How God can Bless you through the Church

Church isn’t just a place you go—it’s a family you grow with. In this passionate and personal message, Pastor Chris Teien shares how God blesses His people through the local church. Drawing from Ephesians 4, 1 Corinthians 3, and decades of real-life ministry, this episode explores how commitment, service, connection, and spiritual growth all thrive in the context of church life. 

Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/14393743

Key Points:

1. God Blesses Us Through Church Connection – Hebrews 10:25. Church offers relationships, encouragement, and accountability you can’t get alone.
2. God Blesses Us Through Spiritual Growth and Service – Ephesians 4:11–13. Pastors equip believers to serve; every believer plays a part in building the body.
3. God Blesses Us Through Generational Impact – Psalm 71:17–18. Church provides a foundation for kids, teens, and future leaders.
4. God Blesses Us Through Commitment and Contribution – 1 Corinthians 3:10–15. We build on the foundation of Christ and are rewarded for faithful work.
5. God Blesses Us Through Mission and Invitation – Matthew 28:19–20. The church is how we reach the world—through friendship, hospitality, and outreach.

Personal Stories from Pastor Chris:

• From being invited to youth group in high school to planting churches without a building, Pastor Chris reflects on a life shaped by serving and belonging in the church.
• Shares joyful memories of church volunteering, building community, and raising kids who love the church.
• Honest moments about burnout, staying faithful, and learning that church ministry is a marathon, not a sprint.
• Observations on how buildings, friends, and legacy all matter—but the people are the church.

Notable Quotes:

• “You don’t just go to church—you are the church.”
• “Church is where you find friendships, purpose, and opportunities to grow and serve.”
• “We’re blessed today because of the foundations others built yesterday.”

Actionable Takeaways:

1. Invest time to get connected—join a group, serve, or stay a few minutes longer.
2. Consider membership as a step of commitment to your church family.
3. Pray for your church leaders and ministries regularly.
4. Invite others—not just to church, but into your life and faith journey.

Scripture References:

• Ephesians 4:11–13 – Equipping the saints
• 1 Corinthians 3:10–15 – Building on the foundation
• Hebrews 10:25 – Don’t give up meeting together
• Psalm 71:17–18 – Passing faith to the next generation
• Matthew 28:19–20 – The Great Commission

Keywords:
 church, local church, spiritual growth, discipleship, church family, membership, volunteering, serving, church community, faith legacy

Closing Statement:
 God designed the church to be a blessing—not just to you, but through you. When you engage, serve, and belong, you become part of something bigger—eternal. Say yes to God’s plan through the church.

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The WELL Faith Podcast offers encouraging, Bible-based messages from Pastor Chris Teien and guests. New sermons are released every Sunday. Replay episodes are marked with an asterisk. Find us online at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.Church in Virginia, MN. Email comments to wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

Chris T 0:16

But I love church. I love going to church. I love singing at church. I love being at church. I love when the church is fully funded, and I don't need as a pastor to worry about the church finances that we can just move on without me having to remind people to be faithful givers so we can pay the bills, which is in my job description, but a part I do not like. But so when we give, it is an act of worshiping. God can bless us for being faithful with our giving. And I'm convinced that He can either extend the money that we have or help us to come up with additional resources as we pray for it, which we pray here every Sunday. Tim did a great job of praying and we pray. But church is a good thing. Church can bless us. So many people check out of church and they think that they watch it on TV or they listen to a podcast. And if you want to download information to grow spiritually, there is so much out there. I mean, there's sermon podcasts and there are sermon videos, and the U Version Bible has Bible reading plans, and I'm currently going through the Bible in a year, the daily Bible. So what is it now? It's not even February yet. And I'm already thinking, I think I'm already at the end of March, so I'm going through a little faster, but I'll probably be done through the year by June, and maybe I'll do it again. But nonetheless, if you want to download information and resources, that's great. But that's not the same as church. It's not the same as church where people know who you are, where people know your name. And there are some people that come to church and they try church and they're like, oh, I didn't really feel connected. But they didn't stick around long enough. They didn't volunteer, they didn't go to a life group or a Sunday school group. They didn't spend the time to get to know anybody or to let anybody get to know them. And that's one reason why they didn't feel connected. We had one family that came to church and they're like, we don't feel very connected. And I'm like, wait, you're like the last one to come in the door and the first one to leave. There's no time for anybody to help connect with you. So that is the thing that if you want to have friends in church, you got to spend some time. Sometimes it's taking a little risk, sometimes it's volunteering to do things. Sometimes it's just showing up to one of our Sunday school groups or helping with different ministries. I love church. So when I was a kid, like in high school, like we moved from Colorado to Minnesota and spent six months around Marina in the St. Croix where I didn't have transportation and there wasn't a decent church to go to, so I just listened to Christian radio, couldn't get to church. But then when we moved out near Lake Minnetonka, there was a little Baptist church there, and I started going right away. And so it was cool too because I had just started to show up at this church. Nobody really from that church invited me. I just showed up and went to church. My parents didn't go with me at that time. So it was just me. And so I'm not sure if it was that week or the next week or whatever. Students from the youth group there, it wasn't a very big youth group, but they showed up at my door to invite me to an activity and to invite me to their house and to invite me to hang out with them. And it was good. And yeah, it's the way church should be done. However, that church struggled. It was a small church, and eventually the church wasn't, the pastor was old, and eventually the church closed and they tore it down and built an office building and a culverse there. But we went to a different church that was down the road and got involved there too. So got involved in the youth group, got involved in ministry. And on the side, my a couple of my friends and I, we went to help rescue a church Awana group that had some kids and really no leaders. So it was basically like three high schoolers showing up to a church they didn't even attend to try to keep the Iwana group going. But I love church. When I got married, my wife and I immediately started going to a big church, and we became members right away. My wife got baptized. Yeah, my wife shared her testimony and became a member in front of the big mega church with Leith Anderson, and it was good. Our children were dedicated in church. We've been members of church all along. Now, being that I'm a pastor of a church, it probably makes sense that I'm a member, but before I was a pastor, church membership was important to me because I think that God can bless us through the church. I met amazing people in church. I've had great opportunities in church. I've had opportunities to volunteer and serve, which actually helped open the door for me to be in full-time ministry. Because if God calls you to full-time ministry, he first gives you the call and experience based on your faith in Christ. You grow in your faith, you grow in salvation, you volunteer, you serve, and then as you've been serving for a while and you gain knowledge and experience, then maybe he can use you to be a pastor. According to Ephesians 4.11, a pastor equips people for works of service. So the pastor doesn't do all the work in the church. The pastor encourages and motivates and sometimes provides resources for volunteers to serve in ministry. Matter of fact, I've been told that if I want to start a new ministry in a church, I need to find somebody to do it. So if we wanted to have a grief support group, I need to find somebody to do that. If we want to start a life recovery group for addicts and alcoholics, I need to find somebody to do that. So I've heard that the rule is that I can't go start everything and do it on my own. Two reasons for that. One, the old when I was young, the old pastors are like, slow down. Rome wasn't built in a day, and ministry is a marathon, not a sprint. And you want to make sure that you don't burn yourself out. Same is true with volunteers in the church. Sometimes people in church go from zero ministry to all out doing everything, and then they burn out and drop out of church and say, Oh, it wasn't for me. When actually they should have had the ability to say, I'd like to serve in this area, but I don't want to serve in these areas, so I need to balance my time. Sometimes people get so busy serving Jesus that they don't have any time to spend with Jesus, and that's not what the church is about. But I do love church. And I love it when people become church members, when they say, you know what, I want to go from being a friend of the church family to being part of the church family. I want to be actively involved in this church. They pick a church. So maybe they date a church for a bit. They say that you keep about 15% of your visitors that come through the door. So if you want to grow your church, you've got to get more visitors to come through the door, and then you have to connect with them. And I think I shared this before, but I recently read that people aren't looking for a friendly church. We are a friendly church, by the way. Many people comment how friendly people are in the church. But you know what people want more than a friendly church is they want a friend. They want to have a connection. If they can have a friend in the church, then they are more likely to come to this church. So my neighbor down the street, I was going when I have opportunity when I'm outside, whatever, I try to talk to people about neighborhood stuff and Jesus if I have the opportunity. And my neighbor who lives down the street, so it turns out he's recently been healed or cured of cancer. And so he drives past this church to go to a church in Aurora. It's a good church. He's friends with the pastor, he's friends with the people there. He goes to church where his friends are. Another church in Chisholm reports that they have someone driving from Duluth to come to their church. So people will often make a long drive to a place where they feel connected. And I hope that you feel connected. I hope that you're not discouraged when some visitors come and then they're here for a bit and then they go somewhere else. Maybe there's some other group that they feel that they fit better with. We had a young couple come and they're like, oh, so where's when's the you when does the young couples group meet? And I smiled and I said, as soon as you start one. And so don't know in their church shopping where they're at with that. But this church has been around for a long time. And this church has had seasons of young parents with children, and now as probably 25% of the church grows older, we need to fill these seats. And I know that today is like super foggy, and it'd be a good reason not to come to church because it was so foggy. But that we need to find ways for people to connect and to have more groups and to make people feel connected. And so I mentioned in John a couple of weeks ago about Jesus and grace upon grace, or from his abundance, we have all received one gracious blessing after another. And church is a great blessing. So sometimes people are like, what exactly would a membership in a church offer? It offers an opportunity to obey Jesus, to grow in your faith, to use your spiritual gifts to serve, and to have Christian friendships to get through life. One church where I worked at and served in, First Baptist Church in Florida City, Iowa, if I remember right, if you were a member of that church, you got a free cemetery plot. That's worth something. So I don't know if they still do that, but that's a pretty good deal. Cemetery plots aren't free unless you're a member of that church. That's a pretty good thing. But we can experience blessings through loving church. We can experience blessings as we seek to win lost people to Christ. And then after they've come to Christ, we want to help them to grow in their faith, but it's also great to be able to invite them to church. It is a great thing if they have children to invite them to church to children's ministry. And it's a great thing to have children's ministry, even if the parents don't come to church, so that maybe the children will build a foundation so that they can grow in Christ, to win people to Christ, to build lost people up to the point they receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and then we start to train them up in the faith, and we maybe share one of those how to find God New Testaments, and we help them to grow in their faith so that they become more mature. And as they're maturing, we help them to find opportunities to serve, maybe figure out how God has wired them to serve, and we hope to build them up. And as we are building up disciples in the church, especially young people as they're growing, we hope that they will spend the rest of their lives serving Jesus wherever they go, whether they stay in this church for the rest of their days or they move to a different church. It's great to see a kid go from church to college or even Bible college and then serving the Lord there. When they get married, they're looking for a church to plug into. It's great when we have people in our church say, I'm committed to the church, and when I leave this church, I'm gonna find another church, and I'm gonna become a member of that church, even if it's not a perfect church, and I'm gonna serve there, and wherever I go, I'm gonna follow Jesus' command. Church is important to me. Jesus loved the church, Jesus gave his life for the church, Jesus sees the church as his bride. In Ephesians 5.25, it says, Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. And in that passage, it talks about how husbands and wives are supposed to love each other and how they're supposed to submit to one another. And it shows how the husband is supposed to be the spiritual leader, he got love, he got respect, and all this stuff. The submission word can be a bad thing if someone takes advantage of it. But if the husband loves his wife so much that he's willing to give up everything for her, she wants to willingly follow his lead. And together that is a good thing. But reading in between the lines of that passage, which we always talk about for marriage, is this important truth that Christ loved the church so much he gave himself up for her. Just think about if we didn't have church. Think about if we weren't blessed with this building. We have been blessed with an amazing gift to be able to have this place to worship, to have this building to worship. So when I left, Chisholm Baptist, to go plant a church, no one gave me a church building. There was no place to meet. Basically, I was told if you come plant this church for us, we'll pay you your salary 100% for the first year, half of that the second year, and half of that the third year, and then you're on your own. But we had to come up with our own place to meet, and there wasn't anything, so we used the school. We moved in every Sunday morning to the school, set things up, and then pack things up and put it in a trailer, and it did this for a really long time. The church now, that church now is fully in control of its own building, and so they're right now knocking out the walls to make a larger sanctuary space, and now they have their own place after 20 years. But nonetheless, I know what it's like to be blessed with the church. I used to plan all these different strategies and ways to build a church. So we had land and I had ideas but needed more money. And anyway, I know what a value it is to have a church building and church people. Sometimes your best friends come out of your relationship at church. Sometimes people dread their jobs, but they love, they find their meaning and purpose in the church that they love. Sometimes people experience conflict and difficulties and heartache in the church because we are people and Satan wants to do everything he can to distract us and pull us apart and make us ineffective. But when we endure, when we push on, when we look back, often we'll find some of the greatest experiences that we've had are in the church. I love church. When I first came, I it was my perception that the pastor didn't necessarily teach Sunday school, but when we were short on classes, I started to I don't really teach Sunday school. Tim and I we facilitate it using Right Now Media. So basically, there's a video for 10 or 15 minutes with some world-class speaker talking about it was Romans, now it's the Beatitudes, and then we have a discussion based on it. One of my favorite memories of being here so far is being in that Sunday school group, listening to people share about their lives and having their questions and comments and getting to know them better in a way that I wouldn't have been able to do if I just sat in my office making my sermon better, not being connected with them. And I hope as time goes on, I'll have opportunities to start my own life group or small group or whatever, and being involved in the kids' ministry and stuff has been such a blessing. I love church, and I'm so blessed that my kids, they love church. That when we came here, that my daughter and her husband and their kids came with us because they love us and they love church and they serve here joyfully, and it is a great blessing. I think this might be some of the greatest days of my ministry life, but I love church. Can you grab the lights there? Let's watch a couple minutes about church, about church, about church and giving. So let's watch this.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Today, all over the world, we are gathering in large groups and small, in different places and different languages, in buildings and schools, empty spaces and open fields, in our homes and on our phones. Some come together in freedom while others have to meet in secret. Others double singing the old hymns, others singing something new. All learn different things, the same Bible, worship the same God in different ways. We are the church, the body of Christ, different pieces molded together by the hand of God. Today, all over the world, we are gathering as one. Why do we give? We give to make a difference, to touch hearts, and change lives. We give to feed the hungry, care for the sick, and comfort those in need. We give to show Jesus to our neighbors, our community, and the world. We give as an act of worship to a God who has given everything. We give because we are the church, the body of Christ, called to be a light in the darkness, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. We are the hands and feet of Jesus, carrying the hope of the gospel. This is why we give us a church.

Chris T 18:08

Okay. So we experience blessings through building on the foundations of others. Through building on the foundations of others. All right, by the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it, but each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the day will bring it to light, and it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person's work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss, but yet will be saved, even though only as one escaping through the flames. So we are rewarded for leading people to Christ, for helping them to grow in their faith, for seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness, for doing things that make a spiritual difference. That is gold and silver and precious stone. It is so easy for us to get distracted and want to build a nicer house, build a better resume, to have a high esteemed job, to put all of our emphasis on temporary things. When eternity comes, this little spark of life that we have now compared to the rest of eternity won't matter. Only those things that truly matter, only those things that we look back on and say, that was significant. We did something. So when I was at the other church, I would do anything to keep that church alive. So I felt God had called me to it, and no matter what, I was gonna carry that burden. And then the leader of the denomination released me of the burden and encouraged me to trust God and said I should go somewhere else and see what God could do through me somewhere else. And I thought that was a really bad idea, but it turned out to be pretty good. So God is the person who I work for. So this is my church, this is your church, but actually it's not either of our churches, it's Jesus' church. And he can choose to bless us if we choose to be faithful, he can choose to reward us if we choose to do the right things. And this church has been around for a really long time, and I found an old historical document that it was impossible to photocopy, so I had to rip the program guide for the building dedication of this church in half so I could get it to go through a scanner so we could have a document that we could share and keep. Because I ran it through the copy machine like five different ways and it wouldn't make a good copy. But now I can send you a PDF version if you would like it. But it answered questions for me. It was so great to be able to see what the people before us did and how it affects us today, and it is a gift. And it also answered my question that I had for a really long time, and I'm sure there must be many of these program guides somewhere, but I've never been able to find them because this church is really good at keeping documentation. There's boxes after boxes of church records around this place. It's just hard to find for me to find anything, and I don't necessarily want to spend hours looking for it. But my question was, how big is this building? I've always wondered. Turns out it's 12,570 square feet. So that's a pretty good size. So I also learned that when it was built, it was dedicated in 1978. When it was built, the cost of the building was$360. The exterior costs of site preparation, water, sewer, extensions, parking lot, etc., was$53,000. And the furnishings, carpet. Was it that was the original carpet orange? I used to remember this as the Orange Church when I was here. 20 years ago. So all the carpet was orange. I think the chairs were orange.$37,000 for a total of$450,000. You cannot build a church for$450,000. It's not possible. Oh, you could build a really small church, but no, not I'm not on this land. So one insurance estimate I found from 2018, they listed the building at$3 million. It is a gift that we have, this big building that God has blessed us with. But an even better gift was finding what the original intentions were of the history of this church. And I think it's good enough to read. Historical summary. It says the names Domburg, Eklund, and Leander loom large in the history of the Baptist Church in Nevelet. Seven believers who were recent immigrants from Sweden met in February 1900 for the purpose of organizing a church. By July of that year, they had a church built and in use. They called it the Swedish Baptist Church. The building was virtually torn down in 1923 and replaced by a larger one. The plans for this new structure were drawn by two architect sons, one of the original founders. About this time, the use of the Swedish language was discontinued and the name was changed to the First Baptist Church. In Virginia, a man named N. A. Homer was instrumental in starting that church. He had come from Minneapolis with his family. In 1902, he started holding Sunday school and Sunday services in a storefront rented from a brewing company. In 1903, a church was built on Fifth Avenue South. Shortly thereafter, 15 believers met in the new building and organized the church. The building was moved to the corner of Fourth Avenue and 3rd Street. In 1917, it was replaced by a new structure, which, with the addition of an educational building, has served the remaining years. In late 1975, the Virginia Congregation initiated studies pointing toward a new church building. The Evelith congregation faced the problem of decreasing membership. Thoughts of merging the two congregants appeared, congregations appeared. Could the Lord's work be carried on more effectively if the two churches united? This was a venture that could not be entered into lightly. After serious and prayerful consideration, the decision to merge was made by each congregation in May 1976. The time for this move seemed propitious when the Virginia Church had the opportunity to sell its property. The die had been cast, the pastor was called for our united congregation, the Midway School became the church home, lots for the new church had been purchased, a building committee had been selected, the search for an architect began, and it seemed altogether fitting that the grandson of one of the founders should be chosen. And it says, now we have the privilege, by the grace of God, of dedicating a new worship fellowship educational building to meet the expanding opportunities of a growing congregation. To God be the glory. I have a church, thank you, God. Lord, you held my hand, you held it tight. Now I have a church, and it and all is right. The joy in my heart will live forever. Christians from Virginia and Evelith now worship together. Now the dedication day is here. Faith was the ladder, we did climb each day. Step by step we advanced. Love led the way. The Lord's house for worship. We rejoice today. Dear Jesus, thank you. So if you want a copy of that by PDF, I can send you the entire thing. But I think that's pretty cool. We can experience not only building on the foundation of Jesus and the apostles and the people that went before us from Virginia and Evelith, but we can experience blessings through participating at church, for being involved in church, for doing something. Sometimes people work behind the scenes and they don't get very many thank yous because people don't know what they do. Some people stand up front and do a lot of stuff, and people are like, oh, thank you for singing, thank you for that message, thank you for this, thank you for that. But the Lord is the one who ultimately rewards. Some people they feel bad if they're not recognized. So that's why I don't try to recognize. It's one of those things where I don't want to recognize a few names and then forget somebody, so I'd just rather not say any names. So just thank you. You know who you are and move on from there. But Hebrews 10, 25 says, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day approaching. When we are close in church, we can keep each other on track. We can spur one another on toward love and good deeds. We can hold each other accountable, we can motivate each other. So January is a good time to start a new fitness plan or a new fitness challenge or something, and you're much more likely to accomplish things, to accomplish your goal if you're accountable to somebody. If somebody is involved in your life and you know that you're going to have to answer to them, you're much more likely to get things done. And when we are church members and we're accountable to each other, and our motivation is love, sometimes we can speak into each other's lives. We can see areas that someone may be falling short and offer encouragement or help. Or what often happens is young couples or young people go through the struggles of life. Everybody goes through them: health issues, financial issues, children concerns, and everything. And often what they'll do is they'll seek out the oldest person that they respect that they can find and ask questions and look for advice. And maybe you are one of these people that might be able to help the younger people along that have great advice and great experience. I've heard from people that went through the depression and stuff, and how God got them through, and so many stories of how things were looked like the way everything was going to fall apart, and God came through and provided the money or provided the job or provided the help that they needed to get through. And I just hope that we all reach our last day, and with our last breath, we say something like, God, thank you so much for being involved in my life, that it wasn't perfect and it wasn't easy, but you were there. In my own words, I hope to say something like, Lord, it's been a good ride. So I can't wait for the next chapter. But to not give up, to keep meeting together, to keep working in the church. Church doesn't work the way it used to. Did you hear in what I read? They built a building and then some people showed up, like the field of dreams. If you will build it, they will come. That's not always the way it works. So today you find the people, and then if you have enough people, you find a place to meet, and if you can afford it, you get a building. So some churches, like ours, are struggling in this current economy, trying to figure out how they can pay the bills and keep the doors open and keep the church going. So they're adding daycare centers and renting part of their building or selling off pieces, parts of part of their property, or selling their building and getting a different building and all of these or multiple congregations. I know one church in Apple Valley that is three churches under one roof. So it's a church like us for part of the time. It is a Spanish-speaking congregation for part of the time, and an African-American congregation for, I think, in the afternoon. So you got three churches under one roof, and there's lots of opportunity for conflict, but also lots of opportunity for good in that. But so churches they used to be just part of culture and society, but now there's more and more people that are walking away from church. There's more and more people that don't see a need for church. There used to be a time when people respected the church hour, when they respected Sundays and didn't have sports practice or sports tournaments or whatever. So I remember when we were meeting in the school that we had the one section of the school that was reserved for us, and the rest of it was open to whatever. So we'd always have people walking in looking for the for the basketball tournament or the wrestling tournament or the volleyball tournament that we're going on Sunday mornings. But if we're part of this church, according to the church constitution, which is something that we've built upon over the years, I'm currently working on formatting it so that it's easier for us to read, making the print a little bigger and making it so that it flows with a table of contents with page numbers on it, so that as we we can change things in the Constitution, as we decide to do that, it will be easier to do. So I've been spending a lot of time reading the Constitution. And in section three, it says responsibilities and duties for membership. It says certain responses, and there's two, actually, two of them. There's a shorter section that includes seven sentences, and there's a much longer section that is like over a page long. And actually the one that's over a page long was adapted from something that was written in the 1800s that's been carried along in Baptist churches and modified just a little bit. Let me just read the seven sentences. Certain responsibilities and duties come with the privilege of membership. As they are enabled by God, church members shall pray regularly for other church members, pastors of ministry, staff. Two, be supportive of all ministries of the church. Three, regularly attend worship services and business meetings of the church. Four, use their spiritual gifts to minister within the body of Christ. Five, refrain from propagating any scriptural interpretation which differs from doctrine set forth in the statement of faith of this church. Six, give up their tithes and offerings to support the work of this church. And seven, keep the church office informed of their current permanent address. There's another part of the longer church constitution that talks about avoiding things that cause dissension, which is good. But nonetheless, to be part of a church is huge. Part of a church is important, and to be active in that church. So I was reading a message from an old pastor, and I thought this was interesting. He writes, or said, I read a story one time about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done, and everybody was sure that someone would do it. Anybody could have done it, but nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was everybody's job. Everybody thought anybody could do it, but nobody realized that everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that everybody blamed somebody when nobody did what anybody would have done. Here's the question. Are you part of the everybody that is waiting on somebody to do what anybody can do, but that nobody is doing? Or are you somebody who is doing what everybody thought anybody could do, but nobody would have done if you weren't doing it? He says we show our undying loyalty to our church through our prayers, through our praise, through our participation, and through, he says, our payments, but through giving. So I thought that was interesting. And funny, clever. You got to keep up on the anybody, nobody. So I suppose I should have said that really slow. I could go through it again, but I don't have time. So number four, last point, and then the worship team will come up here. Number four, where'd it go? Come back here. There we go. Experience blessings through promoting the church. Promoting the church. His intent. Jesus' intent was through the church the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms and to people around us. God speaks into our life. God works in our life and it amazes the angels. It amazes the bad angels. Satan masquerades as an angel of light. So much amazement goes on with life change, with the miracles, people's lives being transformed, of people going from what one old pastor called hellions to hallelujah saints. It's a good thing to follow Jesus. It's a good thing to promote the church. It's a good thing to have a church that you want to invite people to. There's some people that come to a church and they're like, this is my church home. This is my church family. I know I am loved here. I'm embarrassed to invite my friends. And I hope that our church would never be like that. And if it is, we should figure out ways to change. On the other hand, church is a spiritual thing. There's a spiritual battle to get to church. There's a spiritual battle to get your family to church. There's a spiritual battle for new people to come to church. There's a spiritual battle for new people to walk in the doors of this church. And that's one reason why we keep putting video and audio of our church out there. So it is a window to what goes on in here. It helps to break down the barriers. Some people watch online and they're like, you know what? I'd like to try that church. I'd like to go to that church. I'd like to see what that church is about. And by being on video, it is left out there. So everything I just said about the church now is out there on video and become, can become part of our video membership class. But I hope that you find that this church is significant enough to invest your life into. I hope that you pray for this church and care for this church and serve in this church and support this church. So I'm always amazed at how many people step up and serve in this church. But I'm a little concerned that it's the same people that do everything. There's a small percentage of the people that are just always here to do everything. And so we need to expand that. We need to raise up more people. We need to trust that God's going to do a great thing through our church. You will be personally blessed as you serve Jesus through a local church. And I hope that you will find this church is your home. There might be some reason why this church doesn't fit you. And I would gladly help you find another church that fits you if you would serve faithfully in a way that makes a difference in your life and glorifies God. Sometimes people even go out and start churches, but I think that we have a great foundation. I think we have a huge building and a big parking lot that's just ready to reach more people. I think we can build on the foundations of what those people in Evelith and Virginia did to bless us with this building, and we can do great things. And we can fill these empty seats as God blesses us and we can do wonderful things as we spend our days living a life that glorifies God in every place we go while telling people about Jesus and inviting them to church. Lord Jesus, I thank you so much for church. I thank you that it was your plan to institute church. I thank you that you love the church, the universal church, and then the local church. We have this opportunity and we need to take it seriously. It needs to be a major part of our life as we spend our days. Lord, help us to come up with a great plan to help lead people to Christ and to build them in their faith and from the cradle to the grave that we would care for people and build them up in Jesus. So we just pray that you'd bless us. We pray you'd bless us as we eat right after this for the potluck and then the business meeting afterwards. We pray that many people will stay for that. We ask this all in Jesus' name. Amen.