sunday to be here because every once in a while we add a person to our leadership in scripture. They're elders and deacons. And today we're going to be able to add on an elder. We're going to install an elder. I always hate saying that. It feels like you're putting up a light fixture. But we're going to install an elder to our ranks here today. He's been in training for about a year and a half for this big occasion, and today is the culmination of that. And you'll get to be a part of that today. So I got to zip through this stuff because we got a lot of other stuff to do. We've been working on our true series, Tru, which means true reality for us. We've talked about our reality, about our life, reality about our identity, reality about our freedom and what true freedom is. And today we talk about leadership. What is true about leadership in scripture or according to God? Now, how many of you like to have a good leader? Would you raise your hand, please? All right, so we have an election this year. You won't get that, but maybe you have a leader somewhere else in your life that you like. It's true. We all crave good leaders. And when you have a bad leader, your life is miserable. Right? We crave good leaders because we like good leaders, because we know good leaders help us grow.
They hone in on our gifts, and they make us better.
When I googled leadership on the computer in the Google machine, here's the definition that Google came up with. A person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country.
Now, interestingly enough, that is a definition of leadership. But it leaves out one key word that is always listed in scripture when it talks about leadership.
Are you curious to know what that word is? You probably know it already.
Even if you don't, you will. Matthew 2025.
Jesus is talking about leadership. Here's what he says. Jesus called to him and he said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them. Google. I mean, that's a good Google definition, right? Verse 26. It shall. What does it say? Church.
It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your. Here it is. What is it? Servant. Servant. And whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the son of man. Let's take me as an example. Jesus says, even as a son of man came not to be served, but to. And the key word again is serve. Serve. And to give his life a ransom for many.
The word missing that Google has forgotten to add is serve.
How many of you think that Jesus was a pretty good leader?
Yeah, I'd give him a ten. Wouldn't you? One out of ten. Maybe a 10.5. Jesus was a good leader. And what did jesus exemplify for us? He exemplified the heart of a servant. He even said, I didn't come so that you could serve me. I came so that I could serve you.
Command isn't even listed in his definition of worship. Now, his name is Kurias, which means lord. But Lord is given to him when we recognize who he is and we bow our knee and we say, you are lord, master. You are the one who leads my life. But he didn't come demanding the term Kurios.
He came and he said, I didn't come so that you could serve me. I came to serve.
Do you know when good church leadership becomes bad church leadership?
I bet you can guess. It's when they stop serving the people.
I worked at a restaurant called Mountain Jack's. Have you ever heard of that restaurant before?
I love mountain jacks. They had this great prime rib, and now they don't exist anymore.
I dream of that prime rib every once in a while. But I decided I love this restaurant. So Texas Roadhouse is now taking over. But anyway, I have loved this restaurant that I ended up actually being a server there. So I waited on tables. It was to get through seminary. I needed a job that would fit into my schedule. I hadn't been on the job long when I ran into one of the managers who worked there who was not a great leader.
One time, not too long after I started, I walked into the kitchen getting ready to, you know, shed my street clothes and put on the uniform that I had to wear. And as I came in, I walked into the kitchen and I could hear screaming.
And I was wondering, like, is somebody getting beat up in the kitchen? And I turned and I saw there was a cook who had arrived late. He was on one side of the kitchen, and the leader, the manager, who nobody really liked, was on the other side of the kitchen. And that manager was degrading that cook from across the kitchen, screaming at him, calling him all kinds of names. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
I hadn't experienced this kind of leadership before. Everyone stopped in their tracks. No work was getting done. Everybody was listening to this. This adult male degrade and demean another human being.
At the end of the night, we would come in and we would split our tips. So I came in and I sat down with this manager and pulled out the tips and we were cutting them up and splitting them up. And I said, listen, can I just ask you something? He said, sure, you can ask me anything. Okay. Why did you treat that man like you did? I said, you know, if it were me and I wanted to get the best out of that person, I would not scream at them from across the room. I'd take them aside. I'd address exactly what they did wrong. I'd ask, what can I do to help you get here on time? I gave them like five or six good suggestions.
Yeah, my suggestions were good.
So he sat down and he's listening to me, and then he says, listen. He said, here's the deal. I'm the leader, you aren't. I'll do what I want. Get out.
Ironically, he dismissed me with the very character that got him into trouble with that guy in the first place.
Jesus says, whoever would be great among you must first be your servant.
This is how Jesus wants us to lead, and this is how village church east wants to lead. If you're part of this church, we want to exemplify Christ here first and foremost in the way you are led.
There are six key points to leadership here in our church. Again, this Sunday is just kind of get you familiar with our church, get you familiar with our leadership, get you familiar with our values. So I wanted to pull these out today and just explain to you each one of these in a very, very hands on way. Each one of these six hold a really important part of leadership, how we lead here at the church. The first of our values in leadership is we have inverted leadership. Now, inverted leadership is something kind of new to a lot of people. But to Jesus, he would be going like, is there any other way to lead? Inverted leadership means the people who are being served are at the top and the people who are serving are at the bottom.
So we have inverted leadership. Inverted leadership means you might report to me, but I go to work for you.
It's the idea that I decentralize my authority and I pull you into the process so that your gifts can be used and you can be lifted up and whatever you have to give can be utilized to bless the entire church. It's a bottom up style of leadership, which means I, your lead pastor, am all the way down here.
The lead pastor is at the bottom, the elders and deacons just above him, ministry leaders just above them. But those who are being served are at the very top of this leadership chart.
I am more interested in the emotional, spiritual, physical and relational health of my team than I am about getting the job done.
People are more important than projects, number one. Number two, we do intentional team building. All of these kind of fit hand in hand. Intentional team building means I am called to equip people for ministry, not just do the ministry. It's the idea that if I do it, I'm sure that it gets done. But if I trust you to do it, we're taking a risk.
We love to take risks because we love to share ministry. So we want to have intentional team building. I collaborate with a team because no one person does everything together, even me. I am not an island under myself as a lead pastor. I work together with elders. I even work together with a larger team, even to make up sermons on Sundays. Everything that I do in my life is collaborative work because my job is not to get the job done. My job is also to build the team to serve the people who are serving with me. This is why we have multiple elders. This is why I have multiple people I am accountable to. There is not one person at the top of the chain at village church east.
Number three, prioritizing people.
This is the idea that people are the point, not projects. I use events and projects as opportunities to shepherd the people around me, to help and to lift up those who are being served. The project that we're working on, whether it's parade, whether it's national night out, whether it's working with the youth, whatever it is, the idea of this is these ministries do not exist so that we can build the ministry up. These ministries exist so that we can prioritize the people who are involved in these ministries. People are the point.
My ministry is about building you stronger, not just completing the project at hand.
Number four, strategic flexibility.
We are ready to follow the Lord, whatever he brings. When you work with people, you know, sometimes plans will change. Wrenches get thrown into the works. And because the project is not the thing, but people are the thing, we adapt, we're flexible.
I can articulate, evaluate, and change my strategy with an optimistic outlook because I know the Lord is doing something greater than I am. And if it all falls apart, we simply try something else.
I had a meeting once with somebody who was identified as the Awana leader.
And I sat in a meeting and I said, all right, what if we trash everything and just start new? Like, what if we just trash this ministry and this ministry? And when I said, what if we trash Awanna ministry and start something new? It's like somebody took a grenade and threw it into the well. I did. I took a grenade and threw it into the room.
And the conversation went south so fast because that person's heart was about the ministry, not about the people.
So we have strategic flexibility. If we don't do this ministry anymore, that's okay. If you don't want to do this ministry anymore, that's okay. I've had people in my life that, you know, they say, I got to do this ministry. It's killing my family. It's killing me. I got no time. And I just look at them and go, well, then stop.
Just stop. Just do something else.
We are strategically flexible, number five. We have collaborative discipleship. Our gifts. Working together is the best formula for growth. I invite other people, other ministries, to develop and participate in leadership and training, and our job is to utilize the gifts together. We are not the only show in town. That's why when we do stuff as a church, we sometimes do stuff with other churches because we have collaborative discipleship. We are not in competition. We are working together to grow the kingdom of God. It's not my gifts against your gifts. It's not our church against another church. We collaborate so that we can do it better. Number six, ongoing transformation. The Lord is not done with me yet. Simply what that means is I seek and receive feedback joyfully about myself and about my ministry. So if somebody comes to me and says, yeah, you're not doing so good with edge, you need to give that a break. It's just whatever. I receive that with grace. It's an ongoing, transformative idea. I know the Lord's not done with me yet. Whatever he's doing, he might use you to speak to me. I regularly seek ways to continue to grow in my walk with Jesus Christ. Those are the six.
The bottom line is village church east is about building people, not projects.
Leadership, God's way is displayed in a service of humility, not a severity of heart.
As followers of Jesus Christ, it is my job to serve people.
John Maxwell says a quote that I've loved for decades, and you may have heard this quote, know it. A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.
So healthy church culture, I think, begins at the bottom, not at the top.
Inverted. Church leadership means people don't exist for the leaders. The leaders exist for the people. Look at this quote to lead us to serve, to serve us, to love and to love us, to lift others higher. And that's what we want our ministry at village church east to be about loving other people, not projects, so that we can see people and their relationship with Jesus Christ grow deep and their faith increase.
So true leaders decentralize not just responsibility, but authority, because true leaders genuinely believe. Every follower of Jesus has a spirit of God to guide and to use them. One more quote for you. A healthy church doesn't have perfect leaders, but servant leaders who together trend humbly and unashamedly toward the truth. You don't get perfect leaders here, but you do get leaders who are moving in the direction slowly, slowly, grace by grace, to become a better image of Jesus Christ.
And it's my great privilege to introduce some of those leaders to you today.
So I'm going to call up these mds. We call them ministry directors in the church. I've told them that they're coming up to do this, so hopefully they are prepared and you will get to hear and see each one of them. The real cool thing is today we have the picnic and each one of them came prepared to talk to you, if you're interested, to find a little bit more about their ministries. Okay, sweet. All right, so I would like to introduce to you our ministry directors. Let's start with outreach. Yes, this is Christopher Patterson. Christopher, you may recognize him. We look very similar, so people confuse us a lot.
But Christopher. Okay, so your ministry is outreach, and what do you do as that part of that ministry?
[00:20:57] Speaker C: So I'm sure all of you have heard what we have done over the summer. Summer is probably our biggest outreach intensive period of the year, where we are in the parade, we do national night out, and then we gather backpacks for families that are in financial need.
We do those three main ministries. So that way we get connected to the village of Carroll Stream. And in the past year, the village has reached out to us and said, hey, we have this family in need. Can you come alongside them and provide these very specific things? So we've. Because of our very large public summer outreach, the village approaches us and asks for very personal, tangible ministries where we actually get to enter people's houses and pray with them and share the gospel with them.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that's very cool. Lord's done big things in our outreach ministry and you've done a good job of that. Okay, so if any of these folks don't know what outreach ministry is, they want to get involved. What do they do?
[00:22:01] Speaker C: The biggest thing is actually praying for our community, praying for Carol String, praying that those who do have needs will approach the social service unit because they are the ones who reach out to us.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: Us.
[00:22:15] Speaker C: So if somebody is in need in the community, if they contact social services, the director of social services will contact us and then we get to them, enter into people's lives. So the biggest thing is praying.
If you'd like to be on the team for actually going into families homes when they have needs, just contact me, talk to me, and then we'll get you set up for actually getting to serve. They are random and ad hoc. I can't plan any of it.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: Yeah, they come quickly.
[00:22:47] Speaker C: They come quickly and we have to act immediately. So we need a team set up in advance.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: Nice. All right, so you're also facilities?
[00:22:55] Speaker C: I am.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: So you're doing two hats here. So this is your chance to ask folks how they can get involved with the facilities. What do you need there? What do you do?
[00:23:05] Speaker C: Our facilities team is in charge of making sure everything that happens on a Sunday is physically here.
If you show up at seven in the morning, these rooms are completely empty. There's not a single thing except for maybe chairs shoved against the walls and stacks. So the facilities team, our setup team specifically, is in charge of coming in. We get here at seven in the morning, and I know that's early, but we get here at seven in the morning and we take everything from the back room, in the gym, bring it into this room, our kitchen, and then the kids room, and we set up literally everything that you see. Everything that you see here is touched by hands in the morning. And then after service, we have our teardown team, who then takes everything apart and puts it back.
So the biggest need for facilities is actually for the setup team. So I know it's an early ask, but we need help to be able to do that. You really just need these things. You just need arms and legs and willingness to serve and to be able to get up early.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. Very cool. Good job, Chris. Didn't you do a good job? Yeah.
Audio visualization. Let's have a representative come on up here from audio visual. This looking good looking. Drink a water. Tall drink of water.
This is Brian Allen. He's in charge of our AV. What do you do?
[00:24:38] Speaker D: So basically, AV is in charge of everything that you see and everything that you hear. So, for example, we have our camera team for all of you folks at home, we're broadcasting out to you. We have our presentation team that does, does all the slides that you either see over here or down on the bottom of your screen at home. We have the lighting crew that sets up and we have our audio crew that basically gets sound out to you folks here in house and you folks out at home.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: Good. Excellent. If somebody wants to get involved. Do they need a degree from a college or something?
[00:25:11] Speaker D: No.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: Okay. What do they need?
[00:25:14] Speaker D: That's one thing that I want to say, is if you're. If you want to get involved in your afraid because you think I could just never, never, ever touch that type of technology, it's not as hard as you think it is, and we are very willing to be patient and train you with it.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Nice. One thing I forgot to ask, Chris. Do you want your team to stand? Where's your team?
[00:25:32] Speaker D: Yeah, you can see my nicole's back there. You guys in the back, if you want to stand up.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: All right, cool. Good job. Anything else? No, you're done. All right, see ya, Christopher. I'm gonna have everybody who has been involved with outreach. If you've been involved with outreach, specifically over the summer, would you just stand, please? Or it doesn't matter, not just the summer, if you involve passing out water, wrapping water bottles.
Yeah, that's right.
Handing out water bottles in the parade. Come on, stand up. Let's see who you. Yeah, good. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Love, love, love it. Very good. All right, thank you, everybody. Facilities team, where are you at? Would you stand, please, so we can recognize you. Facilities. Darren Joel. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So we need a couple more for that one you can see. So very nice. Thanks, guys. All right, let's have first impressions. Michael Pearson.
Mister Michael.
All right, Michael, what does your ministry, what does your team do?
[00:26:38] Speaker B: So my team is first impressions. So it actually starts right out there. So when you walk into the building, as you walk in, I have a team that will greet you, greet you with a smile, a hug, a handshake, or whatever it takes, whatever you want.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: That morning.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: We have our connect desk right up there also. So that's the first part. So as you walk in to. You take a immediate right. And then the second part of my ministry is the kitchen. So for those hungry people, there's lots of hungry people in the morning.
The kitchen ministry usually have one or two people who are setting that up, but I have a whole team of people who just provide snacks for everyone else. So they volunteer once a month, twice a month to bring it in. And the kitchen crew just will say, set that up so you guys can enjoy and socialize with each other.
And then the third part of my ministry is just the ushers. So the ushers make sure that we have plenty of seats for those people coming in when things start filling up. And as you can see this morning, this looks amazing. So, like, having more ushers, as we continue to grow, to make sure that you guys can find the proper seating. Plus, is doing the communion, it's really hard. You just take that lid off and people come to you. But it's a vital thing to make sure that communion is ready to go, which is part of the kitchen ministry, but then make sure that everyone has access to the communion.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: All right, so if somebody wants to get involved with your ministry, what do they do?
[00:28:20] Speaker B: Come see me.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: All right.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: Or I can refer you to anyone on my team. They can tell you about how to be involved, either greeter kitchen, or being an usher.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Nice. Very nice. Good job, michael. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Everybody who serves on usher Greeters kitchen communion, would you stand, please, if you've done that, if you're part of that team, if you're part of making that work. Very good. Nice. Thank you very much.
All right, let's have community groups. You've seen Brent up here a lot, and he has promoted community groups.
All right, what does your ministry do?
[00:29:01] Speaker E: It is, in one word, connection. If you like what you're seeing, hearing, experiencing on a Sunday, it's more of the same. It's teaching, considering the sermon that was preached, it is prayer, it is care, it is, it is service. It is all of that. That's what we do. We believe that is a main value of our particular church. You have three opportunities currently if you want to be involved in that. But let me first of all introduce the community group leaders, Darren and Helen. You want to stand for a second? They lead a community group on Thursdays, pastor and Beth. They lead a community group on Wednesdays.
And then we have a special one for young parents and children that meets, alternatively on Friday at two different places. But the lead people are Megan and Chris. And you can either stand or wave.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: And we're looking to make some more.
[00:30:01] Speaker E: And pastor is always looking to make some more. And so we would love anyone who is not involved to come see me. I will give you the options, and we will make it work. Okay?
[00:30:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Very nice. Good job. All right, if you are going to a community group right now, would you stand, please? If you are going regularly? We haven't started them yet, but, you know, if you're in one. So would you just stand if you're regularly attending a community group? Very cool. All right, very nice. All right, thank you very much, everybody. All right, next on the list is men's ministry. Now, this ministry has really rocketed this year.
[00:30:37] Speaker F: Yeah, it's been fantastic. So men's ministry to answer the question about what we do, my goal is to help every man become the pastor in his home. I believe that if the men are the pastors in their homes, we have strong families. And strong families make for a strong church, strong community, strong nation. So. And, yes, it has been fantastic this year. Our main ministry is our monthly men's breakfast. So I know a lot of you have attended either once or attend regularly. We have a kind of a core group of people who attend regularly. We meet the third Sunday of every month at Brunch Cafe in Roselle. And, yes, it has been fantastic. I can't even remember, I don't know how off the top of my head how many new people we've had attend over just the last year, but it has been amazing. And that is a standing date every month. And you're always welcome to come. And here's a little plug. If you come for the first time, you get a free breakfast, so take advantage of it.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: Nice. All right. And you got something coming up.
[00:31:44] Speaker F: Yeah, we have a couple things coming up. So every year, Mark Loos is generous to open up his house for a men's game night. Mark has the coolest house for.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Mark has a video machine in his.
[00:31:57] Speaker F: Basement and a pool table and galaga. Yeah, lots of fun stuff there. So we have that coming up. And then later, even looking a little beyond this, I know it's not on the car, but in November, I'm putting together a men's retreat. I have a slot for two guys only, so if you're interested, come see me.
There is a cost involved, but I can get some scholarship money for you. I'd love to take a couple guys to that as well.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: All right. If somebody wants to join in, do they need to do anything?
[00:32:25] Speaker F: No, just come see me. Really, all I need is your number, because then I will start letting you know about everything that's going on. I regularly send out reminders to things that are happening as well as individual messages to people, just to make sure we're staying connected and make sure that you know what's happening.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: Lovely. Very good. Thank you, Darren. Good job.
I'd have all the men stand, but you know who you are. We're not confused here. So, women's ministry, Diane.
And women's ministry has taken off this year, too.
[00:33:03] Speaker G: Yes.
[00:33:04] Speaker H: Women's ministry is here for all generations. We are looking to disciple women to encourage you through Bible study, through prayer, through. Through outreach, through getting to know each other. And we have next week, our fall brunch. And that is a time for us to get together, share what we've done over the summer, but then to just hear what we're going to be doing. And last year, we rooted ourselves in Christ, and we grew in our relationship, both with the Lord, but also with each other. So this year we're going to grow. We're going to fertilize that with a Bible study. But if you come next Sunday. I'm sorry, next Saturday, we have a guest speaker who's going to kick us off for our year of growth.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: What Saturday is that? This one coming up.
[00:34:00] Speaker H: This one coming up.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: Where do they meet? Where do we. How do we get involved?
[00:34:03] Speaker H: Well, you can. I'm going to be over at the table with the sunflowers. You can just come over there and sign up today. And, of course, you can always sign up on the hub. Hub.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: Thank you. Yay.
All right. Excellent.
[00:34:18] Speaker I: Yeah.
[00:34:19] Speaker H: And I think, not to be outdone, not that it's a. You know, but if you sign up while supplies last, you get a free tomato today.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: Really? Do you get to take it home or get it thrown at you? Okay. All right.
So again, if you're a lady, you can be involved in this ministry and you know who you are. We're not confused here. All right. Worship. Worship. My wife. My beautiful wife, Beth.
[00:34:49] Speaker I: Hi. My name's Beth. And I get the privilege of helping with worship here. And I am not. I don't work by myself. We have such an amazing team. It starts with village church of Bartlett, where I work with Dan Lueders. He does a lot there with worship there. Helps get us the songs that we need and then prepared for the week. But then the team that we have here is just phenomenal, and we have a lot of fun. Our worship team. Our worship group is awesome. Right, guys? I mean, it's just fabulous because we meet here on the Sunday morning when we're rehearsing. We get here, about 850, and the AV team is here. The setup team is here. We get everything ready, and then we go through our songs that we've listened to very carefully through the week. Right, everyone? Right, team.
And then we're ready to go and practice, and we get ready for Sundays, and then we just have fun using the gifts that God has given us to worship him. And I think that's so cool that we get to do that. So if you. If I've not already sought you out and you would like to use your gifts, whether you play an instrument or the instrument of your voice, please see me. And I would love to get you connected. There's not a lot of outside commitment other than Sundays at this point. However, we're hoping that will change soon, but yet we're excited to see how God will continue to grow the worship band.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: Excellent. Good job. Couldn't have said it better myself. Okay, Av team, would you stand? I'm sorry, worship team. Worship team, would you stand, please? Everybody who helps with worship. Awesome.
Thank you. We are grateful for you as well. All right, communication. Megan.
This is Megan.
You've already communicated this morning, but what is it that you do?
[00:36:36] Speaker G: So my role is to make sure that all of the wonderful things that are being planned by our other ministry directors are known to you, the church, through as many avenues as we can muster over the course of a week. Which is a lot.
[00:36:50] Speaker A: Which is a lot. Yeah. So if. If we have something planned, you're gonna put it on the. I forget what it's called again.
[00:36:57] Speaker G: The hub.
[00:36:57] Speaker A: The hub, that's right. And you keep the website up and we're branching off into some social media now.
[00:37:04] Speaker G: Yes, exactly. So basically, the main avenues would be the announcements on a Sunday morning would be the hub be our weekly newsletter, which, if you're not already getting that, you can sign up for that, or you can talk to me.
And then, yes, we're trying to develop our social media team because we know that having a presence online is important. Becca is my right hand lady over here. She's been helping me with that this summer, but that is really an avenue that we're looking to grow in. And so if you're like, hey, I know how to, like, work Instagram, then I would love to talk with you and make a plan. That would be great.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: Excellente. Very good. Thank you, Megan. Oh, everybody involved with communication, is that just Becca?
[00:37:49] Speaker G: Pretty much.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: You only have one helper. Oh, we need more people on this. All right. So if you.
[00:37:54] Speaker G: I do have lots of help. We work. Vicki's here. I'm going to introduce Vicki. Vicki is in central services, and so she taught me everything I know about church communication.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: Can you see her? She is standing.
[00:38:10] Speaker G: And also we have a graphic design team that I work with to see all of the, you know, the beautiful slides that you see. But, yeah, if you're interested, banners. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That I wear a lot of hats. So, yeah, the magnets that you got on your chair, that's part of communications. So if you're interested in any of those avenues, just come chat with me anytime, and we'll make it happen.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: Excellente. Thank you very much. Megan Patterson.
And last but not least, oh, it's me. I am wearing two hats this year, but only because the only reason I agreed to do this is because I have some pretty amazing people that I get to serve with. But I have agreed to come on as an. Oh, thank you, sir. To come on as a yemenite, as a youth leader this year for edge. So this is our youth group, and we've done some pretty amazing things. And I have to say thank you to all, everybody here, because you have supported these kids in some pretty significant ways and you have changed their lives this year. I am here to tell you you've changed their lives. These kids have been impacted by what we were able to do this year because of your support, your prayers, your financial support, and them brave enough to go to a native american reservation and sleep on the floor, no AC, and serve these wonderful people down there building roofs. It was a lot. It was a life changing experience.
So I would like to introduce my team because like I said, I wouldn't have done this without them. So if you're on the youth staff, would you stand, please?
So, Beth. And there's John. Is Jessica here?
And it's Jessica as well. We serve together, and I'm grateful for that. And our youth are better for it. So we're going to Six Flags this weekend, by the way. So all the kids that want to go. All right, that is our ministry team here at Village church East. And like I said, they're not all perfect people, but they're trending toward looking more like Jesus Christ so that they can impact the teams with whom they work. Let me just say a leader's greatness is not measured by the number of people who serve them, but by the number of people that they serve. And I'm grateful that each one of these folks are serving in our church.
I'm down to the last two groups.
First of all, these last two groups are listed particularly in scripture. These last two groups of leadership for a local church are called elders and deacons.
And in scripture, there is a list, a character quality list for each one of these offices. In scripture, God gives some people, particularly for the sole purpose of standing in the doorway between culture and our church and accepting the challenge to lead our families into truth. These are frontline workers.
And in God's good providence, we have a group of dedicated mendenna called elders and deacons who do just that. So I want to first of all introduce you our deacon. We have one right now, and he's in the back. You saw him earlier hitting the drums. That's Mark loose. Mark, would you stand for us? There he is there. Sorry.
Mark is acknowledged by his gifts or for his gifts by the church. And so to enter into a deacon is a little different than a ministry director. It's really a calling on their life and acknowledged by the church. And Mark serves with Gwen. Gwen is on the pro right back there. So Gwen, just wave your hand.
We also have a group of elders. So the deacons. The difference is the deacons serve to support the work of the ministry and support the elders in their ministry. If there's a need in the church, they come along and they kind of let the elders know, and we figure out how we can serve these needs that rise up in the church, physical needs, even emotional needs, and we can step in.
The elders are a little different. The elders are a group of men who are spoken of in scripture as well. Deacons and elders of the second group. And right now we have three elders in our church. I'm one, and I, Brent, where are you? Brent is one. You already saw him up here. And John is one. Where are you, John?
John?
Can't see. There he is back there.
Elders are described in scripture in three different ways. There's three different words used for them. These are interchangeable. First of all, they are described as an elder. This is a term that refers to their office. I call this fervent. I have three f words that describe each, each one of these because I'm a baptist root, so I like to have everything matched. So this, I think, would be like, it describes fervency or fanatical. Somebody who's fanatical about the truth of scripture and knows how to defend it against onslaughts. This is somebody that has their feet grounded in the truth of God and is able to help others know what the word of God says.
Another term that is used is overseer. This is the idea that this is really the role that they play. They oversee the church, watching out and protecting the church. They give the church leadership and direction for the future. So I would call this follow.
They know how to follow Jesus with such confidence that they can help us follow Jesus likewise. And the last one, I would say, pastor. This is the term poimonos, if you're interested in scripture. This is the idea of somebody that is a shepherd. They feed, they nurture, and they protect the flock. And the f, I would say, would be this one. Somebody that would fight for your family's emotional, spiritual, and faith base in your life. The characters of elders you're going to hate this next slide. But the character of elders is right here in scripture. Each one of these things refer to the elders that you have here at village church east, and every one of them has to fit each one of these qualities. There is none on here that they hope to achieve. If somebody is acknowledged as an elder in the Church, this is the character they already have demonstrated in their lives.
This is, in Jesus estimation, the definition of a good leader.
I won't read through them all, but I think we got them online so you can read through them yourself. These are not some things hoping to achieve. This is an amazing list that is taken from a bunch of different places in scripture. But one of the main places in scripture, and you can look this up, is one Timothy three, one Timothy 3114.
But what I find very interesting in one Timothy 3114 is the passage that comes afterwards that list that big, long. Can you show them the slide again just to make everybody sick? That list is crazy, right? It's way too many words for a slide.
And then the next verse that comes up is this verse Paul writes, and he says, I hope to come to you soon. He's writing this Timothy, his son in the faith, an elder that he is left in charge of a church at Ephesus. Paul writes to Timothy and he says, I hope to come to you soon. Doesn't that sound like a good dad thing to say? I'm hoping to see you soon. I hope I can get there soon. But I am writing these things to you so that if I delay church, this is why we get the list.
So that if I delay, you might know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and a buttress of the truth.
That list given to elders, that list where we recognize the leadership of the church, we are to acknowledge these elders because as we acknowledge these elders that help us lead, that help us be the kind of leader God wants us to be, by seeing the kind of leader God has made them into, this is the result.
We will know how we ought to behave in the household of God. I say it again. If you go to a church where there's bad leaders, you'll have bad behavior.
This is why it's so important that the elders of the church meet God's qualifications, because we understand how we operate based on the character of those who lead us best.
And one more thing, those last two words, pillar and buttress. I just want to drive the nail in just a little more. Buttress means Andromeda, what that means is seated or settled. This is the first establishment of truth. Paul says this church, these local churches, the one at Ephesus for Timothy, the one in Carroll stream for us, these local churches are meant to be the seat of truth. If you're wondering what truth is, we are meant to hold up truth to be a buttress of truth. The debate is over. If you're wondering am what I hearing right? Is what I hear correct? Is what this person telling me, matching up with scripture, this church, together with the leaders God has given to us should be able to come up with God's plan and God's truth. And if they don't, there's a problem.
There was a thing called the emergent church that came out in the two thousands.
One of the leaders of the emergent church was immediately pulled into fame, popular, and I can remember when homosexual marriage became an issue and it began to be debated among the high court.
He came out and I asked them, people from the world, what do you say about homosexual marriage? And he said, here's where the emergent church movement stands. We're going to wait seven years and figure out what happens in culture and then we'll give you an answer that is a bad leader.
We don't need to wait seven years because we've had the word of God for quite some time.
We look at the word of God and we are able to figure out what the truth is and we are a buttress for what God intends.
Jesus himself prayed for us in John 1717. Sanctify them in the truth. That's for us. And then he says, your word is truth.
You need to go to a church where your elders are compelled to be a buttress for truth. The second word that is used is stuleos, pillar. Now what does stulos sound like?
Sounds like stool. And what is a stool? It is something that is held up by its legs, right? The word that is used here, this pillar, is the idea that something is built by God to hold up truth so it doesn't fall. Now this will blow you away. The tabernacle was held up by struts, translated into this word in the Greek, but used in the Hebrew. Same word.
This word was given to James, Peter and John by Paul in Galatians two nine when he calls these three men the pillars of the early church or the stool of the early church.
And this is the same word used to describe our local church. Today we are meant to be a stool held up by the truth of Jesus Christ. Unashamed, unwavering and honest and humble about what that truth is. This is why Paul is such a stickler for who does and does not lead in the local church.
Our behavior is a direct reflection of our discipleship, and leaders need to lead the way in this leadership on the screen is commissioned with correctly conveying and displaying the truth of God so that you will know what is and what isn't a proper behavior and proper beliefs as followers of Jesus Christ.
I've got that up on the screen. You can take a look at that one there.
All right, so this is what elders are commissioned to do. This is what they do because of their character that you've already seen on the screen. Let me give you one more verse and I'll get to the. So what's ephesians four?
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers, that is, pastors, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry church. Who does the work of the ministry, pastors or the saints?
Read it one more time. Shepherds and teachers to equip who? The saints? For what?
So who does the work of the ministry, pastors or saints? If you're a saint, would you hold your hand up, please?
All right. Now, some of you may think I don't know if I'm a saint. Okay, let me just clear this up for you. You don't have to have a halo over your head to qualify for this one, all right? You are a saint. If you know Jesus Christ as your savior, you are a saint. That means that when you go to heaven, stand before God, God sees you as a saint.
Do that again.
They wouldn't let me on the worship team. Now you know why?
To equip the saints for the work of the ministry. For building up the body of Christ until we all attain the unity of faith and knowledge in the son of God, to mature manhood, to measure the stature of the fullness of Jesus Christ church. An elders job is not to entertain.
An elders job is not just to transfer knowledge to you. An elders job is to prepare and serve, to equip the church so that the church can live out the abundant life of Jesus Christ.
Here's some so whats. I'm going to zip through these because I am way over time. Number one, learn to serve joyfully.
Again, the passage from ephesians four, learn to serve joyfully. We are equipping the saints. That's you all. If you know Christ as your savior, spirit gifts us. God's spirit gifts us. To do the work of the ministry. So the only way you can find out what your gifts are is if you take a step. So if you haven't tried something yet, you've seen all the ministry directors up here today. Ask one of them. After the service at the picnic, ask one of them how you can get involved. Every person is essential to ministry. Say it with me. Every person is essential to ministry. God doesn't call somebody to sit. He calls someone to serve. That's why you're here.
And if you're not using your gifts, God is waiting for you to jump on board. Everybody can add, everybody is important. Ask an MD. All right, ask an MD. Ministry director number two, support your elders in every way possible.
Jesus has given us these shepherds to shepherd the church. Your goal, your job can be one wonderful for these elders by following this list. Appreciate their hard work. All of these come from different passages of scripture, but appreciate their hard work. Honor them for their leadership, teaching and preaching, follow and imitate them, obey and submit to elders, guard reputations, protect them from false accusations, and pray for them. These are just some ways that you can help your elders. Here at village church east, the last one, I would say, would check your trajectory.
What does that mean? You are not perfect, and neither am I. I am not perfect. This is not why I was chosen for this role.
I am not perfect. And those closest to me could tell you different ways in which I am not perfect.
But those of us that serve the Lord and use the gifts that God has given to us, we are on a trajectory.
We may drop the ball, we may succeed, but we're on the same trajectory. It's a heart of service, no matter what we do, to serve others, like Jesus said we should do. Titus, two nine. Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything. They are to be well pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith. In other words, all of us who serve these bondservants, all of us who serve the Lord in any ministry, in any way, even if it's not in church, even if it's at home, even if it's with our children, even if it's with our school. All bondservants of Jesus, all those who serve Jesus first and others second, all these folks are to be well pleasing, not argumentative, not pill for showing all good faith. And here's the phrase that gets me so that in everything they might look at this. What does it say? Adorn the doctrine of God our savior. What does that mean? What does it mean when you adorn a piece of clothing, you put it on now, you might put it on crooked, you might miss a button here and there.
You might not adorn it as best as you can adorn it. But the fact of the matter is, when you put on a piece of clothing, you show it off to others. Listen, church, your behavior as a servant of Jesus Christ adorns the very doctrine, the very truth of God to those around you.
You live it in front of them.
You give the gospel feet and hands. Like Chris said, you got these. Use them for the Lord in everything. Servants of God adorn the doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You may not always wear it perfectly, but your trajectory is always to be more like Jesus and to serve those around you.
I want to tell you, if you're a servant for Jesus Christ, your trajectory will tell you places, take you places you never thought imaginable. And to that end, I want to introduce to you Darren Gruett and Helen Gruitt and Evangelina grew it. Would you guys come up here?
Yeah.
Thank you. Thank you.
Darren, you have been attending our church for how many years now?
[00:56:42] Speaker F: Since 2019. So I don't know, five, six years.
[00:56:45] Speaker A: Five, six years? Yeah. Yeah. Right before COVID A little before COVID Two years.
[00:56:49] Speaker F: Just a year before COVID we came.
[00:56:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And Darren has come from a background where he has served in a variety of different churches, right?
[00:56:56] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:56:57] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:56:58] Speaker F: I was involved, actually in leadership and previous church we were involved in men's ministry was something I liked. Small group leadership and things like that.
[00:57:08] Speaker A: And you went to the mission field for part of this.
[00:57:10] Speaker F: Yeah, that's where I met Helen.
[00:57:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Brought back something with you. I did.
When I go, I bring back a souvenir.
[00:57:19] Speaker F: Yeah, I got to bring back a fiance, and we got married shortly after.
[00:57:24] Speaker A: Very nice. Venezuela. All right. And so, Helen, would you tell us a little bit about your background?
[00:57:30] Speaker J: Yes, I accept the Lord. When I was 22, in college, and through a Bible study in the book of John, and I met the Lord truly study in the book of John. And eventually I served the Lord for five years after. And then when I met daring, and then now my church sent me as a missionary. They had that vision in Paris. You just don't want to marry someone, you're going to serve the Lord.
And I had this always in my heart. And so as well, I serve many Bible students.
Bible study. Teaching the Bible to Bible college students in northeastern, in Chicago for, I don't know, 1212 years, I guess so, yeah, that's what we did.
[00:58:15] Speaker A: Both of you have had a heart for ministry. And Darren, you have been in a process of learning what it means to be an elder here at the church, and you have accepted this calling on your life, which brings Helen and you, Evangelina, rocking it. Evangelina did great on the mission trip. She was wonderful up on the roof.
She was a force to be reckoned with. But we are grateful now that the Lord has brought you to this place where we are about to install you, to bring you on as our fourth elder here at village church east. And it's really our privilege to do that.
Darren meets all his qualifications on that ridiculous slide I had up there, and because of that, he has entered into a process that has lasted about a year and a half. Tell us, what's your favorite thing about what happened over this past training process?
[00:59:09] Speaker F: You know, honestly, I was amazed at what God did in me, because when you first asked me, and I'll just share this really quick, you and Brett and John called me over to the corner and said, yeah, we want to talk to you after the service. And I thought, I'm in big trouble. I did something really wrong, and a big rebuke is coming on, usually. Yeah, yeah.
But then, you know, there was a lot of waiting time and nothing happened. And I. God did something amazing in me where I just had this incredible peace and patience. And I said, when the next step comes, then they'll tell me.
And so I wasn't worried. I didn't push it along.
My tendency, I would have thought, would have been to be like, well, maybe they're having second thoughts, or I need to call them or whatever, find out what's happening.
God just did something in me there I didn't expect. And that patience, I was really grateful to see God do that in me.
[01:00:05] Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome. And we have entered into a partnership with Ville Church of Bartlett where they actually have participated in training you in this process. And that's been wonderful to see as well.
[01:00:18] Speaker F: Yeah, that was fantastic. Being able to train under Michael there, I learned so many things, a lot of things outside of the classroom, just about what leadership is in this church.
This church has. This is a wonderful place to serve. Everybody here loves one another. That's what we felt when we first came in, is the love of God, and the leadership here is so healthy.
This is an opportunity for all of us to grow and learn about what it means to be a servant.
[01:00:51] Speaker A: Awesome. Good. Well, listen, we are excited. I'm going to invite the other elders of the church band. You can come up as well. I just want to introduce to you what we're going to do next, which you will be now church, a part of the elders are inviting Darren, and you can stay up here. Come on, stay up here. Yeah, yeah.
The elders are inviting this family because ministry is a. Is a partnership with the family. And so the ministry is inviting this family to join us in an elder role. Darren is in an elder role. He joins the elders to watch over you, care for your families, guard against the deceptions of this world for you and with you. He joins us as God's gift to this church to help with health, leadership, guidance, teaching and prayer. He is now being promoted to the bottom of the scale. He is moving as fast as we can put him to the bottom. And so we are excited to esteem him highly for his work as he becomes a better picture of a servant to village church east, because he is God's gift to village church. And so I want to give you a scripture verse. We're going to leave this up here as we do this next part, as we pray over him and welcome him and his gifts into ministry here. First, Timothy 512 says this. Thessalonians 512, we beseech you, therefore, brethren, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. This is your part to play church as we take part in this next section that we are just so uniquely privileged to do at this moment. So I'm going to ask you to move forward just a little bit. Evangelina, you can come on up here and make room for your family right there. All right, elders, would you come up and come around? Yes. Michael. This is Michael.
