Involving the Local Church in Local Ministry - Richard Bean

The following video was recorded at Reach 2025 and released in collaboration with Christian Learning Resource.

Good morning, teach of you, and glad for your interest here and involving the local church and local ministry. Such a warm and intimate space that we're in here this morning, isn't it, for this talk. A little bit more about myself: I'm a husband to Coraline. You can hear her this afternoon if you wish, she's speaking. And then we have four energetic children. They are my primary local ministry right there, but that's not my focus here this morning in raising children.

I've been pastoring for the last 15 years, first of all at Grace Mennonite, which was a small church out in the middle of cornfields. And then we grew to the place where we started a second church about 6 years ago. Initially we were in the city, COVID moved us around a little bit, and we are just in the process of closing on a building just outside of the city in a small town called Baden. So a small church is the context that I'm coming from here this morning.

Yeah, I live in New Hamburg, where I practice as an optometrist. Walk 20 minutes to work, and that's where I live. Helpful to know who I'm speaking here this morning. I'm just curious, are there any ordained leaders here this morning?

So a few hands here, thank you. I'm going to be speaking to both leaders and laity here this morning.

I'm just going to question here with a line here with where you would rate your local church involvement in local ministry. You don't need to speak it out loud, but, you know, 0 where we have, there is 0 interest. In fact, maybe we have actually, as some groups have said, basically taken a stand, we're not going to involve ourselves in local ministry. Versus the other end of the spectrum where majority of the church is involved in local ministry. I'd be curious where you'd put your church in there on that line.

Think about it a moment, think about a number, and I'm just curious, how many 5s are here? Anyone at the 5s? A lot of people kind of put themselves in the average place there. You know, we're not that, you know, we do something, but not as much as we could.

Just to be honest here, I'd probably put myself in a 5 as well. I think of myself as a pretty average pastor leading a pretty average church. And so I'm not coming from what sometimes, and I don't like this title, but a mission church where all of us are involved in outreach. But we have some involvement, and I want to share a little bit of how we are encouraging that outward looking as a congregation. So I don't come as an expert here this morning, just more of an average pastor, probably talking to fairly average churches here this morning.

I am passionate about the local church, though, and I am convinced that the local church, the body of Christ, has the potential to bring lasting change, has the best potential to bring lasting change in the world. Not government, not public policy, but the church. And, you know, I think about a place like this, this venue is, I mean, all the people gathered here is pretty incredible, and all those ministries out there are doing wonderful works. But I wonder how many churches are represented here in this group that was here this morning. And if all those churches are representing families, and if all those families were just reaching across the street, being little embassies of light in their community, what change that could bring.

Too often we're fairly insular and inward looking and fail to see the harvest that's right around us. I'd like to start with a couple stories here this morning.

My grandma Bean was born in 1912. Her parents and siblings moved from London, England, to Canada a year before she was born. The reason they moved was her father, well, both of her parents were in poor health. Her father had served with the British military in India and had picked up malaria there. Her mother was needing a drier climate, and so her physician, her parents' physician, told them that they have to move to a drier climate.

They suggested either Australia or Canada. And so her parents moved to Canada, and grandma was born about a year after they arrived in Canada.

About a year after she was born, her mother passed away of her poor health, and about a year later her father passed away, also of poor health. And so here she was and her siblings, orphans in a strange country with no family around, and new immigrants.

And so grandma was put into, well, she was first taken into one of her dad's coworkers' family, took her in, but soon that was too much for them and she was put into an orphanage. And she hated the orphanage. I grew up hearing stories about the orphanage.

Her siblings got put out into a local community, and when she was around 8, she started finding out that she actually had siblings. She didn't know this. And so she was able to visit some of these, her brothers, in this what happened to be more of a Mennonite community.

And so one weekend when she was 8, she went and visited the church there with her brothers, and she sat with Amanda Kressman, who I have presented here. Amanda was a newly married. Her husband was Curtis Kressman, had been ordained two years, I believe, before they were married. And so they were just newlyweds, and Amanda welcomed grandma to come and sit with her at church that Sunday.

And towards the end of the service, grandma put her hand into Amanda's and said, "Would you take me home?" She did not want to go back to the orphanage. And so Curtis and Amanda decided that they would open their home to this 8-year-old. They had no reason to take her in, and there was no financial reimbursement. She was not family, but they took her in. Grandma as an 8-year-old was a terror, as I understand. I grew up hearing stories of how much of a troublemaker she was. One of the stories that got passed on was Amanda had just made jam, and at this era, I understand, you would make hot jam. You'd pour it out in each of the jam jars and would leave it out on the counter so that it would sort of make a harden, I guess, a bit on top and would help to seal, preserve the jam.

Well, grandma was alone in the house, and she saw these jam jars there, and she's like, "You know, I'd like to try some of this jam," but she didn't want to just take it out of one jam jar because, well, that would be obvious. So she decided she would go and take some out of each of the jam jars, and very effectively, without knowing it, breaking that scum that had, or sort of the seal that had formed on all the jam. And I don't know what her mother had to do with it, but anyway, it was not the right thing for her have done to have dipped her finger into all these jam jars and have made Amanda have to do a lot more work.

That was just one of the examples. And so she actually became too much for Amanda and Curtis, and they decided to send her back to the orphanage. And she applied with them. She's like, "Do anything with me, just don't send me back to the orphanage."

But the decision had been made that the next morning she was supposed to pack her bags, and they would take her back to the orphanage the next morning when Curtis left early in the morning to go to market. But grandma woke up, and the sun was shining, and they were going to leave before daylight, and so she knew something had changed. And she came down, and she asked, "Why did you not take me back to the orphanage?" And Amanda's response was, "Well, when Curtis had packed the, I think it was the buggy, with things to go to market, there just wasn't room for you." And it was a kind way of saying that, "Well, we've had a second thought, and we're going to keep you anyway."

And a couple years later from that, living in their home, they never adopted her, but she did find her home there. She accepted Christ as her Savior, and she lived the next 94 years as a woman of God. She died, well, she was known for her holiness, her patience, her integrity.

She died 8 years ago at the age of 104. Maybe you have an 8-year-old that is coming to your house or visits your church that's somehow involved in your life that is a terror. You want to pull your hair out because of the antics of this child. I call you to take heart. My grandma was that 8-year-old who was shown love and compassion and forever changed the course of the next 95 years of her life.

Going to fast forward now, about 80 years. This is a picture of my wife, Coraline's family. She's the shorter one standing in the back. They attended the United Church of Canada. Her mom had become a born-again believer in university, but they continued to attend the United Church of Canada. But her mom was yearning for more spiritual growth in her life, more spiritual nourishment and discipleship than she was getting in the United Church. But there weren't many options of other churches in rural Ontario where they were living.

But about 20 years previous to this, there had been a church plant. Several Mennonite families had moved about an hour or two hours north and had started a church. And so my wife's mother knew about the church, but she also knew that it was a very family-focused church, and she was unsure whether her husband didn't have any interest in attending.

And she didn't know if she could come into the church as a single or by herself without her husband.

And how was she going to find this out? Well, the church faithfully had a vacation Bible school there, and she decided to use this as a test to send the girls to this Mennonite church and see whether they would be welcome there or not. And they were welcomed, and several years later, Coraline was, my wife was baptized in that church.

It took me another 10 years to find her, and then a few more years after that for me to convince her that she should marry me. But Coraline is the love of my life, and I'm so grateful God led us together. But I'm very aware that our journey into, that her journey into the Mennonite church and then eventually into my life was a result of a small church faithfully doing vacation Bible school summer after summer.

And maybe you wonder, and I wonder this sometimes, is it, should we just stop having VBS? You know, it's hard to get teachers. Maybe it's just a lot of our own families that are attending.

Let me tell you, you don't know the impact that your faithful involvement there may have to a seeking family in the community.

Up to the present here, I'm going to introduce you to a church that's in our neighborhood, just around the block from us. This is the Fellowship Bible Church. This church is not much to look at. It is, this picture actually makes it look bigger than it is. It's a very small church. It's a dated church from the outside, but it is clear that this church cares about its community and about blessing their neighborhood. It's located on a large plot of land, and they make the most of this. They have garden plots there that neighbors can use. They have soccer nets. They have a basketball court made into an ice hockey rink in the winter. They have a playground.

The last couple of years, they've been planting a lot of fruit trees and different plants that neighbors, like when we go for a walk as a family, we just drop in there and start eating raspberries, blackberries. They have a lot of community events, barbecues, fun fairs. They have vacation Bible school. They have Mums and Tots. They have a kids' club. What this church has done is they've made it very clear to the community that they love Jesus and they love their neighbors. They love the community that they're in. And if anyone does not have a church home, they're welcome to join. It's a small congregation, but they are currently planting two more churches in the vicinity of where we're at.

If this church were to suddenly leave and be replaced by a car dealership, our community would miss them. We really would. We would miss the impact that they're making in our community. They've blessed us. I asked the question about my church, and I asked the question about your church. If for some reason your church would close its doors on Sunday and be replaced by a car dealership, would anyone notice? Would anyone care that whatever church is that you're a part of is no longer there? These are just three snapshots, personal snapshots of mine, but they also highlight the variety of ways that churches can be involved in ministry, and it is so broad of ways to make a difference in the community.

Before we try to answer the question how to be involved in church, how to involve the church in ministry, I want to just step back and ask the question, why be involved in ministry? Why should your church, the people of your church, be involved in ministry? And if you have a handout, this is kind of where it's starting here.

First, God's vision for the world should be our vision for the world. You know, vision is really important in navigating life. As an optometrist, I'm legally required to revoke licenses, driver's licenses, if someone cannot meet the driving standard visually. We know that if you can't see far enough down the road, you're not going to be able to navigate that well. And so if you're a my-10 myope nearsighted and your focal point is right here, you know, to try to navigate crowds here today, and you can only focus, you know, kind of at this point, is really, really challenging, and you're probably not going to be very effective in navigating. And so vision is really important.

Thinking long-term, where do we want to head? This is personal, personal vision. Where does God want me to have an impact in the world? What does God want me to aim my life for? What is God doing in the world, and how am I going to have a part in it? But that's not all. When we're working with others, and I'm thinking here in the local church, it's most effective when our visions run together and are similar. My wife and I enjoy canoeing, and I remember this one time, maybe two years ago, we were up in a northern lake, and we decided to head across the lake to a point. And I'm usually sitting at the back doing the J-stroke, which is where the primary steering happens, and she sits at the front, which is more the power stroke, but can it also affect the steering as well?

And I was starting to get frustrated because I knew there wasn't any wind, and I was paddling, heading for a point, and it kept feeling like the canoe was being headed off course. And that's when we started talking, and I found out that our vision was different. I thought we were heading to that point, and she was heading for that point over there. And once we realized where we're headed, well, then it was really a lot better experience for both of us as we were aiming for the same thing.

What is the vision for your church? Have you talked about it as a congregation? Have you worked together to write it down, to actually define what does God want us as a local body to do? Have you tried to answer the question, why should our church, why does our church exist?

What is God's vision for your church or for the world? You know, I think the Garden of Eden really gives us God's vision of men and women living in harmony with their Creator, men and women living in harmony with each other, and also living in harmony with creation. And we know the effect of the fall, the brokenness that has brought. But starting back there in Genesis 3, we see God already putting together a plan to take us back to Eden, as it were. And God's vision didn't change because of the brokenness of the fall. And we see it then with Abraham and then picturing through Christ that all the world is going to, God is going to bless all the world.

And one of the things that I did just recently was I highlighted all, thinking about God's vision here, I just went through and highlighted all the times where it speaks of all the people of the nation and God blessing them, all peoples. And I think I have nine slides worth here of all the earth, every creature, all nations, all you people, to the ends of the earth, every tongue. And we just keep going here. And it's a good exercise as you start to feel God's heartbeat for all people.

Yes, it's abroad, but this also includes your neighborhood as well. God's vision, what God is doing in the world, His will will be done. And the question for us in our churches is, what part are we going to play in God's vision in the world? How are we going to be involved in what God is doing in the world?

A second why here, I think we'll just move along here for sake of time. Why be involved in ministry? So I'm calling us to think about what God's vision is in the world and then ask ourselves, is that our church's vision as well?

Following Jesus means following Jesus into ministry. And we could take time to look at just two passages there, two chapters in Matthew 8, but I was just recently preaching from this passage and recognize Jesus' compassionate ministry to healing the sick, healing the blind. And as an optometrist, I just think of the, you know, we think about how useful eyesight is, but I just even think of how that rippled out for that individual who suddenly had sight and the economic opportunities that that individual had. And we could talk about Jesus touching those lepers and those outcasts, et cetera. And then He finishes that chapter, finishes in chapter 9 of that call to be involved. Pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send forth labors into the harvest.

Are we followers of Jesus? Are we following Him in ministry? Matthew 25 is a very sobering passage as we think about Jesus' words there. And then the third that I'd like to just touch on, on the why be involved, is we have been blessed to be a blessing. You know, it's good to just sit back and think about the ways that your church has been blessed.

I think of freedom to evangelize. You know, our reluctance to evangelize would maybe make sense if we knew that we were going to be persecuted because of our sharing our faith. But that's not the case. We have so much freedom, and let's use that to be a blessing.

Intact families, enduring marriages, you know, divorce is relatively rare in our churches, and that is a blessing. Stable families that eat together, spend time together. Are we maximizing the blessing that that is, or do we take it for granted?

Last month I was sitting at a table, I got to sit for lunch with Gary Miller, and I asked him the question. I knew that this is the author, Gary Miller, and I knew that this presentation I was giving. And I asked Gary over lunch, I said, Gary, how are our communities going to reach our neighbors? And I didn't know what he was going to say, you know, door-to-door evangelism possibly, or some ministry. But his words have stuck with me. He said, Richard, we need to open our doors. We need to open our homes for our neighbors. We have been blessed so much with our families, with stability in our homes, and there's so many of our neighbors that don't know what that's like.

And we need to open our homes and welcome that in with hospitality, love, and care. You know, I think of the parable of the talents and of the two men who were given talents to invest. And they did, and they had good rewards in that it was their talents doubled or more. They had a good return on their investment. But there was one individual who said, I'm going to play this safe. I'm going to bury my treasure. I'm going to preserve what I have because I don't want to take the risk that I might lose this. And so I'm going to bury it in the ground. And what's surprising about that story is that when the master comes back and they're reporting on how their investments did, this individual who had buried his treasure, you know, there's no word of commendation for, well, at least you didn't steal it, or you didn't waste it, or you didn't lose it.

But there are words of rebuke that you did not invest. You did not understand what the vision of the master was, that you were going to use what was given to you to take risk and invest that. And I just wonder about that with our families. You know, we do care about preserving, and there are places where we do need to set boundaries, et cetera. But are we investing with this gift that has been given to us?

Church as a family, authentic community, could talk more about this, just how we care for each other. But that's not just for ourselves, and it's a huge blessing, but we're here to bless others with that. Are we inviting others in as well?

Well, let's talk now here, flipping to how do we involve the local church in local ministry? And I'm speaking here to leaders and laity. Some of this may apply more to leaders. First is clarifying congregational vision. I think we need to ask the question as a congregation, where we gather together and ask, why does our church exist? We need to have this discussion. How are we going to align our vision as a congregation with God's vision for what He's doing in the world? What are our strengths and weaknesses as a congregation? This takes honesty and openness. I think this grid here, I borrow this from Reaching America by Gary Miller, is a good grid just for a congregation to think through.

We have these four quadrants, two axes, and where you can kind of rate yourself as you're outreach, outward-looking, evangelistic, or non-evangelistic. And then church, family versus family church. Church, family, meaning that authentic community where we care for each other, and community is really important and vital versus I'm just going to church for the benefit of my family.

And just think about where do we as a church fall in there? And ideally, we should be thinking in terms of quadrant one, where we're strong commitment to community of caring for each other, but we're inviting others into that community as well.

What opportunities are around us? What programs should be started? What programs should be ended? What does success look like? Do you know what success looks like for your congregation? Have you thought about that together as a congregation? This is a relevant discussion or thinking for me right now. As a congregation, we're closing on a building. We've been renting a building for the last three years, sharing a building with a Lutheran congregation, but we're in the process of purchasing it, closing this month.

And so next Saturday, we're planning to get together as a congregation. All members are invited to have a meeting from 9 till 3:30 where we want to think in these terms. Maybe I'll just give a little picture of what we're going to do as a congregation, what we're planning to do. The morning, we're going to be thinking of a little bit of the history of our congregation. It's a six-year congregation. So thinking about why did we start as a congregation? What have we discovered as being our strengths and our weaknesses? What are the opportunities and the threats as well? We did some of this when the church just began, but now that we're anchoring in a physical neighborhood, it's a little bit easier to help define some of this.

And then so that's the morning, and then the afternoon we want to be thinking in terms of what's our vision as a congregation? What do you think, asking the congregation, what does God want to do through Oasis? Thinking about our mission, how are we going to accomplish that? And then our values, what do we hope is characteristic of us as a congregation? You know, one congregation can't do everything, but think about what God might be calling your church to do. Second, how to involve the local church is involved in casting vision. And again, I'm speaking here to both leaders and laity.

There are moments when our eyes are opened as individuals to the need, to needs around us, and we sense a burden, and we can't do it on our own. We need to cast a vision, cast a picture of what that could, what could happen.

In 2015, I was watching the Syrian refugee crisis unfold, and I hadn't felt this personal burden for this until I remember the day in September, I came home from work and I pulled up the news and I was looking at some of the daily updates. And this picture, you may remember seeing it as well, of this two-year-old who was lying on the beach dead in Turkey. He had been fleeing with his family from ISIS. They were on their way to Greece and then were going to be making their way to Canada, was their hope.

But as is often the case, their boat was filled double to capacity and it capsized moments after they were in the water and this young two-year-old washed up on shore. And this especially caught me because he was the age between my two boys. And I remember asking the Lord, Lord, how can I, how can we as a congregation help these people who are simply looking for safety and a place to live? And so I started doing a little bit of research and figuring out that sponsorships are an option. And so I presented to our leadership team. I said, you know, I have a vision for this. Can we share this vision? And they encouraged me to take it to the congregation.

And I, in an email to them, tried to cast a vision, cast a picture for us as a congregation. What could this look like? And I think I have a bit of that vision there in the handout. And we called a congregational meeting and said, whoever's interested, show up. And there was broad support for it. And I remember one young man at the back, a young father, as we were concluding towards the end of the evening, there was support to sponsor, but he stood up and he said, why are we supporting one family? Can't we do two?

And so three months later, we were welcoming two Syrian families into our church community. But it took a casting of a vision and then a rallying of that vision. Sometimes we are, as leaders, are called to cast vision for our congregations and what could be. But it doesn't have to be leaders either.

A 70-year-old, she was maybe 65 at the time, single woman in our congregation. This was during COVID. Had heard about this tent city that was starting in Kitchener. Well, their homelessness is a real scourge in Kitchener, Waterloo, close to where we live. And you know what tent cities are, but there was a volunteer organization that said, we can do better than this. Let's form a better tent city. So that's the name of this is A Better Tent City.

Instead of people sleeping in tents, homeless, there are these garden sheds insulated and have a little bit of heat in them and a locked door. And there's 50 of these that are gathered together on a vacant property. And it is a community of homeless that are living in these shelters. Anyway, we were not involved in setting this up, but this 70-year-old reached out to the community and wondered if there's need for involvement or how we could help. And they were needing at that time, I think it was picnic tables. And so she reached out to men in the congregation and said, you know, I have looked on Lowe's website and we can get these, we can assemble these, buy these and assemble these, and is there interest in doing this?

And there was. And from that day forward, that vision started to grow. And to this day, one of our members is full-time employed in this community. But it started with a woman who saw a need and cast a vision to our congregation of how we could be involved. You know, youth often are the ones who are visionary, and I just call us to not be there throwing pails of water onto the young, the energetic in our church who have visions of what could be. Yes, they're looking for partnership. They will need guidance and direction and calls for patience on their part. But let's help them passionately live out as a disciple of Christ.

How to involve the local church for us as leaders? It involves Christ-centered teaching and preaching. Simply to illustrate this point, when we were sponsoring the two Syrian families, both Muslim families, I was expecting that there would be some pushback in the congregation or for some about, is this the right thing to do?

And I felt called to preach about the Good Samaritan and the question of who is my neighbor? And it's pretty clear from the story that it crosses cultural and religious boundaries that we are called to reach across. This passage here is one, you know, we're really hospitable people. We tend to invite our families in, we invite friends in from church, we open our homes as people. But that's exactly what Jesus says we're not supposed to do. As in, we're supposed to be inviting those who can't repay us, who are the sick, the lame, the poor, the blind. And I think we need to think about this as a congregation, these teachings of Jesus, and how are we going to put some of these challenging teachings into practice as a people?

Fourth, encourage where ministry is happening in your church. I'm sure that there are individuals in your church who are involved in ministry. And can we get behind them and support them? Ministry can be discouraging. It can be lonely. How can we help to support those who are already doing ministry and encouraging them? I was feeling this last year that there were multiple people in our congregation who were involved in ministry, whether it was a kids' club or with a pregnancy center or working with the homeless. Some were doing Bible studies with immigrants.

Some were serving on boards. And I said, how can we as a congregation find out more about these ministries and also support them? And so we've started weekly ministry moments. They're short, one to four minutes each Sunday, where I a week or two before, I tap one of these individuals on the back and say, can you share a little bit about what you're doing in our local community?

And give us opportunity to then pray for them as well. And that has been really good for us. It gives them we find out about what they're doing. We can ask more questions about them, about what they're doing in their ministry. And we can also raise awareness for our children as well, youth who may want to be involved. But there's other ways that you can also encourage ministry where it is happening in your congregation.

I think also of prayer. Pray for your congregation. Maybe you're here this morning and you do have a burden that your church be more involved in ministry and you're not sure how to involve them, how to be involved. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Pray for your congregation that their heart would beat with God's heart, that their hearts would maybe fill with sacrificial love and service to others.

And then for us as leaders, pray with our congregation that we'd be active, the hands and feet of Christ in our community. Pray for your neighborhood as a congregation and the needs. Be aware of the needs in your congregation and pray with them, pray with your congregation about this. You know, when we pray as leaders, we are teaching our congregation to pray as well. We are the things that we care about, we pass that on to them as well.

And then finally, personal involvement. Are you an outward-focused individual yourself? Are you hoping for something to happen in your church as far as involvement in your community, but you're actually not prepared to be involved yourself? Are you taking the opportunities that are there already? Are you exemplifying the vision that you want others to embrace in your congregation?

I do feel I need to put a caution in here is just to be aware of one's limitations though as well. We can't be all things to all people. Not every need that you see is yours to fill. And leaders maybe especially beware of the competition with your family. I do think that our family, raising our children, supporting our wives needs to be forefront in our sphere of ministry. At the last reach, I gave a session there on leftovers for loved ones and other temptations of leaders because that's a very real temptation for us as leaders that we reserve or give leftovers to our families, those who are closest to us. And so one of the things to think about is involving your, oh, I thought I had another picture here, involving your family with you in ministry.

This last Sunday, we feed a homeless community in Kitchener. This last Sunday, I think we fed 250 meals there, a small group of us from church, or it's open to whoever. And so my 15-year-old, she can go as long as she has a parent with her. And so we went together and that was one way that we could share.

I could be involved in ministry and also continue to build relationship with my daughter as well. Look for opportunities to engage in your community in just the normal living that we all are doing, going through life. I remember one pastor patient of mine, he was talking to me, he was talking with, telling me about his interaction with another pastor. And he was just really surprised because he was telling this other pastor, I guess was revealing that he likes to, he doesn't like to pay in the kiosk when he's buying gas. He likes to use the pay at the pump. And he likes to use the self-checkout.

And this pastor patient of mine was just shaking his head at this. He's like, you know, we're here for people. Why are we avoiding people in our daily life? And I was really convicted at that moment because I'm the type who will pay at the pump. If I can, I will use the self-checkout and miss some of those opportunities to engage face-to-face with people in our community. So are you taking advantage of engaging with people in your neighborhood as you go about your daily life?

And ask God to bring opportunities into your day to bless your community. But you also have to take those opportunities as well when they do present. And sometimes they don't present at the right times.

I almost missed a really significant opportunity in our neighborhood. I walk to work every day. It's one of the ways I get exercise, but it's also to build trust in the community. When we were gone to Thailand this last year for a year, it was actually really significant coming back and having many people tell me, we missed seeing you walking.

Just giving more opportunity for people in the community to know who I am. But I almost missed an opportunity. The one summer morning, I was late, a little bit late for work, and I was walking to work. And I met a neighbor, Stuart, who I often meet.

And we don't often talk very much. We say, you know, good morning. And I asked Stuart that morning, I said, how are you, Stuart? And he said, not so good. And at that moment, I had the decision to make. Am I going to say, you know, sorry, I hope your day is soon better and just keep going? Or are you going to ask a little bit more?

And that time, I don't always, I don't do perfectly in this, but that time I asked Stuart, Stuart, what's going on? And he said, well, you know, we have our two daughters and they have two special needs daughters in their early 20s.

He said, Rachel last night, she's in a group home. He said, she was having a bath by herself and she had a seizure and she drowned.

And so we stopped and we prayed there together on the sidewalk. But I came so close to missing that opportunity to be Christ to that neighbor, Stuart. And I just wonder, you know, how many opportunities are there that we in our busyness can pass by and not take those opportunities? I'll leave you with the challenge that Gary Miller left with for me when we were finishing lunch together. And it was this way. He said, Richard, I want living in our community, I want there to be a gangplank from my home to all my neighbors in the community, a gangplank.

So that when the water rises in their life, and it will rise when stress comes, when brokenness manifests itself, when the water rises, they have a plank to walk to my house where I can point them to Jesus.

And that's a challenge that I leave with you in thinking it's a challenge for me. Am I building those relationships with the needs right around me that I can point others to Christ?